Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Audio/Visual: silent film, b&w
Runtime: 82 mins
Source: Internet Archive
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Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (”A Symphony of Horrors” in German) is a German Expressionist film originally shot in 1922 by F.W. Murnau. He had wanted to film a version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but his studio was unable to obtain the rights to the story. Murnau decided to film his own version and made only slight changes to the story. The resultant movie has many similarities to Stoker’s original tale.
“Dracula” became “Nosferatu” and the names of the characters changed, with Count Dracula changed to Count Orlok. The role of the vampire was played by Max Schreck. Other major actors in the film were: Gustave Von Wagenheim, Greta Schroeder, Alexander Granach
Stoker’s estate sued for copyright infringement and won. The court ordered all existing prints of Nosferatu destroyed, but a number of copies of the film had already been distributed around the world. These prints were then copied over the years, resulting in Nosferatu gaining a reputation as one of the greatest movie depictions of the vampire legend.
This was the first, and last, film of the production company Prana-Film GmbH. With all prints and negatives ordered destroyed they declared bankruptcy rather than pay compensation to Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker’s widow.
With the influence of producer and production designer, Albin Grau, the film established one of two main lines of vampire depiction in movies. The “Nosferatu-type” is a living corpse with rodent features (especially elongated fingernails and incisors), is associated with rats and plague and can only be defeated by a virgin sacrifice; he is neither charming nor erotic but totally repugnant. The victims usually die and are not turned into vampires themselves.
The more common other line is the “Dracula-type” (established by Lugosi and perpetuated by Lee), a charming aristocrat adept at seduction and turning his victims into new vampires.
Parts of the film allegedly showing Transylvania were filmed in Slovakia, e.g. Nosferatu’s castle is the Orava castle in northern Slovakia.
Murnau’s Nosferatu is in the public domain, and copies of the movie are widely available on video — usually as poorly transferred, faded, scratched video copies that are often scorned by enthusiasts. However, pristine restored editions of the film have also been made available, and are also readily accessible to the public.
Contrary to popular opinion, the word “nosferatu” does not mean “vampire”, “undead”, or anything else like that. The term originally came from the old Slavonic word “nosufur-atu”, which itself was derived from the Greek “nosophoros”. “Nosophoros”, in the original Greek, stands for “plague carrier”. This derviation makes sense when one considers that amongst western European nations, vampires were regarded as the carriers of many diseases. — wikipedia
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Screenplay by Henrik Galeen, After the novel by Bram Stoker
Costume Design by Albin Grau
Produced by Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau
Art Direction by Albin GrauPrincipal Cast in order of appearance with their Nosferatu character names and the original Bram Stoker names.
Greta Schroeder …. Ellen Hutter (Mina Harker)
Gustav von Wangenheim …. Hutter (Jonathan Harker)
Alexander Granach …. Knock (Renfield)
Ruth Landshoff …. Lucy Westrenka
G.H. Schell …. Westrenka
Guido Herzfeld …. Innkeeper
Max Schreck …. Graf Orlok/Dracula
John Gottowt …. Professor Bulwer (Van Helsing)
Max Nemetz …. Captain
Wolfgang Heinz …. First mate
Karl Etlinger …. Sailor
Albert Venohr …. Sailor
Heinrich Witte …. Sailor
Hardy von Francois …. Doctor in Hospital
Gustav Botz …. Dr. Sievers, Town Doctor
Additional Reading: Six degrees of Nosferatu
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Pingback by Warrenellis.com » NOSFERATU Permanently Archived Online — put May 23, 2005 @ 9:28 pm
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Nosferatu Permanently Archived Online
The original 1922 film Nosferatu, the film that Bram Stoker’s estate almost succeeded in killing, has been digitised and placed online as a permanent fixture of the Internet Archive. Available as a stream or a download in various resolutions for vario…
Trackback by Opinions of the Wolf — put May 24, 2005 @ 3:08 pm
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Bone Check!!! This movie ROCKS!!! this movie freaks me the fuck out!
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[…] Murnau’s classic 1922 German film, Nosferatu is available for (legal) download or stream. Bram Stoker’s estate won a 1925 court case that resulted in most copies being destroyed. It remains however as the grandaddy of all Dracula films. […]
Pingback by Kelly Mullen’s site » Blog Archive » Nosferatu The Vampyre — put October 14, 2006 @ 7:42 pm
[…] capslockfonetik (capslockfonetik) wrote,@ 2005-05-24 15:07:00 Raided my housemates hard-drive last night. A goldmine of music, films, and videos. I’m currently listening to an absolutely mental and most likely completely immoral drum and bass version of the the Exorcist theme. Earlier I had a mix of Portishead and Massive Attacks “angel”. Fuck knows how he managed to find all this kind fo stuff, but it’s made for some very interesting listening today.I currently have about thirty or so recorded CD’s and DVD’s of things I’ve… acquired… over the year. The great thing about a shared student house is being able to afford a broadband connection, something I’ve neve had the benefit of before. I click on something I like and magically it gets reduced in size and transmitted through the ether into my computer, where it is enlarged and put on my screen. Recently I’ve discovered that a lot of classic films in the public domain are being released for direct download from archive.org, and all are released through a creative commons license. I have the original (and best) Night of the Living Dead and I just finished downloading twenties vampire flick Nosferatu. Last night I watched a crappy copy of Constantine over a couple of glasses of Baileys to unwind after a days revision… slowly keeping myself drunk after a brief session in the pub with a few mates who have just finished their finals. Digging for gold in the digital depths of my housemates hard drive gave me the eprfect accompliment to killing brain cells and not thinking about anything after intense studying of Renaissance Epic The Fairie Queene.The Fairie Queene. It’s a quest narrative, complete with damsels, dragons, a heroic but painfully stupid knight, and lots of christianity. Knight wants to stick his dick in some Queene as every knight should be allowed the priviledge of doing so put ends of sticking his sword in lots of monsters instead while getting distracted of evil version of that bit on the side he lets accompany him. Obviously to fulfill his spiritual quest to get his end off with the richest and most powerful of women he has to go on a quest and hit stuff and kill things to prove himself.Men off to the pub to drink themselves stupid and smash stuff so they can get nuts deep in woman.There’s a problem of course. Here’s our Knight, dressed in ancient armour, motivated by the fiery passion kindled in his heart by cupids creul dart to brutally fuck the most beautiful thing he can think of, going on a spiritual christian quest for the salvation of the land from the infernal fiend. All he wants is to get his willy wet, that’s his only motivation at the start of his quest, and he ends up having an epic 12 canto struggle with the deadly sins and everything evil that threatens Christinaity. At the end he gets married, but to the bit on the side he let follow him all along.And I have to do an exam on all of this tomorrow morning. Brilliant! It’s things like this that make me stop and think about how all too rarely University get’s it right and my degree actually seems like fun.Quest narratives. Thee’s something interesting about quest narratives, about epic allegorical stories about men looking to stick their sword or lance into something preferably feminine.The other day I signed up to Warren Ellis’ (professional and internationally acclaimed comic book writer spitting at the internet every day from somewhere small and obscure in Southend) Bad Signal mailing list, and got my first email today about Doctor Who and the “traveller” form of serious fiction. Using the figure of the aimless traveller to generate and tell stories. Christopher Eccleston, wearing that dirty old leather jacket and grinning wildly to himself, lures council estate sex pot Billi Piper, with all the wiles of the dirty old man down the street watching little boys walk to school every morning, into his big blue box and shows her his intergalactic porn before more or less abducting her for a year.This got me thinking about quest narratives, and the how unusual and problematic I find the Faerie Queene, considering it’s supposed to be a Christian Allegory that Spenser wrote purely as a piece of sovereign ass kissing to get himself into Queen Elizabeths court. With Quest narratives you get a single figure and build lots of stories and adventures around that fgure, only this time you’re figure has got a motivation, an ultimate goal he’s questing for, or apparenty questing for.Knights kill things that look funny so they can get laid or get favour from a feminine authority figure, whether that be a Goddess or a Queen or a sado-masochistic deranged politician. Simple, all you have to do is fill in the gaps.I’ve been joking to my housemates for somtime nkow that a goal of mine is to write crap for TV, say Sky One or even better the Sci-Fi Channel. Maybe start with one of shorts where I can get away with writing all kinds of silly bollocks without really thinking about it, stuff like the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone. All I need is a few Philip K Dick books and a basic knowledge of pop psychology and the latest science news. But wouldn’t iot be grat to write a proper epic? Something like Star Trek only with the same kind of complex grand overall narrative that Farscape had. Knights killing things in space to impress the galactic dominatrix/empress overlord of all.Sorry for all this rambling, I’ve been killing my brain with too much stimulent fuelled cramming and then dive bombing in the evenings with alcohol (or in the case of the weekend, paracetamol to kill my cold).(Post a new comment) rosamicula 2005-05-25 12:02 am UTC (link) I enjoyed reading that. Too knackered to comment intelligently, though.(Reply to this) […]
Pingback by capslockfonetik: Raided my housemates hard-drive last nig — put December 28, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
[…] Garadonna (garadonna) wrote,@ 2005-06-21 22:10:00 i vant to suck ur blood well today was kinda alright. school was decent and then i came home and just a minute ago i finished watching a movie that is free on the internet. its called Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. for those of u’s that havent heard of it , it is the very forst vampire film ever made . it was made in 1922 and is a black and white silent film that was made in germany . so only i would be interested in it then eh. it was bloody brill. very very creepy and shows these modern horror flims how to do it prop. i the dracula isnt even the sterotype one either. its bald and has huge eyes and huge claws. the storyline is also very diffrent as well. for those of u’s that are interested which u prob wont be the website is http://greylodge.org/gpc/?p=80 again anither classic […]
Pingback by garadonna: i vant to suck ur blood — put April 22, 2007 @ 5:34 pm
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