Nosferatu Critique

This is the first silent film I've seen in it's entirety, and it was interesting to see how much bigger the acting was than I'm used to in films.

In our introduction to Knock, I thought the actor showed awareness of the camera very well in showing his reactions and internal life. He would be reading and then lift up his face to show his deviousness.

In the scene when Hutter stops at the Inn and reveals that he is going to Count Orlok I thought there was a nice harmony of editing and acting. The patrons had these good reactions of terror when they heard what Hutter said and the editing did a great job of conveying the whole sense of the room.

I really liked the reaction of the Ship Captain seeing Nosferatu. We never see Nosferatu but we see the Captain being terrified at something off screen. This reminded me of one of my favorite shots in L.A. Confidential when Guy Pearce's character shoots someone in an elevator with a shotgun and rather than seeing the dead man we see Guy Pearce's reaction and are left to imagine the gruesome image.

As a modern audience member I had trouble finding anything particularly terrifying, rather most of it was amusing for me. Part of the problem for me was the score, rather than heightening the atmosphere it made it comical for me. There was one moment that stood out for me though where I thought the score and cinematography worked nicely. In Act 3 there is this shot of the ship and the camera is moving towards and eventually beyond the ship and the score really works there.

Aaron Rivera-Davis