It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
It’s the centenary of the cinema premiere of the German horror film Nosferatu. Now recognised as a classic of the silent era and one of the first examples of cinematic horror, it used elements of Gothic style to present a dark dreamworld. Ripe with undertones that link it not only to contemporary troubles, it also offers prescient warnings of horrors to come with the rise of Hitler’s Nazi regime.
The film is now considered one of the key films of German expressionism, a film movement from the 1920s that rejected realism in favour of creating imaginary worlds, where stylised and distorted set design expressed psychological states of fear and despair.
Such tortured creation can be linked to external factors, with these films coming out of a Germany still reeling from its defeat in the first World War, plunging the country into a time of turmoil with rising inflation and political unrest. Added to this was the devastation caused by the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20, which killed more people than the war.
The film remains a sensation of the horror genre and 100 years since its release, its influence can still be seen within cinema today.
A look at how the seminal vampire film shaped the horror genre
A complicated legacy
At the centre of the film is the vampire, Count Orlok. Orlok is unlike the dashing caped figures of Bela Lugosi in the 1931 Dracula and Christopher Lee in the series of Dracula films made at Britain’s Hammer Studios.
Actor Max Schreck’s Orlok is strikingly inhuman and repulsive. With his bald head, hooked nose, clawed fingers and pointed ears. He is often surrounded by swarms of rats rather than harems of women. This representation has been compared to hateful anti-Semitic images used in Nazi propaganda.
It is unlikely that this was intentional, as many of the writers and actors were Jewish. However, the notion of an invading “threat” coming to take over the land, and comparisons between Jewish people and vampires were narratives that were used to justify state-sanctioned persecution and murder.
However, a narrative that is inherent in the story of Nosferatu and other expressionist films is the threat of authoritarian and aristocratic figures seeking to take control. The films made in this period foreshadowed a future full of death and terror, tyranny and murder.
In his 1947 history of German expressionism, From Caligari to Hitler, the critic Siegfried Kracauer argued that the genre reflects and documents the subconscious of the German people’s fixation with tyranny that would climax in the rise of the Nazi.
In Nosferatu, this plays out in the aristocratic figure of Orlok who exerts his supernatural influence over unsuspecting people, sucking their lifeblood, choosing who dies and who becomes part of his cabal of hateful monsters who enact his will. For Kracauer, the figure of Count Orlock represented the combination of fear and fascination that the spectre of fascism elicited in the German people.
Immortal and influential
While it is not the first vampire film, or even the first adaptation of Stoker’s novel (the now-lost Hungarian film Dracula’s Death was made a year prior), it established many stylistic and narrative tropes of the vampire story still used today. For instance, Nosferatu was the first time a vampire was killed by sunlight, a trope that has now become canon.
It also was the first German expressionist film to shoot on location, instead of entirely on studio sets — like the genre’s first film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. For Nosferatu, director F. W. Murnau created a Gothic atmosphere in locations such as Orava Castle and the High Tatras mountain range in Slovakia. Such locations allowed audiences to see and sense the history of crumbling ruins, and feel the elemental forces present in dark forests and raging storms.
The making of Nosferatu and its cast and crew have been subject to their own mythologising. The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire posits that Max Schreck really was a vampire, entering into a Faustian pact with director F. W. Murnau to give his film the ultimate authenticity — in exchange for the blood of the film’s leading lady.
The TV series American Horror Story: Hotel has Murnau himself becoming a vampire while researching Nosferatu in the Carpathian Mountains. Once in Hollywood, Murnau turns an actor into a vampire, the immortality of the vampire likened to the immortality of film stardom.
Nosferatu’s blending of genre tropes and arthouse style even foretells the current rise of “elevated horror”, personified by films such as Get Out, The Babadook and Hereditary. In fact, one of horror’s newest auteurs, Robert Eggers (whose film The Lighthouse owes much to German expressionism), has hinted at a remake of Nosferatu (the second remake after Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre).
So, after 100 years, our fascination with Count Orlok lives on.
The writer is Senior Lecturer in Film, University of East London Republished from The Conversation
Published in Dawn, ICON, April 3rd, 2022
NOSFERATU 100th Anniversary Trailer
Premiered Feb 22, 2022
Eurekaentertainment
2022 brings the centenary of the most influential horror film of all time, NOSFERATU.
The turning point in the career of legendary director F.W. Murnau (SUNRISE, THE LAST LAUGH), the screen's first, albeit unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's DRACULA (which itself celebrates its 125th Anniversary this year) features Max Schreck's unforgettable performance as the vampire Count Orlok, the most chilling portrayal of cadaverous evil in film history. Although a court order to destroy the film was successfully brought by Stoker's widow, some copies escaped, and subsequently gave the 20th century some of its defining images of supernatural terror and dread. A decades-long search for the best surviving material and a re-recording of the original score by Hans Erdmann now allows us to see the film exactly as it premiered 100 years ago.
A towering masterpiece whose legacy is truly incalculable, NOSFERATU remains as mesmerising - and haunting - as ever.
Nosferatu (Blu-Ray HD Remastered) | 1922
HD remastered blu-ray edition of Nosferatu from 1922.
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; or simply Nosferatu) is a 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok.
The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel (for instance, "vampire" became "Nosferatu" and "Count Dracula" became "Count Orlok"). Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema. As of 2015, it is Rotten Tomatoes' second best-reviewed horror film of all time.
Klaus Kinski is Count Dracula - Nosferatu (1979)
Nosferatu with Werner Herzog - Hollywood Berlin
Nov 18, 2017
University of California Television (UCTV)
(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv) A legendary director noted for his uncompromising passion, Werner Herzog joins Carsey-Wolf Center Director Patrice Petro for a discussion about his 1979 film “Nosferatu The Vampyre” which he says is a tribute to the classic 1922 film "Nosferatu” by F.W. Murnau. Herzog also discusses his career and the film’s significance as a bridge to the masterworks of interwar cinema. Recorded on 10/12/2017. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [12/2017] [Show ID: 33062]
Nosferatu – Blue Oyster Cult
Happy 100th Anniversary to Nosferatu (1922) this month in Germany!
The film had its Gala premiere on March 4th, 1922 at the Marmorsaal of the Berlin Zoological Garden, and it's theatrical premiere on March 15th, 1922 at Berlin's Primus-Palast!
Music video to celebrate to the everlasting legacy (much like the titular vampire itself) of this cinematic, expressionist masterpiece, set to the song "Nosferatu", Blue Oyster Cult!
Shadow of the Vampire (4/10) Movie CLIP -
I'll Eat Her Later (2000) HD
The Horror Films of F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Phantom, The Haunted Castle and Faust)
No comments:
Post a Comment