Nosferatu and Its Relationship to German Expressionist Film

Abstract

This chapter comprises a series of investigations on how F. W. Murnau’s film Nosferatu relates to an era of national cinema often identified as German Expressionist film. The first part of the chapter will provide historical context to the founding and development of Expressionism as an art movement originating in Germany, and how this identification was exploited to create product differentiation for German film companies seeking to export their films to the world market. There is a common conception that Expressionist film is based on visual elements such as lighting and set design, but a more comprehensive understanding must also include a discussion of genre, narrative, and theme. Expressionism has a close relationship with German Romanticism, and the historical and aesthetic similarities and differences between the two art movements will be explored.

The second part of the chapter will discuss how the stylization of the Expressionist film, first seen overtly in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, evolved into a more natural setting as seen in Nosferatu. Using the reader-response theory of an audience’s “horizon of expectations,” Nosferatu will be examined as a cinematic adaptation and fusion of the literary genre of supernatural Gothic and the genre of hypnotic fiction. Next, the use of tropes seen in Romanticism, in particular the use of the uncanny, will be described. The ultimate success from the interweaving of these art forms in Nosferatu will then be compared to other films from this era. This comparison will provide a perspective of the rapid transition of Expressionist films from a concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) to its more limited use in creating dramatic visual settings motivated by the psychological states of the characters and how these techniques would eventually be assimilated into the language of world cinema.