1922 Silent Film Nosferatu: A Term Paper

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These subsequent Draculas are all pretenders to the throne, thanks to the iconographic excellence that emerged in the 1922 version. Indeed, subsequent Draculas in many cases have taken on slick, well-dressed, classy appearances, quite the opposite of the repulsive, disgusting, repugnant - and pathetically sickly - Count Orlok.

Renowned film critic Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times, 1997) praises the iconography of Mumau's Orlok: "The vampire should come across not like a flamboyant actor but like a man suffering from a dread curse"; and of course, Orlok is suffering from a disease / curse, and his bat ears, claw-like nails, and fangs are located not on the side of his head like some movies show Dracula, but in the middle of his mouth, like a rodent, which he is, at least partly. ("Nosferatu" is derived from the Greek "Nosophoros," which means "plague-carrier," which a rat is known to be.)

Meantime, part of what keeps Nosferatu unique in its iconography, rather than merely suck blood and be violent, "Orlok exerts a kind of emotional tyranny over his victims," writes Joseph Maddrey (Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, 10). "He's a sickly creature and his victims seem to have no will of their own," Maddrey concluded.

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Further, as to the turbulent times in which this movie originally appeared, in Germany: the movie Nosferatu "unabashedly sought the approbation of the postwar intelligentsia" (Skal, 51); and the "pestilential images" portrayed in the film, Skal continues, "were widely considered to be a reflection of the war (WWI) and its wrenching aftermath." To wit: it's hard to imagine anything more ghastly than the blood-soaked, death-stench-filled fields of post-battle WWI, but Murnau's Orlok is in close competition......

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