Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens

Plot synopsis:
The story is narrated from the diary of Johann Cavallius, historian of the city of Bremen, who is wondering if it was the Nosferatu who brought the plague to Bremen in 1838.Newlyweds Hutter [Gustav von Wangenheim] and Ellen [Greta Schroeder] are saddened when Hutter is sent to Transylvania by Hutter's employer Knock [Alexander Grannach] to arrange for Count Orlok's [Max Schreck] purchase of a house across the street from the Hutters' house in Bremen. Hutter travels to Transylvania where he stays with the Count, is bitten by the Count, and eventually escapes from the castle but not before seeing the Count depart on a cart loaded with coffins. While Hutter recuperates in a hospital after succeeding in his escape, the Count moves into the house across from the Hutters'. The rise in deaths is accredited to a plague thought to have arrived with the Demeter. The "Book of the Vampires" tells Ellen what she must do to end the vampire.The Count meets his doom when Ellen manages to keep him until after cock crow. Best scene is the vampire rising from Ellen's neck after realizing the cock has crowed. As the sun slowly advances on the houses across the street (visible from the window), the Nosferatu attempts to escape. In doing so, he passes the window and is trapped by the sunlight. He 'vaporizes' into a puff of fire on the carpet. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]1922 Version
The film presents itself as a chronicle of the Great Death of Wisborg. It begins with a man named Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) picking flowers for his wife Ellen (Greta Schroeder) She remarks why have you killed them the beautiful flowers? Hutter hugs his wife, laughing at her reaction. He soon leaves for work, when a passerby tells him Do not hurry, my young friend! Nobody can escape destiny. An inter-title card reveals that Hutters employer is man named Knock (Alexander Granach). He has many rumors surrounding him, the only thing known for certain is that he pays well. Knock is reading in his office a letter covered in strange writing. He calls Hutter into his office and informs him that Count Orlok (Max Schreck) of Transylvania is looking to purchase a house in their small town. He tells Hutter he could make a lot of money though it might require a bit of effort perhaps a bit of blood. Hutter examines a map of Europe while he considers the proposition and Knock takes another look at the letter from the Count. After a moment a thought occurs to Knock, he suggests Hutter sell Orlok the nice deserted house opposite Hutters own home. Knock tells him to travel quickly to the country of ghosts. Both men laugh as the scene fades to black.Hutter rushes home to inform his wife of the exciting news. Ellen is disappointed her husband is leaving, but he is anxious to begin his journey. He packs a few belongings, leaving his wife with friends of the family, a rich shipowner named Harding (Georg H. Schnell) and his sister (Ruth Landshoff). Hutter kisses his wife to reassure her, then leaves for Transylvania. A title card tells us that Hutter travels many dusty roads to the Karpathen mountains. He arrives at a tavern, still excited by his trip. He yells out for dinner before he continues on to Count Orloks castle. Upon hearing this, the crowd in the tavern react with shock and fear. They tell him he cant continue due to the werewolf stalking the forests at night. A wolf like creature scares many horses into bolting into the wilderness, so Hutter stays the night at the inn. After being led to his room, Hutter closes the window and gets ready for bed when he notices a book on his nightstand. It is titled Of Vampires, Terrible Ghosts, Magic, and The Seven Deadly Sins. He reads a section on Nosferatu, terrible creatures that live in caves filled with soil from the fields of Black Death. Thinking nothing of it, Hutter goes to sleep. The next morning Hutter wakes as shepherds are returning horses to their corrals. He again notices the book, but still thinks nothing of it and soon continues his journey.After traveling all day by carriage Hutter is yelling to the driver to hurry before the sun sets. The driver pulls over, telling Hutter he refuses to go any further, no matter Hutter offers to pay him. Undisturbed by the drivers cowardice, Hutter takes his gear and continues on foot. He crosses a small wooden bridge and comes to a deserted road. A moment later a carriage arrives with a sinister looking driver. The driver says nothing, but motions for Hutter to get in. After a cautious moment, Hutter gets in, and the carriage goes back the way it came. They soon arrive at a ruined castle, and the driver motions for Hutter to go inside. Hutter walks toward the castle when the door appears to open by itself. With a bit of apprehension, Hutter enters the castle. He is met by the same sinister figure, now revealed to be Count Orlok. Orlok informs him that he has waited too long, and all the servants have already gone to bed, so he leads Hutter inside himself.A moment later the two men are sitting at a table. Hutter is eating as Orlok studies papers concerning his new real estate. Hutter is watching Orlok so intently that he accidentally cuts his thumb while slicing bread, drawing blood. Orlok reacts immediately, saying the precious blood. Hutter begins to back away in fear, when Orlok proposes the two spend some time together talking, as it is several hours until dawn and Orlok must sleep during the day. Hutter awakens the next morning to find the castle empty but a meal waiting for him. He takes a mirror out of his pocket and examines his neck where he can see two small marks. After breakfast he examines the castle grounds, stopping to write a letter to his wife Ellen. He tells her not to be mad that her love is away, and attributes the marks on his neck to mosquitoes. He flags down a passerby to deliver his letter.That night Hutter is again sitting with Count Orlok. The Count is going over paperwork when he notices portrait of Hutters wife, which instantly catches his attention. He holds the picture remarking she has such a beautiful neck. He then informs Hutter that he will buy the beautiful deserted house opposite his own. Later Hutter is in his room where he is reading more from his book. He reads an article concerning how the Nosferatu hunt and a warning not let their shadow burden your sleep. His bedroom door opens by itself to reveal Orlok who menacingly enters the room. As he does so Ellen begins sleepwalking back in their hometown. She wanders out onto her balcony where she almost falls off. When Orlok finally leaves Hutter, the door again moving on its own behind him, Ellen falls back to sleep.The next morning Hutter decides to investigate the horrors of the castle. He finds a coffin in the basement, and further investigation reveals Orlok sleeping inside. Hutter leaves the basement in a state of horror. That night he looks out his window to see Orlok loading a wagon with several coffins. After stacking the coffins he climbs into the last one, lid lifting onto the coffin by itself before the carriage drives itself away. Hutter, worried about his wife, ties several sheets together in an effort to escape out his window. He falls from his makeshift rope before reaching the bottom, and is knocked unconscious. Orlok continues his journey down the river via raft, the raftsmen unaware of their cargo. Hutter is found by a farmer and is brought to a hospital, where he is slowly recovering. Orlok's coffins arrive at a seaport where they are being loaded onto a ship. The sailors are curious as the contents of the boxes, so the tip over to find nothing but soil and rats.Professor Bulwer (John Gottowt) is presenting a lecture to his class about unusual predators in nature. He shows his class meat-eating plants, remarking how similar they are to vampires. Back in Wisborg, Knock has been admitted to an insane asylum. He attacks his doctor, yelling blood is life! After being subdued, Knock becomes fascinated by the spiders in his cell.Ellen passes the time waiting for her husband sitting on the beach. One day, Harding and his sister bring her the letter Hutter wrote while at the castle. Ellen still longs for her husband, who has recovered enough that he decides to head home. He is still visibly weak, but he cant wait any longer. As he leaves for home Orlok is traveling towards Wisborg via ship. Back in the asylum, Knock steals a newspaper from one of the guards where he reads an article about plague victims in the ports along the Black Sea. All the plague victims have strange marks on their neck, and Knock realizes his master is coming. On the ship sailors are falling ill. The first mate and the captain come to check on their sickened crew, where the ghostly image of Orlok is watching him. Soon only the first mate and captain remain alive. As they heave another body overboard, the first mate decides to finish things once and for all, and takes a hatchet into the cargo hold. He begins to break up the boxes of soil, but as he does the lid lifts off a coffin and Orlok arises. Stricken with fear, the first mate drops his hatchet, runs to the top deck and throws himself overboard. The captain lashes himself to the wheel, but he is soon attacked and killed by Orlok. A title card exclaims the death ship has a new captain.Hutter travels night and day to get home as quickly as possible. In Wisborg, Ellen is again sleepwalking, now speaking in her sleep, seemingly in anticipation of Orloks arrival. She says, I have to go to him he is coming! Knock also seems to sense the arrival of the ship, becoming anxious as Orlok gets closer. The ship docks itself and the door to the cargo hold opens. Orlok immerges, carrying one of his coffins. As Orlok makes his way through town with his coffin, Hutter arrives home where he and his wife greet each other enthusiastically.Back at the dock Harding is investigating the ship, finding the dead captain and a log of the journey. He reads about how illness gradually killed the eight crewman. The captain wrote of a rat infestation and the possibility of a plague threat. Upon reading this, Harding tells everyone to return to their homes and keep their windows and doors closed. Later the town crier announces that plague victims must stay within their homes. White crosses mark the doors of plague victims as coffins are being carried out of several houses.Hutter tells his wife not to read the horrible book he has brought back with him, but some force compels her to read. He tries to comfort her, but they both sense the presence of Orlok watching them from his new home. Hardings sister falls ill, and Ellen watches as a funeral procession is lead by her house. This leads her to read from the book, where she reads that the only way to defeat the Nosferatu is if a sinless maiden gives her blood to it willingly, making it forget about the coming dawn until it is too late.Meanwhile, the fear stricken town is searching for a scapegoat to blame for the plague, and they blame the recently escaped Knock. They chase him throughout the city, but he eludes them, mocking the townspeople from rooftops before running into the woods.Ellen is working on needlepoint, writing Ich Liebe Dich, a German phrase meaning I Love You. That night she can sense Orlok watching her from his building. She opens the window, in a sense inviting him to her. She pretends to fall ill, telling Hutter to go get Bulwer, leaving her alone to face Orlok. Hutter rushes off, leaving Ellen alone in bed. She cowers in bed as the shadow of Orlok creeps ever closer to her, soon enveloping her completely. As Orlok sucks her blood he suddenly hears a rooster crow, and realizes that he has mistakenly stayed out until dawn. He rushes to leave, but as he crosses in front of the window he walks into the beams of the rising sun. He is instantly burned, vanishing in a puff of smoke. Knock, who has finally be captured and returned to the asylum, senses that his master is dead. Ellen is found by Hutter the next morning, the two embracing as the horror is finally over.[synopsis by mvrainey 12/15/09]

Tags: gothic, paranormal, cult, atmospheric, good versus evil, psychedelic

Review:
Undeterred, however, Murnau merely changed the title to `Nosferatu,' the name of the title character to `Count Orlok,' then proceeded to make what has come to be considered nothing less than a classic of the silent film era.
One of the three most highly regarded German directors of the times, Murnau, whose philosophy was that `nothing existed beyond the frame,' directed a number of films, but none achieved the lasting notoriety of `Nosferatu.'  For film buffs everywhere, as well as aficionados of silent pictures, this film is a must-see, and a perfect companion piece to the recently released (2000) `Shadow of the Vampire,' the film by E.
In the original versions, there was a blue tint over these scenes to let you tell night from day; it's difficult to tell the difference without them.My copy is marred with some hilarious inappropriate sound effects (such as a massive "BOING" when the gates of the castle open on their own accord) which I've learned not to hold against the film itself.Thank God that Florence Stoker did not manage to completely wipe this film of the face of existence..
The enjoyable Bela Lugosi version is perhaps easier to watch, and strictly as light entertainment it might work better, and many later versions brought their own interpretations - but nothing matches "Nosferatu" for its engrossingly morbid atmosphere and its unusual interpretation of the main character.Max Schreck and Murnau were able to create an image of the vampire that remains in your mind long after seeing it.
Murnau's "Nosferatu" is just such a reminder and, because of that, is the only screen version of "Dracula" that I have ever loved.Though Murnau, in the hopes of dodging the copyright bullet, took many liberties with the novel, he actually shot a great part of the film on location (an unusual practice for the time) in the historical Dracula's old stomping grounds: the Carpathian Mountains in Romania.
For copyright reasons, Bram Stoker's novel was filmed with the names of the characters changed (Orlok for Dracula, for example) but otherwise the story remains the same: a young man goes on a trip to see a mysterious count in order to sell a house, leaving his bride behind, and finds that the creature he meets is not of this world.As the extremely creepy Orlok, Max Schreck is brilliant, with his long fingernails and gaunt appearance.
This film sits well with his later 'Sunrise' in showing the effect of outside forces on a young couple, as well as being one of the key early horrors in its portrayal of Stoker's anti-hero.This version of the Dracula tale remains one of the best, although all have some different perspective on the novel.
Nosferatu is a great horror movie (possibly the first ever according to some accounts), and one of the pinnacles of the German silent era of film-making.
"Nosferatu" is a milestone from every possible viewpoint and it's one of those very few movies I think everybody should view at least once (although it actually requires repeated viewings) It is the very first version of Bram Stoker's legendary vampire tale and easily the most copied film in the history of cinema.
Say what you will about how far special effects have come into today's movies, but the silent film really made this movie into the true horror story that has memorable images and still gives me nightmares.Thomas Hutter is an employee at a real estate firm in a city called Wisborg, living with Ellen, his wife.
Hutter wakes up to an empty castle with fresh wounds on his neck, he's oh so doomed at this point.The very first vampire movie of all time, when F.W. Murnau couldn't get the rights to Dracula, he created actually one of the most memorable horror movies of all time.
As the vampire meets his doom when Lucy manages to keep him until after cockcrow.This German all time classic silent horror-movie from 1922 is a captivating and eerie experience with creepy images , imaginative sets and exciting touches .
Murnau saw talent in Schreck and hired him to play Graf (Count) Orlok in the fledgling Prana Film's first production, "Nosferatu; Eine Symphonie Des Grauens" -Nosferatu; A Symphony Of Horror- .The regards to Max Schreck are a mystery, he made a few pictures and we don't know anything about his life.
This brilliantly eerie motion picture is originally and compellingly directed by F.W. Murnau .This vampire masterpiece is remade in 1979 titled ¨Nosferatu the Vampyre¨ by Werner Herzog with Klaus Kinski ,Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjnani in which Count Dracula is the victim , he does not enjoy his immortality and wants only to live, love and die like a human ,this version of Nosferatu, in places almost a frame for frame remake , it results to be an enjoyable homage .
Furthermore ¨Shadow of the Vampire¨ with Willem Defoe and John Malkovich ; it is a film about the making and production of Nosferatu ; it had to deal with a lot of strange things ,some crew members disappeared, some died, this movie focuses on the difficult relationship between Murnau, the director, and Schreck, the lead actor..
I would never have guessed that a silent-era horror film could be so much more striking than the films made over the next five decades!Whereas Hollywood gave us a fun, not very scary, but deservedly much loved movie classic, F.W. Murnau has given us a fascinating, visionary masterpiece of horror cinema.
Regardless of the disappointing ending, Nosferatu is a killer film that is a must watch for horror or classic movie fans..
The movie is full with some classic horror scene's that later would inspire many other filmmakers.And yes the movie is actually scary, which is mainly thanks to Max Schreck who plays the part of Count Orlok in a most incredible way, also helped by some good make up.
Murnau's truly great horror film comes a full decade before the famous "Dracula" that copied so much from, and it has to be seen on its own terms, in the thick of the German silent era.
There are others, but these are the famous ones, not including the miserable but campy Warhol vampire film, and the rather different Dreyer 1932 version called "Vampyr," and then some offshoots that are sometimes terrific, but which are not really based on the same story line at all.It's odd to talk about a vampire movie and not mention the main actor, the vampire player, in this case Max Schreck, but in fact he has no meaning for American audiences.
FW Murnau's Nosferatu - the most famous silent horror film, the first adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula and containing some of the most memorable and terrifying images ever committed to celluloid.The German Expressionist directors can be credited with inventing the horror genre.
He also nearly always has the vampire walking towards the camera, as if he is advancing upon the audience.Max Shrek's as Dracula (or Graf Orlok, depending on the version) has to rank as one of the best performances of silent cinema.
The parts of the original Dracula novel which dealt with the vampire's ability to change into the shapes of various animals was dropped for Nosferatu, but Murnau references them by having Shrek creep like a rat, hunch his shoulders like a bat, rub his hands together like a fly and so on.Other than Max Shrek, the other actors are decent but not outstanding.
Meet the grand-daddy of all vampires in the grand-daddy of all vampire movies.In the 92 years since Max Schreck played Count Orlok (Dracula) in Nosferatu, no other actor has yet even come close to matching the blood-chilling hideousness of his portrayal.With his skeletal frame, rodent face, long nails and pointed ears, Schreck excels, beyond compare, as truly being the most repulsive and terrifying of all screen vampires.Nosferatu is an exceptional product of the German Expressionistic era in film-making and is a real milestone in the history of cinematic horror.This early, silent-version of Dracula is, at times, brilliantly eerie, and full of imaginative touches that none of the later vampire films managed to recapture.Yes. Nosferatu is flawed, but it still does manage to hold up quite well, considering that it's nearly 100 years old..
This is one of the truly great horror movies.It is the story of Dracula although he isn't called Dracula because of legal reasons involving Bram Stoker's estate.Maybe it is just as well because this 1922 classic isn't like any Dracula you've ever seen.Even by the time of Bela Lugosi's classic ,Dracula was portrayed as a suave debonair count.But in this great film the Count is a scary little thing.Rat-faced with sharp rat teeth and long nails and the look of disease all about him.Max Schreck is simply amazing in his role as the Count.His portrayal of the ugly little monster is one of the greatest roles ever captured on film.Speaking of captured on film,this film is almost a hundred years old ,and it looks it.There are evenly lit places and scratchy looking segments and the film speed is a little off in places but that all just adds to the great atmosphere that this masterpiece has.Several scenes from this film have become iconic,none more so then the Count rising straight up from the bottom of the ship.The scene where the Count carries his coffin through the town is as freaky and eerie as anything I've seen.The way Max Schreck walks will even scare you.There was a rather expensive restored version of this film done back in the 1990's.Most cheaper copies will come with a crappy added on sound track,death metal or something like that,I always turn that off along with all the lights and let this little creepy silent film flicker away in the still of the night.Watch this one if you haven't.It will stay with you..
Max Schreck, as the title character (whose name in the movie is Count Orlok), makes a scarier Dracula than Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Frank Langella or Gary Oldman.
Probably the best scene is when Count Orlok is walking up a staircase; his shadow on the wall becomes a form of horror in and of itself.All in all, "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens" is naturally a must for film historians and horror fans alike.
It also gives us the German actor Max Schreck as Count Orlok - who may be the creepiest, most monstrous and most frightening take on the Dracula character ever - far more than Bela Lugosi (who basically defines the role) could ever hope for.
From as early on as 1913 with Hanns Heinz Ewers' somewhat plodding The Student of Prague all the way through to Robert Wiene's seminal Caligari, cinema had been experimenting and teasing with the still- undefined horror genre, mixing starkly haunting photography with Gothic macabre stories echoing the works of Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. While still in a form of relative infancy in 1922, F.W. Murnau takes another stab at establishing cinema's darker side in the form of Nosferatu, a film which never quite pushes the boat out as far as Wiene did two years prior but nevertheless makes a haunting and memorable experience on its own ground.As far as vampire stories, legends and big-screen productions go, Murnau's classic film is one that may not frighten quite as much as it might have done but nevertheless still manages to startle with its beautiful photography and otherworldly performances, all the while pushing you unknowingly into an unsettling atmosphere that envelops the imagination during its strongest sequences.
Who can forget Max Schreck as the ultra-creepy 'Count Orlok', a classic performance in horror movie history?
Director F.W. Murnau gives us a scary, macabre vampire, far from the smooth and suave Draculas in other versions, and uses shadows and shots of Orlok's face to scare the audience throughout the movie.
Alexander Granach is also great as 'Knock', his minion/ estate agent with giant, bushy eyebrows, who, when jailed, catches and eats flies for their blood.I don't think it's cool that Murnau changed the names around because he couldn't get movie rights to Bram Stoker's story, but I'm glad the film survived (Stoker's heirs wanted all prints destroyed).
The movie drags on at times and the simplicity of the ending was not satisfying to me, so it fell a little short, but if you're into classic horror films, this is probably must-see and you may love it, instead of just liking it as I did..
The camera angles are innovative, the images are stunning, and although Gustav von Wangenheim as the Jonathan Harker wannabe Thomas Hutter is not a great actor, the rest of the cast, including Greta Schröder as his wife, Alexander Granach as the Renfield clone named Knock and, of course, Max Schreck (his name in German actually means "fright" or "fear") as Count Orlok are all brilliant in their roles.
This one's the great-Grandaddy of vampire movies and still packs quite a wallop, even though its impact is severely diminished on a second viewing when the story starts to drag  which is never a good thing for an 80-minute film.Those iconic images of Max Schreck, silhouetted against the rigging of the ship whose crew he has systematically devoured, rising stiff-backed from his coffin, climbing the stairs to his victim's room, his talon-like nails and misshapen head, his ascent charted by the movement of his shadow on the wall, are so embedded in the psyche of any true movie fan that seeing them in their true context is a little like seeing a long-cherished hero in the flesh.
This movie is full of very powerful imagery, which Murnau is famous for and Max Schreck is perfect as the vampire Count Orlok.
Director: F.W. Murnau, Script: Henrik Galeen, Novel: Bram Stoker, Cast: Max Schreck(Orlok), Gustav von Waggenheim(Johannes), Greta Schroeder-Matray(Ellen).This is the ultimate vampire movie.
It's a beautiful movie, and always has been, and is made all the more beautiful and haunting thanks to the way Murnau uses creepy lighting and shadows to enhance the horror.This film is a masterpiece of the horror genre-a truly chilling classic..
Schreck uses the tool of his body impeccably to create a sense of perpetual menace.Its most haunting scene comes just passed the midway point when the film's protagonist has escaped from the vampire's castle and Orlok slowly follows him via a ship transporting coffins.
Truly, most filmmakers making B-flicks such as "Blade" and other modern Vampire films should really look at this movie for real referencebecause Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Graunes, is the the greatest andfirst adaption of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
Nosferatu, also known as Nosferatu–A Symphony of Horror, stars Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok.
Deeply Gothic sets and costuming, a wickedly evil vampire and a more than scary visual atmosphere in this black and white silent horror movie classic.What I am not crazy about is the film's score (the music we hear)- most of it is not very Gothic nor suspenseful or mysterious sounding enough for me.
Each time I see a film like 'Nosferatu' from the silent time period I cannot help reflecting how different the experience of watching movies was in the first three decades of the history of cinema.
Even today when the big equalizer of cinema watching which is the home TV screen and the elaborated music that now comes together with almost any silent film should bring the experience closer to watching a contemporary film, the feeling of watching a different type of films, with focus on the image quality and actors expressive skills almost derives in the feeling that I am watching a different art - one that may even come closer to deserve the numeral seven in the order of classical arts.The 1922 version of 'Nosferatu' is considered as the first horror and vampires film in history, the opener to a series of films inspired by Briam Stoker's 'Dracula' which by now seems endless and covers multiple genres beyond being a genre by itself.
There is of course some real or fake ingenuity in the feminine character who sacrifices herself to the vampire for the greater community good, but this part is also in line with the quality naivety of other great silent movies.I have seen on the European ARTE TV channel the digitized version of the film, based on multiple sources from the German and Czech archives.
W. Murnau.In fact, the Dracula film was way off from what Stoker intended his vampire to be like.
An unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula but also the most influential amongst all vampire films ever made, Nosferatu is an eerie, creepy, Gothic & haunting cinema that may not look frightening enough from today's standards but its chilling atmosphere can still rival the best of what modern film industry has to offer in the genre of horror.Set in the fictitious German city of Wisborg, the story of Nosferatu concerns Hutter; a real estate agent, who travels to Transylvania to meet his new client only to find his journey full of strange occurrences & later discovers that he just sold a new residence to not a human but a vampire who after arriving to the new place expresses an interest in Hutter's innocent wife.A silent horror that benefits greatly from a brilliantly written screenplay that was then superbly executed on screen by its classy direction, excellent use of expressionism from its cast, especially Max Schreck who plays vampire Count Orlok, inventive cinematography, smart editing, powerfully haunting music as well as clever use of its uncanny locations.Almost a century has passed since Nosferatu first surfaced on the film canvas & it holding strong even today is a testament to the strength & visual appeal of this silent classic.
Even for those who don't like silent films or know anything about Murnau, you should see this movie for the vampire.