Please write for about 10 minutes on the
following:
What is your greatest fear and why?
NOSFERATU
First Viewing…a bit tedious
 At first viewing, Murnau’s work can seem
overlong and tedious given how little the
modern audience is used to silent black and
white films with long sequences.
 Yet to liken this ‘Symphony of Horror’ to a
vulgar vampire film or the hundredth
adaptation of Bram Stoker's book Dracula
would be a major error.
Director’s Intent
 Despite its apparent simplicity, the film grows
in scope in its use of suggestion and different
degrees that hide behind a simple story that
only serves as a vehicle for the director’s
intentions.
Nosferatu and Nazism
 The vampire symbolizes Hitler.
 Nosferatu leaves his country to spread his power abroad.
 His bite makes puppets of his victims, servants body and soul to
their powerful master, blinded fanatics that represent the
German people, while Knock, his servant abroad, is perhaps
comparable to a collaborator.
 The rats the Count brings with him in his boat to propagate in the
foreign county, carrying with them the plague, symbolize the
Nazi ideology that spreads throughout Europe.
 Furthermore, this is confirmed when one knows that Nazism was
also qualified as a black plague in its time.
Nosferatu and Painting (German
Expressionist Art)
 Themes like ambivalence (subjectivity and the unconscious,
mystery and imagination) as well as he idea of a double, the
ambiguous, Gothic, and the communion between the artist
and nature are omnipresent in the film.
 For the Romantics, portraits, reflections, and shadows
blend into a single entity.
 The shadow, particularly important (as in the scene as he
climbs the stairs), anticipates an imminent danger,
embodies a sexual desire, and always betrays the killer in
German cinema.
Gothic
 Primarily an architectural style that prevailed
in western Europe from the twelfth through
the fifteenth centuries, characterized by
pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying
buttresses, that made it possible to create
stone buildings that reached great heights.
Gothic Qualities
 Gothic qualities are manifested in the physical
characteristics of the vampire and in the architecture.
 Noseferatu’s bald oval head reflects the Gothic archways of
his chateau, while his twisted body responds to the curves
of the gate.
 His long nails symbolize the East’s despotism and
correspond to the elongated lines of Gothic architecture.
Finally, nature has a preponderant role, as important as a
character. The stretches of land are the mental projections
of the characters while the waves of the sea announce the
imminent arrival of the count.
Nosferatu and Cinema
 Orlok's character is record of film's
positioning facing other arts and in particular
painting. The vampire is between death
(immobility: painting is a rigid art) and life
(movement: cinema is an art in motion). This
duality also represents the technical
evolution of art, cinema being the living form
and the most advanced thanks to
technological progress.
Nosferatu and Homosexuality
 The film conceals allusions homosexuality,
taboo at that time, and reflects the repressed
tendencies of the director. Hutter leaves his
wife for the Count and the dinner scene at the
chateau resembles a seduction scene where
the young man succumbs fairly easily. The
vampire's bite can also be considered as a
forbidden kiss between two men.
Nosferatu and Globalization
 The film coincides with the beginnings of
globalization and in particular the investment
of foreign capital in the local economy. The
Count, who is obviously a predator, here
embodies the phenomenon of globalization,
at that time considered a danger.

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