Nosferatu (1922) Wikipedia film page

Nosferatu

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Jump to: navigation, search

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

Nosferatu,
 eine Symphonie des Grauens
Nosferatuposter.jpg
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 dates

4 March 1922 (Germany)


Running time
 94 minutes
Country
Weimar Republic
Language
Silent film
German and English intertitles




 An iconic scene of the shadow of Count Orlok climbing up a staircase
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, one print of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.[1][2] As of 2015, it is Rotten Tomatoes' second best-reviewed horror film of all time.[3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Music
5 Deviations from the novel
6 Release
7 Reception and legacy 7.1 In popular culture
7.2 Derivative works
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links

Plot[edit]
Thomas Hutter lives in the fictitious German city of Wisborg. His employer, Knock, sends Hutter to Transylvania to visit a new client named Count Orlok. Hutter entrusts his loving wife Ellen to his good friend Harding and Harding's sister Annie, 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 discourage him from traveling to his castle at night, warning of a werewolf on the prowl. The next morning, Hutter takes a coach to a high mountain pass, but the coachmen decline to take him any further than the bridge as nightfall is approaching. A black-swathed coach appears after Hutter crosses the bridge and the coachman gestures for him to climb aboard. Hutter is welcomed at a castle by Count Orlok. When Hutter is eating dinner and accidentally cuts his thumb, Orlok tries to suck the blood out, but his repulsed guest pulls his hand away.
Hutter wakes up to a deserted castle the morning after and notices fresh punctures on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes or spiders. That night, Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house across from Hutter's own home. Hutter writes a letter to his wife and gets a coachman to send it. Reading a book about vampires that he took from the local inn, Hutter starts to suspect that Orlok is Nosferatu, the "Bird of Death." He cowers in his room as midnight approaches, but there is no way to bar the door. The door opens by itself and Orlok enters, his true nature finally revealed, and Hutter falls unconscious. The next day, Hutter explores the castle. In its crypt, he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant. Hutter becomes horrified and dashes back to his room. Hours later from the window, he sees Orlok piling up coffins on a coach and climbing into the last one before the coach departs. Hutter escapes the castle through the window, but is knocked unconscious by the fall and awakes in a hospital.
When he is sufficiently recovered, he hurries home. Meanwhile, the coffins are shipped down river on a raft. They are transferred to a schooner, but not before one is opened by the crew, revealing a multitude of rats. The sailors on the ship get 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 coffins. However, Orlok awakens and the horrified sailor jumps into the sea. Unaware of his danger, the captain becomes Orlok's latest victim when he ties himself to the wheel. When the ship arrives in Wisborg, Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, and moves into the house he purchased. The next morning, when the ship is inspected, the captain is found dead. After examining the logbook, the doctors assume they are dealing with the plague. The town is stricken with panic, and people are warned to stay inside.
There are many deaths in the town, which are blamed on the plague. Knock, who had been committed to a psychiatric ward, escapes after murdering the warden. The townspeople give chase, but he eludes them by climbing a roof, then using a scarecrow. Meanwhile, Orlok stares from his window at the sleeping Ellen. Against her husband's wishes, Ellen had read the book he found. The book claims that the way to defeat a vampire is for a woman who is pure in heart to distract the vampire with her beauty all through the night. She opens her window to invite him in, but faints. When Hutter revives her, she sends him to fetch Professor Bulwer. After he leaves, Orlok comes in. He becomes so engrossed drinking her blood that he forgets about the coming day. When a rooster crows, Orlok vanishes in a puff of smoke as he tries to flee. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband. The last scene shows Count Orlok's ruined castle in the Carpathian Mountains, symbolizing the end of Count Orlok's reign of terror.
Cast[edit]
Max Schreck as Count Orlok
Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter
Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter
Alexander Granach as Knock
Georg H. Schnell as Shipowner Harding
Ruth Landshoff as Annie
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
Production[edit]



 Hutter's departure from Wisborg was filmed in Heiligen-Geist-Kirche's yard in Wismar; this photograph is from 1970.
Prana-Film 1.jpg
The studio behind Nosferatu, Prana Film, was a short-lived silent-era German film studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau, named for the Buddhist concept of prana. Its intent was to produce occult and supernatural themed films. Nosferatu was the only production of Prana Film[4] as it declared bankruptcy in order to dodge copyright infringement suits from Bram Stoker's widow.
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.[5]
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[6] 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").[7]



 The Salzspeicher in Lübeck 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 bore 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 exteriors of the film set in Transylvania were actually shot on location in northern Slovakia, including the High Tatras, Vrátna Valley, Orava Castle, the Váh River, and Starhrad.[8] The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin's Johannisthal locality and further exteriors in the Tegel Forest.



 Schreck in a promotional still for the film.
For cost reasons, cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available, and therefore there was only one original negative.[9] The director followed Galeen's screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters.[10] 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.[11][12] 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.[13]
Music[edit]
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 remains is only a reconstitution of the score as it was played in 1922.[14] 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 1950s and 1960s, has written a score for a reissue.[15]
Deviations from the novel[edit]
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 dialogue 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.[16]
Release[edit]



 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.[17] 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.
Reception and legacy[edit]
Nosferatu brought the director Murnau reinforced into the public eye, especially since his film The Burning Acker was released a few days later. The press reported extensively on Nosferatu and its premiere. With the laudatory votes, there was also occasional criticism that the technical perfection and clarity of the images did not fit the horror theme. The Filmkurier of 6 March 1922 said that the vampire appeared too corporeal and brightly lit to appear genuinely scary. Hans Wollenberg described the film in photo-Stage No. 11 of 11 March 1922 as a "sensation" and praised Murnau's nature shots as "mood-creating elements."[18] In the Vossische newspaper of 7 March 1922, Nosferatu was praised for its visual style.
This was the only Prana Film; the company declared bankruptcy after 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, kept alive by a cult following, making it an example of an early cult film.[19]
The movie has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a "Certified Fresh" label and holds a 97% "fresh" rating based on 60 reviews.[20] It was ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.[21] In 1997, critic Roger Ebert added Nosferatu to his list of The Great Movies, writing:

Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in clichés, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.[...]
 Is Murnau's "Nosferatu" scary in the modern sense? Not for me. I admire it more for its artistry and ideas, its atmosphere and images, than for its ability to manipulate my emotions like a skillful modern horror film. It knows none of the later tricks of the trade, like sudden threats that pop in from the side of the screen. But "Nosferatu" remains effective: It doesn’t scare us, but it haunts us.[22]
In popular culture[edit]
In 1989, French progressive rock outfit Art Zoyd released Nosferatu on Mantra Records. Thierry Zaboitzeff and Gérard Hourbette composed the pieces, to correspond with a truncated version of the film then heavily in circulation in the public domain.[23]
In 2002, Count Orlok appeared in a brief cameo in children's animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants.[24] The episode, "Graveyard Shift", was written by Jay Lender, who pushed for a random gag that featured Orlok.[25] Though, here he is called Nosferatu.
In 2010, the Mallarme Chamber Players of Durham, North Carolina, 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.[26]
In 2012, scenes from the film were used in the exhibition Dark Romanticism at the Städel in Frankfurt as an example to illustrate the way in which ideas developed in 18th- and 19th-century art influenced story telling and aesthetics in 20th-century cinema.[27]
Derivative works[edit]
The song "Nosferatu" (1977) from the album Spectres by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult is directly about the film.[28]
Werner Herzog's tribute film Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) stars Klaus Kinski (as Count Dracula, not Orlok).[29]
The satirical film Shadow of the Vampire (2000), directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven A. Katz, is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu. It stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.[30]
The novel NOS4A2 by Joe Hill is a modern vampire story that utilizes the play on words of "Nosferatu."[31]
In 2009, Louis Pecsi wrote and illustrated the graphic novel Nosferatu: The Untold Origin, which gives an origin story to Count Orlock.[32]
See also[edit]

Portal icon 1920s portal
List of films in the public domain in the United States
List of German films 1919–1933
Vampire film
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ http://www.empireonline.com/features/100-greatest-world-cinema-films/default.asp?film=21
2.Jump up ^ http://www.film.com/movies/whats-the-big-deal-nosferatu-1922
3.Jump up ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/best-horror-movies/
4.Jump up ^ Elsaesser, Thomas (February 2001). "Six Degrees Of Nosferatu". Sight and Sound. ISSN 0037-4806. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
5.Jump up ^ Christiane Mückenberger; Günther Dahlke; Günter Karl (Hrsg.) (1993), "Nosferatu", Deutsche Spielfilme von den Anfängen bis 1933 (in German), Berlin: Henschel Verlag, p. 71, ISBN 3-89487-009-5
6.Jump up ^ Roger Manvell, Henrik Galeen - Films as writer:, Other films:, Film Reference, retrieved 23 April 2009
7.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967, page 27
8.Jump up ^ Votruba, Martin. "Nosferatu (1922) Slovak Locations". Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh.
9.Jump up ^ Prinzler page 222: Luciano Berriatúa and Camille Blot in section: Zur Überlieferung der Filme. Then it was usual to use at least two cameras in parallel to maximize the number of copies for distribution. One negative would serve for local use and another for foreign distribution.
10.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967 page 27
11.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967 page 28 Since vampires dying in daylight appears neither in Stoker's work nor in Galeen's script, this concept has been solely attributed to Murnau.
12.Jump up ^ Michael Koller (July 2000), "Nosferatu", Issue 8, July–Aug 2000 (senses of cinema), retrieved 23 April 2009
13.Jump up ^ Grafe page 117
14.Jump up ^ Anderson, Gillian. "Nosferatu". gilliananderson.it. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
15.Jump up ^ Randall D. Larson (1996). "An Interview with James Bernard" Soundtrack Magazine. Vol 15, No 58, cited in Randall D. Larson (2008). "James Bernard’s NOSFERATU". Retrieved on 11 May 2012.
16.Jump up ^ Ashbury, Roy (5 November 2001), Nosferatu (1st ed.), Pearson Education, p. 41
17.Jump up ^ Eisner page 60
18.Jump up ^ Hans Helmut Prinzler (ed.): Murnau – Ein Melancholiker des Films. Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek. Bertz, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-929470-25-X, p. 129.
19.Jump up ^ Hall, Phil. "THE BOOTLEG FILES: "NOSFERATU"". Film Threat. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
20.Jump up ^ "Nosferatu movie reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
21.Jump up ^ "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema: 21 Nosferatu". Empire.
22.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (28 September 1997). "Nosferatu Movie Review & Film Summary (1922)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
23.Jump up ^ Kozinn, Alan (23 July 1991). "Music in Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
24.Jump up ^ Hallam, Scott (3 June 2014). "Top 5 Foreign Vampire Films". Dread Central. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
25.Jump up ^ Heintjes, Tom (21 September 2012). "The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants". Cartoonician.com. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
26.Jump up ^ "Pfeiffer presents classic 'Nosferatu'". The Stanly News and Press. 24 October 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
27.Jump up ^ "Den Schrecken zum Leben erwecken – Schwarze Romantik im Horrorfilm". staedelmuseum.de (in German). 15 November 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
28.Jump up ^ "17 Fear-Filled Songs Inspired by Scary Movies". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
29.Jump up ^ Erickson, Hal. "Nosferatu the Vampyre". Allrovi. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
30.Jump up ^ Scott, A. O. (29 December 2000). "FILM REVIEW; Son of 'Nosferatu,' With a Real-Life Monster". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
31.Jump up ^ Maslin, Janet (28 April 2013). "Villainous Christmas and Biker Heroines". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
32.Jump up ^ Roncace, Kelly (20 October 2011). Untold Origin "Rowan graduate gives vampire, 'Nosferatu,' a beginning". South Jersey Times. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
References[edit]
Lotte H. Eisner; Hilmar Hoffmann; Walter Schobert (1980), Die dämonische Leinwand (in German), Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 3-596-23660-6
Lotte H. Eisner (1967), Murnau. Der Klassiker des deutschen Films (in German), Velber/Hannover: Friedrich Verlag
Frieda Grafe; Enno Patalas (2003), Licht aus Berlin. Lang Lubitsch Murnau (in German), Berlin: Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, ISBN 3-922660-81-9, ISBN 9783922660811
Karin Meßlinger; Vera Thomas (2003), "Nosferatu", in Hans Helmut Prinzler, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau : ein Melancholiker des Films (in German), Berlin: Bertz Verlag GbR, ISBN 3-929470-25-X
Brill, Olaf, Film Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (GER 1922) (in German), retrieved 11 June 2009 (1921-1922 reports and reviews)
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Nosferatu
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nosferatu.
Nosferatu at the Internet Movie Database
Nosferatu is available for free download at the Internet Archive (alternative link)
Nosferatu complete film on YouTube


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Nosferatu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Nosferatu (1922 film))
Jump to: navigation, search

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

Nosferatu,
 eine Symphonie des Grauens
Nosferatuposter.jpg
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 dates

4 March 1922 (Germany)
 

Running time
 94 minutes
Country
Weimar Republic
Language
Silent film
German and English intertitles
 

 

 An iconic scene of the shadow of Count Orlok climbing up a staircase
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, one print of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.[1][2] As of 2015, it is Rotten Tomatoes' second best-reviewed horror film of all time.[3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Music
5 Deviations from the novel
6 Release
7 Reception and legacy 7.1 In popular culture
7.2 Derivative works
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 External links

Plot[edit]
Thomas Hutter lives in the fictitious German city of Wisborg. His employer, Knock, sends Hutter to Transylvania to visit a new client named Count Orlok. Hutter entrusts his loving wife Ellen to his good friend Harding and Harding's sister Annie, 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 discourage him from traveling to his castle at night, warning of a werewolf on the prowl. The next morning, Hutter takes a coach to a high mountain pass, but the coachmen decline to take him any further than the bridge as nightfall is approaching. A black-swathed coach appears after Hutter crosses the bridge and the coachman gestures for him to climb aboard. Hutter is welcomed at a castle by Count Orlok. When Hutter is eating dinner and accidentally cuts his thumb, Orlok tries to suck the blood out, but his repulsed guest pulls his hand away.
Hutter wakes up to a deserted castle the morning after and notices fresh punctures on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes or spiders. That night, Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house across from Hutter's own home. Hutter writes a letter to his wife and gets a coachman to send it. Reading a book about vampires that he took from the local inn, Hutter starts to suspect that Orlok is Nosferatu, the "Bird of Death." He cowers in his room as midnight approaches, but there is no way to bar the door. The door opens by itself and Orlok enters, his true nature finally revealed, and Hutter falls unconscious. The next day, Hutter explores the castle. In its crypt, he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant. Hutter becomes horrified and dashes back to his room. Hours later from the window, he sees Orlok piling up coffins on a coach and climbing into the last one before the coach departs. Hutter escapes the castle through the window, but is knocked unconscious by the fall and awakes in a hospital.
When he is sufficiently recovered, he hurries home. Meanwhile, the coffins are shipped down river on a raft. They are transferred to a schooner, but not before one is opened by the crew, revealing a multitude of rats. The sailors on the ship get 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 coffins. However, Orlok awakens and the horrified sailor jumps into the sea. Unaware of his danger, the captain becomes Orlok's latest victim when he ties himself to the wheel. When the ship arrives in Wisborg, Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, and moves into the house he purchased. The next morning, when the ship is inspected, the captain is found dead. After examining the logbook, the doctors assume they are dealing with the plague. The town is stricken with panic, and people are warned to stay inside.
There are many deaths in the town, which are blamed on the plague. Knock, who had been committed to a psychiatric ward, escapes after murdering the warden. The townspeople give chase, but he eludes them by climbing a roof, then using a scarecrow. Meanwhile, Orlok stares from his window at the sleeping Ellen. Against her husband's wishes, Ellen had read the book he found. The book claims that the way to defeat a vampire is for a woman who is pure in heart to distract the vampire with her beauty all through the night. She opens her window to invite him in, but faints. When Hutter revives her, she sends him to fetch Professor Bulwer. After he leaves, Orlok comes in. He becomes so engrossed drinking her blood that he forgets about the coming day. When a rooster crows, Orlok vanishes in a puff of smoke as he tries to flee. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband. The last scene shows Count Orlok's ruined castle in the Carpathian Mountains, symbolizing the end of Count Orlok's reign of terror.
Cast[edit]
Max Schreck as Count Orlok
Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter
Greta Schröder as Ellen Hutter
Alexander Granach as Knock
Georg H. Schnell as Shipowner Harding
Ruth Landshoff as Annie
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
Production[edit]

 

 Hutter's departure from Wisborg was filmed in Heiligen-Geist-Kirche's yard in Wismar; this photograph is from 1970.
Prana-Film 1.jpg
The studio behind Nosferatu, Prana Film, was a short-lived silent-era German film studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau, named for the Buddhist concept of prana. Its intent was to produce occult and supernatural themed films. Nosferatu was the only production of Prana Film[4] as it declared bankruptcy in order to dodge copyright infringement suits from Bram Stoker's widow.
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.[5]
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[6] 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").[7]

 

 The Salzspeicher in Lübeck 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 bore 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 exteriors of the film set in Transylvania were actually shot on location in northern Slovakia, including the High Tatras, Vrátna Valley, Orava Castle, the Váh River, and Starhrad.[8] The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin's Johannisthal locality and further exteriors in the Tegel Forest.

 

 Schreck in a promotional still for the film.
For cost reasons, cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available, and therefore there was only one original negative.[9] The director followed Galeen's screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters.[10] 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.[11][12] 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.[13]
Music[edit]
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 remains is only a reconstitution of the score as it was played in 1922.[14] 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 1950s and 1960s, has written a score for a reissue.[15]
Deviations from the novel[edit]
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 dialogue 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.[16]
Release[edit]

 

 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.[17] 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.
Reception and legacy[edit]
Nosferatu brought the director Murnau reinforced into the public eye, especially since his film The Burning Acker was released a few days later. The press reported extensively on Nosferatu and its premiere. With the laudatory votes, there was also occasional criticism that the technical perfection and clarity of the images did not fit the horror theme. The Filmkurier of 6 March 1922 said that the vampire appeared too corporeal and brightly lit to appear genuinely scary. Hans Wollenberg described the film in photo-Stage No. 11 of 11 March 1922 as a "sensation" and praised Murnau's nature shots as "mood-creating elements."[18] In the Vossische newspaper of 7 March 1922, Nosferatu was praised for its visual style.
This was the only Prana Film; the company declared bankruptcy after 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, kept alive by a cult following, making it an example of an early cult film.[19]
The movie has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a "Certified Fresh" label and holds a 97% "fresh" rating based on 60 reviews.[20] It was ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.[21] In 1997, critic Roger Ebert added Nosferatu to his list of The Great Movies, writing:

Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in clichés, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.[...]
 Is Murnau's "Nosferatu" scary in the modern sense? Not for me. I admire it more for its artistry and ideas, its atmosphere and images, than for its ability to manipulate my emotions like a skillful modern horror film. It knows none of the later tricks of the trade, like sudden threats that pop in from the side of the screen. But "Nosferatu" remains effective: It doesn’t scare us, but it haunts us.[22]
In popular culture[edit]
In 1989, French progressive rock outfit Art Zoyd released Nosferatu on Mantra Records. Thierry Zaboitzeff and Gérard Hourbette composed the pieces, to correspond with a truncated version of the film then heavily in circulation in the public domain.[23]
In 2002, Count Orlok appeared in a brief cameo in children's animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants.[24] The episode, "Graveyard Shift", was written by Jay Lender, who pushed for a random gag that featured Orlok.[25] Though, here he is called Nosferatu.
In 2010, the Mallarme Chamber Players of Durham, North Carolina, 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.[26]
In 2012, scenes from the film were used in the exhibition Dark Romanticism at the Städel in Frankfurt as an example to illustrate the way in which ideas developed in 18th- and 19th-century art influenced story telling and aesthetics in 20th-century cinema.[27]
Derivative works[edit]
The song "Nosferatu" (1977) from the album Spectres by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult is directly about the film.[28]
Werner Herzog's tribute film Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) stars Klaus Kinski (as Count Dracula, not Orlok).[29]
The satirical film Shadow of the Vampire (2000), directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven A. Katz, is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu. It stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.[30]
The novel NOS4A2 by Joe Hill is a modern vampire story that utilizes the play on words of "Nosferatu."[31]
In 2009, Louis Pecsi wrote and illustrated the graphic novel Nosferatu: The Untold Origin, which gives an origin story to Count Orlock.[32]
See also[edit]

Portal icon 1920s portal
List of films in the public domain in the United States
List of German films 1919–1933
Vampire film
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ http://www.empireonline.com/features/100-greatest-world-cinema-films/default.asp?film=21
2.Jump up ^ http://www.film.com/movies/whats-the-big-deal-nosferatu-1922
3.Jump up ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/best-horror-movies/
4.Jump up ^ Elsaesser, Thomas (February 2001). "Six Degrees Of Nosferatu". Sight and Sound. ISSN 0037-4806. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
5.Jump up ^ Christiane Mückenberger; Günther Dahlke; Günter Karl (Hrsg.) (1993), "Nosferatu", Deutsche Spielfilme von den Anfängen bis 1933 (in German), Berlin: Henschel Verlag, p. 71, ISBN 3-89487-009-5
6.Jump up ^ Roger Manvell, Henrik Galeen - Films as writer:, Other films:, Film Reference, retrieved 23 April 2009
7.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967, page 27
8.Jump up ^ Votruba, Martin. "Nosferatu (1922) Slovak Locations". Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh.
9.Jump up ^ Prinzler page 222: Luciano Berriatúa and Camille Blot in section: Zur Überlieferung der Filme. Then it was usual to use at least two cameras in parallel to maximize the number of copies for distribution. One negative would serve for local use and another for foreign distribution.
10.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967 page 27
11.Jump up ^ Eisner 1967 page 28 Since vampires dying in daylight appears neither in Stoker's work nor in Galeen's script, this concept has been solely attributed to Murnau.
12.Jump up ^ Michael Koller (July 2000), "Nosferatu", Issue 8, July–Aug 2000 (senses of cinema), retrieved 23 April 2009
13.Jump up ^ Grafe page 117
14.Jump up ^ Anderson, Gillian. "Nosferatu". gilliananderson.it. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
15.Jump up ^ Randall D. Larson (1996). "An Interview with James Bernard" Soundtrack Magazine. Vol 15, No 58, cited in Randall D. Larson (2008). "James Bernard’s NOSFERATU". Retrieved on 11 May 2012.
16.Jump up ^ Ashbury, Roy (5 November 2001), Nosferatu (1st ed.), Pearson Education, p. 41
17.Jump up ^ Eisner page 60
18.Jump up ^ Hans Helmut Prinzler (ed.): Murnau – Ein Melancholiker des Films. Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek. Bertz, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-929470-25-X, p. 129.
19.Jump up ^ Hall, Phil. "THE BOOTLEG FILES: "NOSFERATU"". Film Threat. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
20.Jump up ^ "Nosferatu movie reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
21.Jump up ^ "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema: 21 Nosferatu". Empire.
22.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (28 September 1997). "Nosferatu Movie Review & Film Summary (1922)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
23.Jump up ^ Kozinn, Alan (23 July 1991). "Music in Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
24.Jump up ^ Hallam, Scott (3 June 2014). "Top 5 Foreign Vampire Films". Dread Central. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
25.Jump up ^ Heintjes, Tom (21 September 2012). "The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants". Cartoonician.com. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
26.Jump up ^ "Pfeiffer presents classic 'Nosferatu'". The Stanly News and Press. 24 October 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
27.Jump up ^ "Den Schrecken zum Leben erwecken – Schwarze Romantik im Horrorfilm". staedelmuseum.de (in German). 15 November 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
28.Jump up ^ "17 Fear-Filled Songs Inspired by Scary Movies". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
29.Jump up ^ Erickson, Hal. "Nosferatu the Vampyre". Allrovi. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
30.Jump up ^ Scott, A. O. (29 December 2000). "FILM REVIEW; Son of 'Nosferatu,' With a Real-Life Monster". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
31.Jump up ^ Maslin, Janet (28 April 2013). "Villainous Christmas and Biker Heroines". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
32.Jump up ^ Roncace, Kelly (20 October 2011). Untold Origin "Rowan graduate gives vampire, 'Nosferatu,' a beginning". South Jersey Times. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
References[edit]
Lotte H. Eisner; Hilmar Hoffmann; Walter Schobert (1980), Die dämonische Leinwand (in German), Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 3-596-23660-6
Lotte H. Eisner (1967), Murnau. Der Klassiker des deutschen Films (in German), Velber/Hannover: Friedrich Verlag
Frieda Grafe; Enno Patalas (2003), Licht aus Berlin. Lang Lubitsch Murnau (in German), Berlin: Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, ISBN 3-922660-81-9, ISBN 9783922660811
Karin Meßlinger; Vera Thomas (2003), "Nosferatu", in Hans Helmut Prinzler, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau : ein Melancholiker des Films (in German), Berlin: Bertz Verlag GbR, ISBN 3-929470-25-X
Brill, Olaf, Film Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (GER 1922) (in German), retrieved 11 June 2009 (1921-1922 reports and reviews)
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Nosferatu
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nosferatu.
Nosferatu at the Internet Movie Database
Nosferatu is available for free download at the Internet Archive (alternative link)
Nosferatu complete film on YouTube


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Categories: 1922 films
Nosferatu
1920s horror films
German Expressionist films
German horror films
German silent films
Films directed by F. W. Murnau
Films based on horror novels
Films of the Weimar Republic
Films set in the 1830s
Films set in Germany
Films set in Transylvania
Films shot in Slovakia
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