02/04/2023
F.W MURNAU'S 1922 ‘NOSFERATU’.
Watching ‘Nosferatu’ made me a little sad, because the film is just too old and creaky to be scary now. An incredible 101 years old, to be exact.
The film stock has suffered a lot; sometimes it’s sepia, sometimes blue-tinged, sometimes pink-tinged. The colour changes are jolting.
So are the dialogue cards that appear after anyone speaks, stay on screen too long, and really hamper the momentum. Because of this dialogue card problem, dialogue is kept to a minimum, which cripples character development.
Also jolting to a modern sensibility is the acting. Because it’s a silent film, the acting, as in so many silent films, often comes across as overdone. When someone laughs, they laugh in an over-the-top way for 7 seconds, etc.
The star of the show is certainly Max Schreck’s Count Orlok (because they were illegally ripping off Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, they had to rename the Count). Incidentally, ‘Schreck’ is ‘Fright’ in German.
Schreck is so damn weird-looking. So still, so thin, with huge bony hands, massive, pointed ears, sharp thin, needle-like teeth, eyes very close together, a huge hook nose, etc. An iconic-looking rat/human hybrid bad guy.
He’s fascinating to look at, but he has no script to speak of, so, like I said, character development does not exist.
But you can see why they made a recent movie (with Willem Defoe) in which they created the (fictional) back story that actor Max Schreck himself was a vampire.
There are slightly creepy moments, like when Hatter (Jonathan Harker in the ‘Dracula’ novel) sees count Orlok’s face looking up from a coffin, and when Orlok sits bolt upright in all his creepery. That moment has been called Horror’s first ‘jump scare’.
But, for me anyway, there’s no terror, now. Then, yes, just 50 years after Charles Dickens died, watching the film must have been a very frightening experience. Now, no.
If I’m honest, I also didn’t find Murnau’s direction to be outstanding. Because of his reputation, I was expecting more. The direction is functional but that’s about it. Then I reminded myself that the stuff Directors can do now with ease was simply not possible then.
It’s annoying that they end the film before the truly devastating scene in the novel in which the scientist Van Helsing directs Jonathan Harker to put a stake through the heart of his beloved fiancée Lucy, because she’s become a vampire and must die to have her soul saved.
Finally - and my daughter pointed this out straight away – there’s an absurd logic fail in the film. Orlok/Dracula dies in a deflating, unsatisfying way when he combusts in daylight, having stayed a bit too long feasting on Ellen’s neck (Lucy in the novel).
But earlier in the film, we see Orlok in broad daylight on the deck of the boat taking him to England, suffering no ill effects at all!!
D’oh.
6 out of 10 (for Max Schreck, and what the film once represented).
Incidentally, as you can see, I once played Dracula's assistant Renfield in a play...
