For Immediate Release
KINO RELEASES NEWLY MASTERED “ULTIMATE” 2-DISC EDITION OF F. W. MURNAU'S MASTERPIECE NOSFERATU (1922)
Kino is proud to announce the "Ultimate," two-disc edition of F. W. Murnau's horror masterpiece Nosferatu (1922). Digitally restored and re-mastered in high definition, Kino's NOSFERATU, THE ULTIMATE EDITION will be available for prebooking on October 23, with a SRP of $29.95. The street date for this release was set for November 20.
With unprecedented image clarity, this new edition of Nosferatu presents Murnau's classic film as it has never been seen in video or DVD format: in a restored high-definition digital transfer without the jump cuts and scratches seen in previous versions. This new edition also features a 5.1 Surround Sound presentation of the original Hans Erdman orchestral score, along with the original gothic styled German intertitles and, on a second disc, a version of the film with newly translated English intertitles.
Included among the extras on NOSFERATU, THE ULTIMATE EDITION is The Language of Shadows, a 52-minute making-of documentary about the production of Nosferatu and Murnau's involvement with artists and occult personalities who came to inspire this landmark vampire films. The Language of Shadows also deals with the history of Prana Film, a short-lived, silent-era German film studio with a mission to produce occult and supernatural themed films. The company's only film, Nosferatu, forced its bankruptcy as Murnau had to face copyright infringement suits from Bram Stoker's widow.
Also as extras: a short documentary, Nosferatu: A Historic Film Meets Digital Restoration, clips from eight of the 12 surviving features directed by Murnau, including Journey Into the Night (1920), The Haunted Castle (1921), Phantom (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Tartuffe (1925), Faust (1926), Tabu (1931) and The Finances of the Grand Duke (1924) – as well as an exclusive photo gallery and scene comparison.
Born on December 28th, 1888, in Germany, Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe (F.W. Murnau) studied art history at the University of Heidelberg before dedicating himself to filmmaking. Greatly influenced by the work of Max Reinhardt's theatre company, Murnau inherited the expressionistic use of high-contrast lighting from the famed German theatre company and was among he many German directors who created a new way of articulating acting, light, shadows and set design into cinematic expressionism.
But more than pushing cinema into new aesthetic grounds with his revolutionary use of multiple exposure and warped lenses, Murnau will always be remembered as a UFA/Hollywood off-screen legend. With his move from Berlin to Hollywood in 1926, Murnau went on to make four more films including Sunrise and Tabu (with Robert Flaherty) and established himself as one of the world's most accomplished and aesthetically complex directors during the greatest period of the silent cinema.
While Nosferatu is in essence, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, with names and other details changed, the film remains to this day as one of the most daring and artistically ground-breaking horror films ever made.
Rather than depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok (as portrayed by Max Schreck) is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and enlongated claws – perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned.
Nosferatu was an atypical expressionist film in that much of it was shot on location. While directors such as Lang and Lubitsch built vast forests and entire towns within the studio, Nosferatu's landscapes, villages and castle were actual locations in the Carpathian mountains. Murnau was thus able to infuse the story with the subtle tones of nature: both pure and fresh as well as twisted and sinister.
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