Film has produced many iconic images, which sometimes becomes much bigger than the movie itself and become part of our collective memory. Images which everyone will know, but where not everyone will be able to tell the name of the movie. Just think of the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe holding down her dress above a subway vent. Everyone will know that picture, but from which movie is it? It is a bit of a trick question as the pose itself isn’t actually in the movie, but how many will know it is from The Seven Year Itch? The image of Nosferatu which is from this film can also be called iconic and it was a film I had never seen.
Even though Nosferatu is a very old movie, it doesn’t mean it has become irrelevant If you search for top 100 horror movie lists you are sure to find this title (at Rotten Tomatoes you can even find it in spot 2). It tells the story of Bram Stoker’s count Dracula, but because the studio couldn’t get the rights to the book it decided to make a couple of changes. Vampire became Nosferatu count Dracula was named count Orlok. Stoker’s family went to court though and they won (which was the end of the Prana movie studio, which only produced this film) and all copies of the movie had to be destroyed. Fortunately the movie had already been distributed internationally, else we wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anymore. The thing which stands out when watching a good copy of this (and as this movie is public domain in America you can watch a HD version on Youtube) is how timeless this film is. Of course there are moments when you can clearly see that the medium of film hadn’t fully developed yet, but director F. W. Murnau uses various techniques to create a dark, supernatural atmosphere.
As I’m not a horror fan I really didn’t know the Dracula story very well, but according to Wikipedia the story is about the same as Stoker’s. Max Schreck portrays Orlok as a haunting and cold vampire. Thanks to his posture and makeup you get the feeling you are looking at something which has been alive for centuries, making him look almost inhuman. It is also the version of Dracula you see in a movie like What We Do in the Shadows. The movie never is really scary, but does succeed in portraying the fear the character has on others. It is a film which the real filmfan should have seen at least once and is an important part of history.
I love this movie. Also, it was very advanced for its time. The way the did the scene in the old country with the stagecoach is still very impressive. It is also an amazingly faithful adaptation of the book.
Glad you liked it.
Yeah, that looked really good. Nice atmosphere…