A Symphony of Horror

It's shocking how much things have changed since 100 years ago. Nosferatu is a 1922 horror film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula that was entirely unofficial and unauthorized. Even Asylum's mockbusters (Transmorphers, Atlantic Rim etc...) don't have the guts to use identical plot and characters to their "inspirations". Aside from the usual adaptation changes of shortening and simplifying the original work the only things F.W. Murnau changed from the book original were the names and locales, and even then not very much.
Johnathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, Mina Harker became Ellen Hutter, Count Dracula became Count Orlok and so on. Of course this adaptation, as it really is an adaptation, is also set in the fictional German city of Wisborg. But detailing the changes between the book and the novel would be pointless, and I'm not very well equipped to comment as I have yet to read the book. Instead I'd like to comment on this film's place in history.

At 94 minutes its the approximate length of what we now consider a feature film, and has the strong focus on narrative modern audiences expect in cinema. By this film's release in 1922 films had settled into length that we expect in films to this day, and had also taken on the narrative standards we expect today. Nosferatu itself is a fairly good example of why this happened. As many early narrative films adapted works from the stage, and the page. Also notable is the film's "color". By this point it had also become commonplace to tint the film various colors to provide some atmospheric information. In the print I saw: Nosferatu does this to delineate day and night (with yellow and blue tinting respectively), vampire lore being well known by this point its obvious as to why this is emphasized. This technique exists, to some extent, even in modern cinema. Sure we don't shoot on film anymore and chemically tint it to communicate an atmosphere, but rather through lighting, color grading, and even set and costume design modern cinema can communicate tone, time of day, period, and famously whether or not we live in a simulation.

Nosferatu and, it's director, are also famously associated with one of my favorite film movements; Certainly my favorite of it's era. German expressionism in film refers to a highly stylized and symbolic movement in German cinema. It's characterized by stark, high contrast, lighting, sets constructed at absurd, non-realistic, angles, and plots that deal with instability and distortion both within the mind and in the world experienced. Nosferatu reflects these themes, not in highly stylized sets (though the high contrast lighting is present) but rather in it's narrative. It seems that Orlok's power over the individuals of the movie is linked to their knowledge of Nosferatu (the movie's term for vampires) as both Thomas Hutter and Ellen Hutter are exposed to such knowledge by an occult text. However this is made ambiguous by Knock, an estate agent, who's mind is distorted and subjugated by Orlok only by his presence. German expressionism was highly influential to this day. It practically birthed the Film Noir and Horror genres, and basically Tim Burton and Alfred Hitchcock's entire filmographies.

It should be no surprise that I recommend giving Nosferatu a watch. While it's pacing is more similar to a stage production as opposed to a modern film, and of course silent films will always alienate modern audiences who aren't used to interpreting raw action without dialogue even with the occasional help of intertitles. However given the influence of Nosferatu and similar films modern audiences may not feel as alienated as they might initially expect given that the film is nearly 100 years old. It uses many techniques and conventions we use in films to this day and to great effect.