Within the first few minutes of the movie, I realized that I was watching a silent film.  And in my naivety and twenty first century mindset, I expected a high quality, modern film like The Artist.  Every thing that I saw afterwards, was automatically tied to the film.  Like in The Artist, the music played a huge role in the film.  I enjoyed the impact of the score and how it added to the “scariness” of the film.

  It helped set the mood and added to the impact of the film.  In congruence with all silent films, the exaggeration in expression was apparent.  I though it was odd that this trend continued into the make up and costumes that were used. This reminded me of “the absurd” we discussed so heavily with Gogol’s The Nose. The huge exaggeration in the Count’s eyebrows, ears, and hands shows the overt visual display of the absurd.  For some reason, though it was supposed to be scary, I found the film oddly comical at times.  Through its exaggerated acting and the absurdity, the film was so unbelievable and entertaining.

I also enjoyed looking at the film in a historical context.  The time period of the film’s creation is often known for its darkness.  Expressionism’s focus on meaning and expression versus reality indicates the mindset of the time.  I thought that the film was especially interesting in the development on expressionism.  It was extremely dark in its meaning and I thought it was interesting to see how German culture of the time effected the film.  Though it wasn’t like The Artist, I enjoyed Nosferatu and thought it was an interesting movie.