Nosferatu

The German film Nosferatu is produced by Prana-Film, directed by Friedrich. The word ‘nosferatu’ is usually translated as living dead or ‘undead’, though its origins are unclear. Scriptwriter Henrik Galeen retained the essence – or rather an essence – of Stoker’s story but changed all the character names. Count Dracula became Graf (Count) Orlok, Jonathan Harker became Hutter, Van Helsing became Bulwer and so forth. In addition to germanising the characters for local audiences, this was probably an attempt to avoid legal problems, as the film’s producers had not obtained the rights to Stoker’s novel, still under copyright at the time. Nosferatu evokes a strong sense of a supernatural force intruding into the natural world. Much of the film’s power derives from the physical appearance of Orlok and the performance of actor Max Schreck. Schreck can be translated as ‘terror’ but this was the actor’s real name and not a pseudonym created for the role. The Dracula of Stoker’s novel is a gaunt old man with white hair and a big moustache. While Dracula becomes progressively younger with regular infusions of blood, he retains his hairy palms, pointed teeth and bad breath. Stoker’s Dracula is not the romantic, charismatic, even seductive figure of many later adaptations. In Nosferatu, the vampire’s unappealing physical characteristics are accentuated and exaggerated to an extreme degree. Orlok has a gaunt face, bald head, pointed ears, prominent nose, large eyebrows and pointed incisors. Schreck’s vampire has been described variously as ‘a skinned bat’ and ‘human