F. W. Murnau | |
|---|---|
 Murnauc. 1920–1930 | |
| Born | Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe (1888-12-28)December 28, 1888 Bielefeld, Germany |
| Died | March 11, 1931(1931-03-11) (aged 42) |
| Burial place | Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery |
| Alma mater | University of Berlin University of Heidelberg |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1919–1931 |
| Movement | German Expressionism |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | German Empire |
| Service | |
| Battles / wars | World War I |
| Signature | |
 | |
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (bornFriedrich Wilhelm Plumpe; December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931) was a German film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in thesilent era.[1]
An erudite child with an early interest in film, Murnau eventually studiedphilology and art before directorMax Reinhardt recruited him to his acting school. DuringWorld War I, he served in theImperial German Army, initially as aninfantrycompany commander andcommunications officer and later with the German Army'sFlying Corps as anobserver/gunner. He survived several crashes without any severe injuries.[2]
Murnau's first directorial work premiered in 1919, but he did not attain international recognition until the 1922 filmNosferatu, an adaptation ofBram Stoker's 1897 novelDracula. Although not a commercial success owing to copyright issues with author Stoker's estate, the film is considered a masterpiece ofGerman Expressionist cinema and an earlycult film. Murnau later directed the filmThe Last Laugh (1924), as well as a1926 interpretation ofGoethe'sFaust. He immigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined theFox Studio and made three films:Sunrise (1927),4 Devils (1928) andCity Girl (1930).Sunrise has been regarded by critics and film directors as among the best films ever made.[3]
Murnau travelled toBora Bora to make the filmTabu (1931) with documentary film pioneerRobert J. Flaherty, although disputes with Flaherty led Murnau to finish the film on his own. A week before the successful opening ofTabu, Murnau died in a California hospital from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Of the 21 films Murnau directed, eight are now considered to be completelylost. One reel of his featureMarizza, genannt die Schmuggler-Madonna survives. This leaves only 12 films surviving in their entirety.
Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe was born inBielefeld. By the age of seven, he was living inKassel.[4] He had two brothers, Bernhard and Robert, and two stepsisters, Ida and Anna. His mother, Otilie Volbracht, was the second wife of his father, Heinrich Plumpe (1847–1914), an owner of a cloth factory in the northwest part of Germany.[5] Their villa was often turned into a stage for little plays, directed by the young Friedrich, who had already read books bySchopenhauer andNietzsche, as well as plays byShakespeare andIbsen, by the age of 12.[6][7] Plumpe would take the pseudonym of "Murnau" from thetown of that name nearLake Staffel, south ofMunich, where he lived for a time.[8] The young Murnau was said to have an icy, imperious disposition and an obsession with film. Some reference sources list him as being almost 210 cm (7 ft) tall, others however list him with a more modest 193 cm (6 ft 4).[9][1]
Murnau studiedphilology at the University inBerlin and later art history and literature inHeidelberg, where directorMax Reinhardt saw him at a students' performance and decided to invite him to his actor-school. He soon became a friend ofFranz Marc (the Blue Rider artist based in Murnau),Else Lasker-Schüler andHans Ehrenbaum-Degele. DuringWorld War I, Murnau served as a company commander on theEastern Front.[6] He then joined theImperial German Flying Corps and flew missions innorthern France as acombat pilot for two years,[10][11][12] surviving eight crashes without severe injuries. After landing inSwitzerland, he was arrested andinterned for the remainder of the war. In hisPOWcamp, he was involved with a prisoner theater group and wrote a film script.[13]
After World War I ended, Murnau returned to Germany, where he soon established his own film studio with actorConrad Veidt. His first feature-length film,The Boy in Blue (1919), was a drama inspired by theThomas Gainsborough painting. He explored the theme of dual personalities, much likeRobert Louis Stevenson'sDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, inDer Janus-Kopf (1920) starring Veidt and featuringBela Lugosi.[14]
Murnau's best known film isNosferatu (1922), an adaptation ofBram Stoker'sDracula (1897), starring German stage actorMax Schreck as the vampireCount Orlok. The release would be the only one by Prana Film because the company declared itself bankrupt in order to avoid paying damages to Stoker's estate (acting for the author's widow,Florence Stoker) after the estate won acopyright infringement lawsuit. Apart from awarding damages, the court ordered also all existing prints of the film to be destroyed. However, one copy had already been distributed globally. This print, which has been duplicated time and again by acult following over the years, has madeNosferatu an early example of acult film.[15]
Murnau also directedThe Last Laugh (German:Der letzte Mann, (The Last Man), 1924), written byCarl Mayer (a very prominent figure of theKammerspielfilm movement) and starringEmil Jannings. 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 character's psychological state. It also anticipated thecinéma vérité movement in its subject matter. The film also used the "unchained camera technique", a mix of tracking shots,pans, tilts, and dolly moves. Also, unlike the majority of Murnau's other works,The Last Laugh is considered aKammerspielfilm with Expressionist elements. Unlike expressionist films,Kammerspielfilme are categorized by theirchamber play influence, involving a lack of intricate set designs and story lines / themes regarding social injustice towards the working classes.[16][9][17]
Murnau's last German film was the big budgetFaust (1926) withGösta Ekman as thetitle character,Emil Jannings asMephisto andCamilla Horn as Gretchen. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale ofFaust as well as onGoethe'sclassic 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.
Nosferatu (music byHans Erdmann) andFaust (music byWerner R. Heymann) are two early films that feature originalfilm scores.
Murnau immigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined theFox Studio and madeSunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), a movie often cited by scholars as one of the greatest of all time.[18] Released in the FoxMovietonesound-on-film system (music and sound effects only),Sunrise was not a financial success, but received several Oscars at the very firstAcademy Awards ceremony in 1929. In winning theAcademy Award for Unique and Artistic Production it shared what is now theBest Picture award with the movieWings. The firstAcademy Award for Best Actress went toJanet Gaynor for this and two other films that year; afterward, each award was limited to work in a single film. In spite of this, Murnau was financially well off, and purchased a farm inOregon.[19]
Murnau's next two films, the (now lost)4 Devils (1928) andCity Girl (1930), were modified to adapt to the new era ofsound film and were not well received. Their poor receptions disillusioned Murnau, and he quit Fox to journey for a while in the South Pacific.[4]
Together with documentary film pioneerRobert J. Flaherty, Murnau traveled toBora Bora to make the filmTabu in 1931. Flaherty left after artistic disputes with Murnau, who had to finish the movie himself. The movie was censored in the United States for its images of bare-breastedPolynesian women.[20] The film was originally shot by cinematographerFloyd Crosby as half-talkie, half-silent, before being fully restored as a silent film — Murnau's preferred medium.
Murnau joined the German air force as a radio operator in 1916. In December 1917 he had to make an emergency landing in Switzerland and was interned until the end of the war.
Murnau was gay.[21] His friend and lover, the poetHans Ehrenbaum-Degele, also served in the war but was killed on the eastern front in 1915. This had a profound effect on Murnau, who drew from the horrors of loss, sacrifice and the violence of war in his film work. It was Ehrenbaum who introduced Murnau to the work of expressionists such asFranz Marc andElse Lasker-Schüler.[22]
In Hollywood, Murnau reportedly became enamored with the young actorDavid Rollins, whom he invited to his home.[23] In late 1927, Murnau convinced Rollins to pose nude, with the pool and garden of the Wolf's Lair castle in Hollywood serving as the backdrop.[23] In a later interview Rollins claimed to have been puzzled and surprised by the request, but felt comfortable enough with his body to oblige.[24]
_Friedrich_Wilhelm_Murnau.JPG)
On March 10, 1931, a week prior to the opening of the filmTabu, Murnau drove up thePacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles, California, in a rented Packard touring car. Murnau's valet, Eliazar Garcia Stevenson (September 2, 1900 – October 4, 1985),[25] swerved to avoid a truck that unexpectedly veered into the northbound lane. The car overturned after striking an embankment, throwing all occupants out of the vehicle.[26] Murnau suffered a head injury and died the next day at theSanta Barbara Cottage Hospital.[4][2]
A service was held for Murnau at the Hollywood Lutheran Church on March 19, 1931.[27] His body was transported to Germany, where he was entombed inStahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery, nearBerlin, on April 13.[28][29] Among the attendees of his second funeral were Robert J. Flaherty,Emil Jannings, andFritz Lang, who delivered the eulogy.[9]Greta Garbo had adeath mask of Murnau commissioned, which she kept on her desk during her years in Hollywood.[9]
In July 2015, Murnau's grave was broken into, the remains disturbed and the skull removed by persons unknown.[30] Wax residue was reportedly found at the site, leading some to speculate that candles had been lit, perhaps with an occult or ceremonial significance. As this disturbance was not an isolated incident, the cemetery managers were considering sealing the grave.[31][32][needs update] The skull has not been recovered since.[33]
American authorJim Shepard based his 1998 novelNosferatu on Murnau's life and films. The book began as a short story from Shepard's 1996 collectionBatting Against Castro.[34]
In 2000, directorE. Elias Merhige releasedShadow of the Vampire, a fictionalization of the making ofNosferatu. Murnau is portrayed byJohn Malkovich. In the film, Murnau is so dedicated to making the film genuine that he actually hires a realvampire (Willem Dafoe) to play Count Orlok.
In the filmVampires vs. the Bronx, released in 2020, homage is paid to Murnau by making reference to him in the film via a company named "Murnau Properties," whose logo was the woodcutting view of Vlad the Impaler. Murnau Properties was the shell company owned by vampires, whose plan was to take over the Bronx via property acquisitions and blood acquisitions.
The short movieF.W.M. Symphony (AT 2022) is based on the theft of Murnau's head: the skull stolen from the film director's Berlin tomb in 2015 becomes the anchor of a narrative which splices fictional and historical identities.[35]
| Original title | English title | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Der Knabe in Blau | The Boy in Blue / Emerald of Death | 1919 | Lost film, minor fragments survive |
| Satanas | 1920 | ||
| Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin | The Hunchback and the Dancer | Lost film | |
| Der Janus-Kopf | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde /The Head of Janus | ||
| Abend – Nacht – Morgen | Evening – Night – Morning | ||
| Sehnsucht | Desire: The Tragedy of a Dancer | 1921 | |
| Der Gang in die Nacht | Journey into the Night | ||
| Schloß Vogelöd | The Haunted Castle /Castle Vogeloed | ||
| Marizza, genannt die Schmuggler-Madonna | Marizza, called the Smuggler Madonna | 1922 | Mostly lost, one reel survives |
| Der brennende Acker | The Burning Soil | ||
| Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens | Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror | ||
| Phantom | |||
| Die Austreibung | The Expulsion | 1923 | Lost film |
| Comedy of the Heart | 1924 | Writer only | |
| Die Finanzen des Großherzogs | The Finances of the Grand Duke | ||
| Der letzte Mann | The Last Laugh | ||
| Herr Tartüff | Tartuffe | 1926 | |
| Faust | Last German film | ||
| Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans | 1927 | ||
| 4 Devils | 1928 | Lost film | |
| City Girl | 1930 | ||
| Tabu: A Story of the South Seas | 1931 | Posthumous release (Died one week before New York premiere) |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
