The Arts in New York City

The first thing I noticed about F.W. Murnau’s silent film Noseferatu is that the audio and acting and separated. The actors and actresses heavily emphasize facial emotion but speak no words. I found going back and forth from reading words to watching the film a little tedious. This reminded me of the Dracula clips that I had to analyze in my creative writing class in high school. The way the clips were presented was very similar to that of Noseferatu: black, white, and antique though there was audio in Dracula.

Even though most of the characters look creepy, the dramatic facial expressions make the whole movie quite comical. When Count Orlok was sneaking up on people, his wide-eyed expression and wiggly long nails made him look more funny than scary. This adds to how much cinema has changed because what was considered scary back then turned into something amusing today. In terms of cinematic techniques, I liked the use of dimming each scene change in the shape of a circle, creating a mysterious aura. I also liked how they switched up the writing on the screen by changing the font when Hutter was reading his book or when he was writing a letter to his wife. This brightness of the font also dims and brightens corresponding to the day of time. For example, the whiteness of the font becomes dimmer towards the night, similar to how we lose our vision during the night.

I found Hutter’s reaction to the creepiness of Transylvania the most believable of the three pieces we had to watch. Gregor was overly calm while Kovaloff and Jakovlevitch and his wife were overly dramatic. Hutter had the right amount of fear and confusion that ultimately led to his fleeing from Transylvania. The element of the supernatural was intriguing in that his wife, Ellen, was able to sense when Hutter was in danger while Knock was also able to sense when his master, Count Orlok was about to die. While I found Ellen’s bravery to serve as a sacrifice for the town admirable, the way Count Orlok lost track of time draining her blood was unbelievable. He turned into a ball of fire and disappeared off the corner of the screen, which I found cliché. However, the ending successfully made me feel pitiful towards Hutter. He rushed home to protect his wife all to have her die in his arms in a matter of seconds.