I was wondering, why this movie is considered a classic?
I just finished watching the black and white version of Nosferatu and I must admit that i was a bit disappointed. Comparred to other classics at the time (The General, The kid, The passion of Joan of Arc etc.), I found that the quality was very bad, the acting was poor and the obvious mistakes made it hard to take movie seriously.
What "obvious mistakes"?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
[deleted]
Pardon me, but what`s England got to do with anything?
But, yeah, there is no practical explnation offered as to why Orlock decides on a ship journey that makes a huge circle around at least 3/4 of Europe. Glad he did sail though, of course.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I have to admit, that I did not watch: The General, The kid, The passion of Joan of Arc. However I thought Nosferatu was pretty good. I watched the colored version with better quality however(the quality was actually pretty good here for 1922). I really enjoyed the acting of especially Max Schreck. However I also enjoyed the acting of the other persons. In the end I just enjoyed the overall movie. Good acting, good music and some good pictures.
Edit: I have watched The General, The kid and The passion of Joan of Arc by now. I like Nosferatu better than all of them. I was dissapointed by the kid. I liked other Chaplin films way better. The General is very good (it's nearly an action movie and that's somewhat amazing). The Passion of Joan of Arc is a masterpiece. Try to watch Sunrise: A song of two humans. It's from F.W. Murnau too (the director of Nosferatu). It's one of my favorite films and done as well as hardly an other movie.
And concerning your problems with the quality: It's out on freaking Blu-ray and looks amazing.
The movie has a good eerie atmosphere,but I found it more creepy,than scary.Nevertheless,as the first Vampire movie,it does set the standard,for other horror movies in the small town setting,the castle,the remote location,and the fear of the locals.Not bad for the time period,that this was made in.
shareI cannot speak for others, but I studied this movie, along with Battleship Potemkin, Halloween. They all defined something, set standards or were copied often for something very particular to each of them.
I believe that is why a movie becomes a classic; not by popularity, not by perfection, simply because it went out there and made history somehow.
Those listed are American films. This was a real triumph for european filming.
shareI can give a few reasons.
1. It launched the vampire archetype & mythos in film.
2. It's the oldest horror film many will be familiar with.
3. German Expressionism.
"America isn't ready for a gay, mexican chicken sandwich"
[deleted]
find a way to watch the film with lokke heiss's commentary from the Image dvd release.
shareIt’s interesting historically as it interprets the Dracula story is such a way that is unaffected by the later Universal movie of the 1930s. Most people, when they think of Dracula tend to think of Bela Lugosi, or possibly Hammer’s Christopher Lee - but the stereotype is quite ubiquitous and flatly a little bit camp.
The Nosferatu image, however, is startlingly different and captures a lot more resonance of the themes and fears of the original Dracula story - the disease, the rat face, the fear of foreigners, and if you may be taken with the later romanticism of vampires in recent years (Twilight, Interview with the Vampire, etc) the sheer ugliness of the vampire is much more horrific in effect. Historically, there is also the look and feel of early 20th century easter Europe - shot entirely on location in real places - made in a period of post-war hardship and easy to see how the various vampire myths could still hold effect in these communities. Moreover, the images of the movie have since become iconic in themselves. They may be a bit scratchy to look at, but you do realise they had to be restored after it was feared they had all been destroyed after being sued by the Bram Stoker estate?