Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#26 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Oct 05, 2010 5:02 am

Wow! Those are some gorgeous looking shots-- pure Murnau. Tantalizing and exciting and yet at the same time utterly depressing (because that's all we'll apparently get to see of Marizza). You can see him smack-bang in his Swedish-Stiller-influenced phase, with the beautiful use of landscape combined with eerie studio interiors... very reminiscent of NOS and GANG IN D, so unsurprising it's right from that early-2o's era.

Reassuring to know that there are still many hidden treasures out there remaining to be discovered.... whether or not we can see through our intoxication-of-illegal-Berlin-substances eyeballs......

BROTHER!

sjostrom
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:19 am

Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#27 Post by sjostrom » Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:27 am

Always about Marizza, a link in english, in Antti Alanen's blog.

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andyli
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#28 Post by andyli » Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:50 pm

A blu-ray of Nosferatu is set to be released on June 28th in Italy.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#29 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Nov 20, 2013 5:34 pm

What is the next likely Murnau to get a restoration for blu ray?

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Werdegast
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#30 Post by Werdegast » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:53 am

FrauBlucher wrote:What is the next likely Murnau to get a restoration for blu ray?
Which ones are left for Blu ray?

Phantom,Faust, Herr Tartüff,Die Finanzen des Großherzogs, Der letzte Mann and Schloß Vogelöd?

Anyone know anything about the situation of "Der brennende Acker"?

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Werdegast
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#31 Post by Werdegast » Thu May 15, 2014 8:37 am

Faust is the next one to go blu ray from MoC 18th of August.

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markhax
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#32 Post by markhax » Thu May 15, 2014 8:51 am

h
Werdegast wrote:
FrauBlucher wrote:What is the next likely Murnau to get a restoration for blu ray?
Which ones are left for Blu ray?

Phantom,Faust, Herr Tartüff,Die Finanzen des Großherzogs, Der letzte Mann and Schloß Vogelöd?

Anyone know anything about the situation of "Der brennende Acker"?
And why has there never been a DVD release of "Der Gang in die Nacht"?

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Werdegast
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#33 Post by Werdegast » Thu May 15, 2014 11:44 am

markhax wrote:And why has there never been a DVD release of "Der Gang in die Nacht"?
Found this info on the Nitrateville forum:
"Der Gang In Die Nacht" it is one of Herr Murnau's lesser known and early surviving film; this masterpiece was thought to be lost until, fortunately and by chance, as always happens in these cases, some years ago a copy was discovered between some boxes of negatives in the East Berlin's “Staatliches Filmarchiv” , and thanks to the Cinèmathèque Française's restoration it can be seen again.

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markhax
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#34 Post by markhax » Thu May 15, 2014 1:34 pm

Werdegast wrote:Found this info on the Nitrateville forum:
"Der Gang In Die Nacht" it is one of Herr Murnau's lesser known and early surviving film; this masterpiece was thought to be lost until, fortunately and by chance, as always happens in these cases, some years ago a copy was discovered between some boxes of negatives in the East Berlin's “Staatliches Filmarchiv” , and thanks to the Cinèmathèque Française's restoration it can be seen again.
It can be seen on YouTube

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HerrSchreck
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#35 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:37 pm


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Roger Ryan
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#36 Post by Roger Ryan » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:52 am

A lovely write-up - thank you for sharing. I'm sure I poured over many of the same books as a child. The images from NOSFERATU were so beguiling that a friend and I rented an 8mm copy of the film from the local library - we scared our 11-year-old selves silly. Not long after, I caught a rare weekend afternoon TV broadcast of THE LAST LAUGH which I found fascinating. It would be decades before I would see other films by Murnau; still, that early exposure made an impression on how I viewed cinema.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#37 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:38 am

Thanks much, it's appreciated. Indeed, no matter how "played out" or "popular" he and his films have become--at least in terms of silent film and versus other directors from the era--his name and his films have to this day never lost that aura that I talk about his images stamping on my young brain.

When I was young and would be lucky enough to catch NOS on TV, I really would be pinching myself. You know those moments when you're on vacation in some far off awesome place and you don't want to leave? Or (very dif example) with a dear relative you know is dying and not long for the world--so you acknowledge in your head that these moments will soon be over, and you pay extra attention for posterity?

It was like that during a broadcast. These would be crackly analog masters broadcast through the air to my roof antenna if watched on my main color tv in the living room.. rabbit ears if down in the playroom, from 16mm elements and that patina of bad sound on an old orchestral soundtrack, the faded image etc constituted something like the cobwebs, crumbling walls and "the broken battlements" of Dracula's castle: for the same reason that Chas Hall knew how effective those set dressings of decay would be on Drac, so did that decay of the image and sound increase the eerie quality of Nosferatu for my young head. I have an ancient VHS (coded in LP no less!) of the film I keep for those reasons. It's the moodiest take of the film I have--like opening an old crumbling papyrus and having to look extra closely to figure what the hell you're seeing. What's cool too is it's from a very old print where Orlok is called Dracula, Hutter and Knock Harker and Renfield respectively.

But when the film and others like would actually be on TV, you'd be aware of how fleeting the moment was, that it would end soon, so you really opened yourself up completely to suck it all in--you knew it might be another few years before you got the chance again.

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TMDaines
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#38 Post by TMDaines » Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:51 am

HerrSchreck wrote:But when the film and others like would actually be on TV, you'd be aware of how fleeting the moment was, that it would end soon, so you really opened yourself up completely to suck it all in--you knew it might be another few years before you got the chance again.
A really interesting point. I think we can all be guilty of taking the modern 24/7 availability of much of film history for granted and not always paying due attention. With specialist back channels now, I can even get my hands on hugely obscure works (that don't even have five IMDb votes, for example) in a matter of minutes.

Jonathan S
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#39 Post by Jonathan S » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:21 pm

^ Nothing to do with Murnau, but on that general point, I still find it amazing that I can see, let alone own, a copy in any form of Rear Window, having had no access whatever to it in my teenage years, or during an intensive Hitchcock course at university (same applies to Vertigo, Rope, and others that were locked in the vaults for up to two decades). Even Robin Wood, in one of the key critical works on Hitchcock at the time, begins his chapter on Rear Window by apologising for the fact that it's "necessarily based on three year old memory and a few notes scribbled in the cinema".

I remember talk of secret screenings at The Scala in London, or the possibility of smuggling a badly bootlegged tape from America, all adding to its allure and mystique... but I never did get to see it until the 1984 35mm reissue, which was perhaps just as well.

For me, it was easier to see certain key silents as I was able to rent or sometimes buy them on 8mm, including a "complete" six-reel print of Nosferatu in the same edition Schreck mentions. But the vast majority I saw only as tantalising stills in books on silent cinema. In the 1970s the BBC televised maybe one or two famous silent features per year (discounting compilations) - Metropolis, Caligari, Potemkin, etc. - and almost never repeated them.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#40 Post by HerrSchreck » Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:44 pm

Yes, the change is easy to take for granted having not lived through it. Profound changes.

Observing the differences (BTW it'd be great if this convo were going on over at the blog but hey, it takes time like schreckbabble did--it's brand new and comments are coming... more on this in a later post but quickly: if anyone is thinking or has been thinking about blogging on film, it might be a good time to take the leap. I work directly for the investors who created olaN and a whole series of other sites like mambo, badoo, whotrades, idealmedia etc... unlike other blogging platforms, since this one new & has a lot of wealth behind and owns lots of other sites plus syndicate with partners like Huffington, Fark, regionals etc, blogs in this formative stage get syndicated and actively promoted. We're looking for some quality voices on anything but I'm the cinema guy there in addition to my editorials elsewhere. So if you're dreaming of starting a blog--on pretty much anything-- and want to jump in at a unique point that would give you a head start, jump... it'd be cool to turn that place into Quallity Cinemasphere central)

where was I.. o yes... "Observing the differences" between the the era of my early youth and now, it's incredible far beyond just the wee technological plane.

I'm as guilty as the next person in phone and tablet fiddling, but I feel my creative world doesn't really suffer--but isn't every young person tired of hearing cranky old bags complaining about the amount of time folks spend on their phones?

There's a reason for it though... for the first five thousand years of civ the human mind walked around with maybe a book 10% of the time. Rest of the time the brain filled in the blanks. Since 2010 in particular and the smartphone, the act of spacing out and daydreaming, of sinking way back into your head, has cut back. The dreamers of the planet spend a hella lot less time spacing out, I can tell you that. Phone fills in the blanks. And spacing out is vital.

I'm sure old crotchety prunes don't think about it in those terms . . . but there is something about hyperfixation on a constant flow of input to a brain without letup by a gadget of nonstop frivolous input, it irks them. It's an alien concept.

1972:
"Hey Mike,"
no reponse.
"MIKE!"
"Mh? Oh,"
head twitch, "sorry, I was zoning out on something. Sup?"

2015:
"Yo Mike."
no response.
"MIKE!"
"I hear you... hang on I'm texting my vitamin P."


But the incredible vantage point of fully living in the analog version of Planet Earth, and transitioning to and then fully immersing in the digital version of earth.... from telephones, books, vinyl albums, the change in pop music, film, the human mind, TV, lit, the routes to acquiring obscure material and the dif in the time it takes now to acquire that material (and the loss of the precious journey and all that journey did to you in the past), it was amazing to watch. Sad and disappointing in many ways, but hey, as they said all them years ago in Pacino's Panic In Needle Park--"It's only life, man."

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#41 Post by Drucker » Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:23 pm


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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#42 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:04 pm

Sweet Jesus, another reason to get cremated.

Anyway, Der Gang in die Nacht (The Dark Road) is playing one more time (tomorrow, Monday) at MoMA and I recommend it. It's the earliest Murnau feature that's intact (I believe it's actually his seventh feature), and it's a key film in observing his development as a filmmaker. Not just because it's his earliest available work, but it's a work of someone who is at that point very close to being a master filmmaker, and who would soon make some enormous stylistic and technical leaps in his subsequent work. The "tableau" compositions are masterful, probably his primary approach to filmmaking at this point.

Also note MoMA's description:

The earliest surviving film by F. W. Murnau is also, paradoxically, the only Murnau film for which the original camera negative exists. Working from that extraordinary material, the Munich Film Museum has produced an extraordinary restoration—a film that for the first time gives an accurate representation of Murnau’s innovative, highly expressive lighting techniques

In short, it looks pretty incredible for a 1921 film that's being shown in this day and age.

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TMDaines
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#43 Post by TMDaines » Fri Feb 17, 2017 1:11 pm


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hearthesilence
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Re: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

#44 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Jun 23, 2020 11:12 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Sun Nov 13, 2016 5:04 pm
Sweet Jesus, another reason to get cremated.

Anyway, Der Gang in die Nacht (The Dark Road) is playing one more time (tomorrow, Monday) at MoMA and I recommend it. It's the earliest Murnau feature that's intact (I believe it's actually his seventh feature), and it's a key film in observing his development as a filmmaker. Not just because it's his earliest available work, but it's a work of someone who is at that point very close to being a master filmmaker, and who would soon make some enormous stylistic and technical leaps in his subsequent work. The "tableau" compositions are masterful, probably his primary approach to filmmaking at this point.

Also note MoMA's description:

The earliest surviving film by F. W. Murnau is also, paradoxically, the only Murnau film for which the original camera negative exists. Working from that extraordinary material, the Munich Film Museum has produced an extraordinary restoration—a film that for the first time gives an accurate representation of Murnau’s innovative, highly expressive lighting techniques

In short, it looks pretty incredible for a 1921 film that's being shown in this day and age.
I didn't realize this restoration was already available on DVD from the Edition Filmmuseum with a second edition released in September 2019. It's too bad it isn't available on BD though - as mentioned above, it looks exceptional thanks to the availability of the OCN.

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