Upon watching Nosferatu, it was clear to me that vampires did not always glisten in the sunlight and girls didn’t exactly swoon over their looks. I decided immediately that no vampire movies, whether it is Twilight or Nosferatu are something that I could take seriously. Although Nosferatu was a very different story than Twilight, it still had one similarity: the elements of love and sacrifice. Nina’s sacrifice to Count Orlok to save Jonathan is exactly the theme in Twilight with the ongoing sacrifices Edward and Bella make for each other. I feel it is important to draw this comparison between these two vampire movies because how are we to judge one as more serious than another? Nobody seems to take either on seriously, but they both seem to touch on elements of love and also fear in an extremely over the top way.
This 1922 film has an interesting way of evoking fear from the watcher. The movie reminded me of Jaws because it used a technique of suspense similar to that which the director of Jaws used to evoke fear. I waited for something to jump out from behind a doorway or for Dracula to pop out from a coffin the whole film, but I was just left on the edge of my seat. Finally, the big moment of action occurred when Nina sacrificed herself for her husband Jonathan who initially did not believe that vampires were real. Each action was exaggerated because there was no dialogue therefore to convey feeling, the actors in Nosferatu had to excessively perform their action. This created a humorous quality for someone who watches the film now, however I can imagine the fear of past audiences when Nina fearfully awaited Count Orlok who was to suck her blood.
After watching this film, I mostly gained insight regarding the quality of film over time, and the development of the audience. Nosferatu was created early in the history of film in society. With no dialogue and a fuzzy black and white quality, the movie gave off a different feeling. It was eerie and creepy and hard to take seriously. However, it also set a premise of how directors could make scary movies in the future. As I said before, Nosferatu worked with an element of suspense just like Jaws does which is a film made in 1975. However, in present day movies, not only is the quality better, but the tactics of evoking fear as well. I cannot help but wonder: where along the lines did our minds become more tolerant of fear? Just like technology, fashion, and transportation, film has clearly improved and changed over time and it was interesting to see where scary movies seriously started after watching Nosferatu.
I definitely agree with your points about evoking fear and Twilight. I couldn’t really take Nosferatu seriously. Maybe it was because I kept imagining vampires like the ones in Twilight and the “scary-ness” of the movie. I think it might be because of the horror movies we’re used to nowadays, with the great special effects and horrifying music. Noseferatu was definitely interesting and I liked how you made a connection with two other films (Jaws and Twilight).
Haha I thought that was a really cool connection you made there between Twilight and Nosferatu. But, I feel like Twilight is taken a little less seriously than Nosferatu because twilight focused on vampires in a much more sexual way as your picture of Edward shows. Noseferatu on the other hand was a movie more oriented towards scaring the audience and of course, was the first of its kind.