Frazer MacDonald on German Expressionist cinema and the influence of F.W. Murnau’s most famous film…
1922’s Nosferatu: Symphony des Grauens (translated as Symphony of Terror) is F.W. Murnau’s most famous film, and one of the best-known in German film history. Despite being an unofficial adaptation of Dracula (Bram Stoker’s wife famously sued the studio who made the film), it has since become the archetypal adaptation of the film.
Before Nosferatu, the idea that vampires could burn to death in sunlight didn’t exist, and many of the more traditional vampire films—Fright Night, From Dusk ‘til Dawn, and Werner Herzog’s own adaptation of the film—were all heavily influenced by Murnau’s rendition, and the film has even been spoofed in children’s cartoon SpongeBob Squarepants.
Born in Bielefeld (Westphalia) in 1888, Murnau came to Berlin to study philology at the city’s Humboldt University, witnessing first-hand the devastation of World War One and the subsequent economic and psychological depression throughout Germany.
The German government’s banning of foreign films during the war (in 1916) led directly to an increased pressure on German film (and theatre) directors, who rose to the occasion, producing 130 films in 1918 compared to just 24 in 1914. It was while seeking new methods of attracting and engaging audiences that the genre of German Expressionism, which borrowed heavily from theatre, was born.
Murnau, who was friends with local theatre director Max Reinhardt, made his first feature film (The Boy In Blue) directly after the war in 1919 but it was Nosferatu that made him famous. The movie possesses many of the now-classic Expressionist tropes: angular, stage-like sets, the stark blocking that usually puts one or two of the cast members front and centre—Schreck always appears in windows, doorways, and on gangplanks, and always with a bare light behind him to accentuates his gaunt features—and much like a stage production, movement is kept to a minimum.
There’s a huge emphasis on tableaus, and the most dynamic scenes in the films are ones in which Schreck himself is making his way slowly up a stairwell or something similar. Indeed, more than any other film from this period, Nosferatu is the purest example of the Expressionist style, and the smoky exteriors and dimly lit interiors of the film are arguably the most influential of the era.
Berlin became something of a creative hub for Expressionist cinema, both as a base and an urban backdrop, featuring most famously in Phil Jutzi’s 1931 adaptation of Alfred Dobin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and Fritz Lang’s M, with Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire utilising many techniques typical of the twenties and thirties, and even recent colour films—the s…