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Nosferatu
''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' () is a 1922 silent film, silent German Expressionism (cinema), German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the Plague (disease), plague to their town. ''Nosferatu'' was produced by Prana Film and is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel ''Dracula''. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok. Although those changes are often represented as a defense against copyright infringement accusations, the original German intertitles acknowledged ''Dracula'' as the source. Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was "a low-budget film made by Germans for German audiences... setting it in Germany with German-named characters makes the story mor ...
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Count Orlok
Count Orlok (; ; ) is a fictional character who first appeared in the silent film ''Nosferatu'' (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau. Based on Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, he is played by German actor Max Schreck, and is depicted as a repulsive vampire descended from Belial, who leaves his homeland of Transylvania to spread the plague in the idyllic city of Wisborg in Biedermeier-period Germany, only to find death at the hands of a self-sacrificing woman. Count Orlok would reappear in subsequent remakes, played by Klaus Kinski, Doug Jones and Bill Skarsgård, as well as in comic book adaptations and sequels. He is also a character in ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', debuting in the season 2 episode " Graveyard Shift". Orlok's distinct appearance, which is closer to that of vampires of Eastern European folklore than to traditional depictions of Dracula, influenced numerous later vampire designs, including those of '' Salem's Lot'', ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and the ''Blade'' film ...
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Thomas Hutter
Thomas Hutter is a fictional character and the main protagonist in the silent expressionist horror film '' Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens'' (1922) and other films based on it. He is a young man who works as a real estate agent and lives in the German city of Wisborg with his wife Ellen Hutter. The character was based on Jonathan Harker from the gothic horror novel ''Dracula'' (1897) by Bram Stoker. He is played by the actor Gustav von Wangenheim in ''Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens'' (1922), by Bruno Ganz (as Jonathan Harker) in ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'' (1979), Emrhys Cooper in ''Nosferatu'' (2023), and by the actor Nicholas Hoult in ''Nosferatu'' (2024). Eddie Izzard plays a fictionalized version of von Wangenheim's portrayal in ''Shadow of the Vampire'' (2000). Biography Hutter, a real estate agent working for Knock, and his wife live a good life together in (the fictional) Wisborg. One day, Knock tells him to go to the Carpathian Mountains to visit Count Orl ...
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Max Schreck
Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck Eickhoff, Stefan. 2007 (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936), Walk, Ines. 2006. known professionally as Max Schreck, was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampire Count Orlok in the film '' Nosferatu'' (1922). Early life Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later, his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district of Teltow. He was baptized at St. Matthew's Church in Berlin. Schreck's father did not approve of his son's ever-growing enthusiasm for theatre. His mother provided the boy with money, which he secretly used for acting lessons, although only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he travelled briefly across the country with poet and dramatist Demetrius Schrutz. Schreck had engagements in Mulhouse, Meseritz, Speyer, Rudolstadt, Erfurt and Weissenfels, and his first extended stay at T ...
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Count Dracula
Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. He is considered the prototypical and archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Vlad Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving and Jacques Damala, actors with aristocratic backgrounds that Stoker had met during his life. One of Dracula's most iconic powers is his ability to turn others into vampires by biting them and infecting them with the vampiric disease. Other characteristics have been added or altered in subsequent popular fictional works, including books, films, cartoons, and video games. Stoker's creation Bram Stoker's novel takes the form of an epistolary tale, in which Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities, and weaknesses are narrated by multiple narrators, from different perspectives. Count Dracula is an undead ...
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Vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been Vampire folklore by region, recorded in cultures around the world; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''shtriga'' in Albanian ...
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Henrik Galeen
Henrik Galeen (7 January 1881 – 30 July 1949) was an Austrian-born actor, screenwriter and film director considered an influential figure in the development of German Expressionist cinema during the silent era. He wrote the screenplay for ''Nosferatu'' (1922). Early years Considerable mystery exists about Galeen's early life, and for many years it was uncertain where exactly he was born. Galeen came from a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. He moved from Austria to Germany before the First World War, and became assistant to the leading theatre figure Max Reinhardt. Galeen subsequently became an actor in Berlin and touring other German-speaking cities. German silent films Galeen first became involved in film in 1913 when he worked on the screenplays for several uncredited films. In 1914, he wrote, directed and acted in '' The Golem'' the first of several depictions of the mythical figure The Golem. Following the First World War, he we ...
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Albin Grau
Albin Grau (December 22, 1884 in Leipzig-Schönefeld – March 27, 1971) was a German artist, architect and occultist, and the producer and production designer for F.W. Murnau's ''Nosferatu'' (1922). He was largely responsible for the look and spirit of the film, including the sets, costumes, storyboards and promotional materials. A lifelong student of the occult and member of Fraternitas Saturni, under the magical name of Master Pacitius, Grau was able to imbue ''Nosferatu'' with hermetic and mystical undertones.Tobias Churton. ''The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex and Magick in the Weimar Republic''. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions,2014, p. 68 One example in particular was the cryptic contract that Count Orlok and Knock exchanged, which was filled with Enochian, hermetic and alchemical symbols. Grau was also a strong influence on Orlok's verminous and emaciated look. Grau claimed to had originally gotten the idea of shooting a vampire film while serving in the German Army during ...
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German Expressionism (cinema)
German expressionist cinema () was a part of several related creative movements in Germany in the early 20th century that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Northwestern European culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture and cinema. Characteristics German Expressionism was an artistic movement in the early 20th century that emphasized the artist's inner emotions rather than attempting to replicate reality. German Expressionist films rejected cinematic realism and used visual distortions and hyper-expressive performances to reflect inner conflicts. History The German Expressionist movement was initially confined to Germany due to the country's isolation during World War I. In 1916, the government banned foreign films, creating a sharp increase in the demand for domestic film production, from 24 films in 1914 to 130 films in 1918. With inflation also on the rise, Germans ...
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Dracula
''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula. Harker flees after learning that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunts and kills him. The novel was mostly written in the 1890s, and Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes, drawing extensively from Folklore of Romania, folklore and History of Romania, history. Scholars have suggested various figures as the inspiration for Dracula, including the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler and the Countess Elizabeth Báthory, but recent scholarship suggests otherwise. He probably found the name Dracula in Whitby's public l ...
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Fritz Arno Wagner
Fritz Arno Wagner (5 December 1889 – 18 August 1958) was a German cinematographer. He is considered one of the most acclaimed cinematographers in Germany from the 1920s to the 1950s. He played a key role in the Expressionist film movement during the Weimar period and is perhaps best known for excelling "in the portrayal of horror," according to noted film critic Lotte H. Eisner. Background Born in Schmiedefeld am Rennsteig, Germany, Wagner received his training at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1910, while still attending the University of Leipzig, he managed to secure a job as a clerk at the Pathé film company. In 1912, he became both secretary and chef at the Pathé offices in Vienna and later in Berlin. Career as cinematographer Interested in cinematography, Wagner became a newsreel cameraman in 1913 and was stationed in New York for Pathé Weekly, where he reported on the Mexican Revolution. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he returned to Germany to en ...
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Greta Schröder
Greta Schröder (27 June 1892 – 8 June 1980) was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Ellen Hutter, Thomas Hutter's wife and the cause of Count Orlok's destruction in ''Nosferatu'' (1922). In the fictionalized 2000 film ''Shadow of the Vampire'', she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of ''Nosferatu'', but in fact she was little known. The bulk of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances. Following a failed marriage with struggling actor Ernst Matray, she was married to actor and film director Paul Wegener. According to the Austrian writer Kay Weniger, Greta Schröder died in 1980, though some sources mention 1967. Filmography Actress * 1913: * 1920: '' The Red Peacock'' as Alfred's sister * 1920: '' The Golem: How He Came into the World'' as a lady of the court * 1920: '' The Closed Chain'' * 1921: '' The Lost Shadow'' ...
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