Nosferatu. Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu. A Symphony of Horror) directed by German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau in 1922 is not only regarded as one of the most intriguing and disquieting films to have been produced during the years of Weimar cinema but can also be considered as a key step in establishing the vampire as a cinematic figure and in shaping its connection with our subconscious fears and desires. Appearing before and still to this day clearly contrasting later well-known cinematic figures – such as the black-clad Count Dracula interpreted by Bela Lugosi in Tod Browning’s adaptation of 1931, Gary Oldman’s love-torn hero of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 rendition of Bram Stoker’s novel, the Swedish child-vampire of Let the Right One In (2008) and the romantic Edward Cullen of the Twilight trilogy – Count Orlok can be considered the Ur-Vampire, the father of all undead creatures lurking in the darkest recesses of a cinema screen.
An enigmatic work, with a complex and elusive history, Nosferatu is highly ambiguous, full of allusions and echoes that still resonate more than ninety years after its completion and release. As pointed out by Thomas Elsaesser,
Nosferatu […] convey[s] the sense of a narrative at once simple, because of folk-legend, fairy-tale ‘inevitability’, and mysterious, because the overall meaning and shape remain inaccessible to linear cause-effect logic.
1
A compelling example of poetic cinema progressing through secret affinities and correspondences rather than a prosaic story of horrific events and adventure, its chilling advancement towards a tragic climax is built along the lines of what can now be seen as a classic vampire story made familiar to audiences through an infinite number of books, adaptations and films. However, when it was released in 1922, Nosferatu was an absolute novelty not simply as a horror film but also in terms of Expressionist – and more generally cinematographic – aesthetics and narrative. As we shall see in the relevant section of this book, its very connection with Expressionist cinema has been widely contested and discussed not simply because Weimar cinema is too diversified and contradictory to fit neatly under one umbrella term but also because Nosferatu presents a series of features and motives that seem to arch back all the way to German Romanticism. Furthermore, its inextricable connection with the visual arts – that range from Caspar David Friedrich to Alfred Böcklin, from Giorgio De Chirico to Carl Spitzweg and numerous others – makes it a multifaceted and complex canvas and I believe it is this underlying complexity the ultimate reason of its enduring allure. As effectively pointed out by Tom Gunning in an article published in 2007,
Nosferatu explored the play between the visible and the invisible, reflections and shadow, on- and off-screen space that cinema made possible, forging a technological image of the uncanny. One senses throughout
Nosferatu this excitement of innovation, of redefining a medium by testing and transforming its relation to its own history and to other media (the strong use Murnau makes of painting, literary texts, scientific discourse, and even musical rhythms).
2
Furthermore, as the first or at least the earliest surviving attempt at adapting Bram Stoker’s
Dracula (1897) for the screen, if we exclude an earlier Hungarian film that is now completely lost,
3 Nosferatu established a series of conventions that would shape cinema audiences’ expectations and relationship to cinematic vampires for decades to come.
My personal fascination with Nosferatu goes back a long way and I can still remember vividly the sense of unease and fear that a late-night showing on Italian television instilled in me when I was a high-school student. Over the years the lurking shadow of Count Orlok has spread from my personal to my working life and I now regularly teach Nosferatu to my film adaptation students in the School of European languages, Culture and Society of University College London. The enthusiasm and reaction the film invariably triggers in the class never ceases to amaze me. Keeping this in mind, in the following text I will attempt to unravel the never-ending and quite literally undying fascination exercised by the film over generations of viewers and filmmakers whilst at the same time providing the reader with a clear and easy-to-follow guide about the film’s contexts, cinematography, and possible interpretations. My hope is that this little contribution to the vast scholarship devoted to Murnau and his film will give to students and enthusiastic cinemagoers another reason to discover or further explore this work.