A closer look
Count Orlok wasn't casually sunbathing; we just completely forgot how to watch silent movies. Because primitive black-and-white film cameras required immense amounts of light, shooting at actual nighttime was virtually impossible. To fix this, early filmmakers developed a sophisticated chemical color-coding system—amber for indoors, red for fire, and deep blue for night. For decades, audiences watched terrible, degraded black-and-white copies of Nosferatu, making the fearsome vampire look like a confused day-walker, completely ruining the oppressive, nocturnal dread intended by the director.
