I'm probably going to get blasted for writing this, but I'm just gonna throw it out there. "Nosferatu" was the first vampire movie ever made, and the 1922 silent film from director F.W. Murnau is a classic that has inspired other versions of the Bram Stoker Baddie for the eighty years that have followed. As a masterpiece of early German cinema (I'd put it up in the same category as "Metropolis" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari") from the Weimar period between the World Wars, it has some of the same strengths these films do, and some of their weaknesses.

One aspect that is visible in all three of these films, and in several others of the same time, is a latent anti-semitism. I had seen "Nosferatu" several times before watching it in a class last year, in conjunction with "Metropolis," "Caligari," and several propaganda films put out in the early years of the Nazi regime. The parallels were striking, but things I hadn't ever noticed watching the silent classics on my own. Some of them are elements that are in the original novel, and while "Nosferatu" isn't an exact retelling of the novel "Dracula," the first half of the movie is virtually the same as the book. The elements that are most frequently compared to the anti-semitism of the Nazis are:

1) The great evil coming from the East--as a result of various uprisings and wars in the Slavic nations, there was a steady influx of Jewish immigrants into Germany and the rest of Western Europe. To make the villain of the piece an Eastern European is to play on the fears and prejudices that had been building over the previous decades.

2) The coming of the Jewish immigrants coincided with several plagues (also coinciding with the increasing urbanization of Europe--more people together = more disease); a major part of anti- Jew Nazi literature was that they literally brought disease and pestilence with them...although every community that underwent that kind of growth went through the same series of plagues. When the vampire comes to Bremen, he brings a plague with him (and there really was a plague in Bremen in 1838)...

3) The vampire coming to town brings with him rats, who are his familiars; some of the Nazi propaganda films actually have animations of rats metamorphosizing into caricatures of Jews. By making them sub-human, making them animals certainly demeans them, and makes it much easier to propose a Final Solution that would involve destroying them period.

4) The movie's solution to the plague that's wracking Bremen is to kill the vampire. By killing one person, all of the rats (who are extensions of his evil) die. In much the same way, Hitler's racial doctrines proposed that Germany (and the world) were a body, and by killing the impurity in the body (Jews and other "lesser" races), the body would be healed of it's disease. The disease for the Germans was the crippling of their economy by losing World War I; their recovery from the war wasn't complete until...oh, the 1960's.

I'm certainly not saying that F.W. Murnau was anti-semitic, nor that the Germans as a whole were; merely that the seeds of the anti-semitism that came to fruition in the Holocaust were certainly planted and germinating as early as the 1920's. In fact, they've been a part of the European landscape on the whole for centuries (Spain's Ferdinand and Isabella had the market cornered back in the 15th Century); it's just that in these films, some of the few made outside of the United States, you can see them in a European context, and see how Hitler later played on the subconscious fears and hatreds of the Germans (and others) to win them over to his horrific Final Solution.

This movie is an absolute silent classic. I know not everyone likes Silent Films; I think they're a fascinating glimpse of the early stages of an art form that has always been in flux, and that we've all embraced. The artistry, the special effects they used, lacking digital means, is often ingenious...and the acting, knowing that their voices would never be heard, is remarkable.

"Nosferatu," in particular is a gem of filmmaking. F.W. Murnau uses several tricks, including fades, mirrors, and wipes to give the movie the otherworldly feel that all good vampire movies have. Perhaps the greatest gift given to Murnau was Max Schreck's performance as the title vampire. Later vampires, especially those since Bela Lugosi's "Dracula," have been suave and seductive....I mean, check out "Queen of the Damned." However well or badly the two leads act, you've gotta admit they're verdammt sexy. Max Schreck...is NOT. His pointed nose (hell, his pointed HEAD), claw-like hands, hunched back, and emaciated frame are as zombie-like as a vampire would be. His similarity in appearance to a rat underscores his beastly nature. His appearance is compelling, and when he's on screen, it's impossible to look away.

The sets are exaggerated and angular, not as much as those of "Caligari" and "Metropolis," but enough to separate the movie from the reality we inhabit. It's unnerving, but beautiful in its way, and we see where Tim Burton may have received some of his inspiration to create his own visual worlds.

The acting is also exaggerated, as it often is in silent films, but not enough so that it's distracting. The movie is just over an hour long, and that's just long enough to be frightening, romantic, and an exciting adventure. If you've ever wondered how vampires came to be such a major part of cinema and our collective psyche, this is the first cinematic step. Just remember that even these movies have predecessors, and are the culmination of centuries of tradition, history, and myth.





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV