This memorandum is a collection of thoughts after ingesting five creative endeavors within the course of a short time.
The first creation that I enjoyed was the new 2024 film Nosferatu.
(My husband and I recommend it highly.)
After watching Nosferatu, we were inspired to rewatch the 1922 silent by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (that the four other Nosferatu creations are based on); Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu The Vampyre (the German version, with English subtitles!); reread the 1979 Paul Monette novel based on Herzog’s script (found in my husband’s extensive horror library); as well as rewatch the fantasy/horror film about the making of Murnau’s Nosferatu, 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire.
In Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, F.W. Murnau reinterpreted Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, which had been published in 1897.
After Murnau’s film was released, Mrs. Bram Stoker sued the German production company for infringing on her husband’s copyright.
As a result, all copies of the silent film were ordered destroyed.
(Fortunately, a few copies of the film survived, and Nosferatu has been gradually restored since 1922.)
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(For example, we enjoyed the Plexus Polaire puppet theatre production Dracula: Lucy’s Dream, which was performed in Chicago in January of 2025.)
Also, there are other vampire stories, related to Murnau’s concept of Nosferatu, that we’ve not watched recently.
One central difference between Bram Stoker’s vampire tale, and F.W. Murnau’s vampire tale, is how the stories end.
In the Stoker story, heroic men usually stake a vampire, and attempt to protect their women from a vampire’s lust.
In the Murnau vision, a woman sacrifices herself sexually to a vampire to end a plague, and protect her man.
In the Bram Stoker’s Dracula stories, the women are generally helpless creatures.
In the Nosferatu stories, the female character is more powerful.
Another big difference between the two visions of the vampire, is the involvement of disease.
In the Bram Stoker novel a plague isn’t mentioned.
Furthermore, most of the rats in the novel infest the Demeter.*
Side note: a few years after F.W. Murnau (1888-1931) made his vampire movie, he began to work in America, where he directed three films.
He was only in his early 40’s when he died (in Hollywood), in a tragic traffic accident.
According to IMDb, of the 21 films that Murnau made from 1919 to 1931, eight have been lost.
Only 11 people attended his 1931 Santa Barbara funeral, among them: famed actress Greta Garbo, and director Fritz Lang.
His body was buried in Germany.
In both the 2024 film and the 1922 silent film, the main protagonist is named “Ellen.”
Ellen is a sweet, docile woman in the 1922 silent.
However, she summons enough strength to kill the vampire, end the plague, and (by doing so) save her city.
Shadow of the Vampire is a 2000 fantasy about the making of the 1922 silent.
It stars John Malkovich as director Murnau, and Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck, the actor who played Nosferatu.
In the 2000 fantasy, Max Schreck was actually a real vampire (a dark secret that director Murnau keeps from his cast and crew).
In the late 1970’s, Werner Herzog decided to make a reinterpretation of Murnau’s film; he called it Nosferatu The Vampyre.
Herzog’s version starred Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as the main female protagonist “Lucy Harker,” and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker.
(Herzog gave his characters the “Bram Stoker” names, since copyright was no longer an issue.)
In both the film, and Paul Monette’s novelization of the screenplay, Lucy sacrifices herself to Dracula, ending the plague.
However, after Lucy dies, the vampire’s spirit is then transported into the body of her husband, making her actions to protect the city possibly successful, but the attempt to save her husband futile.
There are some interesting differences between the 1979 Herzog film, and the Monette novel.
(Generally, novelizations are based on the first version of a screenplay, before filming starts.)
Some of these alterations can be explained because they obviously made the budget smaller.
Others made vital changes to the story.
One of the primary differences, between the film, and the novel of the Herzog versions, is the nature of the second female lead (Mina, played by Martje Grohmann).
The Mina role is much smaller in the film, than it is in the book.
In the novel, main-character Lucy is viewed as an outsider by the other women of the town.
Her frenemy Mina comes to believe that Lucy must be communing with evil forces, and is not “a proper woman.”
Eventually, the Mina in the novel develops into a “religious fanatic.”
She communes with rats, and soon refuses to be in the same room as “unclean” Lucy.
Another significant difference is that the Lucy character is portrayed as much more sexual in the Monette novel.
When Lucy sleepwalks, she sleepwalks in the nude, not in a nightgown (as she does in the film). Furthermore, in the novel, Dr. Van Helsing places a stake in the heart of Lucy (not Count Dracula), and is then led off to be imprisoned.
The sexual nature of the female lead (Lucy/Ellen), is portrayed differently in all five works.
In the 1922 version, Ellen seduces the vampire as an act of feminine self-sacrifice.
Up to that point, she’s a sweet creature who sews, serves breakfast to her husband, and plays gently with her kittens.
The Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) character in the 2024 film, Nosferatu, is the most sexual of all the Ellen/Lucy/Mina characters. Her version of Ellen has been haunted by the dark spirit of the vampire since childhood.
In one scene, Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (the “Van Helsing” character, portrayed by Willem Dafoe) tells Ellen that she may be a reincarnation of Isis, the pagan goddess of the underworld.
In the 1979 Herzog versions, brave Lucy Harker sets out to destroy the vampire by herself.
First, she attempts to convince public officials to help her, but she’s unsuccessful.
She tries to convince Van Helsing that the vampire exists, but the doctor tells her that she’s delusional.
Finally, Lucy places consecrated hosts in the vampire’s coffin, and arranges more diced-up hosts in a circle around her husband.
(When we saw the film, we thought Lucy was protecting Jonathan from the vampire, but perhaps she was protecting herself from Jonathan.)
Despite all her activities, trying to combat the vampire, Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy is not nearly as powerful as Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen.
Each has a scene in which they confront the vampire in their bedrooms.
In both films, it’s apparent that the vampire is both a seducer, and the seduced.
He’s both a victim of his vampiric condition, and in thrall to the female protagonist, who nevertheless represents “good,” opposed to his “evil.”
In the 1979 version of Nosferatu, Ellen/Lucy’s main female “friend” (Mina) is distrustful of her.
In the 2024 version of Nosferatu, the female main character is distrusted by a male character: Friedrich Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the other half of the couple that Ellen/Lucy stays with while Thomas/Jonathan is in Transylvania.
Both the 1979 film and novel, and the 2024 film, make the point that for any female to have autonomy is dangerous and disturbing.
* Demeter is the ship that Dracula used to travel from Transylvania to London, in the Bram Stoker novel. Besides 2024’s Nosferatu, another good recent horror film to see is 2023’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
