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Nosferatu
''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife ( Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town. ''Nosferatu'' was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel '' Dracula''. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok. Although these changes are often represented as a defense against copyright infringement, the original German intertitles acknowledged ''Dracula'' as the source. Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was "a low-budget film made by Germans for German audiences... setting it in Germany with German named characters makes the story more tangible and immediate for G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nosferatu (1922, English Titles 1947)
''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' (German: ''Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens'') is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town. ''Nosferatu'' was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula''. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok. Although these changes are often represented as a defense against copyright infringement, the original German intertitles acknowledged ''Dracula'' as the source. Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was "a low-budget film made by Germans for German audiences...setting it in Germany with German-named characters makes the story more tangible and immediate for German-sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Orlok
Count Orlok (german: Graf Orlok), commonly but erroneously known as Nosferatu, is the main antagonist and title character portrayed by German actor Max Schreck (1879–1936) in the silent film ''Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens'' (1922). He was based on Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula. Profile In ''Nosferatu'', Count Orlok is a vampire from Transylvania, and is known as "The Bird of Death", who feasts upon the blood of living humans. He is believed to have been created by Belial, the lieutenant demon of Satan. Orlok dwells alone in a vast castle hidden among the rugged peaks in a lost corner of the Carpathian Mountains. The castle is swathed in shadows, and is badly neglected with a highly sinister feel to it. He is in league with the housing agent Knock, and wants to purchase a house in the (fictional) city of Wisborg, Germany. Local peasants live in terror of Orlok and never venture out after dark. Thomas Hutter scorns their fears as mere superstition, and ventures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Schreck
Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck Eickhoff, Stefan. 2007 (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936), Walk, Ines. 2006. known professionally as Max Schreck, was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampire Count Orlok in the film ''Nosferatu'' (1922). Early life Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later, his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district of Teltow. Schreck's father did not approve of his son's ever-growing enthusiasm for theater. His mother provided the boy with money, which he secretly used for acting lessons, although only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he traveled briefly across the country with poet and dramatist Demetrius Schrutz. Schreck had engagements in Mulhouse, Meseritz, Speyer, Rudolstadt, Erfurt and Weissenfels, and his first extended stay at the Gera Theater. Greater engagements followed, especially i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been Vampire folklore by region, recorded in cultures around the world; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''shtriga'' in Albanian mythology, Albania, ''vrykolakas'' in G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albin Grau
Albin Grau (December 22, 1884 in Leipzig-Schönefeld – March 27, 1971) was a German artist, architect and occultist, and the producer and production designer for F.W. Murnau's ''Nosferatu'' (1922). He was largely responsible for the look and spirit of the film, including the sets, costumes, storyboards and promotional materials. A lifelong student of the occult and member of Fraternitas Saturni, under the magical name of Master Pacitius, Grau was able to imbue ''Nosferatu'' with hermetic and mystical undertones.Tobias Churton. ''The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex and Magick in the Weimar Republic''. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions,2014, p. 68 One example in particular was the cryptic contract that Count Orlok and Knock exchanged, which was filled in Enochian, hermetic and alchemical symbols. Grau was also a strong influence on Orlok's verminous and emaciated look. Grau had originally gotten the idea of shooting a vampire film while serving in the German Army during World War I, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Dracula
Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant. One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and infecting them with the vampiric disease. Other character aspects have been added or altered in subsequent popular fictional works. The character has appeared frequently in popular culture, from films to animated media to breakfast cereals. Stoker's creation Bram Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities, and weaknesses are narrated by multiple narrators, from different perspectives. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Expressionism (cinema)
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture and cinema. This article deals primarily with developments in German Expressionist cinema before and immediately after World War I, approximately from 1910 to the 1930s. History The German Expressionist movement was initially confined to Germany due to the country's isolation during World War I. In 1916, the government banned foreign films, creating a sharp increase in the demand for domestic film production: from 24 films in 1914, to 130 films in 1918. With inflation also on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's value was constantly diminishing.Thompson, Kristin. Bordwell, David. ''Film History: An Intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Arno Wagner
Fritz Arno Wagner (5 December 1889 – 18 August 1958) is considered one of the most acclaimed German cinematographers from the 1920s to the 1950s. He played a key role in the Expressionist film movement during the Weimar period and is perhaps best known for excelling "in the portrayal of horror" according to noted film critic Lotte H. Eisner. Background Born in Schmiedefeld am Rennsteig, Germany, Wagner received his training at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1910, while still attending the University of Leipzig, he managed to secure a job as a clerk at the Pathé film company. In 1912, he became both secretary and chef at the Pathé offices in Vienna and later in Berlin. Career as cinematographer Interested in cinematography he became a newsreel cameraman in 1913 and was stationed in New York for Pathé Weekly where he reported on the Mexican Revolution. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he returned to Germany to enlist in his country's elite Hussar caval ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henrik Galeen
Henrik Galeen (7 January 1881 – 30 July 1949) was an Austrian-born actor, screenwriter and film director considered an influential figure in the development of German Expressionism, German Expressionist cinema during the silent era. Early years Considerable mystery exists about Galeen's early life, and for many years it was uncertain where exactly he was born. Galeen came from a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia (Eastern Europe), Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. He moved from Austria to German Empire, Germany before the First World War, and became assistant to the leading theatre figure Max Reinhardt. Galeen subsequently became an actor in Berlin and touring other German-speaking cities. German silent films Galeen first became involved in film in 1913 when he worked on the screenplays for several uncredited films. In 1914 he wrote, directed and acted in ''The Golem (1915 film), The Golem'' the first of several depictions of the mythical figure Golem, The Gole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greta Schröder
Greta Schröder (27 June 1892 – 8 June 1980) was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife and Count Orlok's victim in ''Nosferatu'' (1922). In the fictionalized 2000 film ''Shadow of the Vampire'', she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of ''Nosferatu'', but in fact she was little known. The bulk of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances. Following a failed marriage with struggling actor Ernst Matray, she was married to actor and film director Paul Wegener. According to the Austrian writer Kay Weniger, Greta Schröder died in 1980, though some sources mention 1967. Filmography Actress *1913: ''Die Insel der Seligen'' *1920: ''The Red Peacock'' as Alfred's sister *1920: '' The Golem: How He Came into the World'' as a lady of the court *1920: ''The Closed Chain'' *1921: '' The Lost Shadow'' as Countess Dor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Granach
Alexander Granach (April 18, 1890 – March 14, 1945) was a German-Austrian actor in the 1920s and 1930s who emigrated to the United States in 1938. Life and career Granach was born Schaje Granoch in Werbowitz (Wierzbowce/Werbiwci) (Austrian Galicia then, now ''Verbivtsi'', Kolomyia Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine), to Jewish parents and rose to theatrical prominence at the Volksbühne in Berlin. Granach entered films in 1922; among the most widely exhibited of his silent efforts was ''Nosferatu'' (1922), F.W. Murnau’s loose adaptation of ''Dracula'', in which the actor was cast as Knock, the film's counterpart to Renfield. He co-starred in such major early German talkies as '' Kameradschaft'' (1931). The Jewish Granach fled to the Soviet Union when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. When the Soviet Union also proved inhospitable, he settled in Hollywood, where he made his first American film appearance as Kopalski in ''Ninotchka'' (1939) starring Greta Garbo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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