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Nosferatu

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring 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: A Symphony of Horror
Newspaper advert
Directed byF. W. Murnau[1]
Screenplay byHenrik Galeen
Based onDracula
by Bram Stoker
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography
Music byHans Erdmann (1922 premiere)[1]
Production
company
Prana Film
Distributed byFilm Arts Guild
Release date
  • 4 March 1922 (1922-03-04) (Germany)
[2]
Running time
63–94 minutes, depending on version and transfer speed[1]
CountryGermany
Languages

Nosferatu was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok then finally Nosferatu, an archaic Romanian word with a suggested etymology of Nesuferitu`, meaning "the offensive one" or "the insufferable one". Although those changes are often represented as a defense against copyright infringement,[3] the original German intertitles acknowledged Dracula as the source. Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was "a low-budget film made by Germans for German audiences... setting it in Germany with German-named characters makes the story more tangible and immediate for German-speaking viewers".[4]

Even with several details altered, Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived,[1] and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.[5][6]

Critic and historian Kim Newman declared it as a film that set the template for the genre of horror film.[7]

Plot edit

 
An iconic shot of the shadow of Count Orlok ascending a staircase

In 1838, in the fictional German town of Wisborg,[1][8] Thomas Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer, estate agent Herr Knock, to visit a new client, Count Orlok, who plans to buy a house across from Hutter's own home. While embarking on his journey, Hutter stops at an inn in which the locals are frightened by the mere mention of Orlok's name.

Hutter rides on a coach to a castle, where he is welcomed 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 the morning after to find fresh punctures on his neck, which he attributes to mosquitoes. That night, Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house and notices on the table a miniature portrait of Hutter's wife, Ellen, an image that the young man carries with him in a small circular frame. Admiring the portrait, the count remarks that she has a "lovely neck." Later, Hutter continues to read a book about vampires that he took from the local inn. He now begins to suspect that Orlok is indeed a vampire. With no way to bar the door of his bedroom, Hutter desperately tries to hide as midnight approaches. Suddenly, the door begins to slowly open by itself; and, as Orlok enters, a terrified Hutter hides under the bed covers and falls unconscious. Meanwhile, at the same time back in Wisborg, Ellen arises from her own bed and sleepwalks to the railing of her bedroom's balcony. She then starts walking on top of the railing, which gets the attention of her friend Harding, who is in the adjacent room. When the doctor arrives, Ellen shouts Hutter's name and envisions Orlok in his castle threatening her unconscious husband.

The next day, Hutter explores the castle, only to retreat back into his room after he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant in the crypt. Hours later, Orlok piles up coffins on a coach and climbs into the last one before the coach departs, and Hutter rushes home after learning that. The coffins are taken aboard a schooner, where the sailors discover rats in the coffins. All of the ship's crew later die, and Orlok takes control. When the ship arrives in Wisborg, Orlok leaves unobserved, carries one of his coffins and moves into the house that he purchased.

Many deaths in the town follow after Orlok's arrival, which the town's doctors blame on an unspecified plague caused by the rats from the ship. Ellen reads the book that Hutter found; it claims that a vampire can be defeated if a pure-hearted woman distracts the vampire with her beauty and offers him her blood of her own free will. She decides to sacrifice herself. She opens her window to invite Orlok in and pretends to fall ill so that she can send Hutter to fetch Professor Bulwer, a physician. After he leaves, Orlok enters and drinks her blood, but the sun rises, which causes Orlok to vanish in a puff of smoke. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband.

Count Orlok's castle in the Carpathian Mountains is later shown destroyed.

Cast edit

 
Max Schreck in a promotional still for the film

Themes edit

The Other edit

Nosferatu has been noted for its themes regarding fear of the Other, as well as for possible anti-Semitic undertones,[1] both of which may have been partially derived from the Bram Stoker novel Dracula, upon which the film was based.[9] The physical appearance of Count Orlok, with his hooked nose, long claw-like fingernails, and large bald head, has been compared to stereotypical caricatures of Jewish people from the time in which Nosferatu was produced.[10] His features have also been compared to those of a rat or a mouse, the former of which Jews were often equated with.[11][12] Orlok's interest in acquiring property in the German town of Wisborg, a shift in locale from the Stoker novel's London, has also been analyzed as preying on the fears and anxieties of the German public at the time.[13] Professor Tony Magistrale opined that the film's depiction of an "invasion of the German homeland by an outside force [...] poses disquieting parallels to the anti-Semitic atmosphere festering in Northern Europe in 1922."[13]

When the foreign Orlok arrives in Wisborg by ship, he brings with him a swarm of rats which, in a deviation from the source novel, spread the plague throughout the town.[12][14] This plot element further associates Orlok with rodents and the idea of the "Jew as disease-causing agent".[10][12] It's also notable that Orlok's accomplice in conspiracy Knock is a Jewish realtor, who acts as the vampire's fifth column in the Biedermeier town of Wisborg.[15] There were other views - writer Kevin Jackson has noted that director F. W. Murnau "was friendly with and protective of a number of Jewish men and women" throughout his life, including Jewish actor Alexander Granach, who plays Knock in Nosferatu.[16] Additionally, Magistrale wrote that Murnau, being a homosexual, would have been "presumably more sensitive to the persecution of a subgroup inside the larger German society".[12] As such, it has been said that perceived associations between Orlok and anti-Semitic stereotypes are unlikely to have been conscious decisions on the part of Murnau.[12][16]

Occultism edit

Murnau and Grau gave Orlok in the film a demonic lineage and an occult origin: Orlok is the creation of Belial, one of the Satanic archdemons. Belial in Psalm 41:8 – 10 is also associated with pestilence, with Orlok in film being the very manifestation of contagion, rats pouring out of his coffins onto the streets of Wisborg, spreading Black Death.[17] Orlok’s link to Belial is also highly significant because Belial is ‘one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic magicians’ — making Orlok someone who practiced dark sorcery.[18]

Orlok and his servant Knock are communicating in occult language — the documents between Orlok and Knock are written in Enochian language (angelic language, recorded in the private journals of English occultist John Dee and his colleague English alchemist Edward Kelley in late 16th-century Elizabethan England).[19][20]

The character of Professor Bulwer in the film is named in reference to English occult novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton.[21] The idea of astral entities, arising from the dark thoughts of human beings, responsible for epidemics that call for blood sacrifices in order to prevent them, is also closely linked to that of the alchemist Paracelsus, whose figure is partly embodied in the film in the character of Professor Bulwer (who is mentioned in the film to be Paracelsian himself). This is made concrete in the film in the plague epidemic that spreads through the city of Wisborg, which cannot be remedied by scientific methods, but by the blood sacrifice of a woman, thus destroying forever the dark being responsible for this catastrophic situation.[22]

The Great War edit

The idea for making this vampire film saw its genesis in the war-time experience of producer Albin Grau. Grau served in the German army during the World War I, known as the Great War, on the Serbian front. While in Serbia Grau encountered a local farmer who told him of his father, who the farmer believed had become an undead vampire. F. W. Murnau, director of the film, also saw considerable action in World War I — not only as a company commander in the muddy trenches of the Eastern Front, but also later in the air after he transferred to the German air service. He survived at least eight crashes. Max Schreck who portrayed Count Orlok also served in the trenches of the Great War with the German army. Little is known of his war-time experience, but there are some signs he may have dealt with some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Colleagues commented that he preferred to keep to himself. He was known to take long walks in the forest alone, often times disappearing for hours at a time. He once stated that he lived in “a remote and incorporeal world”. Thus it is considered that the turmoil of 1920s Germany and the war-time experiences of those who produced the film left their marks on the production of the film.[23]

As Lotte Eisner, a dedicated occultist, wrote: "Mysticism and magic, the dark forces to which Germans have always been more than willing to commit themselves, had flourished in the face of death on the battlefields" — these forces were intrinsic to the shaping of cinema's first vampires. Albin Grau himself also linked the war and vampires: "this monstrous event that is unleashed across the earth like a cosmic vampire to drink the blood of millions and millions of men". Belial as well is the link between war and contagion, as Orlok is linked directly to the Black Death and many critics have linked Nosferatu's disease-bearing rodents to the transmissible sickness associated with trench warfare in which rats flourished. As noted by Ernest Jones in his psychoanalytic study of nightmares, vampire legends proliferate in periods of mass contagion.[24]

Production edit

 
Prana Film logo

The studio behind Nosferatu, Prana Film, was a short-lived silent-era German film studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and occultist artist Albin Grau,[1] named after a Theosophical journal which was itself named for the Hindu concept of prana.[4] Although the studio's intent was to produce occult- and supernatural-themed films, Nosferatu was its only production,[25] as it declared bankruptcy shortly after the film's release.

Grau claimed he was inspired to shoot a vampire film by a war experience: in Grau's apocryphal tale, during the winter of 1916, a Serbian farmer told him that his father was a vampire and one of the undead.[26] As a lifelong student of the occult and member of Fraternitas Saturni, under the magical name of Master Pacitius, Grau was able to imbue Nosferatu with hermetic and mystical undertones. One example in particular was the cryptic contract that Count Orlok and Knock exchanged, which was filled in Enochian, hermetic and alchemical symbols. Grau was also a strong influence on Orlok's verminous and emaciated look[27] and he also designed the film’s sets, costumes, make-up and the letter with the Enochian symbols. Grau’s visual style was also deeply influenced by work of the artist Hugo Steiner-Prag who had illustrated other texts with esoteric subjects such as Gustav Meyrink’s Golem and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Die Elixiere des Teufels (1907).[28]

 
Hutter's departure from Wisborg was filmed in the yard of Heiligen-Geist-Kirche [de] in Wismar. (1970 photograph)

Diekmann and Grau gave Henrik Galeen, a disciple of Hanns Heinz Ewers, the task to write a screenplay inspired by the Dracula novel, although Prana Film had not obtained the film rights. Galeen was an experienced specialist in dark romanticism; he had already worked on The Student of Prague (1913), and the screenplay for The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920). Galeen set the story in the fictional north German harbour town of Wisborg. He changed the characters' names and added the idea of the vampire bringing the plague to Wisborg via rats on the ship. 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").[29]

 
The Salzspeicher in Lübeck served as the set for Orlok's house in Wisborg.

Actor Conrad Veidt was offered the role of Count Orlok, he previously already worked with Murnau, yet he had to decline for scheduling reasons. In the search for an alternative the choice finally fell on the then-still-unknown actor Max Schreck.[30]

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 of the Aegidienkirche served as Hutter's, and down the Depenau a procession of coffin bearers bore coffins of supposed plague victims. Many scenes of Lübeck appear in the hunt for Knock, who ordered Hutter in the Yard of Füchting to meet Count Orlok. 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 dolina, Orava Castle, the Váh River, and Starý Castle [sk].[31] The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin's Johannisthal locality and further exteriors in the Tegel Forest.[1]

 
Wismar Wassertor as harbour gate of Wisborg (Photo 1907)
 
Wismar Wasserkunst (c. 1909 photo)
 
Starý hrad castle ruins as Orlok's dilapidated castle at the end of the film

For cost reasons, cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available, and therefore there was only one original negative.[32] The director followed Galeen's screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters.[29] 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.[33][34] 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.[35]

Music edit

The original score was composed by Hans Erdmann and performed by an orchestra at the film's Berlin premiere. However, most of the score has been lost, and what remains is only a partial adapted suite.[1] Thus, throughout the history of Nosferatu screenings, 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, wrote a score for a reissue.[1][36] Bernard's score was released in 1997 by Silva Screen Records. A version of Erdmann's original score reconstructed by musicologists and composers Gillian Anderson and James Kessler was released in 1995 by BMG Classics, with multiple missing sequences composed anew, in an attempt to match Erdmann's style. An earlier reconstruction by German composer Berndt Heller has many additions of unrelated classical works.[1] In 2022, the New York Times wrote about Dutch composer Jozef van Wissem's new score and record release for Nosferatu. Beginning with a solo played on the lute, his performance incorporates electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds, graduating from subtlety to gothic horror. "My soundtrack goes from silence to noise over the course of 90 minutes," he said, culminating in "dense, slow death metal."[37] A new score for full orchestra and piano was commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra from its former composer-in-residence Sebastian Chang. It premiered, played live with the film in October 2023. [1]

Deviations from the novel edit

  • The setting has been transferred from Britain in the 1890s to Germany in 1838.[1]
  • The story of Nosferatu is similar to that of Dracula but re-adapts the core characters: Jonathan and Mina Harker are renamed to Thomas and Ellen Hutter (Ellen now occasionally sleepwalks instead of Lucy, Mina’s friend and Dracula’s first victim in Britain), Count Dracula is renamed Count Orlok, and so on. It omits many of the secondary players, such as Quincey Morris and changes the names and roles of those who remain. Van Helsing character was renamed into Dr. Bulwer in reference to English occult novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton.[38]
  • Orlok is also believed to have been created by Belial, the lieutenant demon of Satan, while Count Dracula is revealed to have been a former voivode killed in battle before returning as a vampire. Orlok's link to Belial is highly significant because Belial is "one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic magicians" - making Orlok someone who practiced dark sorcery[28]
  • In contrast to Count Dracula, Orlok does not create other vampires but kills his victims, which causes the townsfolk to blame the plague which ravages the city.
  • Orlok also must sleep by day, as sunlight would kill him, but the original Dracula is only weakened by sunlight and can openly walk in daylight.
  • Orlok looks extremely inhuman and corpse-like, while Dracula looks human, and it is his behaviour which eventually betrays him as a vampire to humans, so Dracula could easily mingle among the crowds in the streets of London.
  • The ending is also substantially different from the Dracula novel since the count is ultimately destroyed at sunrise when the Mina analogue sacrifices herself to him.

Release edit

 
Nosferatu premiered at the Marmorsaal in the Berlin Zoological Garden. (1900 postcard)

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.[39] Nosferatu opened in the Netherlands on 16 February 1922 at the Hague Flora and Olympia cinemas.[40] Nosferatu premiered in Germany 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 German cinema premiere itself took place on 15 March 1922 at Berlin's Primus-Palast.[1]

The 1930s sound version Die zwölfte Stunde – Eine Nacht des Grauens (The Twelfth Hour: A Night of Horror), which is less commonly known, was a completely unauthorized and re-edited version of the film. It was released in Vienna, Austria on 16 May 1930 with sound-on-disc accompaniment and a recomposition of Hans Erdmann's original score by Georg Fiebiger, a German production manager and composer of film music. It had an alternative ending lighter than the original and the characters were renamed again; Count Orlok's name was changed to Prince Wolkoff, Knock became Karsten, Hutter and Ellen became Kundberg and Margitta, and Annie was changed to Maria.[1] This version, of which Murnau was unaware, contained many scenes filmed by Murnau but not previously released. It also contained additional footage not filmed by Murnau but by a cameraman, Günther Krampf, under the direction of Waldemar Roger [de] (also known as Waldemar Ronger),[41] supposedly also a film editor and lab chemist.[citation needed] The name of director F. W. Murnau is no longer mentioned in the credits.[citation needed] This version, lasting approximately 80 minutes, was presented on 5 June 1981 at the Cinémathèque Française.[42]

Reception and legacy edit

Nosferatu brought Murnau into the public eye, especially when his film Der brennende Acker (The Burning Soil) 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."[43] In the Vossische Zeitung of 7 March 1922, Nosferatu was praised for its visual style.[44]

Nosferatu was also the first film to show a vampire dying from exposure to sunlight. Previous vampire novels such as Dracula had shown them being uncomfortable with sunlight, but not undeath-threateningly so.[45]

The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 9.05/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "One of the silent era's most influential masterpieces, Nosferatu's eerie, gothic feel—and a chilling performance from Max Schreck as the vampire—set the template for the horror films that followed."[46] In 1995, the Vatican included Nosferatu on a list of 45 important films that people should watch.[47] It was ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.[48]

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.[49]

In 1993, the 15th episode of the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark? featured a "special" screening of Nosferatu. After the screening, Count Orlok emerges from the screen into the real world and begins stalking victims in the theater.

The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Elias Merhige, is a fictionalized take on the making of Nosferatu.[1]

In 2022 an exhibition Phantoms of the Night. 100 Years of "Nosferatu" opens in Berlin.[50]

The short movie F.W.M. Symphony, directed by Thomas Hörl, released in late 2022 is a homage to Nosferatu, and also depicts the theft of Murnau's skull from his family tomb in 2015.[51]

Home media and copyright status edit

Nosferatu scoreless public domain version from 1947 with English intertitles, using the original character names from Bram Stoker's novel (the vampire is named Count Dracula as well as Nosferatu in this version)

Nosferatu only entered the public domain worldwide by the end of 2019. Despite this, the film had already been subject to widespread circulation via a sped-up, unrestored black and white bootleg copy.[52] Beginning in 1981, the film has had various different official restorations, several of which have been issued on home video in the U.S., Europe and Australia. These versions, which are all tinted, speed-corrected and have specially recorded scores, are separately copyrighted with respect to new copyrightable elements.[1] The most recent restoration, completed in 2005/2006, has been released on DVD and Blu-ray throughout the world, and features a reconstruction of Hans Erdmann's original score by Berndt Heller.[53]

Remakes edit

A 1979 remake by director Werner Herzog, Nosferatu the Vampyre, starred Klaus Kinski (as Count Dracula, not Count Orlok).[54]

A remake by director David Lee Fisher was in development after being successfully funded on Kickstarter on 3 December 2014.[55] On 13 April 2016, it was reported that Doug Jones had been cast as Count Orlok in the film and that filming had begun. The film would use green screen to insert colorized backgrounds from the original film atop live-action, a process Fisher previously used for his remake The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005).[56][1] While the film hasn't secured a distributor as of 2023, it had a premiere at the Emagine Theater in Novi, and will see a limited release in other theaters.[57]

In July 2015, another remake was announced with Robert Eggers writing and directing. The film was intended to be produced by Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen for Studio 8.[58] In November 2016, Eggers expressed surprise that the Nosferatu remake was going to be his second film, saying "It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next. I was really planning on waiting a while, but that's how fate shook out."[59] In 2017, it was announced that Anya Taylor-Joy would be featured in the film in an unknown role.[60] However, in a 2019 interview, Eggers claimed that he was unsure as to whether the film would still be made, saying "... But also, I don't know, maybe Nosferatu doesn't need to be made again, even though I've spent so much time on that."[61] It was reported in September 2022 that Eggers' remake would be distributed by Focus Features, with Bill Skarsgård set to star as Orlok and Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter.[62] The film wrapped principal photography on May 19, 2023.[63]

In popular culture edit

  • The 1979 album Nosferatu by Hugh Cornwell and Robert Williams is an homage to the film, featuring a still from the movie on the front cover and a dedication to Max Schreck.
  • The television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot (1979) took inspiration from Nosferatu for the appearance of its villain, Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder). The film's producer Richard Kobritz stated that: "We went back to the old German Nosferatu concept where he is the essence of evil, and not anything romantic or smarmy, or, you know, the rouge-cheeked, widow-peaked Dracula."[64]
  • French progressive rock outfit Art Zoyd released Nosferatu (1989) on Mantra Records, composed the cues to correspond with an edited and unrestored version of the film.[1][65]
  • Bernard J. Taylor adapted the story into the 1995 musical Nosferatu the Vampire.[66] The title character is called Nosferatu, and the plot of the musical follows the plot of Murnau's film, yet other characters’ names are reverted to names from the novel (Mina, Van Helsing, etc.).
  • Count Orlok has made multiple appearances in SpongeBob SquarePants, most notably at the end of the episode "Graveyard Shift", where Count Orlok is revealed to be responsible for flickering lights in the Krusty Krab.[67]
  • The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven A. Katz, is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu in which Max Schreck is portrayed as an actual vampire whom F.W. Murnau allows to kill his actors and crew on film in order to create a sense of "realism". It stars Willem Dafoe as Schreck and John Malkovich as Murnau. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards at the 73rd Academy Awards.[68]
  • An operatic version of Nosferatu was composed by Alva Henderson in 2004, with libretto by Dana Gioia,[69] was released on CD in 2005.[70]
  • On 28 October 2012, as part of the BBC Radio "Gothic Imagination" series, the film was reimagined on BBC Radio 3 as the radio play Midnight Cry of the Deathbird.[71]
  • In 2023, the Los Angeles experimental puppet troupe Freak Nature Puppets performed Nosferatu's Sweet 16. The comedy musical was a loose sequel to the original film, and followed the story of Count Orlok's daughter. Nosferatu's Sweet 16 premiered at the Spaghetti Festival at the Elysian Theater in Los Angeles.[72]
  • In 2022 (the hundredth anniversary of Nosferatu) Beatles Revolver cover artist and musician Klaus Voormann created a Nosferatu cover for the 50th anniversary of German Playboy
  • Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny's 2023 music video for "Baticano" is based on and is a tribute to the film.[73]
  • In 2024, Void ov Voices, the one man Black metal band of Attila Csihar, the vocalist of Mayhem, did a tour where he performed the film music during the projection.[74][75]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide". Brenton Film. 18 November 2015.
  2. ^ "Nosferatu: History and Home Video Guide, Part 2: 1920s Screenings". Brenton Film. 30 November 2016.
  3. ^ "All copies of the cult classic "Nosferatu" were ordered to be destroyed". 5 April 2017.
  4. ^ a b Kalat, David (2013). Nosferatu (Blu-ray audio commentary to the film). Eureka Entertainment.
  5. ^ "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  6. ^ . Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  7. ^ Marriott & Newman 2018, p. 20.
  8. ^ Klinowski, Jacek; Garbicz, Adam (2012). Feature Cinema in the 20th Century: Volume One: 1913–1950: a Comprehensive Guide. Planet RGB Limited. p. 1920. ISBN 9781624075643. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  9. ^ Giesen 2019 page 109
  10. ^ a b Giesen 2019 page 108
  11. ^ Giesen 2019 pages 108–109
  12. ^ a b c d e Magistrale 2005 page 25–26
  13. ^ a b Magistrale 2005 page 25
  14. ^ Joslin 2017 page 15
  15. ^ Golem, Caligari, Nosferatu - A Chronicle of German Film Fantasy (2022) by Rolf Giesen
  16. ^ a b Jackson 2013 page 20
  17. ^ Vampires on the Silent Screen: Cinema’s First Age of Vampires 1897-1922 (2023) by David Annwn Jones, p.169, 184
  18. ^ Vampires on the Silent Screen: Cinema’s First Age of Vampires 1897-1922 (2023) by David Annwn Jones, p.184
  19. ^ Vampires on the Silent Screen: Cinema’s First Age of Vampires 1897-1922 (2023) by David Annwn Jones, p.184
  20. ^ Movie Magick: The Occult in Film (2018) by David Huckvale, p.52
  21. ^ Movie Magick: The Occult in Film (2018) by David Huckvale, p.52
  22. ^ ""Nosferatu": A Century of Esotericism and Terror". 30 October 2022.
  23. ^ "Of Vampires and the Great War". 30 October 2014.
  24. ^ Vampires on the Silent Screen: Cinema’s First Age of Vampires 1897-1922 (2023) by David Annwn Jones, p.169, 183
  25. ^ Elsaesser, Thomas (February 2001). . Sight and Sound. ISSN 0037-4806. Archived from the original on 10 December 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  26. ^ Mückenberger, Christiane (1993), "Nosferatu", in Dahlke, Günther; Karl, Günter (eds.), Deutsche Spielfilme von den Anfängen bis 1933 (in German), Berlin: Henschel Verlag, p. 71, ISBN 3-89487-009-5
  27. ^ Tobias Churton. The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex and Magick in the Weimar Republic. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions,2014, p. 68
  28. ^ a b Vampires on the Silent Screen: Cinema’s First Age of Vampires 1897-1922 (2023) by David Annwn Jones, p.184
  29. ^ a b Eisner 1967 page 27
  30. ^ Conrad Veidt, Demon of the Silver Screen: His Life and Works in Context (2023) by Sabine Schwientek, p.63.
  31. ^ Votruba, Martin. "Nosferatu (1922) Slovak Locations". Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh.
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Bibliography edit

External links edit

nosferatu, vampire, redirects, here, 1979, film, vampyre, other, uses, disambiguation, symphony, horror, german, eine, symphonie, grauens, 1922, silent, german, expressionist, vampire, film, directed, murnau, starring, schreck, count, orlok, vampire, preys, wi. Nosferatu the Vampire redirects here For the 1979 film see Nosferatu the Vampyre For other uses see Nosferatu disambiguation Nosferatu A Symphony of Horror German Nosferatu Eine Symphonie des Grauens is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F W Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok a vampire who preys on the wife Greta Schroder of his estate agent Gustav von Wangenheim and brings the plague to their town Nosferatu A Symphony of HorrorNewspaper advertDirected byF W Murnau 1 Screenplay byHenrik GaleenBased onDraculaby Bram StokerProduced byEnrico Dieckmann Albin GrauStarringMax Schreck Gustav von Wangenheim Greta Schroder Alexander Granach Ruth Landshoff Wolfgang HeinzCinematographyFritz Arno Wagner Gunther Krampf uncredited Music byHans Erdmann 1922 premiere 1 ProductioncompanyPrana FilmDistributed byFilm Arts GuildRelease date4 March 1922 1922 03 04 Germany 2 Running time63 94 minutes depending on version and transfer speed 1 CountryGermanyLanguagesSilent film German intertitles Nosferatu was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker s 1897 novel Dracula Various names and other details were changed from the novel including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok then finally Nosferatu an archaic Romanian word with a suggested etymology of Nesuferitu meaning the offensive one or the insufferable one Although those changes are often represented as a defense against copyright infringement 3 the original German intertitles acknowledged Dracula as the source Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was a low budget film made by Germans for German audiences setting it in Germany with German named characters makes the story more tangible and immediate for German speaking viewers 4 Even with several details altered Stoker s heirs sued over the adaptation and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed However several prints of Nosferatu survived 1 and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre 5 6 Critic and historian Kim Newman declared it as a film that set the template for the genre of horror film 7 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Themes 3 1 The Other 3 2 Occultism 3 3 The Great War 4 Production 5 Music 6 Deviations from the novel 7 Release 8 Reception and legacy 9 Home media and copyright status 10 Remakes 11 In popular culture 12 See also 13 References 13 1 Bibliography 14 External linksPlot edit nbsp An iconic shot of the shadow of Count Orlok ascending a staircase In 1838 in the fictional German town of Wisborg 1 8 Thomas Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer estate agent Herr Knock to visit a new client Count Orlok who plans to buy a house across from Hutter s own home While embarking on his journey Hutter stops at an inn in which the locals are frightened by the mere mention of Orlok s name Hutter rides on a coach to a castle where he is welcomed 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 the morning after to find fresh punctures on his neck which he attributes to mosquitoes That night Orlok signs the documents to purchase the house and notices on the table a miniature portrait of Hutter s wife Ellen an image that the young man carries with him in a small circular frame Admiring the portrait the count remarks that she has a lovely neck Later Hutter continues to read a book about vampires that he took from the local inn He now begins to suspect that Orlok is indeed a vampire With no way to bar the door of his bedroom Hutter desperately tries to hide as midnight approaches Suddenly the door begins to slowly open by itself and as Orlok enters a terrified Hutter hides under the bed covers and falls unconscious Meanwhile at the same time back in Wisborg Ellen arises from her own bed and sleepwalks to the railing of her bedroom s balcony She then starts walking on top of the railing which gets the attention of her friend Harding who is in the adjacent room When the doctor arrives Ellen shouts Hutter s name and envisions Orlok in his castle threatening her unconscious husband The next day Hutter explores the castle only to retreat back into his room after he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant in the crypt Hours later Orlok piles up coffins on a coach and climbs into the last one before the coach departs and Hutter rushes home after learning that The coffins are taken aboard a schooner where the sailors discover rats in the coffins All of the ship s crew later die and Orlok takes control When the ship arrives in Wisborg Orlok leaves unobserved carries one of his coffins and moves into the house that he purchased Many deaths in the town follow after Orlok s arrival which the town s doctors blame on an unspecified plague caused by the rats from the ship Ellen reads the book that Hutter found it claims that a vampire can be defeated if a pure hearted woman distracts the vampire with her beauty and offers him her blood of her own free will She decides to sacrifice herself She opens her window to invite Orlok in and pretends to fall ill so that she can send Hutter to fetch Professor Bulwer a physician After he leaves Orlok enters and drinks her blood but the sun rises which causes Orlok to vanish in a puff of smoke Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief stricken husband Count Orlok s castle in the Carpathian Mountains is later shown destroyed Cast edit nbsp Max Schreck in a promotional still for the film Max Schreck as Count Orlok Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter Greta Schroder as Ellen Hutter Alexander Granach as Knock Georg H Schnell as Shipowner 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 Hardy von Francois de as Mental Hospital Doctor Albert Venohr de as Sailor Two Guido Herzfeld as Innkeeper Karl Etlinger as Student with Bulwer Fanny Schreck as Hospital NurseThemes editThe Other edit Nosferatu has been noted for its themes regarding fear of the Other as well as for possible anti Semitic undertones 1 both of which may have been partially derived from the Bram Stoker novel Dracula upon which the film was based 9 The physical appearance of Count Orlok with his hooked nose long claw like fingernails and large bald head has been compared to stereotypical caricatures of Jewish people from the time in which Nosferatu was produced 10 His features have also been compared to those of a rat or a mouse the former of which Jews were often equated with 11 12 Orlok s interest in acquiring property in the German town of Wisborg a shift in locale from the Stoker novel s London has also been analyzed as preying on the fears and anxieties of the German public at the time 13 Professor Tony Magistrale opined that the film s depiction of an invasion of the German homeland by an outside force poses disquieting parallels to the anti Semitic atmosphere festering in Northern Europe in 1922 13 When the foreign Orlok arrives in Wisborg by ship he brings with him a swarm of rats which in a deviation from the source novel spread the plague throughout the town 12 14 This plot element further associates Orlok with rodents and the idea of the Jew as disease causing agent 10 12 It s also notable that Orlok s accomplice in conspiracy Knock is a Jewish realtor who acts as the vampire s fifth column in the Biedermeier town of Wisborg 15 There were other views writer Kevin Jackson has noted that director F W Murnau was friendly with and protective of a number of Jewish men and women throughout his life including Jewish actor Alexander Granach who plays Knock in Nosferatu 16 Additionally Magistrale wrote that Murnau being a homosexual would have been presumably more sensitive to the persecution of a subgroup inside the larger German society 12 As such it has been said that perceived associations between Orlok and anti Semitic stereotypes are unlikely to have been conscious decisions on the part of Murnau 12 16 Occultism edit Murnau and Grau gave Orlok in the film a demonic lineage and an occult origin Orlok is the creation of Belial one of the Satanic archdemons Belial in Psalm 41 8 10 is also associated with pestilence with Orlok in film being the very manifestation of contagion rats pouring out of his coffins onto the streets of Wisborg spreading Black Death 17 Orlok s link to Belial is also highly significant because Belial is one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic magicians making Orlok someone who practiced dark sorcery 18 Orlok and his servant Knock are communicating in occult language the documents between Orlok and Knock are written in Enochian language angelic language recorded in the private journals of English occultist John Dee and his colleague English alchemist Edward Kelley in late 16th century Elizabethan England 19 20 The character of Professor Bulwer in the film is named in reference to English occult novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton 21 The idea of astral entities arising from the dark thoughts of human beings responsible for epidemics that call for blood sacrifices in order to prevent them is also closely linked to that of the alchemist Paracelsus whose figure is partly embodied in the film in the character of Professor Bulwer who is mentioned in the film to be Paracelsian himself This is made concrete in the film in the plague epidemic that spreads through the city of Wisborg which cannot be remedied by scientific methods but by the blood sacrifice of a woman thus destroying forever the dark being responsible for this catastrophic situation 22 The Great War edit The idea for making this vampire film saw its genesis in the war time experience of producer Albin Grau Grau served in the German army during the World War I known as the Great War on the Serbian front While in Serbia Grau encountered a local farmer who told him of his father who the farmer believed had become an undead vampire F W Murnau director of the film also saw considerable action in World War I not only as a company commander in the muddy trenches of the Eastern Front but also later in the air after he transferred to the German air service He survived at least eight crashes Max Schreck who portrayed Count Orlok also served in the trenches of the Great War with the German army Little is known of his war time experience but there are some signs he may have dealt with some form of post traumatic stress disorder Colleagues commented that he preferred to keep to himself He was known to take long walks in the forest alone often times disappearing for hours at a time He once stated that he lived in a remote and incorporeal world Thus it is considered that the turmoil of 1920s Germany and the war time experiences of those who produced the film left their marks on the production of the film 23 As Lotte Eisner a dedicated occultist wrote Mysticism and magic the dark forces to which Germans have always been more than willing to commit themselves had flourished in the face of death on the battlefields these forces were intrinsic to the shaping of cinema s first vampires Albin Grau himself also linked the war and vampires this monstrous event that is unleashed across the earth like a cosmic vampire to drink the blood of millions and millions of men Belial as well is the link between war and contagion as Orlok is linked directly to the Black Death and many critics have linked Nosferatu s disease bearing rodents to the transmissible sickness associated with trench warfare in which rats flourished As noted by Ernest Jones in his psychoanalytic study of nightmares vampire legends proliferate in periods of mass contagion 24 Production edit nbsp Prana Film logo The studio behind Nosferatu Prana Film was a short lived silent era German film studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and occultist artist Albin Grau 1 named after a Theosophical journal which was itself named for the Hindu concept of prana 4 Although the studio s intent was to produce occult and supernatural themed films Nosferatu was its only production 25 as it declared bankruptcy shortly after the film s release Grau claimed he was inspired to shoot a vampire film by a war experience in Grau s apocryphal tale during the winter of 1916 a Serbian farmer told him that his father was a vampire and one of the undead 26 As a lifelong student of the occult and member of Fraternitas Saturni under the magical name of Master Pacitius Grau was able to imbue Nosferatu with hermetic and mystical undertones One example in particular was the cryptic contract that Count Orlok and Knock exchanged which was filled in Enochian hermetic and alchemical symbols Grau was also a strong influence on Orlok s verminous and emaciated look 27 and he also designed the film s sets costumes make up and the letter with the Enochian symbols Grau s visual style was also deeply influenced by work of the artist Hugo Steiner Prag who had illustrated other texts with esoteric subjects such as Gustav Meyrink s Golem and E T A Hoffmann s Die Elixiere des Teufels 1907 28 nbsp Hutter s departure from Wisborg was filmed in the yard of Heiligen Geist Kirche de in Wismar 1970 photograph Diekmann and Grau gave Henrik Galeen a disciple of Hanns Heinz Ewers the task to write a screenplay inspired by the Dracula novel although Prana Film had not obtained the film rights Galeen was an experienced specialist in dark romanticism he had already worked on The Student of Prague 1913 and the screenplay for The Golem How He Came into the World 1920 Galeen set the story in the fictional north German harbour town of Wisborg He changed the characters names and added the idea of the vampire bringing the plague to Wisborg via rats on the ship 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 29 nbsp The Salzspeicher in Lubeck served as the set for Orlok s house in Wisborg Actor Conrad Veidt was offered the role of Count Orlok he previously already worked with Murnau yet he had to decline for scheduling reasons In the search for an alternative the choice finally fell on the then still unknown actor Max Schreck 30 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 Lubeck the abandoned Salzspeicher served as Nosferatu s new Wisborg house the one of the churchyard of the Aegidienkirche served as Hutter s and down the Depenau a procession of coffin bearers bore coffins of supposed plague victims Many scenes of Lubeck appear in the hunt for Knock who ordered Hutter in the Yard of Fuchting to meet Count Orlok 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 Vratna dolina Orava Castle the Vah River and Stary Castle sk 31 The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin s Johannisthal locality and further exteriors in the Tegel Forest 1 nbsp Wismar Wassertor as harbour gate of Wisborg Photo 1907 nbsp Wismar Wasserkunst c 1909 photo nbsp Stary hrad castle ruins as Orlok s dilapidated castle at the end of the film For cost reasons cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner only had one camera available and therefore there was only one original negative 32 The director followed Galeen s screenplay carefully following handwritten instructions on camera positioning lighting and related matters 29 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 33 34 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 35 Music editThe original score was composed by Hans Erdmann and performed by an orchestra at the film s Berlin premiere However most of the score has been lost and what remains is only a partial adapted suite 1 Thus throughout the history of Nosferatu screenings 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 wrote a score for a reissue 1 36 Bernard s score was released in 1997 by Silva Screen Records A version of Erdmann s original score reconstructed by musicologists and composers Gillian Anderson and James Kessler was released in 1995 by BMG Classics with multiple missing sequences composed anew in an attempt to match Erdmann s style An earlier reconstruction by German composer Berndt Heller has many additions of unrelated classical works 1 In 2022 the New York Times wrote about Dutch composer Jozef van Wissem s new score and record release for Nosferatu Beginning with a solo played on the lute his performance incorporates electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds graduating from subtlety to gothic horror My soundtrack goes from silence to noise over the course of 90 minutes he said culminating in dense slow death metal 37 A new score for full orchestra and piano was commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra from its former composer in residence Sebastian Chang It premiered played live with the film in October 2023 1 Deviations from the novel editThis section possibly contains original research Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations Statements consisting only of original research should be removed December 2023 Learn how and when to remove this message The setting has been transferred from Britain in the 1890s to Germany in 1838 1 The story of Nosferatu is similar to that of Dracula but re adapts the core characters Jonathan and Mina Harker are renamed to Thomas and Ellen Hutter Ellen now occasionally sleepwalks instead of Lucy Mina s friend and Dracula s first victim in Britain Count Dracula is renamed Count Orlok and so on It omits many of the secondary players such as Quincey Morris and changes the names and roles of those who remain Van Helsing character was renamed into Dr Bulwer in reference to English occult novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton 38 Orlok is also believed to have been created by Belial the lieutenant demon of Satan while Count Dracula is revealed to have been a former voivode killed in battle before returning as a vampire Orlok s link to Belial is highly significant because Belial is one of the demons traditionally summoned by Goetic magicians making Orlok someone who practiced dark sorcery 28 In contrast to Count Dracula Orlok does not create other vampires but kills his victims which causes the townsfolk to blame the plague which ravages the city Orlok also must sleep by day as sunlight would kill him but the original Dracula is only weakened by sunlight and can openly walk in daylight Orlok looks extremely inhuman and corpse like while Dracula looks human and it is his behaviour which eventually betrays him as a vampire to humans so Dracula could easily mingle among the crowds in the streets of London The ending is also substantially different from the Dracula novel since the count is ultimately destroyed at sunrise when the Mina analogue sacrifices herself to him Release edit nbsp Nosferatu premiered at the Marmorsaal in the Berlin Zoological Garden 1900 postcard Shortly before the premiere an advertisement campaign was placed in issue 21 of the magazine Buhne und Film with a summary scene and work photographs production reports and essays including a treatment on vampirism by Albin Grau 39 Nosferatu opened in the Netherlands on 16 February 1922 at the Hague Flora and Olympia cinemas 40 Nosferatu premiered in Germany 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 German cinema premiere itself took place on 15 March 1922 at Berlin s Primus Palast 1 The 1930s sound version Die zwolfte Stunde Eine Nacht des Grauens The Twelfth Hour A Night of Horror which is less commonly known was a completely unauthorized and re edited version of the film It was released in Vienna Austria on 16 May 1930 with sound on disc accompaniment and a recomposition of Hans Erdmann s original score by Georg Fiebiger a German production manager and composer of film music It had an alternative ending lighter than the original and the characters were renamed again Count Orlok s name was changed to Prince Wolkoff Knock became Karsten Hutter and Ellen became Kundberg and Margitta and Annie was changed to Maria 1 This version of which Murnau was unaware contained many scenes filmed by Murnau but not previously released It also contained additional footage not filmed by Murnau but by a cameraman Gunther Krampf under the direction of Waldemar Roger de also known as Waldemar Ronger 41 supposedly also a film editor and lab chemist citation needed The name of director F W Murnau is no longer mentioned in the credits citation needed This version lasting approximately 80 minutes was presented on 5 June 1981 at the Cinematheque Francaise 42 Reception and legacy editNosferatu brought Murnau into the public eye especially when his film Der brennende Acker The Burning Soil 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 43 In the Vossische Zeitung of 7 March 1922 Nosferatu was praised for its visual style 44 Nosferatu was also the first film to show a vampire dying from exposure to sunlight Previous vampire novels such as Dracula had shown them being uncomfortable with sunlight but not undeath threateningly so 45 The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 97 based on 63 reviews with an average rating of 9 05 10 The website s critical consensus reads One of the silent era s most influential masterpieces Nosferatu s eerie gothic feel and a chilling performance from Max Schreck as the vampire set the template for the horror films that followed 46 In 1995 the Vatican included Nosferatu on a list of 45 important films that people should watch 47 It was ranked twenty first in Empire magazine s The 100 Best Films of World Cinema in 2010 48 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 cliches 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 49 In 1993 the 15th episode of the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark featured a special screening of Nosferatu After the screening Count Orlok emerges from the screen into the real world and begins stalking victims in the theater The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire directed by E Elias Merhige is a fictionalized take on the making of Nosferatu 1 In 2022 an exhibition Phantoms of the Night 100 Years of Nosferatu opens in Berlin 50 The short movie F W M Symphony directed by Thomas Horl released in late 2022 is a homage to Nosferatu and also depicts the theft of Murnau s skull from his family tomb in 2015 51 Home media and copyright status edit source source source source source source Nosferatu scoreless public domain version from 1947 with English intertitles using the original character names from Bram Stoker s novel the vampire is named Count Dracula as well as Nosferatu in this version Nosferatu only entered the public domain worldwide by the end of 2019 Despite this the film had already been subject to widespread circulation via a sped up unrestored black and white bootleg copy 52 Beginning in 1981 the film has had various different official restorations several of which have been issued on home video in the U S Europe and Australia These versions which are all tinted speed corrected and have specially recorded scores are separately copyrighted with respect to new copyrightable elements 1 The most recent restoration completed in 2005 2006 has been released on DVD and Blu ray throughout the world and features a reconstruction of Hans Erdmann s original score by Berndt Heller 53 Remakes editA 1979 remake by director Werner Herzog Nosferatu the Vampyre starred Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula not Count Orlok 54 A remake by director David Lee Fisher was in development after being successfully funded on Kickstarter on 3 December 2014 55 On 13 April 2016 it was reported that Doug Jones had been cast as Count Orlok in the film and that filming had begun The film would use green screen to insert colorized backgrounds from the original film atop live action a process Fisher previously used for his remake The Cabinet of Dr Caligari 2005 56 1 While the film hasn t secured a distributor as of 2023 it had a premiere at the Emagine Theater in Novi and will see a limited release in other theaters 57 In July 2015 another remake was announced with Robert Eggers writing and directing The film was intended to be produced by Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen for Studio 8 58 In November 2016 Eggers expressed surprise that the Nosferatu remake was going to be his second film saying It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next I was really planning on waiting a while but that s how fate shook out 59 In 2017 it was announced that Anya Taylor Joy would be featured in the film in an unknown role 60 However in a 2019 interview Eggers claimed that he was unsure as to whether the film would still be made saying But also I don t know maybe Nosferatu doesn t need to be made again even though I ve spent so much time on that 61 It was reported in September 2022 that Eggers remake would be distributed by Focus Features with Bill Skarsgard set to star as Orlok and Lily Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter 62 The film wrapped principal photography on May 19 2023 63 In popular culture editThe 1979 album Nosferatu by Hugh Cornwell and Robert Williams is an homage to the film featuring a still from the movie on the front cover and a dedication to Max Schreck The television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King s Salem s Lot 1979 took inspiration from Nosferatu for the appearance of its villain Kurt Barlow Reggie Nalder The film s producer Richard Kobritz stated that We went back to the old German Nosferatu concept where he is the essence of evil and not anything romantic or smarmy or you know the rouge cheeked widow peaked Dracula 64 French progressive rock outfit Art Zoyd released Nosferatu 1989 on Mantra Records composed the cues to correspond with an edited and unrestored version of the film 1 65 Bernard J Taylor adapted the story into the 1995 musical Nosferatu the Vampire 66 The title character is called Nosferatu and the plot of the musical follows the plot of Murnau s film yet other characters names are reverted to names from the novel Mina Van Helsing etc Count Orlok has made multiple appearances in SpongeBob SquarePants most notably at the end of the episode Graveyard Shift where Count Orlok is revealed to be responsible for flickering lights in the Krusty Krab 67 The 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire directed by E Elias Merhige and written by Steven A Katz is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu in which Max Schreck is portrayed as an actual vampire whom F W Murnau allows to kill his actors and crew on film in order to create a sense of realism It stars Willem Dafoe as Schreck and John Malkovich as Murnau The film was nominated for two Academy Awards at the 73rd Academy Awards 68 An operatic version of Nosferatu was composed by Alva Henderson in 2004 with libretto by Dana Gioia 69 was released on CD in 2005 70 On 28 October 2012 as part of the BBC Radio Gothic Imagination series the film was reimagined on BBC Radio 3 as the radio play Midnight Cry of the Deathbird 71 In 2023 the Los Angeles experimental puppet troupe Freak Nature Puppets performed Nosferatu s Sweet 16 The comedy musical was a loose sequel to the original film and followed the story of Count Orlok s daughter Nosferatu s Sweet 16 premiered at the Spaghetti Festival at the Elysian Theater in Los Angeles 72 In 2022 the hundredth anniversary of Nosferatu Beatles Revolver cover artist and musician Klaus Voormann created a Nosferatu cover for the 50th anniversary of German Playboy Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny s 2023 music video for Baticano is based on and is a tribute to the film 73 In 2024 Void ov Voices the one man Black metal band of Attila Csihar the vocalist of Mayhem did a tour where he performed the film music during the projection 74 75 See also edit nbsp 1920s portal nbsp Germany portal List of German films of 1919 1932 Gothic film Vampire film List of films considered the bestReferences edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Nosferatu History and Home Video Guide Brenton Film 18 November 2015 Nosferatu History and Home Video Guide Part 2 1920s Screenings Brenton Film 30 November 2016 All copies of the cult classic Nosferatu were ordered to be destroyed 5 April 2017 a b Kalat David 2013 Nosferatu Blu ray audio commentary to the film Eureka Entertainment The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema Retrieved 2 December 2016 What s the Big Deal Nosferatu 1922 archived October 13 2011 Archived from the original on 13 October 2011 Retrieved 2 December 2016 Marriott amp Newman 2018 p 20 Klinowski Jacek Garbicz Adam 2012 Feature Cinema in the 20th Century Volume One 1913 1950 a Comprehensive Guide Planet RGB Limited p 1920 ISBN 9781624075643 Retrieved 18 August 2017 Giesen 2019 page 109 a b Giesen 2019 page 108 Giesen 2019 pages 108 109 a b c d e Magistrale 2005 page 25 26 a b Magistrale 2005 page 25 Joslin 2017 page 15 Golem Caligari Nosferatu A Chronicle of German Film Fantasy 2022 by Rolf Giesen a b Jackson 2013 page 20 Vampires on the Silent Screen Cinema s First Age of Vampires 1897 1922 2023 by David Annwn Jones p 169 184 Vampires on the Silent Screen Cinema s First Age of Vampires 1897 1922 2023 by David Annwn Jones p 184 Vampires on the Silent Screen Cinema s First Age of Vampires 1897 1922 2023 by David Annwn Jones p 184 Movie Magick The Occult in Film 2018 by David Huckvale p 52 Movie Magick The Occult in Film 2018 by David Huckvale p 52 Nosferatu A Century of Esotericism and Terror 30 October 2022 Of Vampires and the Great War 30 October 2014 Vampires on the Silent Screen Cinema s First Age of Vampires 1897 1922 2023 by David Annwn Jones p 169 183 Elsaesser Thomas February 2001 Six Degrees Of Nosferatu Sight and Sound ISSN 0037 4806 Archived from the original on 10 December 2013 Retrieved 31 May 2013 Muckenberger Christiane 1993 Nosferatu in Dahlke Gunther Karl Gunter eds Deutsche Spielfilme von den Anfangen bis 1933 in German Berlin Henschel Verlag p 71 ISBN 3 89487 009 5 Tobias Churton The Beast in Berlin Art Sex and Magick in the Weimar Republic Rochester VT Inner Traditions 2014 p 68 a b Vampires on the Silent Screen Cinema s First Age of Vampires 1897 1922 2023 by David Annwn Jones p 184 a b Eisner 1967 page 27 Conrad Veidt Demon of the Silver Screen His Life and Works in Context 2023 by Sabine Schwientek p 63 Votruba Martin Nosferatu 1922 Slovak Locations Slovak Studies Program University of Pittsburgh Prinzler page 222 Luciano Berriatua and Camille Blot in section Zur Uberlieferung 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 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 Michael Koller July 2000 Nosferatu Issue 8 July Aug 2000 senses of cinema archived from the original on 5 July 2009 retrieved 23 April 2009 Grafe page 117 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 31 October 2015 100 Years of Nosferatu the Vampire Movie That Won t Die The New York Times 24 March 2022 Movie Magick The Occult in Film 2018 by David Huckvale p 52 Eisner page 60 ADVERTENTIEN Haagsche Courant 16 February 1922 p 3 Waldemar Ronger www filmportal de Retrieved 18 December 2016 Reid Brent 2 December 2016 Nosferatu Chronicles from the Vaults brentonfilm com Retrieved 23 October 2022 Prinzler Hans Helmut ed 2003 Murnau Ein Melancholiker des Films Berlin Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek Bertz p 129 ISBN 3 929470 25 X Nosferatu www filmhistoriker de in German Archived from the original on 7 October 2018 Retrieved 9 December 2018 Murnau sein Bildlenker stellt die Bildchen sorglich durchgearbeitet in sich abgeschlossen Das Schloss des Entsetzens das Haus des Nosferatu sind packende Leistungen Ein Motiv Museum Scivally Bruce 1 September 2015 Dracula FAQ All That s Left to Know About the Count from Transylvania Hal Leonard Corporation p 111 ISBN 978 1 61713 636 8 Nosferatu a Symphony of Horror Nosferatu eine Symphonie des Grauens Nosferatu the Vampire 1922 Rotten Tomatoes Fandango Media Retrieved 9 August 2019 The Vatican Film List Decent Films SDQ reviews Retrieved 14 August 2022 The 100 Best Films of World Cinema 21 Nosferatu Empire Ebert Roger 28 September 1997 Nosferatu Movie Review amp Film Summary 1922 RogerEbert com Retrieved 31 May 2013 Phantome der Nacht 100 Jahre Nosferatu Retrieved 24 March 2023 F W M Symphonie fwms film Retrieved 24 March 2023 Reid Brent 7 June 2018 Nosferatu History and Home Video Guide Part 3 Brenton Film Retrieved 23 October 2023 Reid Brent 7 June 2018 Nosferatu History and Home Video Guide Part 6 Brenton Film Retrieved 23 October 2023 Erickson Hal Nosferatu the Vampyre Allrovi Archived from the original on 17 July 2012 Retrieved 6 September 2011 Thank you from Doug amp David Kickstarter 6 December 2014 Retrieved 13 November 2016 Doug Jones to Star in Nosferatu Remake Variety 13 April 2016 Retrieved 13 November 2016 Nosferatu remake premieres in Novi C amp G Newspaper 17 November 2023 Retrieved 28 November 2023 Fleming Mike Jr 28 July 2015 Studio 8 Sets Nosferatu Remake The Witch s Robert Eggers to Write amp Direct Deadline Hollywood Retrieved 27 March 2019 O Falt Chris 11 November 2016 Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast Witch Director Robert Eggers Lifelong Obsession with Nosferatu and His Plans for a Remake Episode 13 Indiewire Retrieved 27 March 2019 Split Star Anya Taylor Joy Reteams With Witch Director on Nosferatu Remake EXCLUSIVE 14 August 2017 Robert Eggers on Status of Nosferatu Prepping Next Film 15 October 2019 Kroll Justin 30 September 2022 Bill Skarsgard amp Lily Rose Depp To Star In Nosferatu Robert Eggers Follow Up To Northman For Focus Deadline Retrieved 1 October 2022 Squires John 30 May 2023 Filming on the Robert Eggers Nosferatu Remake Has Reportedly Wrapped in Prague Bloody Disgusting Retrieved 3 June 2023 Cinefantastique Magazine Vol 9 2 Kozinn Allan 23 July 1991 Music in Review The New York Times Retrieved 30 May 2014 Bernard J Taylor AllMusic Retrieved 12 June 2016 Heintjes Tom 21 September 2012 The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants Hogan s Alley Archived from the original on 5 April 2013 Retrieved 1 September 2013 Scott A O 29 December 2000 FILM REVIEW Son of Nosferatu With a Real Life Monster The New York Times Retrieved 15 October 2014 Alva Henderson MagCloud com Retrieved 2 December 2016 HOME Nosferatu Midnight Cry of the Deathbird Drama on 3 BBC Radio 3 Retrieved 2 December 2016 SOLD OUT Nosferatu s Sweet 16 Spaghetti Festival 2 November 2023 Ismael Ruiz Matthew 1 November 2023 Bad Bunny Shares New Baticano Video Co Starring Steve Buscemi Watch Pitchfork Retrieved 6 May 2024 Inferno 2024 Stumfilmkonsert med Void ov Voices vegascene no December 2024 Archived from the original on 8 December 2023 Retrieved 1 April 2024 Inferno Metal Fest Announce Nosferatu Silent Film Concert with Void ov Voices Attila Csihar ghostcultmag com 24 October 2023 Archived from the original on 28 October 2023 Retrieved 1 April 2024 Bibliography edit Brill Olaf Film Nosferatu Eine Symphonie des Grauens GER 1922 in German archived from the original on 19 August 2009 retrieved 11 June 2009 1921 1922 reports and reviews Eisner Lotte H 1967 Murnau Der Klassiker des deutschen Films in German Velber Hannover Friedrich Verlag Eisner Lotte H 1980 Hoffmann Hilmar Schobert Walter eds Die damonische Leinwand in German Frankfurt am Main ISBN 3 596 23660 6 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Giesen Rolf 2019 The Nosferatu Story The Seminal Horror Film Its Predecessors and Its Enduring Legacy McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 1476672984 Grafe Frieda 2003 Patalas Enno ed Licht aus Berlin Lang Lubitsch Murnau in German Berlin Verlag Brinkmann amp Bose ISBN 978 3922660811 Jackson Kevin 2013 Nosferatu eine Symphonie des Grauens British Film Institute ISBN 978 1844576500 Joslin Lyndon W 2017 Count Dracula Goes to the Movies Stoker s Novel Adapted 3rd ed McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 1476669878 Magistrale Tony 2005 Abject Terrors Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film Peter Lang ISBN 978 0820470566 Marriott James Newman Kim 2018 1st pub 2006 The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies London Carlton Books ISBN 978 1 78739 139 0 Messlinger Karin Thomas Vera 2003 Prinzler Hans Helmut ed Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau ein Melancholiker des Films in German Berlin Bertz Verlag GbR ISBN 3 929470 25 X External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nosferatu nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article Nosferatu nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Nosferatu Nosferatu at IMDb nbsp Nosferatu at AllMovie Nosferatu at Rotten Tomatoes Nosferatu at the TCM Movie Database Nosferatu History and Home Video Guide at Brenton Film Nosferatu is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Nosferatu amp oldid 1223043708, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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