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F.W. Murnau

 

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 TOP 100 
 
 Pantheon Director 
 
Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)
 
Fred Camper's Top 10 Directors
Jean-Michel Frodon's 5 Best Directors
Chris Fujiwara's Top 10 Directors
Kent Jones' Top 10 Directors
Angel Fernández Santos' 5 Best Directors
 
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Frank Borzage
Carl Dreyer
Robert Flaherty
Fritz Lang
Victor Sjöström
W.S. Van Dyke
Max Ophüls
Josef von Sternberg
Orson Welles
Robert Wiene
View video clips relating to this director at YouTube.com
Director / Producer / Screenwriter
1888 - 1931 
Born December 28, Bielefeld, North-Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Key Production Countries: Germany, USA 
Key Genres: Drama, Romance, Fantasy
Key Collaborators: Erich Pommer (Producer), Emil Jannings (Leading Character Player), Carl Mayer (Screenwriter), Hugo Riesenfeld (Composer), Robert Herlth (Production Designer), Walter Rohrig (Production Designer), Eddie Boland (Character Player)
Highly Recommended: Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Faust (1926), Sunrise (1927), Tabu (1931)
Recommended: City Girl (1930)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ F.W. Murnau: Master of Light ] [ Web of Murnau ] [ A Murnau Fan Page ]
Books: [ Murnau ] [ From Wagner to Murnau: The Transposition of Romanticism from Stage to Screen ] [ Nosferatu
DVD's: [ Amazon ]
1,000 Greatest Films: Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Faust (1926), Sunrise (1927), City Girl (1930), Tabu (1931)
 
Nosferatu (1922)Sunrise (1927)The Last Laugh (1924)Faust (1926)
 
     
  "Murnau's influence on the cinema has proved to be more lasting than Eisenstein's. Murnau's moving camera seems a more suitable style for exploring the world than does Eisenstein's dialectical montage, and the trend in modern movies has been towards escaping studio sets so as to discover the real world." - Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968)  
     
  "Enormously intelligent and far ahead of his time, Murnau worked to obtain new dramatic effects from the interrelation of fleeting shots in fragmenting sequences - in other words, working in filmic jigsaws whose individual scenes are suddenly stunningly effective when the final piece is fitted. Using a combination of the real world and a skilful manipulation of the audience's imaginations, Murnau used the power of suggestion in new and amazing ways: thus the unseen and unspoken is constantly sensed by his audiences, no matter what their intelligence." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999)  
     
  "Murnau's visual style unites the diverse themes and stories that constitute his best work; his fluently moving camera implies and openness of attitude that transcends both the rigid schematics of Expressionism and the limiting conventions of genre. His films are difficult to categorise (Nosferatu is too lyrical to be seen as mere horror, while many of his other works suggest and interest in metaphysics rather than simple story telling), but they retain an ability to touch the heart and stimulate both mind and eye." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)  
     
  "A filmmaker in the German expressionist tradition of the 1920s, Murnau rarely let symbolism or a mythical theme harm the humanity of his characters - which is why his work is still vibrant today." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
  "The camera is the director's pencil. It should have the greatest possible mobility in order to record the most fleeting harmony of atmosphere. It is important that the mechanical factor should not stand between the spectator and the film." - F.W. Murnau  
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought." - Jean Cocteau   "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed." - Stanley Kubrick