Nosferatu (1922 film)
.jpg) German magazine ad | ||
| Starring |
| |
| Directed by | F. W. Murnau | |
| Produced by |
| |
| Studio | Prana Film | |
| Based on | Dracula by Bram Stoker | |
| Music by | Hans Erdmann (1922 premiere) | |
| Cinematography | Fritz Arno Wagner and Günther Krampf (uncredited) | |
| Distributed by | Film Arts Guild | |
| Released | Mar 4, 1922 in Germany | |
| Runtime | 63–94 minutes, depending on version and transfer speed | |
| Country | Weimar Republic | |
| language | Silent film with German intertitles | |
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town.
Nosferatu was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Many names and details were changed from the original, including renaming Count Dracula as Count Orlok. Although these changes are often seen as a way to avoid copyright infringement claims, the original German intertitles still credited Dracula as the source. Film historian David Kalat explains in his commentary that, since the film was "a low-budget production made by Germans for German audiences... setting it in Germany with German-named characters makes the story more relatable and immediate for German-speaking viewers." Despite the alterations, Stoker's widow sued over the copyright violation, leading to a court order for all copies of the film to be destroyed. Nonetheless, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and it has come to be recognized as an influential masterpiece in cinema and the horror genre. Critic and historian Kim Newman described it as the film that established the template for horror movies.
Plot
In 1838, in the fictional German town of Wisburg, Thomas Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer, the eccentric estate agent Herr Knock, to visit a new client, Count Orlok, who is planning on buying a house across from Hutter's own residence. As Hutter studies the route on a map, Knock secretly studies a mysterious correspondence in cabalistic symbols. While embarking on his journey, Hutter stops at an inn in which the locals are terrified by the mere mention of Orlok's name. In his room, he finds a book about vampires, which he initially scoffs at but puts in his baggage.
After his carriage refuses to take him any further than the entrance to the mountain pass, Hutter walks on foot until sunset, when he is met on the road by a coach that takes him to Orlok's castle in the Carpathian Mountains, where he is welcomed by Orlok himself. While Hutter is eating dinner, he accidentally cuts his thumb; Orlok tries to suck the blood out, but the uncomfortable guest pulls his hand away. Hutter wakes up the next morning to find fresh puncture marks on his neck, which he thinks are caused by mosquitoes. That night, Orlok signs the documents to buy the house and notices a small portrait of Hutter's wife, Ellen, on the table. The portrait is in a tiny circular frame that the young man carries with him. Admiring it, the count comments that she has a "lovely neck."
Reading the book he took from the inn, Hutter begins to suspect that Orlok is truly a vampire. With no way to block the door to his bedroom, Hutter desperately tries to hide as midnight approaches. Suddenly, the door starts to slowly open by itself, and as Orlok enters, a terrified Hutter hides under the bedcovers and loses consciousness. Meanwhile, back in Wisburg, Ellen gets out of her bed and sleepwalks to the railing of her bedroom's balcony. She begins to walk on top of the railing, which draws the attention of Thomas's friend Harding in the next room. When the doctor arrives, Ellen imagines Orlok in his castle threatening her unconscious husband and screams Hutter's name, which somehow Orlok can hear, causing him to retreat.
The next day, Hutter explores the castle. In a vault, he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant in the crypt and flees back to his room. Hours later, as Hutter watches, Orlok piles up coffins on a coach and climbs into the last one before the coach departs. Hutter manages to escape from the castle, injuring himself in the process, and after a period of recovery, he rushes home. Orlok's coffins are taken aboard a schooner, which the sailors open only to discover rats. All of the crewmen later die, and Orlok takes control of the vessel. Not long after Hutter returns home, the ship arrives in Wisburg; Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, and moves into the house that he purchased.
Many deaths in the town occur after Orlok's arrival, which the local doctors attribute to an unspecified plague caused by rats from the ship. Knock, who has gone completely insane, is confined to a mental asylum but escapes after strangling one of the wardens. Against Hutter's wishes, Ellen reads the book she found on her journey; it claims that a vampire can be destroyed if a pure-hearted woman distracts the vampire from the approaching dawn with her beauty and by offering him her blood of her own free will. Ellen decides to sacrifice herself to stop Orlok. Knock, whom the villagers blame for the plague, is eventually re-captured and returned to the asylum. Ellen opens her window to invite Orlok in and pretends to fall ill so she can send Hutter to fetch Professor Bulwer, a physician. After he leaves, Orlok enters and drinks her blood, but the sun rises and its rays cause Orlok to vanish in a puff of smoke, which Knock in his asylum cell senses and is shattered by. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband.
The film's final image is that of Orlok's castle, destroyed.
Notes
This article has been abridged and edited using Grammarly to make it more user-friendly, and to standardize spelling and text formatting. R/
External links
- Review Nosferatu at the Internet Movie Database
- Nosferatu at Rotten Tomatoes
- Review Nosferatu (1922 film) at the Turner Classic Movie Database
- Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide at Brenton Film
- Nosferatu (1922 film) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive|}}
- Nosferatu at WeimarCinema.org
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Nosferatu_(1922_film) ]
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