This explains the terror of Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), who has traveled to the isolated castle of Count Orlok (Schreck) high in the Carpathian Mountains to help the strange man settle some legal matters. The mere mention of Orlok silences the townsfolk with fear, and Hutters suspicions deepen when he discovers that the stagecoach taking him to the castle has no driver. Orlok himself offers little solace. He keeps odd hours and leaves Hutter locked in a tower. Fearing for his lifeand specifically the bloodlust of his captorhe escapes and returns to Bremen, Germany. But Orlock follows, setting his sights not on Hutter but on his innocent wife, Ellen (Greta Schröder): Your wife has a beautiful neck, comments Orlok to Hutter. Just as her connection with Hutter helps rescue him from Orloks clutches, Ellen discovers that it is also up to her to lure the demonic creature to his (permanent) demise: to be vaporized by the rays of the morning sun.
With Nosferatu Murnau created some of cinemas most lasting and haunting imagery: Count Orlok creeping through his castle, striking creepy shadows while hes stalking Hutter; Orlock rising stiffly from his coffin; the Count, caught in a beam of sunlight, cringing in terror before fading from view. He also introduced several vampire myths that fill not just other Dracula films but permeate popular culture as well. JKl
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1920s
HÄXAN (1923)
Denmark / Sweden (Aljosha, Svensk) 87m Silent BW
Director: Benjamin Christensen
Screenplay: Benjamin Christensen
Photography: Johan Ankerstjerne
Music: Launy Grøndahl (1922), Emil Reesen (1941 version)
Cast: Elisabeth Christensen, Astrid Holm, Karen Winther, Maren Pedersen, Ella La Cour, Emmy Schønfeld, Kate Fabian, Oscar Stribolt, Clara Pontoppidan, Else Vermehren, Alice OFredericks, Johannes Andersen, Elith Pio, Aage Hertel, Ib Schønberg
Pioneering Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensens notorious 1922 documentary Häxan is a bizarre silent-film oddity that explores the nature of witchcraft and diabolism from ancient Persia through then-modern times using various cinematic approaches, from still images to models to vivid, dramatic reenactments. It is a hard film to pin down, and it defies any boundaries of genre, especially those of the documentary film, which in the early 1920s was still amorphous and undefined. Part earnest academic exercise in correlating ancient fears with misunderstandings about mental illness and part salacious horror movie, Häxan is a truly unique work that still holds the power to unnerve even in todays jaded era.
To visualize his subject matter, Christensen fills the frames with every frightening image he can conjure out of the historical records, often freely blending fact and fantasy. We see a haggard old witch pull a severed, decomposing hand out of a bundle of sticks. There are shocking moments in which we witness a woman giving birth to two enormous demons, see a witches sabbath, and endure tortures by inquisition judges. We watch an endless parade of demons of all shapes and sizes, some of whom look more or less human, whereas others are almost fully animalpigs, twisted birds, cats, and the like.
Christensen was certainly a cinematic visionary, and he had a keen notion of the powerful effects of mise-en-scène. Although Häxan is often cited as a key forerunner of such modern devil-possession films as The Exorcist (1973), it also brings to mind Tobe Hoopers effective use of props and background detail in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) to create an enveloping atmosphere of potential violence. Häxan is a film that needs to be viewed more than once to gain a full appreciation of the set design and decorationthe eerie use of props, claustrophobic sets, and chiaroscuro lighting to set the tone. It is no surprise that the surrealists were so fond of the film and that its life was extended in the late 1960s, when it was reissued as a midnight movie with narration by none other than William S. Burroughs. JKe
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1920s
FOOLISH WIVES (1923)
U.S. (Universal) 85m Silent BW
Director: Erich von Stroheim
Screenplay: Marian Ainslee, Walter Anthony, Erich von Stroheim
Photography: William H. Daniels, Ben F. Reynolds
Music: Sigmund Romberg
Cast: Rudolph Christians, Miss DuPont, Maude George, Mae Busch, Erich von Stroheim, Dale Fuller, Al Edmundsen, Cesare Gravina, Malvina Polo, Louis K. Webb, Mrs. Kent, C.J. Allen, Edward Reinach
Although Greed is Erich von Stroheims most famous film, Foolish Wives is his masterpiece. Like Greed, it was heavily reedited, but what remains (especially after a major 1972 restoration) is a more accomplished and consistent work. Stroheim himself stars as the unscrupulous Count Karamzin, a Monte Carlo-based pseudoaristocrat who sets out to seduce the neglected wife of an American diplomat.
This witty, ruthlessly objective film confirms its director as the cinemas first great ironist. The antihero Karamzin is skewered with sardonic relishabsurdly foolish, brazenly insincere, thoroughly indiscriminate in his taste in women, and, when the chips are down, contemptibly cowardlybut he and his decadent colleagues are so much more entertaining than the virtuous American hubby and his commonplace spouse. The films tone of cool, lively detachment is enhanced by its exhaustive elaboration of the world around the characters, articulating space through visual strategies (such as layered depth, peripheral motions, and multiple setups) that make us intensely aware of the entire 360-degree field of each scene. Stroheim stacks the deck by placing his dull, flat Americans in dull, flat spaces; otherwise, theres hardly a shot