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THOMASJ. BATA LIBRARY
TRENT UNIVERSITY
Murnau
Lotte H. Eisner
CinemaTwo
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Murnau during the making of Tabu
MURNAU
by
Lotte H. Eisner
Seeker & Warburg
London
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F. W. Murnau by Lotte H. Eisner
first published by Le Terrain Vague, Paris
© Le Terrain Vague 1964
Awarded the Prix Armand Tallier in 1965
This English translation, revised and'enlarged,
first published in 1973 by
Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited
14 Carlisle Street, London WIV 6NN
© Seeker & Warburg 1973
English translation of Nosferatu by Gertrud Mander
© Seeker & Warburg 1973
A Shadows book
Cover design by Michael Farrell
SBN 436 09700 1 (Clothbound)
436 09701 X (Paperbound)
Filmset in Photon Times 11 on 12 pt. by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd. Bungay, Suffolk
and printed in Great Britain by
Fletcher & Son Ltd, Norwich
Preface to English-language
edition
Unlike Fritz Lang and G. W. Pabst, the two other great directors of the
German cinema, F. W. Murnau has been mostly loved and admired by a
specialist minority. His films are not widely known to the larger cinema
public. In Germany, indeed, he is today practically unknown,1 even though he
is one of the rare directors of German origin (Lang and Pabst are both
Austrian by birth). In France, mainly on the strength of Nosferatu and Tabu,
he has always had his admirers; and when he died in a car accident in
California, in 1931, when talking pictures were just getting into their stride
and he, at 42, was in his prime, it was particularly in French journals that his
work was recalled with enthusiasm. In the United States, on the other hand,
his death was virtually ignored and he was quickly forgotten. By 1958,
however, the time seemed ripe for revaluation. In that year The Last Laugh
was voted among the ten best films in the history of the cinema, by an
international jury of critics at the Brussels International Exposition. It was
in 1957 that I began to write this book, which was first published in Paris in
1964.
The particular problem which Murnau poses for the film historian is that of
the loss of nearly half his work. Of the twenty-one films listed in the
filmography at the end of this book nine are missing; and some of the other
1 Though there is the F. W. Murnau Stiftung at Wiesbaden.
J «L> *
5
Preface
twelve are in a very incomplete state. Of course, the publication of a book like
this can bring films to light, and we may be lucky enough to find some of
those missing nine. A copy of Gang in die Nacht was discovered in East
Berlin, and a copy of Phantom in Moscow, only recently; both, alas, incom¬
plete, but both priceless in the fresh light they throw on Murnau’s artistic
progress. Murnau has been singularly unfortunate in the way his films have
disappeared. Virtually all Pabst’s films survive. Only a few of Lang’s very
early films have vanished.
In common with Pabst and Lang, however, surviving Murnau prints are
very often poor copies, dupes of dupes, quite without the subtleties of shading
and light values of their originals. A print from the original negative is a rare
thing. When inflammable nitrate film is copied on to safety acetate, there is
always a loss in tone-values and contrast. When a 35 mm. copy is duped in 16
mm. there is usually a loss of quality of a similar kind. Not always, however:
recently I saw a 16 mm. copy of Tartuffe, with Spanish titles, of which even
the framing prologue and epilogue had astonishingly subtle qualities of light
and shade, far surpassing any of the 35 mm. copies known to me. Seeing this
print is to understand Murnau’s intentions: the lighting of the framing
sequences forms a dramatic contrast with the visual style of the Tartuffe play.
The hazards are immense: poor duplicates, the mutilations of distributors
or cinema owners (cuts were easier in silent days), destruction. As I attempt
to show in discussing Nosferatu, even a print from an original negative can be
tampered with.
I know Lang and knew Pabst; but I never met Murnau. By the time I came
to the cinema, in 1927, Murnau had already left for the United States. From
Faust onwards I had of course seen his films at the time of their first
showings; but that is now a long time ago. I do not believe in books written in
haste, and during the seven years I worked on this book I saw - thanks to
Henri Langlois and the Cinémathèque Française - Murnau’s films again and
again, in as many different copies and versions as I could find. Even so, the
fragmented nature of the material is such that I am aware that others may yet
find more aspects of Murnau's style than I have been able to discover in my
'archaeological’ pursuit. As to his working methods, my approach was to
interview his surviving collaborators, the designers, cameramen, and others
from his film units. I also had the great good fortune to meet Murnau’s
brother, Robert Plumpe Murnau, who entrusted to me a number of scripts
annotated in Murnau’s own hand, among them the shooting script of
Nosferatu itself, reproduced in translation at the end of this book.
In my previous book L’Ecran Démoniaque (Paris 1952; new edition,
revised, 1965; English translation The Haunted Screen, 1969) I made a first
attempt at an evaluation of Murnau, devoting separate chapters to Nosferatu.
6
Preface
The Last Laugh, Tartuffe, and Taust. Consequently, although in this book
the reader will find constant reference to these films, I have felt it more
important to put the most emphasis on his other works. I hope this will
explain the disproportionately little space devoted specifically to these major
films.
Murnau died prematurely; he stays eternally young. My aim has been to
trace the development of his style through that brief life, and to demonstrate
the often intransigent continuity of his artistic will, a will expressed in films
made in Germany, in the United States, and on his island in the Pacific.
L.H.E.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks the following people, either for information about Murnau's life
and work, or for sending photographs, programmes, posters, and other documents.
In West Germany, first and foremost Gerhard Lamprecht. The author also thanks
Murnau’s colleagues: Messrs Hermann Warm, Rochus Gliese, Heinrich Richter, and
Arno Richter; and Murnau's relatives: Mmes Ursula Plumpe, Eva Dieckmann, and
Mr Hans Plumpe.
The author pays tribute to Robert Plumpe-Murnau. and to those colleagues and
friends of Murnau who are now dead: Ruth Landshoff York, David Flaherty,
E. Savitry, Robert Herlth. the designer. Dr Ludwig Berger, and the cameramen Fritz
Arno Wagner. Karl Freund and Robert Baberske.
Her thanks are also offered to Mrs Hanna Hofmann and to Messrs Erwin Goelz,
Friedrich von Zglinicki. Engelbert von Mallinckrodt. Hubert Schonger, Rolf
Burgmer. and to Mrs Eva Diehl-Schmid of Recklingshausen; and to Professor
Giuseppe Becce for the musical score from The Last Laugh.
The author cordially thanks Mrs Erika Ulbrich of Munich and Mr Werner
Zurbuch of Munich, who, like Dr Agnes Bleier-Brody of Vienna, have most kindly
carried out valuable researches among various German newspapers and film reviews
which the author was unable to consult personally, and which have made an effective
contribution to establishing the filmography and the quotations in the chapter on the
lost films.
In East Germany the author thanks: Wolfgang Klaue, of the Staatliches Filmarchiv
der D.D.R.. Berlin; Dr Baumert. Klaus Lippert, Dr Herbert Müller-Jena. and
Murnau’s former colleagues (now working at Defa), Messrs Eduard Kubat and Erich
Nitzschmann. and Mrs Lena Neumann.
She also gives grateful acknowledgments to Filmforum. Der Neue Film, Deutsche
Filmkunst and Le Théâtre Européen.
7
Acknowledgements
In the USA she thanks: Mrs Francis Flaherty, Miss Louise Brooks, Mrs Salka
Viertel. Mr Fitzroy-Davis, Mrs Belli Heerman-Baer. and Mr George Pratt, of George
Eastman House, Rochester. Mr Ernst Jaeger, and Murnau’s cameramen, Mr Paul
Ivano and Mr Charles Rosher; also his assistants Frank Hansen. Edgar G. Ulmer,
and Eugen Sharin, and the film historians Mr Herman G. Weinberg and Mr Seymour
Stern. She is grateful also to Mr Albert Johnson of the San Francisco Film Festival
for help with stills of Tabu.
For the photographs the author thanks first the Cinémathèque Française, Paris; the
late Mrs Norah Traylen, and Mr Liam O’Leary, both formerly of the British Film
Institute, London; Mr Freddy Buache of the Swiss Cinémathèque; Herr Heinz Berg,
Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin); the Cinémathèques of East Berlin, Czechoslovakia,
Denmark, Sweden, and Holland. Thanks also to Mr Rudolf Leutner of Vienna for
photographs, and to Mr Rudolf Meyer of Amsterdam for information; to Mr H. Feld
of London: M. Jean-Claude Kress and Mile Marie Epstein of Paris; to Mr Kenneth
Thompson of London and to M. Denis Bablet of Paris. Thanks also for information
to Mr Viggo Holm Jensen and for photographs to Mr Carl Norrested of Denmark
and M. Jean Pierre Jeancolas of Louhan. France.
8
