"The Sonambulist"
About this scene and the music:
I've begun to test out musical "pads" to set the mood for each major scene in the movie. Currently these pads are mostly acousmatic, that is, they are composed of acoustic sounds that have been altered with the computer. In the October performance, live performers will intermingle with these prerecorded sounds.
For this scene, I'm drawing upon the book on which this film is based: Bram Stoker's Dracula. As the protagonist Jonathan Harker (roughly the same character as Hutter in Nosferatu) lies paralyzed on a couch in a remote wing of Castle Dracula, three female vampires approach, ready to drain him of life. Harker comments upon their voices:
"They whispered together, and then they all three laughed - such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand" (Stoker 1897, 38).
This scene does not occur in Nosferatu, because there are no female vampires in Count Orlok's castle. However, the idea of a sweet siren song, calling over great distances seems appropriate as a back drop for Ellen's premonitions of Hutter's impending doom.
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