Object #30 - Coffin - Nosferatu (1922)

Dir. F.W Murnau 

'Say “Dracula” and you smile. Say “Nosferatu” and you've eaten a lemon.' - Roger Ebert

 This quote from the great critic Roger Ebert sums up the difference in tone that Nosferatu has from any other Dracula adaption. Most adaptions of Bram Stoker's Dracula fall prey to camp, particularly, well, Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featuring such oddities as Dracula's stylized armour (which may well be a post in it's own right in the future). Even Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), starring Bela Lugosi in the iconic role, has since fallen to near-parody, as it's the inception of nearly every trope later used to parody vampires and Dracula films. The Hammer Horror Dracula films, well...need I say more?

Nosferatu, by virtue of being adapted so early in the history of film, feels like the origin of the beast that is Count Dracula, or rather, Count Orlok (Max Schreck). Nosferatu has name changes due to the filmmakers being sued by Bram Stoker's descendants for creating an unauthorized adaption of the novel, and so Count Dracula becomes Count Orlok, vampire becomes nosferatu, etc.. It's a miracle the film survived, as all copies were ordered to be destroyed. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, the beast lives on. This production fact I think adds to the mystique of the film, as if the film itself hid in a coffin somewhere, in the dark, waiting to emerge.

The coffin is central to the story of Dracula, as you likely know. It's almost impossible to not know the story of Dracula these days, due to the novel being a well-read classic and plenty of adaptions through the years. Nosferatu is special however as Orlok seems more synonymous with his coffin than any other adaption. Throughout the film, the coffin is never far away. It's where he sleeps at night, in that classic pose, but we've become so dissolusioned to the image of a vampire in a coffin that we forget the obvious. The Vampire is undead, and lies in the coffin, a symbol of death in our culture. He sleeps in it, our beds are a source of comfort to us, but to Orlok, his coffin is where he rests at night. He rests among death. Death and the vampire are synonymous, via the coffin.

Orlok in particular in this adaption personally carries his coffin with him. Like a hermit crab, he takes his 'home' with him everywhere, literally carrying death with him at all times. In one scene, which you can see here, Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) sees Orlok leave his castle, placing the coffin on a carriage, opening it, climbing in, and by supernatural means, telekinetically placing the lid atop himself. He is ready for his journey across the sea to the England. In the boat, the sailors open one of the coffins, and it's filled with rats (I'll come back to this point).

Later, the sailor returns, ready to open Orlok's coffin and we get this iconic image. Orlok rises from death, alive, but as a personification of death. Even more-so, as when he arrives in England, the deaths that occur to state his hunger are attributed to plague rats from the ship, themselves a symbol of death. Importantly, Orlok takes his own coffin with him in this new land, literally carrying death with him. 

I mean look at this other iconic image: 

The shadow of death, in profile, is horrifying. It's still, yet with clawed fingers outstretched, ready to take life as it moves unnaturally about it's business. As is typical with vampire stories, it's lust for a woman that trumps the monster. Here, rather than the more loving relationship of vampire and prey as explored in more recent media, it's the classic element of lust. Orlok drains Ellen's (Greta Schroder) blood all night, so engrossed that when it becomes daytime he vanishes in a puff of smoke, defeated. 

The sexual undertones are obvious, and ingrained in the vampire mythos, and it's refreshing that in this nearly century old film, it's lust that characterizes the beastly Orlok, not love. We've matured in our age to humanize the vampire, but here, it's a legend, a tale to terrify children, warning them of the sexual predator that is synonymous with death. A monster that lives and sleeps in death, in a coffin, ready to emerge, to hunt, to kill, and take pleasure from it. 

'Those things that live only at night do not need to talk, for their victims are asleep, waiting.' - Roger Ebert