Nosferatu: from cinema to comics

by Ninni Radicini and edited by the editorial staff

Inspired by Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (published in 1897), the film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau on an adaptation by Henrik Galeen, who reworked the story and the characters (names and characteristics) although this did not prevent a dispute with the Irish writer’s copyright holders, to the point that the destruction of the film was ordered, of which the German director nevertheless managed to save a copy.

A famous feature film of the horror genre, Nosferatu is one of the best-known films of German cinematography during the years of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), characterized by innovations both in the technical sector and in the narrative structures, which determined a historic turning point in the methods of realization and have been an example for the authors of the following generations.

In Nosferatu the story narrated and the protagonists are at the center of multiple psychoanalytic and sociological assessments with which we have tried to trace the origins of its conception, hypothesizing references to the contemporary world and metaphors whose density is comparable only to what then happened with science fiction filmography US in the fifties.

Together with the metaphysical interpretations, it is plausible that the current developments of the period also had an effect on the choices of the authors. Nosferatu the Vampire – or Count Orlok – could also represent all the powers of the Entente, winners of the First World War, which in Versailles in 1919 inflicted huge sanctions on Germany with economic and political consequences considered the reason for what happened in the next phase German historian.

Knock – the real estate agent to whom Orlok turns to buy a house in Germany – can be considered, due to his ambiguity, the one who maneuvers from the outside knowing, better than the others, the characteristics of each of the main characters.

Hutter – Knock’s employee who will end up unwittingly facilitating Nosferatu’s intentions – is the representative of the small-middle bourgeoisie who, out of ambition, albeit in a naive way, lends himself to the dark designs of adverse powers.

Ellen – Hutter’s wife – represents the citizen who sacrifices himself with the hope of defeating those who want to steal resources from the German people.

Nosferatu was born in 1443, the year in which Vlad II (Vlad Dracul) began his further period of government of Wallachia (historical region in the southern area of Romania, south of Transylvania) with the title of Voivode (“Duke ”), until 1447 (the previous phase had been from 1436 to 1442). Vlad II is the father of Vlad III, known as the Impaler, also governor of Wallachia, whose notoriety derives from having used the same methods against the Ottomans that they used against the Christian peoples of Europe. Vlad III is considered the historical correspondent of the literary character of Dracula, although he has more relevant reference to the legends about vampires of Carpathian-Danubian folklore since the origin of Vlad III is historically modified in Stoker’s novel.

Transylvania is a central-western region of Romania, with ancient and persistent links with the Germanic world, given that in the 12th century a group of Saxons settled in the area for the defense of the territory which at the time was the southern border of the Kingdom of Hungary (Siebenbürgen is the German name for Transylvania). 1443 is also the year of the Varna Crusade, an expedition of European kingdoms into the Balkans to face Ottoman expansionism, conducted by an alliance of Baltic, Central European and Danubian powers, which ended in a negative way. In Nosferatu’s narrative, Varna is one of the places where the plague spreads.

Around the film, during and after, situations and personalities with a marked profile have aggregated.

Max Schreck (pictured below) played the character of Nosferatu in such a dark way that a legend began to circulate according to which he could really be a vampire. It was the main role of his career, recently re-evaluated highlighting a versatile actor, who worked in 800 theatrical and cinematic performances, although an aura of mystery continues to persist around him, supported by his own surname, whose translation is “fear”.

Gustav von Wangenheim (in the photo below) – the actor who plays Hutter – in the early 1920s (at the beginning of the Weimar Republic) became a militant of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1933, at the start of the Third Reich regime, he moved to the Soviet Union and acquired its citizenship in 1940, writing and producing films. After the end of the Second World War he returned to Germany (East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, part of the European Soviet supervisory area) and continued to work as a director and screenwriter for DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft), the studio state cinema. The Prana production company – founded by Albin Grau the same year Nosferatu was made – envisaged the creation of films focused on supernatural themes. However, it was closed following the Dracula copyright proceedings. Nosferatu was his only production.

Greta Schröder – interpreter of Ellen – played the most important part of her career in the 1920s, then seeing the relevance of the roles assigned decrease. The peculiarity is in her biography, in the differences on the date of her disappearance (1967 rather than 1980).

Murnau (pictured below) died at the age of 42 in 1931 in California following a car accident. He had started working in Hollywood in 1926, at the Fox film studios, following the trend of other German directors who established themselves in the early years of the Weimar Republic, including Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch. He directed four American films, the last of which (Taboo) premiered, and was released, after his tragic end. Although famous as a director, he was also a producer, from the beginning of his career and before starting to direct. In 2003 the Berlin International Film Festival dedicated a retrospective to him.

The editorial initiative of Edizioni Npe – the creation of a comic book taken entirely from the film Nosferatu – qualifies the cultural relevance, particularly in the cinematography sector, of one of the films considered most innovative and, consequently, a reference not only for authors of the genre to which it is ascribed. For a feature film that evokes a medieval legend, through a technically new representation, the idea of translating it into comic form represents a synthesis between modernity and classicism.

In the book by Paolo D’Onofrio, in an elegant format, with the cover and back cover made by Nino Cammarata, the comic is composed with black shapes on a sepia background, using a paper with an “aging” effect created in a specific way. The images of the designs are therefore monochromatic with shades from brown to beige. On the preface page, readers have the opportunity to detect the quality of the drawings made through a comparison with the original frames.

The preface by Ornella Balsamo presents an exhaustive overview of the origins of the film, with references to the director and the production, noting the differences with Stoker’s novel and with hints at the cinematography of the character.

Nosferatu

by Paolo D’Onofrio

21×30 cm, 80 pages, b/w hardcover with sepia-colored pages

19.90 euros