 State-of-the-Art Laserdiscs and DVDs Under Scrutiny |
NOSFERATU Prana Films, 1922, Silent, 81min, color tinted Image Entertainment #ID4O98DSDVD, $29.98.
Due to neglect, only about a dozen of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's twenty-one films still exist. Nosferatu, his thinly disguised version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, was unique in that it faced destruction by a German court order in 1925. The original negative may have been lost, but prints have survived in varying lengths. This important film continues to be "reborn" every few years with the continued discovery of missing footage, scholarly reconstructions, and improved scores. On video, however, the newest restorations have been slow to reach us.
For this DVD, Image Entertainment has basically recycled their 6-year-old LaserDisc version (reviewed in Filmfax #38) which featured David Shepard's commendable 1991 color-tinted restoration. While this DVD is adequate for those looking to immediately add Nosferatu to their DVD library, it does not represent any advancement of the film on video, and its $30 price tag is steep for a disc that is essentially a re-release with no new or original features of its own. It has essentially the same dim and slightly soft picture and tiring pipe organ soundtrack as the LD. I would not be surprised if more recent restorations make this one obsolete in the very near future. Collectors, however, may find long-term value in its supplements-an informative commentary track by Nosferatu scholar Lokke Heiss and a collection of stills-both of which were also on the LD.
Compared to the LaserDisc, the DVD alters the presentation of some of the still-frame supplements. Specifically, the LD had a unique, close-up viewing feature that was used to show detail of the tall Nosferatu poster and a couple of the early 19th century Caspar David Friedrich paintings. The process was simple and cool-slowly scanning across their surfaces when you pressed "Play," then returning you to "Still/Stop" mode. I'm sure this could have been worked out for the DVD if someone had taken the time to do so.
I found a couple of problems with this DVD that seem to indicate it was a rush job. The minor one is an erroneous chapter guide which lists ten stops, though the disc contains twelve. But while attempting to still-frame some shots during the film's climax-the final chapter on the disc-I encountered a video anomaly that I'd never seen on a DVD before: Unsteady still frames. This is sometimes called "field motion" and is caused by the improper mapping of film frames to video fields. Let me stress, however, that it is not noticeable while simply playing the movie, but only during still, slow, or scan operations during certain stretches of footage. Every third frame will blur. (The LaserDisc, with side 2 in CAV, does not have this problem.)
Certainly, better materials exist.
As I noted in my FiImfax review of Image's LD, a considerably sharper
print turned up on a Republic LaserDisc in 1991, although it lacked color
tinting and was projected too fast. (Interestingly enough, Republic's
LD lists for $29.98...the same price as Image's new DVD.)
More recently, an excellent theatrical print of Nosferatu appeared at special engagements, where conductor Julianne Anderson led a live orchestra through her reconstruction of Hans Erdmann's eerie original score for the film. It was, visually and audibly, a dramatic improvement over what we're seeing on video. In the famous scene of the Count rising straight up from his coffin on board the ship, the film I saw did not cut off his head at the top of the film frame (as seen on all video versions). I'd dearly love to have this on video, but no announcements have been forthcoming.
We have a greater chance of seeing a restored Nosferatu with a newly composed score by James Bernard (of Hammer Films fame). This premiered in London's Royal Festival Hall with "The Live Cinema Orchestra" conducted by Nic Raine in November 1997. Two months later, Britain's Channel 4 screened a video transfer of the film, audio-synched to Bernard's score. British writers report that this version includes additional brief, orienting shots-of mountains, the ship Demeter, the sea shore, the cock crowing-which enhance the film's mood, and provide smoother transitions between scenes. It also contains a previously "lost" sequence which is described in Murnau's shooting script as a croquet game (scenes 81-83) that is interrupted by a postman delivering Hutter's letter to Ellen. Restored by Photoplay productions, in association with Cineteca del Commune di Bologna and the Munchen Filmmuseum, a British video tape release is planned by Connoisseur Video. Can a disc release be far behind?
Bernard's orchestral score, a true
masterpiece befitting Nosferatu's subtitle of "A
Symphony of Horror," has been recorded on a Dolby Surround CD
(Silva Screen) with Nic Raine conducting the City of Prague Philharmonic.
I managed to synch some passages of the CD with the picture portion of
Image's DVD, and was bowled over by the renewed power and phantasmic subtleties
that Bernard's music brings to the film. This is a far cry from the endlessly
heroic organ music one finds on the DV...and it's a brutal awakening to
the fact that our current video versions are lacking far more than just
footage.
-Wesley G. Holt