In Praise of Silent Film! WVMCC Hosts Murnau Retrospective

The Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center (WVMCC) presents a silent film series highlighting the work of long-departed auteur F. W. Murnau.

Murnau was a leading light of German expressionist cinema. Each screening will begin with a lecture by Hart Johnson, local film scholar and instructor at the college. Spectators will also be treated to live music courtesy of classically trained organist Thomas Kozina.

The series includes screenings of Nosferatu on March 28, The Last Laugh on April 25 and Faust on May 23, each showcasing different facets of Murnau’s singular, otherworldly style.

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The Chicago Reader is this reporter's go-to source for penetrating film criticism. (Dave Kehr and his successor, Jonathan Rosenbaum, were pioneers of the quippy capsule review.) Here is what the Reader had to say about Murnau.

On Nosferatu:

A masterpiece of the German silent cinema and easily the most effective version of Dracula on record. F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film follows the Bram Stoker novel fairly closely, though he neglected to purchase the screen rights—hence, the title change. But the key elements are all Murnau’s own: the eerie intrusions of expressionist style on natural settings, the strong sexual subtext, and the daring use of fast-motion and negative photography.

On The Last Laugh:

The 1924 film in which F.W. Murnau freed his camera from its stationary tripod and took it on a flight of imagination and expression that changed the way movies were made. Cameras had tracked and panned before, but never to such a deliberate and spectacular degree.

On Faust:

Like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (which opened in New York at the same theater some 40 years later), this extraordinary piece of artistry and craftsmanship integrates its dazzling special effects so seamlessly that they’re indistinguishable from the film’s narrative, poetry, and, above all, metaphysics.

 

It’s based mainly on the first part of Goethe’s play, and though some of the performances (notably Emil Jannings’s Mephisto) can be ham-fisted, particularly when the film tries its hand at low comedy, Camilla Horn makes a striking Marguerite, and Gösta Ekman is certainly a boldly sculptured presence as Faust.

Admission costs $5 for members and students, $7 for all others. Beverages will be made available. Pre-registration is advised.

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