Movie: Werner Herzog's Nosferatu
Feb. 2nd, 2006 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
One of my shames is that I've yet to see Murnau's original Nosferatu. I've got a vague idea of catching it at the artsy cinema, where they sometimes show silent movies with live piano music. For the meantime, the local Cosmo equivalent came packaged with a DVD of Herzog's remake a few months ago, and since my exam didn't happen (argh), I watched it today.
It's such a quiet, unearthly movie. The light and shadow play is very much inspired by Murnau. The soundtrack compliments the visuals beautifully - the scene where the plague-stricken people dance as a mournful hymn plays out is unearthly. The sheer contrast - Lucy (in this version, Jonathan's wife) looks like a vampire, pale and black-clad, and yet it's the people she passes, dancing and joyful, who are the ones condemned to death.
Kinski's Dracula is a mite too crazy at times, but then he catches the rhythm and is appropriately spellbinding, quite an accomplishment in that makeup. I didn't much care for Bruno Ganz as Harker, except at the end, but I was surprised at how much I liked Isabelle Adjani's performance. I was afraid her Lucy would turn out to be a will-less victim, and I couldn't have been more wrong.
Come to think of it, this is a surprisingly feminist movie.
Also, a guy looking like that has absolutely no business being hot, but somehow his scene with Lucy was scorching. Something about their hands...
(Note: the version I saw was the German-language one. The English one consists of entirely different "speaking" takes.)
It's such a quiet, unearthly movie. The light and shadow play is very much inspired by Murnau. The soundtrack compliments the visuals beautifully - the scene where the plague-stricken people dance as a mournful hymn plays out is unearthly. The sheer contrast - Lucy (in this version, Jonathan's wife) looks like a vampire, pale and black-clad, and yet it's the people she passes, dancing and joyful, who are the ones condemned to death.
Kinski's Dracula is a mite too crazy at times, but then he catches the rhythm and is appropriately spellbinding, quite an accomplishment in that makeup. I didn't much care for Bruno Ganz as Harker, except at the end, but I was surprised at how much I liked Isabelle Adjani's performance. I was afraid her Lucy would turn out to be a will-less victim, and I couldn't have been more wrong.
Come to think of it, this is a surprisingly feminist movie.
Also, a guy looking like that has absolutely no business being hot, but somehow his scene with Lucy was scorching. Something about their hands...
(Note: the version I saw was the German-language one. The English one consists of entirely different "speaking" takes.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 07:40 am (UTC)And now Krolock. I'm starting to see a pattern in my weaknesses :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:08 am (UTC)I think with Kinski and Adjani, it's the contrast - his hands are monstrous, clawed, and yet her hands, drawing him near, encouraging him to take more, are the ones that are deadly. Gods, the plotbunnies. Who needs plague rats, anyway?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:49 am (UTC)Begone, foul temptress. Now I have to write Christine meeting Krolock, and decide on how Raoul will act during that scene. I think he might have been at the sugar bowl, he's being ridiculously bouncy...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:54 am (UTC)*coughs*
I mean, I didn't force you to do anything! It's entirely not my fault ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 07:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:00 am (UTC)I never put on the English or Polish soundtrack in foreign movies, even if they are there. Fortunately I'm used to subtitles, and with Nosferatu I didn't even need them 95% of the time - apart from difficult words like Zwangsjacke (straitjacket) I understood it all. I guess my German is better than I thought!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:24 am (UTC)some dubs should be called Dumbs.
i always watch it in the original language, with french i don't need the subtitles and if they speak slowly in german i can manage but they don't speak slowly they go all in a rush and i work on a bit of a delay so i get all tangled up.
but for the most part the british won't watch a film if it's subtitled, which is a shame because they usually lose half the dialogue.
there is a version of das boot somewhere where someone took the mine sequence and replaced it with someone listening to a man u football match.
everything i needed to know about dubs i learnt in that moment.
catch the murnau one if you can, it's deliciously creepy.
and the bbc made a movie about it called Shadow of the Vampire which i love which has Willem Defoe playing Max Shreck but only makes sense if you've seen the original.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 08:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 11:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 09:31 pm (UTC)*looks at your journal* Oh, and you don't like Bram Stoker's Dracula either? I like you already ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-02 09:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 11:27 am (UTC)Ktoś, kto dopasował właśnie taką ścieżkę muzyczną był geniuszem.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 02:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-05 02:24 pm (UTC)