Analysis Of The Aspects Of The Expressionist Movement Portrayed In Nosferatu Movie
This essay will be covering how Mumau’s film Nosferatu still portrays aspects of the expressionist movement through the use of filters, extras on the set design, and locational choices; even though the movie differs from the preset normal up to the point due to the fact that a lot of the plot was shot in the outdoors compared to an easily manipulatable set or studio.
To start right off the bat, the entire tone of the movie is a heavy sepia. All of the whites are drowned out to look faded, but as a whole the colors just look very blandly exaggerated. From the beginning as well the facial expressions are over the top and last quite a while, to show emphasis on the person's emotion and feelings. An interesting physical aspect near the beginning is when one of the older men is reading a parchment with huge letters that just resemble pure wingdings, and he understands it perfectly. The scene right afterwards where the husband tells him wife, “I am travelling to the country of thieves and ghosts, ” show him being happy and ecstatic, but his wife being obviously distraught and he has no idea somehow. It’s written all over her face in an unignorable way, and I’m sure they planned it that way to emphasize his aspiration to venture off. When he arrives the scene turns from sepia to a deep blue tone, which I believe points out that it is nighttime since when he walks into the bar it goes back to the standard sepia. This is also supported by the fact that shortly after, wolves come out and scare away the horses when the scene switches back to the blue colors. Since these pack animals primarily hunt at night, there’s a good chance that this these colors show the switching of the day to night cycle. I can see why they chose to do this since they can’t directly alter the layout of the land or how it looks. One more color switch that portrays the different times of the day is the red hue. It first appears when a man is waking up and falling back asleep and the scene scanned over a horizon with the sun faded into the backdrop.
Next is the scene with the castle; it’s a huge mass of space with incredibly tiny windows that are few and far between. The lone traveller sees it and makes his way inside, where he’s greeted by nearly no one except strange looking tall man in all black. The man invites him to dinner wearing a strange wide-eyed expression the whole time. After he accidentally cuts himself, the lanky castle-owner is shocked and becomes worried about the blood. After this, the man immediately falls asleep and when he awakens, he checks his neck and teeth for what I can only presume would be bite marks and fangs. This dramatic sequence of events is definitely how they chose to emphasize that there was truly a worry about becoming a vampire. After the man exits the building, he walks through large arching stone overpasses and an even larger stone gazebo on the ledge of the walls. It all seems very bizarre, barring the fact that there is still no one around in this giant abode.
Another clearly expressionist portrayal is when Nosferatu first appears at night. He is standing in the tallest part of the back of the room, with pure darkness all around except for his single spotlight. The way he walks into the bedroom with his stiff posture and wide eyes is also very over the top, attempting to make him even more creepy. I feel like in the scene where Nosferatu is sailing on his way with the coffins in the back, they chose that massive river to find an alternative more interesting unit of travel compared to regular horseback the entire distance. Afterwards, during the scene when the prisoner is chanting, “Blood is life! Blood is life, ” his cell is a large block room with a giant bar window higher than he could reach. There are hard scribbles all over the walls and spiders looming in the corners as well. To me this captures a very macabre and lonesome feeling, which makes sense for the style of movie it is. What piqued my interest more however was the scene following right behind, where the lady is sitting on a bench viewing the beach with a ton of tombstones surrounding her. That’s obviously very unnatural and would never have formed regularly. She is sitting there almost at peace, which is probably the complete opposite emotion that most people would feel in that setting. A darker example of heavy reactions and acting would be when the sailor found Nosferatu under the boat and in horror, backup up off the ledge of the ship and plunging into the waters below. Right afterwards, the vampire approaches the captain and a black film slowly covers the camera as his eyes open in horror. This creates the foreshadowing effect that we all know is happening in that scene: Nosferatu has probably done something nefarious to the sea captain.
Another example of a sinister moment in the movie is when the woman of the venturer is being possessed and is fighting back, then Nosferatu breaks into her house and creeps his way up to her room. They show this movement by casting his shadow along the walls as he walks up the stairs and opening the door. To me this definitely gives off the feeling of there being an intruder skulking in the shadows. This artistic choice of throwing the shadows on the blank walls definitely pushes the point across that he is not there for any good reasons. The final shadow that is cast goes over her heart and his hand grips it - indicating the he now fully has his hold on her. Even though all of these shadows are indirect and you don’t see Nosferatu in the flesh, the feeling of danger and despair has not diminished a single bit. There are constantly frequent changes in the day to night cycle throughout this movie that fit the actions going on. The blue filter signifying night often comes around when something suspicious or dark is happening. The daytime filter of yellow shows up when people are going inside of a building or are going about their regular life where nothing is happening quite yet. Finally, the dawn and dusk red filter was used the least, but still showed the start of a new day where unsuspecting characters have no idea what events will befall them during the rest of the day. The frequent large expressions worn on the peoples faces and through the body gestures made it clear what emotion they were explaining, whether it was the fast and abrupt motion of fear or terror, or the embrace of a large hug or passionate kiss signalling bliss or content. None of the emotions were unclear except for one character: Nosferatu. His blank face he wears throughout the movie is hard to read since it hardly ever moves. Although through the course of the plot we only ever see him commit evil acts, so we can safely assume no matter what expression he is wearing he will be spreading a negative influence in some shape or form. There is no doubt that this was an intended aspect of his character design and creation, since he is the villain of the storyline. It’s an accomplishment to make a person seem so inherently evil even without the major use of facial or body motions throughout their acts.
Through the aforementioned use of filters, lighting, characters, setting, and other unique tools, Nosferatu has clearly show the expressionist roots that were rising at the time. Even through the handicap of being staged outside a majority of the time, alternative solutions to create an impactful and dramatic experience were founded and used nonetheless.
