MURNAU'S NOSFERATU: TAMING FLAMES, PITCH BLACK, SLEEPWALKING SERPENTS AND THE WORDS OF ICE THAT CAME FROM WITHIN 1. Ambiguous "Givens" and Texture: The Trace Within Ageless, summoned and raised each nightfall by the beating thirst echoing the eternal search for blood, Count Dracula, the old tyrant, stands at the edge of insanity, at the threshold of his forgotten land, with vigilant eyes staring at the forest, expecting the coming of the messiah of forgiveness and joy. Beyond the veils of reason and the landscapes of logic, as a tradition and symbol of a time gone, of the forlorn black gem buried in the vaults of remembrance, he, the mannequin of shadows, murmurs the silence of trauma. In Murnau's morality play, the vampire's lust for blood is simply a preying of the revulsed grotesque and repressed violence upon innocence and blissful modesty. The story deals, in essence, with the...
