“Nosferatu” and the Evolution of Cinematic Vampires, Research Paper Example

Although vampires have been popular in films for decades, there has been a resurgence in their popularity in recent years. Books such as “Interview with the Vampire” and the series of “Twilight” novels have introduced new versions of vampire characters to audiences, and have inspired film versions based on their stories.  A common central element to these stories, and many other vampire talks, are themes of romance and sexual attraction between vampires and human beings; this is especially true for the “Twilight” books and films which feature a long-term romantic relationship between a male vampire and a female human. The contemporary portrayals of vampires and their interactions with human beings are all rooted in the inspiration of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” the novel which established the character template for vampires as charismatic and even attractive, despite their supernatural states.  In the article “The Contribution of F. W. Murnau’sNosferatu to the Evolution of Dracula,” author Wayne E. Hensley argues that it was the first film portrayal of the Dracula character, rather than the novel, that introduced sexual overtones into the Dracula mythos. Hensley asserts that several of the key changes from the book to the film presented a theme of psychological attraction between the Count and his female victim that would establish a new paradigm for the way vampires are portrayed on film.

Hensley begins by making a case for the idea that the original “Dracula” novel by Stoker is little more than a conventional horror tale in which a monster kills his victims until he himself is killed by the heroes of the story. As Hensley describes it, the book is “poorly written with virtually one-dimensional characters,” yet it has outlived countless other horror stories and monster tales to survive for over a century.  Central to Hensley’s thesis is the idea that the Dracula character or the basic vampire character has become an archetypal “dark lover,” and that this common thread that runs through virtually all serious portrayals of vampires was established not by Stoker’s novel, but by the film adaptation Nosferatu. Hensley claims that, while the film closely follows the novel in many respects, it contains several significant changes that elevate it from conventional horror story to a tale of “eternal passions.”

In service of this argument, Hensley points to a number of specific character traits and, more importantly, to the reworked climax of the story in which the heroine, rather than the heroes, is responsible for the death of the vampire. It is Hensley’s position that the Count Orlock character was romantically, or even sexually, attracted to his female victim and it was this attraction which distracted him from the impending sunrise. By contrast, argues Hensley, the Count Dracula character from the novel was not written to convey any sexual overtones, and his interest in the female characters was limited entirely to his need to drink blood. Even if Hensley’s claims about the novel are inaccurate (as it could be argued that there are at least some implied sexual overtones in the novel) he does make a convincing case that the changes made to the story in Nosferatu underline a more direct and overt sense that the Count is drawn to the main female character for more than just her blood, and that it is this attraction is what brings him to his doom.

In order to establish his case for the influence of Nosferatu, Hensley contrasts several key characters and story elements between the novel and the film by providing rough story outlines of each. In his description of the novel’s plot, Hensley explains that Dracula has turned one female character, Lucy, into a vampire by slowly draining her of her blood, and has begun to do the same to the character of Mina. As Mina is caught somewhere between being human and becoming a vampire she is able to sense Dracula’s actions and locations, which makes him vulnerable to the men who will eventually kill him. Again, Hensley’s assertion that there are no sexual or “titillating” elements to the interactions between Dracula and the female characters may not be entirely accurate, but his assertion that the film version makes such elements an explicit part of the story is obviously true. The film introduces a plot element that is not seen in the novel, where Hutter/Harker discovers a book about vampires that explicitly states “a woman pure in heart must offer herself” in order to “break the terrible spell.” This change in the plot makes the relationship between vampire and victim the central point of the story.

Once this change has been established, the conclusion of the film Nosferatu is entirely different from that in the book. In both stories the character of Mina/Nina is involved in bringing about the demise of the vampire, but in “Dracula” Mina is merely a tool or a weapon used against the vampire by the male heroes, while in Nosferatu it is Nina who tricks the vampire into stating in her bedchamber until sunrise, where he subsequently disappears in a puff of smoke. Hensley posits that there is a psychological component to this shift in the story that not only represents a significant departure from the source material. But that also inadvertently established the template for virtually all subsequent portrayals of vampires on film. According to Hensley, Count Orlock must have known that he was vulnerable to “a woman pure in heart,” and would only have survived for centuries by avoiding such a woman. In fact, notes Hensley, it would make sense for Orlock to simply avoid female victims entirely, and to feed only from males. Despite being aware of his own vulnerability, Count Orlock is so drawn to Nina that he continues to feed on her blood as the sun rises; Count Dracula, by contrast, makes no such mistake, and only becomes vulnerable because Van Helsing and the rest of the men give chase before he can complete the process of making Mina a vampire.

While Hensley discusses a number of other aspects of the film in terms of their differences from the source material and their psychological impact on viewers, his central argument remains that by making Orlockattracted to Mina the film established the paradigm that has made vampire films so popular. There is no question that the story told in Nosferatu has had an influence on subsequent versions of the Dracula tale; the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker’s Dracula makes the attraction the Count feels for Mina one of the story’s central elements. Despite taking its name from Stoker’s novel, the ending of the 1992 film combines elements from both the original novel and from Nosferatu. Like the novel, the Coppola film shows the Mina character being converted into a vampire, but she is also the one who finally kills him. Before she drives a knife through his heart, Mina kisses him, and after his death he returns to his young form. Mina has broken the “terrible spell” of Dracula and she returns to her human form as he dies.

This is not the only romantic or sexual element in the 1992 version of Dracula, of course; throughout the film the Count is seen committing acts of overt, and even brutal, sexuality. It could be argued that film audiences of the late 20^th century were more accustomed to such themes in general, and that vampire films are not the only examples of how cinema changed from the 1920s to the 1990s. While there is some truth to this potion, Hensley makes a compelling case for the influence Nosferatu had on vampires in cinema, especially because it was made so early in the history of film. By turning the story of Dracula from a conventional monster tale to a tale of doomed, unrequited love, direct F.W. Murnau injected a sense of passion and “dark romance” into cinematic vampires that continues to appeal to audiences nearly a century later.