Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

As ever I love to bring you updates on all the latest releases. There is a release of Nosferatu currently playing in cinemas but allow me to talk about this one from 100 years ago instead.

Actually I’m off to see the new one tomorrow, so I thought perhaps it’d be fun to see the original again beforehand.

I hadn’t realised that it was an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, and that a court ordered all the copies to be burned. It seems like a miracle that we’re able to watch this now, and the wonderful BFI restoration brings it to life more than whatever I watched back in the day (er, not in 1922 I should add; I myself am not Count Orlok).

It’s scary to think about what could have been lost, because although the pacing and story are probably not to modern tastes it is undeniably a visual masterpiece brimming with sexual repression and fear of the other. You can trace the origins of most cinematic horror to Murnau’s work, but beyond a purely academic study of the film it’s still a deeply weird movie that creeps you the fuck out, and occasionally makes you laugh. Max Schreck’s Nosferatu seems as haunted as he is haunting.

One cannot help but see in every frame all the films and works of art that this film has touched in the last century. It stands as proof that art really can make you immortal.