I watched Nosferatu with the same frame of reference as I do with other movies of the 1920s. In particular, I noticed that elements shooting outdoors and including a lot of large sets resembled that of the 1920s version of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. This might have to do with both being set in Germany.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciq9ts02ci4
The actors’ employment of melodrama really reminded me of Borzage’s ‘Street Angel’ and his style in general. A lot of the emotion evoked from the viewers in both films comes from the interaction of shadows- light and darkness, on the screen.
However the ‘scariness’ of Nosferatu failed to impress me and seemed just as scary as watching ‘Elvira’.
Wow I’ve never seen that movie referenced before but it looks really interesting! Your take on the older movies and their big sets is very accurate, I have noticed that as well. In modern moves the set is small and in front of a green screen, which I tend to think takes away from the movie realism. The older movies, before special effects felt more genuine and had much more… depth.
You brought up some really interesting points that I actually didn’t focus on as much while watching the film. I think the film had a lot of large sets because it’s easier to capture the audience’s attention especially since it was silent and black and white. I like your idea of emotions coming from the interactions of shadow. My understanding of that is depending on the mood a character was trying to portray, light was either shined on or off of him/her. One scene I recall was when Orlok walked closer and closer to Hutter and the light shone on his face to fully express Orlok’s amusement in Hutter’s blood.
I didnt notice that many scenes were filmed outside, but now that I think about it I find it quite amazing because I think filmmakers today have such a difficult time shooting outside that it is easier to shoot inside in front of a green screen. I feel like the outside angles adds to the movie because we get to see a person taking on elements that he can’t control and using them to his advantage. The reference to the movie All Quite on the Western Front is awesome because most of it is super real except for a few moments that were made by using prompts. Also I think that movies that are so old are quite genuine in their acting and emotions because many of these people didnt learn to put on a show when they were in front of the cameras so they either had genuine feelings or everything was fake. I think that those genuine feelings really embody what the feelings of that time period was like. Lastly, I feel as if movies of the past give us more truth than today because experience was key to giving a good show, but in todays era a lot of experience is from imagination and story telling or watching what others had done, which doesn’t make bad film, but it creates exaggerations that dont correctly project what is being shown.