#BornThisDay: Filmmaker, F. W. Murnau

December 28, 1888– F. W. Murnau

German Expressionist Cinema is a subject straying rather far from my interests or intellectual enthusiasm. If not for six semesters of Film History And Theory at university, I wouldn’t be able to even have a jumping off place for this #BornThisDay column. Well, I do have another connection; F.W. Murnau is responsible for one of the most original films I have ever experienced in my long film-going life.

Born in Germany into a wealthy family, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau seems to have been an especially decent, disciplined professional, a gay aesthete, and an insecure artist who saw plenty of action as a combat pilot in WW I. He was even captured behind enemy lines and held as a POW in Switzerland for the remainder of the war. Murnau was allowed to stage plays while he was a captive in the camp.

When he finally was allowed to return to Germany, Murnau became an innovative theatre director and propaganda editor. He broke into filmmaking in 1919 and he is now considered a major innovator in the German Expressionist Movement. Murnau made nine silent films in the three years prior to presenting his classic Nosferatu in 1922.

Nosferatu was a giant leap in the cinema world. It is an experimental, moody, fluid nightmare of a film that plays today like a dark degenerate dream. It is really the first Horror Film masterpiece. The film was an unauthorized spin on Bram Stoker‘s gothic 1897 novel, Dracula. It starred Max Schreck as a particularly gruesome vampire. Subtitled: A Symphony Of Horror, the film became the model for the vampire films that came after it. It was revolutionary for its use of actual locations for filming. The making of this landmark film became the inspiration for the frightening, compelling, and funny Shadow Of The Vampire (2000) with John Malkovich playing Murnau and featuring an excellent performance by Willem Dafoe as Schreck.

Shadow Of The Vampire covers the story of the creation of Nosferatu and its aftermath. You see, Murnau was sued by Stoker’s widow, with the court ruling against Murnau and ordering all copies of the film to be destroyed. But, because Nosferatu had already been released and was playing in theatres, a few copies survived. Film fans are lucky that we still have it.

I first experienced his vampire classic and his film version of Goethe’s Faust (1926) in Film History Class, in a semester studying European Expressionist Classics. Murnau is one of the first directors to reveal that moving the camera in conjunction with the action and the locale was an act of magical force, and his nighttime cityscapes and looming demonic visions have stayed in my imagination 40 years later.

Murnau was an openly gay man and the idea of working in Hollywood seemed better than dealing with the German government. Fox Studios signed Murnau to a contract in 1926 and gave him unprecedented creative control. Murnau took a minor, trite story about love, marriage, and betrayal subtitled A Song Of Two Humans and crafted a true American film masterpiece, Sunrise (1927). I think it is one of most beautiful films ever made. It has George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor playing a naive rural married couple, and Margaret Livingston as the big city woman who seduces the husband. The elaborate sets for Sunrise were constructed on the Fox lot and stretched over 20 acres.

Anything but Gothic, Sunrise is a rhapsodic, romantic work with a simplistic story and a rather conservative message. But, Murneu’s camera simply soars. Sunrise is a breathtaking cinematic achievement. The film won three Oscars at the very first Academy Awards presentation, including Best Picture and Best Actress. But, its failure at the box-office seriously restricted Murnau’s subsequent studio projects.

Murnau’s blossoming American filmmaking career was cut cruelly short. In 1931, on the verge of signing with the much more auteur-friendly Paramount Pictures, Murnau died in a car crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. The details remain cloudy 46 years later. It seems that just days before the premiere of his new Polynesian themed movie Tabu, Murnau let a member of film’s crew, Garcia Stevenson, a 14-year-old boy, drive his Packard limousine, while the 26-year-old chauffeur, John Freeland, sat in the backseat holding Murnau’s dog, Pal. Or possibly, it could have been that Murnau was in the backseat with Pal, but anyway, the boy swerved to avoid a truck and crashed the Packard. The story that Stevenson and the famous director were engaged in a blow-job right before the crash comes courtesy of Kenneth Anger’s celebrated book, Hollywood Babylon (1959). We will never know exactly what happened, but it is a fact that everyone was thrown from the car, but only Murnau died from his injuries.  He was just 42 years old when he left this world.

Because of the scandalous rumors surrounding Murnau’s death, only a handful of mourners showed up at his funeral. Murnau’s good friend Greta Garbo was one of only about a dozen film industry figures to make an appearance. She requested that a Murnau death mask be made. She kept it on her desk for the rest of her life.

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