Nosferatu Literary Elements

F.W. Murnau

Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder

Alexander Granach, John Gottowt

Horror

Silent

February 17, 1922

Prana Film

Germany and Romania in the Victorian Era

The film is told from the point of view of Hutter's friend, who is relating the story as he heard it from Hutter. This is explained in the early title cards.

Thanks to the editing style, Nosferatu operates with a kind of dream logic or, more aptly, a kind of nightmare logic. Murnau uses tropes of gothic literature combined with ethereal camera work to give the film an unreal, dreadful atmosphere. A fatalistic atmosphere pervades the film, even before the terror really begins.

Hutter is the protagonist, Count Orlok/The Nosferatu is the antagonist

Hutter has to get back to his hometown to stop the Nosferatu from feeding on his wife.

The climax comes right at the end of the film when Ellen, Hutter's wife, keeps the vampire awake until dawn, killing him.

The rat plague is foreshadowed by Count Orlok's two long front teeth, and similarly his descent on Wisborg mirrors that of the arriving plague. Similarly, we know that Ellen will be the one to defeat the vampire because she seems to exhibit similar telepathic powers as Count Orlok.

The precious little understatement in the film comes during the beautiful shots of nature shot on location, showing the quiet order of natural life that will so soon be thrown into chaos.

Murnau brought location shooting to the German expressionist form, breaking the paradigm of filming such movies exclusively on elaborately constructed sets. Nosferatu also features some key innovations in special effects that would become tropes of the vampire movie, including levitating bodies and the vampire disappearing into thin air.

There are numerous allusions to homosexuality throughout the film, by way of the vampire. The way that Count Orlok pursues both Hutter and his wife Ellen suggest a kind of bisexuality at play, and the repulsive manner in which he pursues these lovers/victims is perhaps a reflection of F.W. Murnau's conflicted relationship with his own homosexuality while living in his repressive and homophobic home country Germany at the time.

Ellen can lure the Nosferatu to his death because she is a virgin. It's paradoxical given the fact that she is married, and because she must soil her purity of spirit in order to lead the act of seduction. This act ultimately kills her.

Ellen's telepathic powers mirror Orlok's own power of luring his victims. We see additional parallelism between the physical likeness of Orlok and the rats he unleashes. There is also a remarkable visual similarity between the inept Professor Bulwer and the madman Knock.