64 / BD 70 Nosferatu

[tojoed]

Re Nosferatu/Dracula and Murnau/Stoker

To clear this problem up: is/ was there somewhere a publication of the original script?

The 1979 German edition of Lotte Eisner's standard monograph on Murnau includes the screenplay. All I have seen is the English translation of the screenplay, available on the web, and it doesn't include the opening title cards, only the intertitles.

Just to clear this up. I have the English translation of Lotte Eisner's "Murnau", and both the screenplay and the title cards of all the copies she'd seen
said "Based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and freely adapted by Henrik Galeen" (translation).

[ellipsis7]

Just to clear this up. I have the English translation of Lotte Eisner's "Murnau", and both the screenplay and the title cards of all the copies she'd seen
said "Based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and freely adapted by Henrik Galeen" (translation).[/quote]

I'm not sure this title card is original - Murnau based his film on Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', but it was a copyright infringement, so he changed the name to NOSFERATU, trying to obscure the connection - having not been asked to or not having given permission, Florence Stoker, Bram's widow, sued and tried to destroy the negative and suppress the film...

[tojoed]

I'm not sure this title card is original

These are the title cards that Eisner had seen in prints supplied by Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque Francaise. Would they not be original?

Also the script as published in the book is Murnau's own copy, given to her by Robert Plumpe Murnau and translated by Gertrud Mander.

[ellipsis7]

I'm not sure this title card is original

These are the title cards that Eisner had seen in prints supplied by Henri Langlois at the Cinematheque Francaise. Would they not be original?

Also the script as published in the book is Murnau's own copy, given to her by Robert Plumpe Murnau and translated by Gertrud Mander.

Langlois obviously preserved prints quite some time later than production in a country other than country-of-origin - international prints?... But central points was that NOSFERATU was an illegal adaption, so why advertise the source?... Maybe a later settlement of sorts allowed the form of script credit, but I know nothing of this....

[Ledos]

The intertitle crediting Stoker's novel does indeed appear to be an original one. The German intertitles are known from a safety copy of an export print from 1922, and the DVD version shows the actual titles from this print. The exceptions, where new ones had to be generated, are marked with 'FWMS'. The Stoker intertitle is not one of these.

I'm not sure where Eisner's title list originates from, but it's not the French prints as they all had French intertitles.

[peerpee]

IL CINEMA RITROVATO DVD AWARDS - 2008
Cineteca Bologna

The 30 titles in competition:

ACE IN THE HOLE (USA/1951) di Billy Wilder – THE CRITERION COLLECTION (USA)
L’ARGENT (Francia/1928) di Marcel L’Herbier – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)
BOXSET SVENSKA STUMFILMS-KLASSIKER: KÖRKARLEN (Svezia/1920) di Victor Sjöström, HERR ARNES PENGAR (Svezia/1919) di Mauritz Stiller, EROTIKON (Svezia/1920) di Mauritz Stiller, GÖSTA BERLINGS SAGA (Svezia/1923-24) di Mauritz Stiller, TERJE VIGEN (Svezia/1916) di Victor Sjöström, HÄHAN (Svezia/1920-21) di Benjamin Christensen – SVENSKA FILMINSTITUTET
COFFRET DOUGLAS SIRK: LE SECRET MAGNIFIQUE (USA/1954), TOUT CE QUE LE CIEL PERMET (USA/1955), LE TEMPS D’AIMER ET LE TEMPS DE MOURIR (USA/1958), MIRAGE DE LA VIE (USA/1959) – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)
COFFRET HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA: LE TRAQUENARD (Giappone/1962), LA FEMME DES SABLES (Giappone/1964), LE VISAGE D’UN AUTRE (Giappone/1966) – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)
COFFRET JOAQUIM PEDRO DE ANDRADE: MACUNAIMA (Brasile/1969), LES CONSPIRATEURS (Brasile/1972), LE PRÊTRE ET LA JEUNE FEMME (Brasile/1965), GUERRE CONJUGALE (Brasile/1975), L’HOMME DU BOIS BRÉSIL (Brasile/1981) – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)
DANIÈLE HUILLET ET JEAN-MARIE STRAUB – VOLUME I: MACHIRKA-MUFF (Francia-Germania/1962), NON RÉCONCILIÉS ou SEULE LA VIOLENCE AIDE OÙ LA VIOLENCE RÈGNE (Francia-Germania/1964-1965), MOÏSE ET AARON (Francia-Germania/1974), DU JOUR AU LENDEMAIN (Francia-Germania/1996) – EDITIONS MONTPARNASSE (Francia)
THE DRAGON PAINTER (USA/1919) di William Worthington – MILESTONE FILM & VIDEO (USA)
EROTIKON (Cecoslovacchia/1929) di Gustav Machatý – NARODNI FILMOVY ARCHIV / FILMEXPORT HOME VIDEO (Repubblica Ceca)
GAUMONT, LE CINÉMA PREMIER 1897 – 1913 - VOLUME I (Alice Guy, Louis Feuillade, Léonce Perret) – GAUMONT VIDÉO (Francia)
GEORGES MÉLIÈS: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA (Francia/1896-1913) – FLICKER ALLEY (USA)
GEORGES MÉLIÈS (Francia/1861-1938) – ARTE / STUDIO CANAL (Francia)
THE HARRY LANGDON COLLECTION LOST AND FOUND (USA/1924-1927) di Harry Edwards e Roy Del Ruth – ALL DAY ENTERTAINMENT (USA)
I AM CUBA (Soy Cuba, URSS-Cuba/1964) di Mikhail Kalatozov – MILESTONE FILM & VIDEO (USA)
JE T’AIME JE T’AIME (Francia/1968) di Alain Resnais – EDITIONS MONTPARNASSE (Francia)
LAND OF PROMISE: THE BRITISH DOCUMENTARY MOVEMENT 1930-1950 (GB/1931-1950) – BFI (GB)
LE LIT DE LA VIERGE (Francia/1969) di Philippe Garrel – RE:VOIR (Francia)
LE MOINDRE GESTE (Francia/1962-1971) di Fernand Deligny – EDITIONS MONTPARNASSE (Francia)
NIGHT MAIL (GB/1936) di Harry Watt e Basil Wright – BFI (UK)
NOSFERATU – EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS (Germania/1921) di F.W. Murnau – EUREKA VIDEO (GB)
L’ORO DI ROMA (Italia-Francia/1961) di Carlo Lizzani – MEDUSA VIDEO (Italia)
PANZERKREUZER POTEMKIN (URSS/1925) di Sergej Eisenstein – TRANSIT FILM GMBH / UNIVERSUM FILM GMBH (Germania)
LE RÉVÉLATEUR (Francia/1968) di Philippe Garrel – RE:VOIR (Francia)
THE RIVER (USA/1929) di Frank Borzage – EDITION FILMMUSEUM (Germania)
DER ROSENKAVALIER (Austria/1926) di Robert Wiene – FILM ARCHIV AUSTRIA
LA ROUE (Francia/1922) di Abel Gance – FLICKER ALLEY (USA)
SCIENCE IS FICTION: THE FILMS OF JEAN PAINLEVÉ (Francia/1927-1972) – BFI (GB)
LA SIGNORA DI TUTTI (Italia/1934) di Max Ophüls – RIPLEY’S HOME VIDEO (Italia)
THE THREEPENNY OPERA (Germania/1931) di Georg Wilhelm Pabst – THE CRITERION COLLECTION (USA)
I VINTI (Italia/1953) di Michelangelo Antonioni – MINERVA – RARO VIDEO (Italia)

The award ceremony will take place on Friday July 4th 2008 at 12.00 (Cinema Lumière 2, Via Azzo Gardino 65)

The jury is composed by:

HERVÉ DUMONT
Born in Switzerland in 1943, Dumont, in addiction to having worked in both the publishing and training sectors, is also the author of various books on cinema history, including Robert Siodmak, le maître du film noir, Frank Borzage. Sarastro à Hollywood and William Dieterle, un humaniste au pays du cinéma. Since 1996, he is the director of the Cinémathèque Suisse.

ALEXANDER HORWATH
A curator and writer on film and visual art, he is the former director of the Viennale – Vienna International Film Festival and, since 2002, director of Oesterreichisches Filmmuseum (the Austrian Film Museum) in Vienna. Among his publications are books on New Hollywood Cinema of the 1960s/70s, Austrian avant-garde film, Michael Haneke and Josef von Sternberg’s lost film The Case of Lena Smith.

MARK McELHATTEN
Independent Film and Video Curator since 1977. Film Archivist for Martin Scorsese. Co-founder and co-programmer of the New York Film Festival’s annual Views from the Avant-Garde, now in its tenth year. Curator of the ongoing touring series The Walking Picture Palace. Frequent contributing curator to the Rotterdam International Film Festival (since 1999), the Torino Film Festival, and others.

PAOLO MEREGHETTI
Italian cinema critic and journalist. Currently the head entertainment editor of Corriere della Sera and author of the dictionary Il Mereghetti. He has worked as a consultant for the Venice Film Festival, as well as working with RadioTre and Raitre, and publishing numerous studies (on Orson Welles, Arthur Penn, Marco Ferreri, Bertrand Tavernier, Jacques Rivette, etc.).

PETER VON BAGH
On the scene since the 1960s, this Finnish cinema critic lectures on cinema at Helsinki University, and is also the artistic director of the Midnight Sun Film Festival. A producer and director, he has published numerous works, and is considered the all-time expert on the work of Aki Kaurismaki. Since 2001 he has also been the artistic director of Il Cinema Ritrovato festival.

[HerrSchreck]

My review. I'm not much of a silent fan in general, but this is pretty amazing, even if it does drag at times -- the number of just stunning shots and sequences makes up for it.

And MOC's DVD is great. Looking forward to reading the big booklet today.

the film's first truly striking scene (which unfortunately comes about 40 minutes in, a not insignificant amount of time to wait for something interesting)

Thence stoppeth schreck.

Ouch.

[peerpee]

The award ceremony will take place on Friday July 4th 2008 at 12.00 (Cinema Lumière 2, Via Azzo Gardino 65)

I reckon it's between:

ACE IN THE HOLE (USA/1951) di Billy Wilder – THE CRITERION COLLECTION (USA)

L’ARGENT (Francia/1928) di Marcel L’Herbier – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)

GEORGES MÉLIÈS: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA (Francia/1896-1913) – FLICKER ALLEY (USA)

LAND OF PROMISE: THE BRITISH DOCUMENTARY MOVEMENT 1930-1950 (GB/1931-1950) – BFI (GB)

PANZERKREUZER POTEMKIN (URSS/1925) di Sergej Eisenstein – TRANSIT FILM GMBH / UNIVERSUM FILM GMBH (Germania)

[markhax]

My review. I'm not much of a silent fan in general, but this is pretty amazing, even if it does drag at times -- the number of just stunning shots and sequences makes up for it.

And MOC's DVD is great. Looking forward to reading the big booklet today.

the film's first truly striking scene (which unfortunately comes about 40 minutes in, a not insignificant amount of time to wait for something interesting)

Thence stoppeth schreck.

Ouch.

Amen!!!

[Adam]

I reckon it's between:

ACE IN THE HOLE (USA/1951) di Billy Wilder – THE CRITERION COLLECTION (USA)

L’ARGENT (Francia/1928) di Marcel L’Herbier – CARLOTTA FILMS (Francia)

GEORGES MÉLIÈS: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA (Francia/1896-1913) – FLICKER ALLEY (USA)

LAND OF PROMISE: THE BRITISH DOCUMENTARY MOVEMENT 1930-1950 (GB/1931-1950) – BFI (GB)

PANZERKREUZER POTEMKIN (URSS/1925) di Sergej Eisenstein – TRANSIT FILM GMBH / UNIVERSUM FILM GMBH (Germania)

Shouldn't they just give all of you awards?

[sevenarts]

the film's first truly striking scene (which unfortunately comes about 40 minutes in, a not insignificant amount of time to wait for something interesting)

Thence stoppeth schreck.

Ouch.

Sorry, I had little patience for the melodramatics of the opening scenes. It's probably my own problem, but a lot of silent acting really rubs me the wrong way. It gets better once Orlok arrives on the scene; he's a whole different kind of melodrama.

[domino harvey]

Sorry, I had little patience for the melodramatics of the opening scenes. It's probably my own problem, but a lot of silent acting really rubs me the wrong way.

Yikes. I wrote a long long response to this, but I wisely deleted it. I'll boil my argument down to its essence though: To deny the power of silent film is to deny cinema entirely. Watch more silent films until you're cured. 8-)

[Felix]

Sorry, I had little patience for the melodramatics of the opening scenes. It's probably my own problem, but a lot of silent acting really rubs me the wrong way.

Yikes. I wrote a long long response to this, but I wisely deleted it. I'll boil my argument down to its essence though: To deny the power of silent film is to deny cinema entirely. Watch more silent films until you're cured.

Indeed. One of the problems I find with "well acted" films is that most people in real life don't act well and the supposed great interpretation brought to the role by the actor looks like the phony. Have you ever seen "real" people act? They are crap at it. (The best actors in the talkies are those that are crap or those that are unknown where there are no preconceptions.) If I watch a drama documentary where I don't know if it is the one or the other, I can spot it in seconds. Actors in Australian soaps look more real to me than the big stars. (Ken Russell once said the problem with Robert De Niro was that once he started acting he just kept on acting and acting and acting, and you couldn't get him to stop acting...)

One thing I like about foreign language films is that you are one step removed from the acting anyway by reading subtitles and not beiung so familair with all the nuances of another culture, well, a lot of the time anyway. I find this particularly and blissfully true of Japanese film.

Which brings us back to Silents and the acting there which is of another order together and no trace of realism there, far closer to its theatrical origins. I do think that Silent cinema is a separate art form from the talkies and one needs to learn its vocabulary in order to best appreciate it (starting from early talkies which retained much of the look of the best silents and working backwards is not a bad starting point for beginners).

I have started watching some silents with intertitles that I cannot understand (Dovzhenko, with Potemkin and Epstein to follow) and with a summary of the film, and not that detailed a one either, it is possible to make more than enough of the story (as suggested by Schreck on the Epstein thread). One of the many things that are so wonderful about the Silents. You miss subtleties of course, but you catch more than enough.

And hey, look at what we are discovering and having restored, it's like fucking Santa Claus coming down the chimney every day.

[evillights]

Just came across this again -- not sure it was ever posted here. A small interview from a few months ago with Nick and me about Nosferatu --

SFX magazine

craig.

[videozor]

According to Michael D. Australian DVD is a better deal than either MoC or new Kino.

Could anybody comment ?

Thanks in advance!

[MichaelB]

According to Michael D. Australian DVD is a better deal than either MoC or new Kino.

Could anybody comment ?

Doesn't look that way to me - it's missing MoC's superlative 80-page mini-book, for starters.

[Tommaso]

Yes, that book makes the MoC indispensible. On the other hand, from the description it appears that the audio commentary of the R4 is miles ahead of the MoC one. I guess if you live in Australia there's no real reason not to buy the R4, but the same goes vice versa for the Europeans and MoC.

[videozor]

Thanks, guys!

But have anybody actually watched this DVD?

To my shame I only recently discovered this Australian series - Director's Suite - and some of the titles look to me preferable than either UK or US ones (Haneke, Keaton, etc.).

Is there a thread that discusses Australian DVDs (and this series in particular) in depth? And what source you could suggest for US resident for Australian DVDs?

Thanks in advance!

[skuhn8]

Is there a thread that discusses Australian DVDs (and this series in particular) in depth? And what source you could suggest for US resident for Australian DVDs?

Yes, David Hare kindly started a thread for New Australian R4 Releases.

[alfred]

Just a few days ago, i stumbled upon that dvd from coronaretro that seems to offer another cut of the Nosferatu made by Murnau..., true be said, my heart began to run fast..., first time i watched nosferatu i was eleven and it was in a deep night of november...
Some time ago i got wind that there was another cut of the movie..., with new scenes and sound... so i think that this dvd is the so called " DIE ZWÖLFTE STUNDE - EINE NACHT DES GRAUENS"..., i tried to contact them, and i didnt get any reply..., so, is there anybody in the forum who got the dvd?..., is a legal release?

[Tommaso]

Don't buy from this Coronaretro guy!! Quite apart from the question of whether the film is in the public domain or not (i.e. whether any such release could be legit or not), it seems it has become clear in the last few days that the guy is a fraud, as at least one person who sent him money had to find out. Money sent, no discs, no contact possible. If you can read German, there's a whole thread about it at The German Stummfilm-Forum.

[alfred]

hi, tommaso,
thanks for your advice... i will follow the link you gave me and translate to english..., its a dam thing not being possible watching that dvds..., would you suggest me the best dvd for you?... i mean the best release of Nosferatu?

thanks again...

[Tommaso]

Well, the best dvd of "Nosferatu" is no doubt the one discussed in this thread. MoC!

[Sloper]

I prefer the BFI, which I think has a better score, better extras, and a hardly-cropped-at-all head on Orlock when he rises from the coffin. If the picture quality is not so pristine that doesn't in the least detract from the viewing experience. But it's a matter of taste - and a completist will want the MoC as well, if only to hear the original score.

[Finch]

I wasn't sold on MoC's extras either to be perfectly honest. Stevens' and Smith's commentary is disappointing and I personally found the two scholarly essays in the booklet very tedious (Elsaesser's in particular). It's still a worthwhile buy for the film, the transfer and original score and the beautiful artwork but depending on price, the new Kino might be a viable alternative (same transfer and a lovely cover in its own right).