Thinking About Genre-Describe

CONVENTION - Foreign Location


FILMS               - Nosferatu (1922)
                           -Frankenstein (1931)


Describe:
The use of a foreign setting in both Frankenstein by James Whale and Nosferatu by Michael Koller had their own unique qualities and effects. Frankenstein was set in a war stricken Germany and at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is mostly in the countryside where we see Dr. Frankenstein, a crazed professor destined for fame in his profession. When we are shown shots of the town, particularly when the man is carrying his dead daughter through the town. There are very few shots of the town, but towards the end when the monster makes its way to town, we see tracking shots of the poverty stricken areas.

 Nosferatu, on the other hand was set in an unknown and made up town of Transylvania. It was shot in the Carpathian Hills of Romania. Nosferatu's house was old and decayed and very isolated, tucked away in the hills. The use of the environment was also very significant in the film with a variety of bird's eye view and panning shots of the countryside, hills and forests.