Nosferatu
About Nosferatu
In 1838, estate agent Thomas Hutter leaves Wisborg for Transylvania to offer Count Orlok a house across from his own. Orlok is a vampire. He fixates on a portrait of Hutter's wife Ellen and sails to Wisborg with a hold of rats, and the town takes the deaths for plague. Ellen reads that she can destroy him by keeping him with her until sunrise. She does, the sun kills him, and Hutter holds her as she dies.
Cast & crew
More about Nosferatu
F. W. Murnau directed from Henrik Galeen's script. Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau produced. Fritz Arno Wagner shot it, with Günther Krampf uncredited. Exteriors include Wismar's harbour and churches, Lübeck's Salzspeicher as Orlok's house, the High Tatras, and Orava Castle. Interiors were at the JOFA studio in Johannisthal.
Themes
Background
Prana made the film in Germany in 1921–22, after Caligari and during the postwar inflation, and shot much of it away from Berlin.
In film history
Werner Herzog remade it in 1979 as Nosferatu the Vampyre, with the Stoker names restored.
Making
Prana Film did not last past the Stoker case. Grau designed the production. David Kalat, on a commentary, argues that the German names were for a German audience, not only a legal dodge.
Reviews
Kim Newman has called it the film that set the template for the horror genre. Roger Ebert added it to his Great Movies list in 1997.
Look
Fritz Arno Wagner and Günther Krampf shot Orlok's shadow climbing a stair, and used negative images and stop-motion for his approach.
Technique
Negative photography, fast motion, and double exposure are used for Orlok. A carriage is made to travel without horses.
Music
Hans Erdmann wrote the 1922 score. Most of it is lost. A partial suite remains. Berndt Heller reconstructed a score for the 2005/2006 restoration.
Preservation
The destruction order did not catch every print. The Museum of Modern Art restored a French black-and-white print in 1981. A 2005/2006 restoration rebuilt the picture and paired it with Berndt Heller's version of the Erdmann score.
Notes
- The full title is Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens.
- Max Schreck plays Orlok, Gustav von Wangenheim plays Hutter, Greta Schröder plays Ellen, and Alexander Granach plays Knock.
- It is an unauthorized film of Bram Stoker's Dracula. The German titles still name the novel. Orlok stands in for the count.
- A Dutch premiere played at The Hague on 16 February 1922. The German premiere was 4 March 1922 in the Marmorsaal of the Berlin Zoo, and the Berlin cinema opening was 15 March 1922 at the Primus-Palast.
- Florence Stoker sued. A court ordered the prints destroyed. Copies already sent abroad survived.
- Sunlight as the thing that kills the vampire is not in Stoker's novel.
- The film entered the public domain worldwide in 2019.
- Running times in circulation range from about 63 to 94 minutes, depending on the print and the transfer speed.
Scenes
- Orlok's shadow climbs the stairs toward Ellen's room.
- Rats leave the ship in the Wisborg harbor.
- Orlok dissolves in the sunlight at Ellen's window.
Influenced by
- Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897)
Influenced
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Herzog's remake
Also available
- Internet Archive (PhantasmagoriaTheater-Nosferatu1922909)
- Arrow Films VHS (1998), with a score by Type O Negative
