This–Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens–is the original vampyre movie, and possibly still the best.
Due to it basically ripping off the best bits of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, they tried covering things up with having the Baron killed by the sun shining on him at the end, and thus created a new ‘genre rule’. Oddly, however, this attemp5t at subterfuge didn’t work and Mr. Stoker’s widow sued anyway.
Nosferatu (1922)
Brilliant stuff, and worth seeking out the two-disc ‘restored’ version with the tinted film and 90% of the restored scenes (apparently there’s still one scene that hasn’t shown up anywhere, and all of the original German prints were destroyed at one point due to the content being deemed ill-suited to to someone’s morals).
Nosferatu (1922)
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Writing credits:
Henrik Galeen and Bram Stoker (uncredited for the novel Dracula)
This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.
The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.
Ian Alexander Martin [
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