Count Orlok in Nosferatu: An Animal-Like Vampire

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

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.

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 18^th 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 19^th 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.

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.

Hugo Steiner-Prag's illustration for Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (1915)

   

Nonetheless, Grau was widely influenced by other artists of the time: ‘‘Grau’s friendship with one of the founders of the German art group Der Blaue Reiter, Alfred Kubin’’ (Burns 5) was vital.  Actually, Kubin had been called on to design both The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari and The Golem,as ‘‘the Austrian writer and illustrator had a tendency to create the grotesque in his works. He was influenced heavily by Nietzsche and shared an anguish-filled childhood, similar to the expressionist painter Edvard Munch’’ (Burns 5). Munch’s The Vampire ( 1893-1895) also reverberates in the film with the vampire attacks. In Nosferatu, Count Orlok embodies the primary instincts; he is a parasite feeding on blood, a symbol of the dissolution of the current situation towards the uncertainty of a foreign evil. 

''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 20^th 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

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. 

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:

Front cover of a first edition of Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories

‘‘‘It-it-indeed!- gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the moment. 
‘‘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:

‘‘ Be careful of my guest- his safety is most precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune-Dracula’’ (Stoker 17).
 

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).

''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 22^nd 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 10^th 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 4^th 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/

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[i] The eve of May 1^st, believed in German folklore to be the night of a witches' sabbath on the Brocken, in the Harz Mountains