Nosferatu

"Nosferatu the Vampire" redirects here. For the 1979 film, see Nosferatu the Vampyre. For other uses, see Nosferatu (disambiguation).

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
A promotional film poster
Directed by	F. W. Murnau
Produced by	Enrico Dieckmann Albin Grau
Screenplay by	Henrik Galeen
Based on	Dracula by Bram Stoker
Starring	Max Schreck Gustav von Wangenheim Greta Schröder Alexander Granach Ruth Landshoff Wolfgang Heinz
Music by	Hans Erdmann
Cinematography	Fritz Arno Wagner Günther Krampf
Distributed by	Film Arts Guild
Release date(s)	March 4, 1922 (1922-03-04) (Germany)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	Silent film German intertitles

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; or simply Nosferatu) is a classic 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").

Plot

Thomas Hutter (Jonathan Harker in Stoker's novel) lives in the fictitious German city of Wisborg. His eccentric employer, Knock (Stoker's Renfield), receives a cryptic letter, and following its instructions, sends Hutter to Transylvania to visit a new client named Count Orlok (Stoker's Count Dracula), menacingly wishing him that he have a good trip "to the land of the phantoms". Hutter blindly agrees to this offer, and entrusts his loving wife Ellen (Stoker's Mina Harker) to his good friend Harding (Stoker's Arthur Holmwood) and Harding's sister Annie (Stoker's Lucy Westenra), before embarking on his long journey.

Nearing his destination in the Carpathian mountains, Hutter stops at an inn for dinner. The locals become frightened by the mere mention of Orlok's name, and the owner of the inn discourages him from traveling to the castle at night, warning of a werewolf that roams the forests. As Hutter readies himself for bed that night, he sees from his window a creature causing disarray, frightening the woman and scattering the horses, and later finds a book on a bedside shelf, titled "Book Of Vampyres, Phantoms, and The Seven Deadly Sins". He learns from this book of the vampyre, or "Nosferatu", a creature that lives on human blood and sleeps in dirt from the fields of the black death. Hutter makes nothing of this, and goes to sleep.

The next morning, Hutter takes a coach to a high mountain pass, but the coachmen decline to take him any further than the bridge. Hutter begins to travel the rest of the way on foot. As night falls, a sinister black-swathed coach of an archaic design suddenly appears, and the sinister looking coachman gestures for him to climb aboard. Hutter is startled by the inhuman speed at which the coach travels, and promptly arrives at the foot of the castle. Hutter enthusiastically approaches the large doors of the castle, and stumbles back when the doors open on their own. Hutter is welcomed at the castle by Count Orlok himself, a tall, pale figure dressed in black, with almost rat-like appearance. Orlok is displeased that he has been kept waiting so late, and remarks that the servants are all asleep.

As Hutter is dining, he is unnerved by the Count, who glares at him from behind a letter from Knock that he is reading. It is then that the clock strikes midnight, and Hutter, alarmed, accidentally cuts his thumb. Orlok attempts to suck the blood out of the wound, but his repulsed guest pulls his hand away, and draws back in terror. Orlok offers Hutter a seat by a fireplace, where he drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, Hutter wakes up to an empty room, and notices two fresh punctures on his neck when he looks in a mirror. With the castle to himself, he sets off outside, and his worries are lifted by the beautiful surroundings. He finds a gazebo overlooking the mountains and valleys below, and begins writing a letter to Ellen, ensuring her of his safety, and attributing the bite marks on his necks to mosquitoes. He flags down a passing coachman, and gives him the letter to deliver. That night, Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house across from Hutter's own home. While doing so, he spots a picture of Ellen in a locket, belonging to Hutter. Orlok is entranced by her beauty, remarking that she "has a lovely neck", to Hutter's great discomfort.

Later that night, Hutter, in his room, finds the Book Of Vampyres among his possessions, having forgotten that he had taken it. Hutter reads the book in further detail, and begins to suspect Orlok is Nosferatu, the "Bird Of Death". The clock chimes as it reaches midnight, and Hutter, startled, peers out the bedroom door, horrified to find Orlok looming at the other end of the hallway. Hutter unsuccessfully attempts to bar the door, and then helplessly cowers in his bed as Orlok enters, his true nature finally revealed. At the same time in Wisborg, Harding finds Ellen sleepwalking on her balcony, and calls for a doctor. Ellen, while in bed, suddenly sits up and calls for Hutter. Inexplicably having heard her cry, Orlok turns slowly around and leaves Hutter's bedroom, leaving him unharmed.

The next day, Hutter frantically explores the castle. In its crypt, he finds a coffin in which Orlok lays dormant. Horrified, he dashes back to his room, where he remains for the rest of the day. That night, from his window, he observes Orlok piling up coffins on a coach and climbing into the last one before the coach departs. The realisation immediately dawns on Hutter that Orlok is going to first come for Ellen. Hutter, with a makeshift rope made from bedsheets, escapes the castle through the window, but falls and passes out.

Orlok's coffins are shipped down river on a raft. They are transferred to a schooner, the but not before one is opened by the crew, exposing only rats and soil inside. Hutter awakens in a hospital and panics, a doctor explaining to a nurse that local farmers had found him after he had fallen. Meanwhile, the sailors on the ship bearing the coffins become sick one by one; soon all but the captain and first mate are dead. Suspecting the truth, the first mate goes below to destroy the deadly cargo. However, Orlok awakens and the horrified sailor jumps into the sea. The captain, dreading whatever had driven the first mate to flee, ties himself to the wheel and soon becomes Orlok's latest victim.

Since sending Hutter to Orlok's Castle, Knock has been admitted to a psychiatric ward, reportedly for biting a cow. In his cell he eats flies, and raves that "the master is coming". When he steals a newspaper from the pocket of a warden, he is ecstatic to learn that the plague has reached the town, knowing that Orlok has arrived.

An iconic image of Orlok climbing up Hutter & Ellen's staircase

When the ship arrives in Wisborg, Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, moves into the abandoned house he purchased. The next morning, when the ship is inspected, the captain is found dead. After examining the logbook, the doctors are lead to believe that they are dealing with the plague. The town is stricken with panic, and people are warned to stay inside their homes. Hutter, having arrived home soon after Orlok, rushes to Harding's house and, overjoyed to find her safe, embraces Ellen. As death grows more widespread as sickness grips the town, Knock murders a guard at the asylum and escapes. The fearful residents soon learn of this, and pin the blame of the town's sickness on him. The people riot and pursue the escaped Knock, who eludes them by climbing a roof, and then distracts them with a scarecrow, allowing him to escape.

Meanwhile, Orlok stares from his window at Ellen. Against her husband's wishes, Ellen had read the Book Of Vampyres, and knew what had to be done to bring an end to Wisborg's suffering. She had learned from the book that the only way to defeat the vampire was for a woman, who is pure in heart, to distract the vampire with her beauty until the break of dawn. In desperation and dread, she opens her window to invite Orlok in, and then collapses on the bed. Hutter, who had been sleeping in a chair, wakes her, and she tells him to fetch Professor Bulwer (Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing).

After Hutter has left, Orlok creeps up the staircase, into Ellen's bedroom. He becomes so engrossed drinking her blood that he forgets completely about the coming day. A rooster crows and Orlok realises the imminent danger. Knock, meanwhile, once again in the confines of his cell, tries to warn the "Master". Orlok attempts to flee, but stops and reels in pain as he passes the window and light pours in. He vanishes and a small puff of smoke is left in his place. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband.

Cast

Max Schreck as Count Orlok in a promotional photo

• Max Schreck as Count Orlok
• Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter
• Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter
• Alexander Granach as Knock
• Georg H. Schnell as Harding
• Ruth Landshoff as Ruth
• John Gottowt as Professor Bulwer
• Gustav Botz as Professor Sievers
• Max Nemetz as The Captain of The Empusa
• Wolfgang Heinz as First Mate of The Empusa
• Heinrich Witte as guard in asylum
• Guido Herzfeld as innkeeper
• Karl Etlinger as student with Bulwer
• Hardy von Francois as hospital doctor
• Fanny Schreck as hospital nurse

Origin and publication history

Screenplay and pre-production

Hutter's departure from Wisborg was filmed in Heiligen-Geist-Kirche's yard in Wismar; this photograph is from 1970.

Nosferatu was the first and only production of Prana Film, founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau. Grau had the idea to shoot a vampire film; the inspiration arose from Grau's war experience: in the winter of 1916, a Serbian farmer told him that his father was a vampire and one of the Undead.

Diekmann and Grau gave Henrik Galeen the task to write a screenplay inspired from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, despite Prana Film not having obtained the film rights. Galeen was an experienced specialist in Dark romanticism; he had already worked on Der Student von Prag (The Student of Prague) in 1913, and the screenplay for Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: How He Came into the World) (1920). Galeen set the story in a fictional north German harbour town named Wisborg and changed the character names. He added the idea of the vampire bringing the plague to Wisborg via rats on the ship. He left out the Van Helsing vampire hunter character. Galeen's Expressionist style screenplay was poetically rhythmic, without being so dismembered as other books influenced by literary Expressionism, such as those by Carl Mayer. Lotte Eisner described Galeen's screenplay as "voll Poesie, voll Rhythmus" ("full of poetry, full of rhythm").

Production

This Lübecker Salzspeicher served as the set for Orlok's house in Wisborg.

Filming began in July 1921, with exterior shots in Wismar. A take from Marienkirche's tower over Wismar marketplace with the Wasserkunst Wismar served as the establishing shot for the Wisborg scene. Other locations were the Wassertor, the Heiligen-Geist-Kirche yard and the harbour. In Lübeck, the abandoned Salzspeicher served as Nosferatu's new Wisborg house, the one of the churchyard from Aegidienkirche served as Hutters and down the Depenau coffin bearers beared coffins. Many walks of Lübeck took place in the hunt of Knock who ordered Hutter in the Yard of Füchting to meet the earl. Further exterior shots followed in Lauenburg, Rostock and on Sylt. The film team travelled to the Carpathian Mountains, where Orava Castle served as backdrop for Orlok's half-ruined castle. Nearby locations also served: Hutter's stay at Dolný Kubín; the river journey with the coffins filmed on the Váh River; and the panoramas of the High Tatras mountain range. The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin's Johannisthal locality. and further exteriors in the Tegel forest. Parts of the film set in Transylvania were also shot in Slovakia.

For cost reasons, cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available, and therefore there was only one original negative. The director followed Galeen's screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters. Nevertheless Murnau completely rewrote 12 pages of the script, as Galeen's text was missing from the director's working script. This concerned the last scene of the film, in which Ellen sacrifices herself and the vampire dies in the first rays of the Sun. Murnau prepared carefully; there were sketches that were to correspond exactly to each filmed scene, and he used a metronome to control the pace of the acting.

Premiere and theatre distribution

The Marmorsaal (marble hall) in the Berlin Zoological Garden, here shown in a 1900 postcard, was where Nosferatu premiered.

Shortly before the premiere, an advertisement campaign was placed in issue 21 of the magazine Bühne und Film, with a summary, scene and work photographs, production reports and essays including a treatment on vampirism by Albin Grau. Nosferatu's preview premiered on 4 March 1922 in the Marmorsaal of the Berlin Zoological Garden. This was planned as a large society evening entitled Das Fest des Nosferatu (Festival of Nosferatu), and guests were asked to arrive dressed in Biedermeier costume. The cinema premiere itself took place on 15 March 1922 at Berlin's Primus-Palast.

Deviations from the novel

The story of Nosferatu is similar to that of Dracula and retains the core characters—Jonathan and Mina Harker, the Count, etc.—but omits many of the secondary players, such as Arthur and Quincey, and changes all of the characters' names (although in some recent releases of this film, which is now in the public domain in the United States but not in most European countries, the written dialog screens have been changed to use the Dracula versions of the names). The setting has been transferred from Britain in the 1890s to Germany in 1838.

In contrast to Dracula, Orlok does not create other vampires, but kills his victims, causing the townfolk to blame the plague, which ravages the city. Also, Orlok must sleep by day, as sunlight would kill him, while the original Dracula is only weakened by sunlight. The ending is also substantially different from that of Dracula. The count is ultimately destroyed at sunrise when the "Mina" character sacrifices herself to him. The town called "Wisborg" in the film is in fact a mix of Wismar and Lübeck.

The music

The original score was composed by Hans Erdmann to be performed by an orchestra during the projection. However, most of the score has been lost, and what we can hear nowadays is only a reconstitution of the score as it was played in 1922. This is why so many composers and musicians have written or improvised their own soundtrack to accompany the film. For example, James Bernard, composer of the soundtracks of many Hammer horror films in the late 50s and all the 60s decade, including the Dracula and Frankenstein series, has written a score for a reissue of Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror.

In 2006, the French composer Alexis Savelief finished the composition of his score for Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror. His soundtrack is intended to be performed during the film by a cello octet, three synthesizers and two percussionists. Despite the constraints imposed by the cine-concert format, the score is perfectly synchronized throughout the whole film, by means of a variable click-track. Performed in first audition by the Cello Octet of Beauvais and the 2e2m ensemble directed by Pierre Roullier, the following year Alexis Savelief has arranged his score for eight strings, three synthesizers and two percussionists. This version has been presented in first audition under the direction of conductor Jean-Louis Forestier.

On Halloween of 2009, the American film scoring ensemble The Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra premiered its new score for Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror as part of Vanderbilt University's International Lens film series. The score is synchronized with the film, and is written for Wurlitzer electric piano, theremin, vibraphone, electric guitar, two violins, viola, trombone, trumpet and one percussionist.

In 2010 The Mallarme Chamber Players of Durham, NC commissioned composer Eric J. Schwartz to compose an experimental chamber music score for live performance alongside screenings of the film, which has since been performed a number of times. It is is written for flute, bassoon, keyboard, percussion, viola, and electronics.

Influences

This was the first Prana Film; the company declared bankruptcy after Bram Stoker's estate, acting for his widow, Florence Stoker, sued for copyright infringement and won. The court ordered all existing prints of Nosferatu burned, but one purported copy of the film had already been distributed around the world. These prints were duplicated over the years.

The movie has received not only a strong cult following, but also has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. On Rottentomatoes.com it received a "Certified Fresh" label and holds a 98% "fresh" rating based on 46 reviews. It was ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.

Derivative works

Aaron Copland's 1922 ballet Grohg (unpublished and unpremiered until 1992) used Nosferatu as the physical model for the lead character and roughly follows the storyline.

Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers and Robert Williams recorded an album Nosferatu as a "soundtrack" to the film, dedicated to the memory of Max Schreck; it was released in 1979. The front cover was a still from the film.

Werner Herzog's 1979 homage to Nosferatu, Nosferatu the Vampyre starred Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, not Orlok. A sequel to Herzog's film called Vampire in Venice starred Kinski, this time as Nosferatu, and Christopher Plummer as Paris Catalano.

The 1979 television movie Salem's Lot modeled the appearance of Mr. Barlow on that of Count Orlok. In 1998, Wayne Keeley released Nosferatu: The First Vampire, in which the original film was remastered to a soundtrack by Type O Negative and hosted by David Carradine.

The 2000 Hollywood movie Shadow of the Vampire told a secret history of the making of Nosferatu, imagining that actor Max Schreck (played by Willem Dafoe) was actually a genuine vampire and that director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich) was complicit in hiring the creature for the purpose of realism.

Similarly, the short film 'La duodécima hora', by Rodrigo Plaza and film critic Juanma Ruiz, suggested a hidden plot orchestrated by Nosferatu director and producer, F. W. Murnau and Albin Grau, to hide an elixir of the eternal life. Shot as a mockumentary, the film starred horror icon Paul Naschy and Nosferatu film restorer Luciano Berriatúa.

Viper Comics's 2010 graphic novel Nosferatu by Christopher Howard Wolf retold the original 1922 film's storyline with a modern setting and cast.

Film Rating

The film is rated  M  in New Zealand as it contains violence and is rated PGR for New Zealand television.

See also

• List of films in the public domain in the United States
• List of German films 1919–1933

References

• Lotte H. Eisner; Hilmar Hofmanns; Walter Schobert (1980) (in German), Die dämonische Leinwand, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 3-596-23660-6 
• Lotte H. Eisner (1967) (in German), Murnau. Der Klassiker des deutschen Films, Velber/Hannover: Friedrich Verlag 
• Frieda Grafe; Enno Patalas (2003) (in German), Licht aus Berlin. Lang Lubitsch Murnau, Berlin: Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, ISBN 3-922660-81-9, ISBN 9783922660811 
• Hans Helmut Prinzler, ed. (2003), "Nosferatu" (in German), Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau : ein Melancholiker des Films, Berlin: Bertz Verlag GbR, ISBN 3-929470-25-X 
• "Nosferatu - a Filmarcheology", ChiaroScuro/CeltoSlavica (Markus Osterrieder), http://www.celtoslavica.de/chiaroscuro/vergleiche/nos.html, retrieved 2009-04-23  - details of versions, intertitles and restoration
• Brill, Olaf (in German), Film Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (GER 1922), http://www.filmhistoriker.de/films/nosferatu.htm, retrieved 2009-06-11  (1921-1922 reports and reviews)

External links

• Nosferatu (1922) at DBCult Film Institute
• Nosferatu at the Internet Movie Database
• Nosferatu is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more] (alternative link)