Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
1 11
Vol 2
Issue 20
16 Dec
2002
KINOEYE
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HORROR
An adaptation with fangs
Werner Herzog's
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
(Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979)
http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquiray20.php
Werner Herzog's
Nosferatu: Phantom
der Nacht
(Nosferatu the
Vampyre, 1979)
SEARCH
go
HORROR IN
KINOEYE
Films
Claire Denis'
Trouble Every
Day (2001)
Jrg Buttgereit's
Nekromantik
(1987) &
Nekromantik 2
(1991)
Oliver
Hirschbiegel's
Das Experiment
(2001)
Carl-Theodor
Dreyer's
Vampyr (1931)
and Lucio
Fulci's E tu
vivrai nel
terrore
L'aldil
(1981)
Werner
Herzog's
Nosferatu:
Phantom der
Nacht (1979)
Agustn
Villaronga's
Tras el cristal
(1986)
Ingmar
Bergman's
Persona (1966)
Ulli Lommel's
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http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquiray20.php
Zrtlichkeit der
Wlfe (1973)
Victor Trivas's
Der Nackte und
der Satan
(1959)
Lars von Trier's
Forbrydelsens
Element (1984)
Maurice
Tourneur's La
Main du diable
(1942)
Roman
Polanski's Le
Locataire
(1976)
Rumle
Hammerich's
Svart Lucia
(1992)
Ji Svoboda's
Proklet domu
Hajn (1988)
Guillaume
Radot's Le Loup
des Malveneur
(1942)
Stefan
Ruzowitzky's
Anatomie
(2001)
Themes
The
international
reception of
Hannibal
Jan
vankmajer's
"agit-scare"
tactics
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loose standards and which led to soft-core porn and sex comedies.
The second method was an FFA reform, the Filmberlad der Autoren
(Author's Film-Publishing Group), a private company intended to
distribute members' films with monies collected from television
network subsidies and tithes, and to ensure artistic products with
careful sponsorship. A fertile period resulted and the world was
introduced to filmmakers like Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, although they were typically only
celebrated abroad in countries like France and America.
The youngest of these prominent three, Wenders, was born on 14
August 1945. Stylistically his work tends to blend Hollywood genres
while thematically exploring the Americanisation of post-war
Germany in pictures like Der Amerikanische Freund (The
American Friend, 1977) and Der Himmel ber Berlin (Wings of
Desire, 1987).
Fassbinder, the middle child whose death is commonly regarded as
the end of das neue Kino, was born on 31 May 1945 and overdosed
on 10 June 1982. Multi-generic in scope, his movies reference
1950s Hollywood melodramas overlaid with spot-on social
criticism. Detractors malign his prolific output as indistinguishable
from Hollywood's conventions while admirers argue he both
satisfies and subverts spectatorial expectations in films such as
Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974) and Die Ehe
der Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun, 1978).
Italian wax
dummies as
inspiration for
horror
Of mad love,
alien hands and
the film under
your skin
Festivals
Brussels
International
Fantastic Film
Festival
Lupo Frightfest,
London
Interviews
Horror Actor
Reggie Nalder
"King of
Schlock" Roger
Corman in
Europe
Special issues
During this period, vacillating (as the rest of his career always has)
between documentary impulses, poetic grandeur and epic journeys
into the souls of madmen, Herzog offered a pithy aphorism about
the cinema for which he is famous: "Film is not the art of scholars,
but of illiterates." [4] Such an idea is useful for unpacking Herzog's
fascination with Murnau's silent classic.
Cognisant of his fame, with its particular focus after Aguirre, der
Zorn Gottes (Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 1974), Herzog recognised
the shifting climate of film finance and production. Namely, "a
Strach
Czech film's
love affair with
fear and horror
Blood poetry
The cinema of
Jean Rollin
Assault on the
senses
The horror
legacy of Dario
Argento
The hidden
face of horror
Georges
11-Mar-11 09:21 PM
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http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquiray20.php
Franju's Les
Yeux sans
visage
Three from
Mario Bava
Three on Tesis
Archive
Visit Kinoeye's
Horror
Archive
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http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquiray20.php
Werner
Herzog's
Nosferatu:
Phantom der
Nacht
(Nosferatu the
Vampyre, 1979)
11-Mar-11 09:21 PM
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Critic John Azzopardi has claimed that Herzog's Nosferatu is, "one
of the greatest horror films ever made." [21] Though clearly a
judgement call, his remark has merit, especially when one considers
the picture itself and in particular the cinematography of Jrg
Schmidt-Reitwein. Rich in the distinctions of dull colours bleeding
between light brown, yellow, white and occasional splashes of blue,
Herzog's picture moves through Wismar into Transylvania with an
accompanying change in palate. Colours grow darker, red appears,
the Count dominates the screen and time slows to long takes of
shadow and inexplicable shapes in the night.
Also, none of what appears in the film is precisely horrific. At least
not in the way of nightmares or much of what audiences and critics
expected of any self-titled horror movie in 1979. Still, Kinski's
performance, surely one of the richest of his career, is both nuanced
and other. Dracula is obviously pained by his very existence, but
like any animal capable of surviving the gaps between discomfort
and salvation, he consumes his way through the lack of love and is
finally ground up in the sacrifice of an innocent equal to his evil
incarnate.
While a symptomatic reading yields the vampire as analogous to das
neue Kino's relationship with Hollywood, one of endless
colonisation and co-optation of changing local circumstances to its
own end, I think such a reading is off the deep end. So too is the
implicit lesson of how primal human nature can be perpetually
tamed by virgin sacrifice. Even notions about how unbewltige
Vergangenheit appears within the text, informing characterisation,
is far-fetched since the film responds more to the socio-cultural
conditions of the 1970s than it does to World War II, or even to the
post-World War I moment that offered Murnau his inspiration.
Instead, what I find most rewarding is the visual, and to a lesser
extent aural, wash that is Nosferatu's overall affect. Because art for
its own sake is often a dead end, Herzog's purposefully austere
aspiration to beauty still trades on generic expectation to offer
familiar, though slightly unconventional thrills.
Werner Herzog's
Nosferatu: Phantom der
Nacht (Nosferatu the
Vampyre, 1979)
11-Mar-11 09:21 PM
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http://www.kinoeye.org/02/20/chaffinquiray20.php
Also of interest
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Footnotes
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12. Ibid.
13. Donald Barthelme, "Nosferatu." The New Yorker (15 October
1979): 182-84 (184).
14.Variety, "'Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht' ('Nosferatu, The
Vampire')" (24 January 1979): 23.
15.Ibid.
16.David Denby, "Nosferatu." New York (22 October 1979): 89.
17.Jack Kroll, "Thinking Man's Count Dracula." Newsweek (15
October 1979): 133.
18. Andrew Sarris, "The Real McCoy." The Village Voice (8
October 1979): 40.
19.Carroll, 35.
20. John Azzopardi,"Herzog: Last Breath Of German
Expressionism." Chelsea News (18 October 1979): 11. The writer's
choice of spelling is quoted intact.
21.Ibid.
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