Last week, the German Department held a screening of the 1922 film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” in celebration of the Halloween season. As a lover of vampires and silent films, especially German expressionism, I felt that this was a perfect opportunity to talk about the interesting history of F.W. Murnau’s unauthorized “Dracula” adaptation: “Nosferatu.”
To start off, the title of this article is a little misleading because there was a vampire and a “Dracula” adaptation that came first — “Drakula halála,” a now-lost 1921 Hungarian film directed by Károly Lajthay. There is not much information known surrounding “Drakula halála,” and we only have four stills from the movie. All this is a long way of saying that “Nosferatu” is the first surviving vampire film and “Dracula” adaptation. It is a film that we are very fortunate to still have the entirety of, considering that all copies of it were ordered to be destroyed.
Yep, Murnau’s masterpiece of horror was almost lost forever. That is because the film is a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” Murnau changed the names of the main characters and heavily simplified the plot, but as someone who loves Stoker’s novel, the parallels are very distinct. Guy goes to a creepy foreign count’s castle, realizes that he is a vampire planning on invading his home country, the vampire teams up with an inmate at an asylum, guy’s wife is targeted by the vampire, and so on. Because of the astounding similarities to the novel, Stoker’s widow, Florence, sued and the court ordered all copies to be destroyed. Thankfully, copies of the film survived, and “Nosferatu” went down in history as a masterpiece of horror.
While this film is incredible and definitely worth a watch, it is important to remember that it is a horror film from 1922. “Nosferatu” (as well as “Dracula”) has the underlying theme of the fear of “the other,” in this case Eastern Europeans. Count Orlok (Max Schreck) is a walking antisemitic caricature who comes to Germany from Transylvania to feed on the people there. The string of deaths is blamed on a plague caused by the rats from the ship Orlok came in on. While it is not outright stated that Orlok and his vampire plague are a metaphor for something, it is not hard to find the xenophobia.
If anyone is planning on watching a silent film but does not know where to start, I think “Nosferatu” is a good first choice. Schreck’s performance as Orlok is really fun, and he does a really good job at making him seem like an inhuman monster. Another perk is what watching the film feels like to a modern viewer. Because the film is so old, there is hardly any behind-the-scenes imagery and many of the actors involved are not well-known. There is a disconnect. There is little evidence to the modern viewer that the film was made except for the film itself.
Therefore, to the modern viewer, there are times where it feels like the film is more of a glimpse into the past than a film. I feel that way whenever I watch a silent film, but for some reason I feel it the most with “Nosferatu.”
“Nosferatu” has gone down in history as the world’s first vampire film as well as the first adaptation of “Dracula.” Count Orlok has since become a staple in pop culture; one notable example is his appearance in the “SpongeBob SquarePants” episode “Graveyard Shift.” The original film has also inspired filmmakers for decades. In 1979, Werner Herzog directed the film “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” which was a remake of the original film. In 2000, E. Elias Merhige directed the film “Shadow of the Vampire,” which is a fictionalized retelling of the making of the original. Finally, iconic horror director Robert Eggers’ remake is coming out this Christmas, and I cannot wait!