Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters. In
Speaker 2: time at last, I can speak to you of the
Speaker 2: most recent cinematic treatment of Count Or Locke, the off
Speaker 2: brand Dracula from nineteen twenty two's Nosferatu, a symphony of horror,
Speaker 2: who went on to become a horror icon in his
Speaker 2: own right. We have to remember that in nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: two Bram Stoker's novel Dracula was only thirty five years old.
Speaker 2: In fact, F. W. Murnow's unauthorized adaptation drew the ire
Speaker 2: of Stoker's widow, whose legal actions threatened to see all
Speaker 2: copies of the now legendary silent film destroyed. Luckily, of course,
Speaker 2: Murnow's masterpiece survived, as horror film historian David J. Skahl
Speaker 2: points out in his book Vias for Vampire, The a
Speaker 2: to Z guide Do Everything Undead. The German expressionist picture
Speaker 2: can largely be seen as a quote metaphor of the
Speaker 2: plaguelike destruction of Germany in World War one. He also
Speaker 2: points out that in its initial release, it was far
Speaker 2: from the silent, black and white nightmare that we think
Speaker 2: of today, and was actually elaborately colored, tinted, and accompanied
Speaker 2: by a modernist orchestra score. The film influenced not only
Speaker 2: subsequent Dracula adaptations, but horror cinema as a whole. While
Speaker 2: Dracula deservingly enjoys the greater following and has seen countless
Speaker 2: screen and TV incarnations, count Orlock has enjoyed his own
Speaker 2: cinematic legacy as something of a deeper cut. Klaus Kinsky
Speaker 2: famously played the bald, cadaverous vampire in Werner Herzod's Nosferatu
Speaker 2: Fantom der Nacht and then once more sort of and
Speaker 2: with a full head of hair, in nineteen eighty the
Speaker 2: Yates Vampire in Venice. Versions of the character were subsequently
Speaker 2: played by the likes of Willem Dafoe, Doug Jones, and
Speaker 2: on SpongeBob SquarePants Alexander Ward. The originator, however, was German
Speaker 2: actor Max Schreck, who lived eighteen seventy nine to nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty six, a man whose gaunt features and expressive eyes
Speaker 2: works so well with the makeup to summon the specter
Speaker 2: of a hideous corpse like vampire, one more in keeping
Speaker 2: with Stoker's original vision for Dracula, but somewhat distant from
Speaker 2: the mainstream cinematic visions popularized by the likes of Bela Lagosi,
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee, and Gary Oldman. Robert Egger's twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: remake cast Bill Skarsgard as the bloodthirsty count, this time
Speaker 2: with a full regal mustache. As pointed out by Jazz
Speaker 2: Tenke in the twenty twenty five Variety article Creep Show,
Speaker 2: the Nosferatu makeup artists worked magic to create the King
Speaker 2: of the Undead. David White's makeup effects for Orla included
Speaker 2: sixty two prosthetic pieces, including both a penis and a
Speaker 2: tongue soak to cover everything but the souls of Scarsguard's
Speaker 2: feet and of course, his expressive eyes, though even those
Speaker 2: benefited from contacts. Quoted in the Variety article, Eggers pointed
Speaker 2: out that the prosthetic penis was necessary, especially as Orlock
Speaker 2: rises from his coffin naked quote that in itself is
Speaker 2: a bit of a phallic act, as is most of
Speaker 2: everything that Orlock does in the movie. If you've seen
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four's Nosferatu. You're well aware that the entire film,
Speaker 2: and especially its villain, walks a line between eroticism and repulsion.
Speaker 2: In this, the filmmakers explore a common realm of inquiry
Speaker 2: in vampire media, the mingling of sex and death. When
Speaker 2: we see Orlock feed in the film, he feeds naked
Speaker 2: and writhing, his whole body seeming to function as a
Speaker 2: blood pump in a most alarming fashion. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: one can go much deeper than this in analyzing the
Speaker 2: sexual nature of vampires in general. Skall, for instance, in
Speaker 2: his book, references Freudian interpretations in which a vampire's sexual
Speaker 2: energy is displaced into oral feeding, the fluids of living
Speaker 2: reproduction and deathly predation confused and or substituted in death
Speaker 2: denied sex, they feed, spawning undeath, not life, in the
Speaker 2: bodies of their victims. As for the word nosferatu, cited
Speaker 2: in the film and indeed in Stoker's original novel as
Speaker 2: a Romanian word for vampire, it apparently means nothing at all.
Speaker 2: Askall points out the word is likely a corruption of
Speaker 2: the Romanian adjective nesuferite, which means not to suffer. As
Speaker 2: in vampires are insufferable. The error appeared in Emily D.
Speaker 2: Lazawaska Gerrard's eighteen eighty five essay Transylvanian Superstition, which Stoker
Speaker 2: consulted in writing Dracula. Tune in for additional episodes of
Speaker 2: The Monster, Fact, The Artifact, or Animalius Dupendium each week.
Speaker 2: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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