I like this film!!
Perhaps because I have barely watched any pantomime before, I am really involved in the show and try to find out what will happen. As the characters in Nosteratu use there dramatic gestures and facial expressions to demonstrate their actions and their feelings, I think of one famous British comic actor: Charles Chaplin. He is worldwide icon best known for his figure as “the Tramp.” His films are characterized by slapstick combined with with pathos, and often feature the tramp struggling against adversity. While Nosferatu tells a vampire story, Chaplin focuses on both the plot and his persona as the tramp. People have remembered this phenomenal character.
The second thing I want to talk about the movie is the music. Since there is no verbal content in the film, the music becomes the “language” which helps shape the mood in its collaboration with dramatic gesture. I remember how I was a huge fan for the movie Pirates of Caribbean partially because of the background music. The elements of comedy, suspense, adventure in the film are “well-depicted” through the music. I will say that music is a universal language that cross our language barrier. Through music, we are able to feel the mood and sometimes even if we don’t understand a language. Music is so subtle that when we watch a film and listen to conversations between characters, we usually neglect the music part. Now that there is no word in Nosferatu, I deeply feel the power of music.
Well, the last thing I really enjoy is the antiqued film itself. The screen is yellow and somehow fuzzy compared to modern HD movies, but it is the blurriness that makes the film such a vintage that intrigues me as a fan for history. It is so interesting to know the lives of people in the past and to try to empathize their feelings as if we put ourselves in the screen. From the movie, I gasp some ideas about fear from the way the sailor reacts to the vampire and the way people concern when I see Hutter is eager to see his wife. I learn some ideologies from the past. In addition, the creepy vampire story and the black-and-white screen accidentally perfectly matches each other.
I like Nosferatu better than the other two stories we have read. While the story itself does not really attract me compared to its gesture and music, Nosferatu stands out in its expressionism as I learn about the ways of demonstrating all kinds of feelings in the film.
I like all the points you made! The music really did become the language of the film. I think the music reinforced how the actors felt during certain parts of the film and how the audience should feel at other parts of the film. The fact that there are no words spoken in the film adds to the film being up to the audience’s interpretation, but each person in the audience should experience similar underlying emotions. Although I do not like black and white films and silent films, the oldness of the film is something very interesting. Some parts of the film were played quicker than other parts of the film, and I found that the makers of the film were trying to convey the feelings that were not easily portrayed.
Although I didn’t really pay attention to the music, I agree with you in that it had an extremely important part in the film. It created all the suspense, which to me, can be the scariest part of any movie. I bet without the music, we wouldn’t be scared at all, even when Count Orlok showed up suddenly. I also really liked the antique-y feel of the film! While I was watching it, I was actually thinking about how nice it was to be all static-y and blurry and monochrome. Those are all good ways to make a modern horror movie even scarier.