Nosferatu

In 1838, in the fictional German town of Wisburg, Thomas Hutter is sent to Transylvania by his employer, the eccentric estate agent Herr Knock, to visit a new client, Count Orlok, who is planning to buy a derelict house across from Hutter's own residence. As Hutter studies the route on a map, Knock secretly studies a mysterious correspondence in cabalistic symbols. While embarking on his journey, Hutter stops at an inn in which the locals are terrified by the mere mention of Orlok's name. In his room, he finds a book about vampires, which he initially scoffs at but puts in his baggage. After his carriage refuses to take him further than the entrance to the mountain pass, Hutter travels on foot until after sunset, when he is met on the road by a coach and rides to Orlok's castle in the Carpathian Mountains, where he is welcomed by Orlok himself. While Hutter is eating supper, he accidentally cuts his thumb; Orlok tries to suck the blood out, but his repulsed guest pulls his hand away. Hutter wakes up the next morning 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". as Count Orlok in Nosferatu (1922) Reading the book that he took from the inn, Hutter begins to suspect that Orlok is indeed a vampire. With no way to bar the door to 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 bedcovers and falls unconscious. Meanwhile, back in Wisburg, Ellen arises from her own bed and sleepwalks to the railing of her bedroom's balcony. She starts walking on top of the railing, which gets the attention of Thomas's friend Harding in the adjacent room. When the doctor arrives, Ellen envisions Orlok in his castle threatening her unconscious husband and shouts Hutter's name, which somehow Orlok is able to hear, causing him to withdraw. On the next day, Hutter explores the castle. In a vault, he finds the coffin in which Orlok is resting dormant in the crypt and flees back to his room. Hours later, as Hutter watches, Orlok piles up coffins on a coach and climbs into the last one before the coach departs. Hutter manages to escape from the castle, injuring himself in the process, and after a period of recovery, he rushes home. Orlok's coffins are taken aboard a schooner, which the sailors open only to discover rats. All of the crewmen later die, and Orlok takes control of the vessel. Not long after Hutter returns home, the ship arrives in Wisburg; Orlok leaves unobserved, carrying one of his coffins, and moves into the house that he had purchased. Many deaths in the town follow Orlok's arrival, which the local doctors attribute to an unspecified plague caused by the rats from the ship. Knock, who has gone completely insane, is confined to a mental asylum, but escapes after strangling one of the wardens. Against Hutter's wishes, Ellen reads the book that he found on his journey; it claims that a vampire can be destroyed if a pure-hearted woman distracts the vampire from the approaching dawn with her beauty and by offering him her blood of her own free will; Ellen decides to sacrifice herself to stop Orlok. Knock, whom the villagers blame for the plague, is eventually recaptured and returned to the asylum. Ellen 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 and its rays cause Orlok to vanish in a puff of smoke. Knock, in his asylum cell, senses this and is shattered. Ellen lives just long enough to be embraced by her grief-stricken husband. The film's final image is that of Orlok's castle, destroyed. ==Cast==

in a promotional still for the film • Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a Transylvanian noble and vampire. In the public domain version, he is referred to as Count Dracula. • Gustav von Wangenheim as Thomas Hutter, a young estate agent. In the public domain version, he is referred to as Jonathon Harker. • Greta Schröder as Ellen, Hutter's wife. In the public domain version, she is referred to as Nina. • Georg H. Schnell as Harding, a wealthy shipowner and Hutter's friend. In the public domain version, he is referred to as Westenra. • Ruth Landshoff as Ruth, Harding's sister. In the public domain version, she is referred to as Lucy and said to be his wife. • Gustav Botz as Professor Sievers, Wisburg's doctor. In the public domain version, he is referred to as the town doctor. • Alexander Granach as Knock, an estate broker and Hutter's employer. In the public domain version, he is referred to as Renfield. • John Gottowt as Professor Bulwer, a physician. In the public domain version, he is referred to as Dr. Van Helsing. • Max Nemetz as the Empusa captain. In the public domain version, he is referred to as the captain of the Demeter. • Wolfgang Heinz as the Empusa first mate • as the Empusa sailor Making uncredited appearances are Karl Etlinger as one of Bulwer's students, as a doctor at a mental hospital, Guido Herzfeld as an innkeeper, and Fanny Schreck as a hospital nurse. ==Themes==

The Other Nosferatu has been noted for its themes regarding fear of the Other, as well as for possible antisemitic undertones, 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. His features have also been compared to those of a rat or a mouse, the former of which Jews were often equated with. Orlok's interest in acquiring property in the German town of Wisburg, 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. Professor Tony Magistrale wrote 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". This plot element further associates Orlok with rodents and the idea of the "Jew as disease-causing agent". 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. 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". Orlok and his servant Knock are communicating in occult language – the documents between Orlok and Knock are written in Enochian, a constructed language said to be that of the angels, which was recorded in the private journals of English occultist John Dee and his colleague English alchemist Edward Kelley in late 16th-century Elizabethan England. The character of Professor Bulwer in the film is named in reference to English occult novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton. World War I 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 World War I 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 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 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, oftentimes 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. 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 Nosferatus 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. ==Production==

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, 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. As a lifelong student of the occult and member of , 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 and he also designed the film's sets, costumes, make-up and the letter with the Enochian symbols. He also was responsible for film's advertising campaign, creating movie posters and advertisements. 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 (1907). . (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 Wisburg. He changed the characters' names and added the idea of the vampire bringing the plague to Wisburg 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 "" ("full of poetry, full of rhythm"). served as the set for Orlok's manor in Wisburg. Actor Conrad Veidt was offered the role of Count Orlok, having previously worked with Murnau, but had to decline for scheduling reasons. In the search for an alternative the choice finally fell on the then-still-unknown actor Max Schreck. Filming began in July 1921, with exterior shots in Wismar. A take from 's tower over Wismar marketplace with the served as the establishing shot for the Wisburg scene. Other locations were the , the yard and the harbour. In Lübeck, the abandoned served as Nosferatu's new Wisburg manor, the churchyard of the served as Hutter's, and down the 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 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 . The team filmed interior shots at the JOFA studio in Berlin's Johannisthal locality and further exteriors in the Tegel Forest. The director followed Galeen's screenplay carefully, following handwritten instructions on camera positioning, lighting, and related matters. 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. The films traveled to English speaking countries and film production companies who received the original German or translations of translations would have to splice in their own English intertitles. Decades later, there were multiple restoration projects to save the degrading footage. The accumulating intertitle language difficulties are summarized by Brent Reid of silent film website Brenton Film: The MoMA 1981 restoration used a good condition B&W French print. The French intertitles were the source of the diary author's name Johann Carvallius or Cavallius and also the changing of character names from the original German film to the Bram Stoker Dracula book character names. ==Music==

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. 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. A new score for full orchestra and piano was commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra from its former composer-in-residence Sebastian Chang. It premiered, playing live with the film, in October 2023. ==Release==

. (1900 postcard)Shortly before the premiere, an advertisement campaign was placed in issue #21 of the magazine '', with a summary, scene and work photographs, production reports, and essays, including a treatment on vampirism by Albin Grau. Nosferatu opened in the Netherlands on 16 February 1922 at the Hague Flora and Olympia cinemas. 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 '' (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 . 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. The name of director F. W. Murnau is no longer mentioned in the credits. This version, lasting approximately 80 minutes, was presented on 5 June 1981 at the Cinémathèque Française. ==Reception==

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 movie receiving positive reviews. With these laudatory votes, however, there was also occasional criticism, with the Filmkurier of 6 March 1922 saying 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." In the Vossische Zeitung of 7 March 1922, Nosferatu was praised for its visual style. 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 mortally susceptible. The film has continued to receive overwhelmingly positive reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 9.05/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "One of the silent era's most influential masterpieces, Nosferatus eerie, gothic feel – and a chilling performance from Max Schreck as the vampire – set the template for the horror films that followed." In 1995, the Vatican included Nosferatu on a list of 45 important films that people should watch. It was ranked twenty-first in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. In 1997, critic Roger Ebert added Nosferatu to his list of The Great Movies, writing: ==Home media and copyright status==

version of the film 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 in 2019. Despite this, the film had already been subject to widespread circulation via a sped-up, unrestored black and white bootleg copy. ==Remakes==

In 1977, Spanish amateur filmmaker José Ernesto Díaz Noriega added humorous and iconoclastic dialogues to the film. His adaptation or détournement, titled Manuscrito encontrato en Zarazwela or Nos fera tu la pugnete, was based on a S8 mm print of the English version. "Observing the curious coincidence of the fiction that is related in the film with history", Díaz Noriega adapted Nosferatus plot to the years of the Spanish transition to democracy: Prime Minister Arias Navarro becomes Draculas Navarro and Juan Carlos de Borbón becomes Jonathan Carolus (prince of Franconia). The original Transylvania becomes Galitzia and the Pazo de Meirás becomes the vampire's castle. All Murnau's characters find equivalence in the political actors of the Spanish transition to democracy. Nosferatu the Vampyre, a 1979 remake of the film was directed and written by Werner Herzog and starred Klaus Kinski. Although based on the 1922 film, the characters' names are taken from the Bram Stoker novel. A remake by director David Lee Fisher, starring Doug Jones as Count Orlok, premiered in November 2023 at the Emagine Theater in Novi, Michigan. The film uses 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). In July 2015, a remake was announced with Robert Eggers writing and directing. 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. Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, and Emma Corrin also appear. The film wrapped principal photography on 19 May 2023. The film's first teaser trailer was released on 24 June 2024, and the film itself later released on 25 December 2024. ==See also==