A Devil Sick of Sin: Images of Death and Disease in Murnau's "Nosferatu"

Table of Contents

1  Introduction  3

2  Inside Outside  4

3  Death and Disease  5

4  Invisibility  7

5  Ubiquity  8

6  Paralysis  10

7  Conclusion  12

8  Sources  13

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1 Introduction

In adapting Stoker’s Dracula, Murnau has made quite a few changes to the

original plot. Some of them were made due to economic and practical reasons,

such as moving the setting and locations to Germany, some of them in order to

avoid charges of copyright infringement, such as changing the characters’ names,

as Murnau was not authorised to make an adaptation.

However, Murnau doesn’t simply copy Dracula. Stoker’s novel about the in-

trusion of an alien evil into English society is transformed into a story mirroring the

fears that prevailed in Germany in the late 1910’s. Screenwriter Henrik Galeen and

director Murnau were obviously influenced by the impressions that both World War

I and the influenza pandemic had left. The war had left large areas in Central

Europe in ruins and had triggered many political changes. Often, the new-founded

Weimar Republic was seen as weak and incapable of acting. Moreover, the out-

break of the Spanish Flu in 1918 proved no less devastating, ranking “with the

plague of Justinian and the Black Death as one of the three most destructive hu-

man epidemics.” 1 Assisted by large troop movements and disastrous hygienic con- ditions after the armistice, the disease spread across the globe within less than

three months. Physicians and scientist were helpless. There was no immunization

available: the influenza virus could not be isolated and positively identified as the

pathogene until 1932. In fact, even today there are no means of preventing another

influenza epidemic 2 .

Murnau begins with a caption that presents the movie as a record of an epi-

demic: “Aufzeichnung über das große Sterben in Wisborg.” The vampire is not the

party animal that Lugosi impersonated; instead, Murnau draws on a tradition that

associates vampires with unexpected or inexplicable death. 3 His creature feeds on a society which is defenseless against him, either because its members are too

weakened or too terrified to take action. Thus, though set almost one hundred

years in the past, Nosferatu presents an actualisation of Dracula.

I would like to point out a few evident parallels between the composition of

1 Potter, C.W. “A history of influenza”. Journal of Applied Microbiology 31. 2001: 575.

2 cf. ibid., 572.

3 cf. Becker, Markus. “Echte Vampire trinken kein Blut”. Spiegel Online.

.

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Nosferatu and the situation of the time the film was made, as it presents itself his-

torically. I will concentrate on a few striking themes of the movie, namely the em-

phasis on an omnipresent threat of untimely death and the sense of helplessness,

paralysis, and decay connected with it.

2 Inside, Outside

In order to give an outline of the peculiar character of Count Orlok, I will

show some of the differences to Stoker’s conception of the vampire. When Todd

Browning’s vampire appears at the concert to introduce himself to his new

neighbors, he is given a warm reception. Lucy, especially, is intrigued by his suave

elegance. Obviously, Dracula can move in England’s high society with ease. Even

his antagonist, Dr. Van Helsing, needs quite some time and combinational skill to

find out about the Count’s true nature.

Count Orlok’s presence, however, would not be acceptable at any matinée.

From his first appearance on, when he emerges out of a dark archway, he is characterised by repulsive otherness. Hutter shies away from the vampire’s gaunt

figure when he encounters him, but his greed and ambition win over any caution.

Whereas Browning generates a sense of dramatic irony by presenting a

vampire who can assimilate into society and be welcomed as ‘one of us,’ Murnau

shows a blood-sucker who is equally appalling to both film characters and audi-

ence. Count Orlok’s appearance, with his elongated incisors and pointed ears, re-

sembles a rat. His mask-like, empty stare and stiff motions add to the disgusting

impression. M oreover, he hardly communicates with anybody. Much unlike

Browning’s Dracula who is quite talkative, Orlok speaks strikingly little, even for a

figure in a silent movie. His gestures are equally rudimentary, limited to a few stiff

moves such as the abrupt bow when he greets Hutter. Murnau thus makes a point

of depicting the Count as an outsider, as something completely inhuman.

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Count Orlok in his casket.

Also different from Stoker’s creature, the vampire’s threat is not tied as

closely to its person. His arrival in Wisborg shows symptomatically in the epidemic

and the death of the townspeople, however, we never see him attack anybody ex-

cept Ellen. It seems that his pure presence and the fact that he has been invited

into the city is the cause of the people’s death. This, in turn, suggests that the

vampire is not just a singular evil, that he represents something else, an abstract

concept.

3 Death and Disease

The vampire’s journey by ship is given a remarkable amount of screen time.

The connotation with colonization in reverse it has in Dracula is lost when the story

is translated from an English to a German setting. In Nosferatu, instead, it parallels the history of the Plague, which in medieval times hit sea ports first (among others

Constantinople in 1347, Venice and Marseilles in 1348 4 ).

In both Stoker’s and Murnau’s version, the vampire kills the crew and arrives

on a ghost ship. The connection to the Plague implied there might have been a mi-

nor aspect in the original. In Murnau’s time, however, it gains an alarming actuality:

the influenza pandemic, too, spread along shipping lines to North America, Africa,

East Asia, and Australia. In Central Europe it started from Brest, one of France’s

main ports 5 . Nosferatu can turn himself into a mass of rats to avoid detection 6 .

4 cf. Bugl, Paul. “History of Endemics and Plagues”.

.

5 cf. Potter, C.W. “A history of influenza”. Journal of Applied Microbiology 31. 2001: 576.

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