Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was drawn to theater and drama as a child and studied art history as a college student before the outbreak of World War I, in which he served as a combat pilot in the German Air Force. After the war, he turned to filmmaking, having begun to learn the craft with wartime propaganda films. He had already directed a production of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, experimenting with the expressionist style, when he conceived of an adaptation of the novel Dracula, written 25 years before. |
Murnau brilliantly cast an experienced stage actor named Maximillian Schreck to play Count Orlok, a very thinly veiled version of Bram Stoker's vampire. Nosferatu remains one of the most faithful adaptations of the Stoker novel, a fact which led Stoker's widow to sue Murnau's studio for copyright infringement. All copies of the film were ordered to be destroyed, and the studio was forced into bankruptcy. A few prints survived, and Nosferatu was eventually recognized as a masterpiece of expressionist horror. |
