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| Albin Grau's poster for Nosferatu (1922) |
Released in 1922, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
(Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens) is the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's
novel Dracula (1897). German firm Prana-Films was created in order to shoot occult stories and the vampire drama was
intended to be produced alongside the films Dreams of Hell and The Devil of
the Swamp, yet
it was the only project to be completed. The company, created by design artist
Albin Grau, Enrico Dieckmann and other fellow brothers from the Grand Pansophical
Lodge Grau belonged to, was named after ‘‘a publication of theosophical
thinking’’ (Kalat). Nevertheless, the film studio had not secured the rights
from Stoker’s widow, Florence, and some important changes were introduced to
the plot. Henrik Galeen penned the script
altering the title and the names of the main characters, though the
studio was finally sued for copyright
infringement,which led to its bankrupcy. Stoker’s estate demanded the
destruction of all copies of the film, yet some survived and, thus, the first major
vampire in cinema history was born.
I will draw special attention to the animal-like
appearance of Count Orlok (Dracula), and, therefore, I will study the predator’s
association to rats and its manifestation in the shape of a striped hyena. Whilst
the film was directed by the acclaimed F.W Murnau, my blog post will
nevertheless concentrate on Albin Grau’s work as production designer on the
first part of my analysis. To do so, I will explain his designs for the vampire
figure. Similarly, my examination will compare the film to the novel it
originates from, and it will describe other subjects depicted in the motion
picture. To do my research I have employed the 2005-2006 restored version of
the film, which can be seen here:
Count
Orlok And His Association to Rats
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| Actor Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Nosferatu |
Nosferatu
is
set in the fictional city of Wisborg (Germany) in 1838. As an introduction, the
audience is told the ‘‘account of the
Great Death’’in the location. The film presents the main characters of the
narrative, Thomas and Ellen Hutter (Jonathan and Mina Harker in the novel) in
the happy days before Thomas is sent by his boss Knock to Transylvania to meet
an important customer who wishes to buy a house in their municipality. The first
remarkable aspect of Murnau’s film is its title: Nosferatu. Bram Stoker employs
this term in his story when Professor Van Helsing refers to the vampire or the
Undead in chapter 16 with the quote ‘‘last night when you (Arthur) open your arms
to her (Lucy) you would in time, when you had died, had become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern
Europe’’ (200); and in chapter 18 when Van Helsing clarifies that ‘‘the nosferatu do not die like the bee when
he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to
work evil’’(220). However, the word is not found in Eastern Europe and the term
is not Romanian (Guiley). Stoker became familiar with the name from an article he
employed as a source for Dracula: ‘‘Transylvania
Superstitions’’(1885), written by Emily de Laszowski Gerard (Guiley). Gerard
allegedly believed that Romanian peasants gave credit to the existence of this
creature. The designation nosferatu may
originate from different sources according to researchers: it can come from necuratul, a Romanian word meaning ‘‘the
Evil one’’; ‘‘demon’’; ‘‘the devil’’ or ‘‘diavol’’’’, from nesuferit, which means ‘‘unbearable’’ in Romanian, or from nosophoros, a Greek term for ‘‘plague
carrier’’(Guiley). In his challenge of modificating Stoker’s novel for his
film, Murnau must have been aware of all the possible significances the word
can have, and Grau designed the Creature as an inhuman rat-like being with a disturbing gaze. While in the novel, the Count
attempts to live among Londoners unacquainted with his presence, for Count
Orlok that would be unthinkable. Therefore, understanding the title as a
‘‘plague carrier’’ and after the insert of the ‘‘Great Death’’ (Minute 2:53),
it is not surprising that the artist Grau decided to depict the character as an
otherwordly monster dressed all in black.
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| Scene from the film showing the threat about to occur |
Stoker relates Dracula to rats in the Count’s assault
on Renfield: ‘‘A dark mass spread over the grass, coming
on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right
and the left, and I could see there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing
red – like His, only smaller’’ (Stoker 260). Murnau emphasises this connection
in his film, since Orlok and his rats are a threat to the human population they
encounter; numerous victims die as the vampire travels, without him biting
them. They do not turn into vampires; they simply perish. This may be a
reference to the outbreaks of supposed vampirism and bubonic plague in Eastern
Europe during the 18th century, though in the film Van Helsing plays
no significant role; he merely demonstrates the existence of vampirism in nature
(Meehan).
There is, notwithstanding, another interpretation for
the plague which the motion picture can refer to. Grau, Murnau and Galeen could
have set the plot at the beginning of the 19th century to
differentiate it from the Victorian London Stoker portrayed. However, the
narrative may echo the Spanish Flu that ravaged Europe especially in 1918, and
also, the same as Stoker’s novel depicts, the menace of invasion by foreigners
and the fear of disease and death. In the posters he created for the film, Grau
illustrated the style which was representative of the time: German
expressionism.
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| Albin Grau's design for Nosferatu |
‘‘Economic necessity and an infusion of existential
theories helped create the expressionist aesthetic in Post-War Germany. German
sets and shadows helped to create what was known a ‘‘Stimmung’’, or ‘‘mood’’’’
(Burns 3). The cinema of this devastated country, which was uncertain about its
future, began to flourish with dark dreamy sets and fantasy tales such as The Golem (1915), directed by Henrik
Galeen and Paul Wegener, and The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari (1920). ‘‘Existentialism also allowed many to come to the
realization that political, religious and government institutions were corrupt,
leading to the belief that much of what people actually accepted as truth was,
in fact, false’’ (Burns 3). Grau followed Hugo Steiner-Prag’s illustrations
from Gustav Meryrink’s The Golem
(1915) for Nosferatu, even though the
film eventually altered the design.
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| Hugo Steiner-Prag's illustration for Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (1915) |
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| ''Grotesque Animal World'' by Kubin, 1898 |
The appearance of the rats in the fiction can be
understood as the growing antisemitism of the beginning of the 20th
century in Germany. With the influx of Jewish immigrants to Western Europe in
the aftermath of WWI and the Russian Revolution, anxieties against Jews were
spreading up to the point that years later, in 1940, the notorious Nazi film The Eternal Jew would compare ‘‘Jews to
rats that carry contagion, flood the continent, and devour precious resources’’
(Holocaust Encyclopedia). I am not saying that Murnau, Grau and their crew
wished to shoot an antisemitic film, but that Orlok and Knock’s traits can
depict certain stereotypes. Knock,
who is very close to Orlok, shares some of his physical features and is also
presented as wealthy, a common attribute of Jews. Also, their cryptic contract,
with alchemical symbols (Minutes 6:35-7:00, 8:23 and 25:57-26: 06), contains a character
similar to a Star of David, and seems, therefore, to be Yiddish.
In her first image on screen, German Ellen plays at
her window with a cat (Minute 4:18-4:26), an animal which instinctively chases
rodents. Therefore, once the audience observes Orlok and his rat-like figure,
it is noteworthy that Ellen will play a key role in destroying the vampire. Yet
Orlok is also represented by another animal which grabbed my attention for its
originality: a striped hyena.
Ambiguous Sexuality with Count Orlok Represented as a Hyena
Readers of Dracula
are familiar with the association between the Count and wolves. Jonathan
Harker’s terrifying arrival at the castle surrounded by threatening wolves is
one of the most memorable moments of the narrative. Through Jonathan Harker’s
diary, readers learn about the vampire’s power over the animals even when Harker
is unaware that the driver is Dracula himself: ‘‘I heard his voice raised in a tone of
imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.
As he swept his long arms, as through brushing aside some impalpable obstascle,
the wolves fell back and back further still’’ (Stoker 16).
As the account continues, Harker describes Dracula and
he emphasises the Count’s hands: ‘‘Strange to say,there were hairs in the
centre of the palm’’ (Stoker 20). Stoker was heavily influenced by Sabine
Baring-Goud’s The Book of Were-Wolves
(1865), ‘‘an antiquarian collection of superstitions and tales of the werewolf
myth from prehistory to the present day, using classical and Norse sources and
European collections of folklore’’ (Luckhurst in Dracula’s Explanatory Notes 366). Baring-Gould likens lycantrophy
to vampirism and ‘‘details the beliefs
in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Greece that after death he who ‘‘ravens for blood’’
as a werewolf becomes a vampire’’ (Luckhurst 366).
Nevertheless, the connection between the vampire and
the wolves in Dracula emphasises the Count’s condition as a sexual predator. Lucy
Westenra finally succumbs to the evil forces of the Count after being attacked
in her bed by a wolf which has escaped
from London zoo. The brutal penetration she subsequently suffers leads to her
final transformation into a vampire. In Dracula,
‘‘the portrayal of the novel’s vampire attacks which carry clearly erotic
overtones, from the ravaging of Harker’s neck by Dracula’s beautiful vampire brides
to the passionate attraction between Mina and Dracula, and
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| Illustration by Anne Yvonne Gilbert for Dracula's adaptation by Nicky Raven, 2010 |
even the often-perceived homoerotic overtones in
the encounters between Dracula and Harker’’ (Vest and Muelsch 131) depict the
sexual and social uncertainties of the Victorian period, with the demand for
gender equality and a challenge to traditional roles.
In Nosferatu,
nevertheless, no wolf appears on screen. Hutter interrupts his journey towards
the castle in an inn (Minute 13:40), and when the peasants hear him say where
he is heading to, one of them remarks: ‘‘You can’t go any further tonight. The
werewolf is roaming the forests’’ (Minute 15:04). Hutter decides to spend the
night at the inn and discovers a book entitled Vampyres, Phanthoms, and the
Seven Deadly Sins, yet, surprisingly, the animal revealed outside is not a
wolf, but a striped hyena.
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| Image of a hyena in Nosferatu |
The hyena ‘‘makes no appearances in vampire folklore,
meaning that this is not harkening back to some less well-known legend or
archetype or vampire lore’’ (Vest and Muelsch 134). Murnau may have included a
hyena merely as an added detail to avoid the abovementioned copyright infrigenment,
although there can be other intentions behind his choice.
This scene from the film echoes Stoker’s ‘‘Dracula’s
Guest’’, the alleged first chapter from Stoker’s novel which was finally
deleted, but which Florence Stoker published in 1914 along with other stories. The
plot, which takes place near Munich on Walpurgis Night[i], describes
an episode in which an unnamed narrator (perhaps Jonathan Harker) suffers from
a wolf as he wanders towards an ‘‘unholy’’ village, even though he is warned to
arrive at his hotel early. Some officers find the man after being harmed, and
their conversation suggests that the assault has been committed by a werewolf.
This explains Stoker’s abovementioned connection of werewolves to vampires:
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| Front cover of a first edition of Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories |
‘‘A wolf – and yet not a wolf!’’ another put in shudderingly.
‘‘No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,’’ a third remarked in a more ordinary manner’’ (Stoker 14).
Nevertheless, if at first it seems that these men
coincidentally save the narrator from the wolf, the reader soon afterwards
learns that it was Dracula himself who assisted the protagonist by sending
volunteers to look for him:
The above text emphasises, thus, that Dracula needs
the narrator alive to sign for the purchase of the houses he needs in London. ‘‘Even
though the sexuality is homosexual in nature, the domineering and predatory
nature of Stoker’s wolf is inarguably masculine. This masculine identity and
sexuality is something which Murnau would later subvert by replacing the wolf
by a hyena, an animal with a far different symbolic meaning’’ (Vest and Muelsch
132).
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| ''The Striped Hyena'' by Alos Zötl, 1831 |
Both Stoker and Murnay may have been influenced by von
Wachsmann’s Der Fremde (1844), a
novel in which a woman, Franziska, is capable of defeating the vampire Azzo,
while the male characters of the narrative remain in a secondary role. In this
story, hyenas do not appear, yet ‘‘the party is attacked by ‘‘Rohrwölfen,’’ or
reed-wolves, which appear to be jackals native to the Balkan Peninsula’’ (Vest
and Muelsch 130). Stoker relates his vampire to wolves, but while the
journalist interviews the London Zoo keeper after the grey wolf escapes, the
guardian comments that ‘‘I give the wolves and jackals and the hyenas in all
our section their tea’’ (Stoker 128). Therefore, there is a connection between
these animals.
Murnau, nevertheless, chooses to emphasise the figure
of the hyena to depict ‘‘Orlok’s ambiguous gender and sexuality’’ (Vest and
Muelsch 134). With his unearhtly appearance, and his attacks on both Hutter and
Ellen in an intimate location (their beds), Orlok can represent the ancient
belief that the hyena ‘‘could change its sex’’, and that, due to this, ‘‘the
hyena could tipify sexual perversion or any kind of natural perversion’’(Rowland
in Vest and Muelsch 134). His bloodthirstiness makes no distinction between
genders, and the hyena embodies Orlok’s androgyny; nonetheless, the final scene
in which Ellen allows him to drink her blood throughout the night contains
greater sexual undertones.
In conclusion, this blog post has analysed how in Nosferatu, Count Orlok is depicted as an
inhuman figure. In order to study his behaviour, I have focused on the animals
which appear on screen: the rats, linked to the embodiment of the plague which Orlok represents; and the
hyena, with its ambiguous sexuality in contrast to Stoker’s masculine wolf
predator. Since Albin Grau designed the Count’s appearance in the film, the
first section of the blog has displayed some of his drawings and the sources of
his inspiration in portraying the vampire as a rat; the second section has
compared Dracula’s masculinity to
Orlok’s androgyny. Although many vampire films have been released after
Murnau’s masterpiece, Orlok will always be one of my favourite villains ever
due to his iconic movements and look.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Burns, William F., ‘‘From the Shadows: Nosferatu and the
German Expressionist Aesthetic’’, Mise-En-Scène,
The Journal of Film and Journal Narration, Vol 1, No 1, 2016 https://journals.sfu.ca/msq/index.php/msq/article/view/5
(Accessed 23rd Decemebr 2017)
Dictionary. com, ‘‘Walpurgis Night’’ http://www.dictionary.com/browse/walpurgisnacht
(Accessed 4th February)
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen, The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters (Infobase
Publishing, 2004)
Holocaust Encyclopedia, ‘‘Defining the Enemy’’ https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007819
(Accessed 22nd January 2018)
Kalat, David, ‘‘Nosferatu To You Too, and the Horse
You Rode In On’’, http://streamline.filmstruck.com/2013/10/12/nosferatu-to-you-too-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on/
(Accessed 10th January 2018)
Meehan, Paul, The
Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature (Jefferson: McFarland, 2014)
Murnau, F.W., Nosferatu,
Prana Film, 1922
Stoker, Bram, Dracula
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)
(First published in 1897)
--- Dracula’s Guest
and Other Weird Stories https://archive.org/details/BramStoker-DraculasGuestAndOtherWeirdStories
(First published in 1914) (Accessed 4th February)
Vest, Elizabeth and Muelsch, Elisabeth-Christine, ‘‘The
Role of Nosferatu in the Development
of Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Androgyny in Vampire Film’’, CRIUS, Vol. 3, 2015 https://journals.tdl.org/crius/index.php/crius/article/view/20
(Accessed 23rd December 2017)
IMAGES:
Nosferatu
Poster by Albin Grau http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2007/08/26/hugo-steiner-prags-golem/
Max Schreck as Count Orlok http://www.brentonfilm.com/articles/nosferatu-the-ultimate-blu-ray-and-dvd-guide#!parentId=120
Word nosferatu
on screen https://unaffiliatedcritic.com/2013/01/nosferatu-1922/
Illustration of Count Orlok with rats http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2014/10/28/albin-graus-nosferatu/
Illustration for The
Golem by Hugo Steiner-Prag https://www.tumblr.com/search/hugo%20steiner%20prag
‘‘Grotesque Animal World’’ by Kubin https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/1549304/0/alfred-kubin/dibujos/espectrales/
Dracula’s
illustration https://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Nicky-Raven/dp/0763647934
Cover of Dracula’s
Guest and Other Weird Stories http://www.bramstoker.org/stories/03guest.html
‘‘The Striped Hyena’’ by Aloys Zötl https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-bestiarium-of-aloys-zotl-1831-1887/
[i]
The eve of May 1st, believed in German folklore to be the night of a
witches' sabbath on the Brocken, in the Harz Mountains
