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FW Murnau
Birth Name
Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe


Murnau's most famous film is Nosferatu, a 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula that caused Stoker's estate to sue for copyright infringement. Murnau lost the lawsuit and all prints of the film were ordered destroyed, but bootleg prints were stored and preserved over time, so that Nosferatu is widely available in the present era. Werner Herzog remade the film in 1979. Nosferatu, subtextually, depicted demoralized Germany post World War I. The vampire, played by German stage actor Max Schreck, resembled a rat which was known to carry the plague. The origins of the word are from Bram Stoker's novel where it is used by the Romanian townsfolk to refer to Dracula and presumably, other undead. "Nosferatu" is similar sounding to the Greek "nosophoros", roughly translating to "plague-bearer", which may be a possible root of it.

Filmography:

* Der Knabe in Blau (The Boy in Blue, released 28th June 1919)
* Santanas (released around 30th January 1920 but made in 1919)
* Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin (The Hunchback and the Dancer, released 8th July 1920)
* Der Januskopf (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / The Head of Janus, released 17th September 1920)
* Abend - Nacht - Morgen (Evening - Night - Morning, released October 1920)
* Sehnsucht (Desire: The Tragedy of a Dancer, released 18th October 1920)
* Der Gang in die Nacht (Journey Into the Night, released 13th December 1920)
* Schloß Vogelöd (The Haunted Castle, released April 1921)
* Marizza (released 20th January 1922 but filmed in 1921)
* Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, released 5th March 1922)
* Der brennende Acker (The Burning Soil, released 16th March 1922)
* Phantom (released 29th October 1922)
* Die Austreibung (The Expulsion, released 23rd October 1923)
* Die Finanzen des Großherzogs (The Grand Duke's Finances, released 7th January 1924)
* Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, released 23rd December 1924)
* Herr Tartüff (Tartuffe, released 25th January 1926)
* Faust (released 14th October 1926)
* Sunrise (released 23rd September 1927, won a special Oscar for "Unique Artistic Presentation" at the first Academy Awards)
* 4 Devils (released 3rd October 1928, is generally regarded as one of his best works and is a highly sought-after lost film)
* City Girl / Our Daily Bread (released 19th May 1930)
* Tabu (released 18th March 1931)




Murnau's last German film was the big budget Faust (1926) with Gösta Ekman as the title character, Emil Jannings as Mephisto and Camilla Horn as Gretchen. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethe's classic version. This carefully composed and innovative feature contains many memorable images and startling special effects, with careful attention paid to contrasts of light and dark. Particularly striking is the sequence in which the giant, horned and black winged figure of Mephisto (Jannings) hovers over a town sowing the seeds of plague. The acting by Ekman (who miraculously transforms, in the course of the film, from a bearded old man to a handsome youth) and the sinister, scowling, demonic Jannings is first rate and the virtually unknown actress Camilla Horn gives a memorable performance as the tragic figure of Gretchen.


Mephisto has a bet with an angel that he can corrupt Faust's soul. The Devil delivers a plague to the village where elderly alchemist Faust lives. Though he prays to stop the death and starvation, nothing happens. Faust then makes a bargain with the Devil. Faust will have the service of Mephisto till the sands run out in an hourglass, at which time the Satan will do as he wishes. At first, Faust uses his new power to help the people of the village, but they shun him when they find out that Faust cannot face a cross.


Later, Satan gives Faust back his youth and offers him earthly pleasures and a kingdom. Faust falls in love with a girl, but he is later framed for the murder of her brother by Satan and flees to hell. The girl has a child (by Faust) but is cast out into a blizzard where the child dies, and she is sent to the stake as a murderess. Faust sees what is happening and demands Satan take him there. Faust arrives as the fire has been started to burn his lover. Satan robs Faust of his youth and with nothing left to live for, Faust plunges onto the fires to be with the woman he loves. Though an old man, she recognizes Faust and sees him as a young man again as the fires consume them together. The angel reveals to Satan that he has lost the bet because love has triumphed over all.

Also called 'Faustus' of 'Doctor Faustus', the story of the German necromancer and astrologer who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power is one of the most durable legends in western folklore. There was an historical Faust, possible even two, one of whom more than once alluded to the Devil as his 'Schwager', or crony. One (or both) died around 1540, leaving behind a tangled tale of sorcery and alchemy, astrology and sooth-saying, studies theological and diabolical, necromancy and excess. Contemporary sources indicate that he was widely travelled and fairly well-known, but all commentators testify to his evil reputation. Humanist scholars of the day dismissed his 'magical feats' as pretty and fraudulent, but the Lutheran clergy, including Martin Luther himself, took his activities seriously. Ironically the relatively obscure Faust came to be remembered in legend as the representative of an age which produced such occultists as Paracelsus and Nostradamus.

Faust owes his enduring notoriety to the anonymous author of the first 'Faustbuch', a collection of tales of the 'Magi' (wise men skilled in science and the occult) which had been told since the Middle Ages and featured such renowned 'wizards' as Merlin, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon. In the 'Faustbuch', these stories were retold, this time with Faust as the central character. They were crudely narrated and supplemented with clumsy humour at the expense of Faust's victims.It was less the stories themselves and more the author's graphic and unflinching descriptions of hell and the state of his hero's mind which inspired unquestioning belief among readers. Indeed, some of the passages were used verbatim by Thomas Mann for his 1947 novel 'Doktor Faustus'.

The 'Faustbuch' was swiftly translated and read throughout Europe. An English prose translation of 1592 was the likely inspirations for Marlowe's famous play which, for the first time, invested in the Faust legend with a tragic dignity, although, in spite of magnificent scenes of dramatic poetry, such as the summoning from the Underworld the manifestation of Helen of Troy, Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' retained much of the clowning and comic buffoonery of the source text. This blend of high tragedy and coarse burlesque remained as inherent part of subsequent 'Faust' dramas and puppet plays which held sway during the following two centuries. Yet, despite the comic antics of 'Caspar the Clown' and other grotesques, Fautus's ultimate damnation remained awash with lashings of high drama and epic poetry.

There was even a lucrative trade in do-it-yourself magic books bearing Faustus's name, complete with instructions on how to avoid the pact with the Devil or, if necessary, how to break it. The most famous of these works, 'Magi Naturalis et Innaturalis', was to be found in the grand-ducal library in 'Weimar' and would certainly been known to the German intelligentsia.

The German writer Gotthold Lessing undertook to bring Faustus to salvation in an unfinished play (c. 1784). Lessing, an enlightened rationalist, saw Faustus's pursuit of knowledge as a noble obsession and arranged for a reconciliation with God. This theme was pursued by the outstanding chronicler of the Faust legend, J.W. Von Goethe. His 'Faust' (part 1, 1808; part 2 1832) made of the story a profoundly serious yet highly ironical commentary on the diverse potentialities of Western society's cultural heritage. The poem contains a wide range of epic, lyical, operatic and balletic elements, exploiting an assortment of poetic styles, to present an immensely varied commentary which included elements of theology, philosophy, political economy, science, aesthetics, music and, of course, literature. In the end, God saves Faust by bringing about his purification and redemption.

Hector Berlioz was inspired by a French version of Goethe's work to create his own dramatic cantata, 'The Damnation of Faust', which was first performed in 1846 and is still regularly staged as an opera. Gounod's 'Faust', premiered in 1859, was based on part 1 of Goethe's epic.