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Nosferatu Steals the Show: Silent German Film a Masterwork of Horror
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14193 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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7 / 1988 |
1,152 Words |
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David Howard
David Howard writes on the arts and lives in Washington, D.C. |
For the past two years, Washington filmgoers have been treated to their own international film festival, a carefully chosen selection of the most recent and best work from filmmakers of six continents. The apogee of this year's Filmfest D.C., however, was not a new movie, but rather one of the oldest feature films in history, a silent horror film, Nosferatu, made in Germany in 1922.
In a time of color, Dolby, stereo sound, docudramas, and the rest, this silent black-and-white film still possesses an uncanny power to chill the stoutest of hearts.
Who, or what, was Nosferatu, anyway? We know that he is male in gender. There is a possibility that he may have been one of the fallen angels who accompanied Lucifer on his descent from heaven. But it is established in lore, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he is the fiend incarnate, one of the "undead dead," who rises from his coffin after sundown to feast on the blood of his victims (who are mostly female, beautiful, nubile, and often willing).
Epitome of Evil
Dominating the magnificent print of this classic, which was shown on the immense screen of the National Air and Space Museum's cavernous Langley Auditorium to a standing-room-only crowd, Nosferatu epitomizes evil of the very worst kind, an evil that can be overcome only by the sacrifice of a woman without sin.
In this version, innocent, impetuous young Hutter sets off for the mountains of Transylvania with the deed to a house in the Baltic coast town of Wisborg that has been leased by the strange and mysterious Count Orlok. As his coach approaches the castle, the horses shy, and the peasants refuse to take him any farther. Abandoned on a lonely heath, Hutter has to walk to the castle, arriving--naturally--late at night. Before he can knock at the gates, they swing open automatically, revealing a tall, ascetic, black-clad figure who walks toward him with a mincing, if menacing, gait. "It's late, and you must be hungry," murmurs the Count, for it is he, and Hutter eagerly agrees. Slicing his bread too hastily, he cuts his finger, blood flows, and ... we're off!
Having noticed a photograph of Hutter's sweetheart, Ellen, whom he has left behind in Wisborg, the Count agrees immediately to double the price for the house, which is, naturally, across the street from where Ellen and Hutter live in perfect platonic bliss. After a
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