In World War I Murnau first served as a company commander at the eastern front, then joined the German air force in northern France two years later. He was not an ace, being credited with no kills. Instead, he survived eight crashes without severe injuries. He landed in Switzerland (I do not know if this is one of his crash lading, or a pure desertion, but I suspect desertion) where he was interned, and used the time to win a prize for the best production-concept. Murnaus most famous film is Nosferatu, a 1922 adaptation of Bram Stokers Dracula. Nearly as important as Nosferatu in Murnaus filmography was The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann, German The Last Man) (1924), written by Carl Mayer (a very prominent figure of the Kammerspielfilm movement) The film introduced the subjective point of view camera, where the camera sees from the eyes of a character and uses visual style to convey a characters psychological state. It also anticipated the cinéma vérité movement in its subject matter. The film also used the unchained camera technique, a mix of tracking shots, pans, tilts, and dolly moves. Murnaus last German film was the big budget Faust (1926). Murnaus film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethes classic version. The film is well known for a sequence in which the giant, winged figure of Mephisto hovers over a town sowing the seeds of plague. Murnau immigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), a movie often cited by film scholars as one of the greatest films of all time.[7] Released in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system (music and sound effects only), Sunrise was not a financial success, but received several Oscars at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. In winning the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production it shared what is now the Best Picture award with the movie Wings. Murnaus next two films, the (now lost) 4 Devils (1928) and City Girl (1930), were modified to adapt to the new era of sound film and were not well received. Their poor receptions disillusioned Murnau, and he quit Fox to journey for a while in the South Pacific. Together with documentary film pioneer Robert J. Flaherty, Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu in 1931. Flaherty left after artistic disputes with Murnau who had to finish the movie on his own. The movie was censored in the United States for images of bare-breasted Polynesian women. A week prior to the opening of the film Tabu, Murnau drove up the coast from Los Angeles, California in a hired Rolls Royce. The young driver, a 14-year-old Philippine servant, crashed the car against an electric pole. Murnau hit his head and died in a hospital the next day, in nearby Santa Barbara, before the premiere of his last film. Unless of course, HE had contracted vampirism from Shrek, and FAKED his death, but thats a Malkovitch of another color! https://youtube/watch?v=GnLVMREVA6M
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:50:05 +0000
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