Wednesday, October 1, 2008

brüder des schattens









max schreck in f.w. murnau's original "nosferatu", 1922.

As much an excuse to feature an assemblage of images from Murnau's Expressionist silent drama, as to pay homage to Popol Vuh's contribution to Werner Herzog's 1978 remake.

Bram Stoker's estate successfully pushed the studio, Prana Films into bankruptcy after suing for copyright infringement. The court ordered the immediate destruction of all existing prints. Fortunately for posterity, the restored film in circulation today was copied from the handful of prints already in distribution.

The following selections are from Egg's 1978 French issue (as distinct from those unexpurgated cuts - four tracks in total - released in Germany on Brain Records' "Nosferatu: Brüder Des Schattens, Söehne Des Lichtes" in the same year). This album was reissued on CD in 1999 on Spalax, with a different tracklist and sequence.

Written by Florian Fricke, except for : Al Gromer.

Florian Fricke: piano, moog; Daniel Fichelscher: guitar; Ted De Jong: tamboura; Al Gromer: sitar.

The kids have their drawing pads out, and my son is humming along to the heavily sitar laced, "Venus Principle" as he maps out helicopters exploding in the sky with robust vigour.

The purple scent of Halloween is in the air.

POPOL VUH: BRÜDER DES SCHATTENS from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

POPOL VUH: MANTRA i from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

POPOL VUH: VENUS PRINCIPLE from "Nosferatu: The Vampyre" LP (EGG) 1978 (France)

PURCHASE NOSFERATU: THE VAMPYRE REMASTERED

3 comments:

Mondo said...

I love the Herzog remake too - have you ever read Dracula (not many people have) it's a real chiller ans well worth a read in the run up to Halloween?

ib said...

As a kid I was a complete Dracula nut. I bought a copy of "Dracula's Guest" - the truncated version of the Stoker novel - while on holiday in Argyll, on the Irish Sea. I've read the full novel since. It is erotically charged, but the descriptive passages can be overly dull. I am a huge fan, though, of M. R. James. And narrated versions of classic short horror tales, generally.

Nice comment. Thanks.

ib said...

I still have never quite managed to visit Whitby, more's the pity.