I find myself wondering the exact time
at which silent film became a complete cultural non-entity. Surely,
for a time after their demise, people still recalled specific silent
films. However, it seems that today, there are only five silent
films considered important enough for even your average film buff to
know: The Birth of a Nation (known mainly for making the KKK
the good guys), The Phantom of the Opera, The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari, London After Midnight (known mainly for
being the holy grail of lost films), and Nosferatu.
It’s fairly well known that Nosferatu
was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Dracula.
Stoker’s widow refused permission, so the director simply changed
the names of the characters and relocated it from England to Germany.
The widow sued and all copies of the film were ordered destroyed.
But thankfully, the US didn’t recognize foreign copyright claims at
that point, so a few copies that had been sent to the States
survived.
Dealing with the substance of the
movie, I find myself comparing the film to The Black Cat; a
talkie that came out twelve years later. In my review of that film,
I noted that it felt very much like a stage play that had been
filmed, made in an age when the capacities of the camera were not yet
fully understood or appreciated. The results were a level of
subtlety not really appropriate to filmed media.
In contrast to this, though, Nosferatu
seems to go in the opposite direction, leaving the notion of a stage
play far behind it. Instead, everything seems physically exaggerated
to compensate for the actor’s inability to express emotion
verbally. Facial expressions are over-the-top, characters are
dressed to appear as caricatures, and Count Orlok (Max Schreck) is a
monster who can barely pass as human.
The thing I find striking about the
film is that it inverts the usual plot-structure of Dracula
adaptations. While we still follow the basic premise that the good
Count wants to buy a house in a far-off land, does so, and then goes
to that distant land to seek fresh blood, the majority of the film is
used to build-up to his arrival. For this reason, we get a great
deal of time spent on Orlok’s relationship with Thomas Hutter
(Gustav von Wangenheim), this movie’s version of Jonathan Harker,
who came to sell him the house.
There’s a very strong implication of
homo-eroticism coming from Orlok. While he’s eventually defeated
by Hutter’s wife sacrificing herself to keep him distracted as the
sun rises, this is literally a deus ex machina the director came up
with because he didn’t have a better way to kill Orlok. (It’s
also the origin of vampires being harmed by sunlight). For much of
the film, his goal seems to be to prey on, or even seduce Hutter
himself. You could even interpret his decision to attack Hutter’s
wife as another form of attack on Hutter.
Orlok himself is one of the most
original vampires I’ve seen, most likely because he came about
before their image in popular culture had been established. It’s
not uncommon for vampires in modern films to copy his white skin and
bald head, but never his rat-teeth. The association with rats was
Orlok’s, and Orlok’s alone.
This movie is definitely worth a watch
for anyone who’s interested in the history of film, although many
of the truly frightening scenes you’ve probably seen as stock
footage and homages throughout the years. Still, check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment