Maite Garcia: Nosferatu, a film by Murnau

Photography revolutionized the world of art owing to its characteristics: veracity, instantaneous results, etc. This amazing medium promoted the emergence of the cinema, whose essential base is the image in movement. Cinema has become a kind of art which is so typical at present. 

I declare myself as a cinema lover. Not only do I like a good script or moving performances but also I am very interested in the esthetic resources the cinema uses to tell us a story (its shots, frames or camera movements). So for that reason, I wish to talk about Nosferatu, a silent film directed by German filmmaker F. Murnau in the 1920s which I saw this weekend and really surprised me. Despite the fact that the movie is so old, it established a lot of keys in relation to horror movies. 

It is not the first film in which a vampire appears. However, it was the first one to be inspired by “Dracula”, whose author is Bram Stoker. In spite of changing the names of both the main characters and places, the story was suspiciously similar to Stoker's novel; that's why the widow's writer won a lawsuit to destroy all the copies. Fortunately, the destruction was not complete and nowadays we can still enjoy this masterpiece. 

Though Nosferatu belongs to German expressionism, this film introduces a few changes in this movement. Pictorial scenographies (which we could also see in “The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari”) were abandoned so as to use scenes shot oudoors to evoke reality. Nowadays, horror films (“The Blair witch project”, “Rec”, “Paranormal activity”) use that resource to achieve more effectiveness. At an esthetic level, the carriage's scene must be mentioned, shot at a fast pace as a photo negative in order to announce that something terrible is going to happen. In fact, Stanley Kubrick included a similar sequence in “The clockwork orange” (Kubrick used a Durango 95 car instead of a carriage). It is important to analyze the illumination, because if someone is savage like Nosferatu, the light will be rough and dark. In contrast, victims and innocent people will appear against a soft light. Moreover, the shadows suggest the presence of the vampire, and also his death when they are destroyed. The use of a low angle is also remarkable in order to emphasize Nosferatu as the most evil paradigm.

Issues like the conflict between good and evil, and love as the only salvation are constants in this film. A great deal of the critics believe that these values are used in a metaphoric sense to reflect the fear Europe felt about the Nazi threat. We can relate this feeling to a dramatic scene where we can see a huge outburst of rats jumping off a ship to spread diseases. In this way, rats “prepare” the reign of Nosferatu. The vampire represents the darkest part of human heart as well; in fact, that reason leads him to his own destruction, when he stays / is staying with Ellen (his victim) and the sun is rising. This feeling has nothing to do with the desire associated with love, which is the main difference between Nosferatu and subsequent works by Tod Browning (“The mark of the vampire”) and F. F. Coppola (“Bram Stoker’s Dracula”). 

This movie is a great example of a horror tale but maybe it is also a journey into our evil, dark side personified by Nosferatu, the vampire. This monstrosity represents an interruption of the concept of “sublime”, which is defined as the observation of fear from a safety position, from a distance that allows our enjoyment. I believe Murnau breaks the distance and limits in quite an innovative, suggestive way so that his resources or techniques remain in modern films.

Thanks Maite, well done! I admit I have vague memories of Nosferatu, which I must have seen years ago. Perhaps I should have a go at it again after reading your post! In any case, I've found this clip of the film, actually the very beginning of it, so that your classmates get a taste of what this old movie looks like.