I watch a lot of old films and Nosferatu is one of the many I’ve seen. But whenever I watch a black-and-white film my mind immediately goes to Charlie Chaplin because I watch and re-watch his films on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. This time was no different. As soon as the movie started playing I imagined Mr. Chaplin in his peculiar attire.
I know the genres don’t coincide at all but I’ve already gotten into the habit of relating any black-and-white film I see to the little tramp.
The pro-longed facial expressions, and note cards and…every pro-longed thing basically. If there’s one thing I can’t stand about silent films its the time span they give to the note cards. I challenged myself to see how many times I could re-read a note card; 6. It made me feel like I was back in elementary school.
The exaggerated facial expressions, though creepy at times (in my opinion Nina gave Nosferatu a run for his money on the creep scale) made sense. With no spoken dialogue to work with the director had to convey the mood of the film somehow and if he had only stoic expressions to work with the film probably wouldn’t have scored very high with even an audience from the early 1900’s.
In my opinion, Harker was an idiot through and through. If a customer tried to taste my blood after an accident, well…I’d risk losing my job and run straight back to home. Regardless of whether or not you believe in phantoms any human who exhibits that sort of behavior ranks pretty high on the possible psychopath chart. And I very much like living, thank you, so I don’t think I would’ve risked spending the night under the same roof as Count Orlock.
Nosferatu doesn’t rank very high on my list of favorite black-and-white films and I think the pace of the film and the illogical ending had something to do with that. I know, supposedly as a fan of black-and-white films I shouldn’t be talking about the pace of the film but if you compare Nosferatu to others like The Unknown, The Kid, and Sunrise…well, I think it speaks for itself. The plot simply wasn’t very suspenseful nor entertaining.
I’ll give the make-up crew credit for making the actor who played Nosferatu look as creepy as he did though, definitely one of the creepier vampires of our time.
I like your attitude towards Nosferatu compared to other films at the time. I have watched my fair share of silent films such as Chaplin’s City Lights or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and I feel that some of these films are better than Nosferatu. I do, however, feel that Nosferatu is one of the best horror flicks of the era. Films like the original Phantom of the Opera and even the “talkie” Dracula starring Bela Lugosi cannot compare to the amount of mystery and horror that Nosferatu has. Despite whatever shortcomings the movie may have in terms of plot, Nosferatu is still a landmark in the horror genre and one of the most famous vampire films of all time.