Motion Picture Classic (1923, 1924, 1926)

F. W. MURNAU The German Genius of the Films SIMPLICITY! Greater and greater simplicity — that will be the keynote of the new fijms." Murnau was speaking with ardor, gesticulating with his long limbs, whenever his English, altho correct and without foreign accent, failed him. "Our whole effort," he went on, "must be bent toward ridding motion pictures of all that docs not belong to them, of all that is unnecessary and trivial and drawn from other* sources — all the tricks, gags, 'business' not of the cinema, but of the stage and the written book. That is what has been accomplished when certain films reached the level of great art. That is what I tried to do in The Last Laugh.' We must try for more and more simplicity and devotion to pure motion picture technique and material." Exactly what I had longed to hear someone say here. Exactly what I hoped this giant of the moving pictures would say. But then Murnau went on to say something which gives his own spirit and personal style completely. Listen : "In the film you give a picture, for instance, of an object, a thing, and it has drama for the eye; because of the way it has been placed, or photographed, because of its relation to the other people or things in this film, it carries on the melody of the film." This is Murnau, the man who created the most vivid drama we have ever seen out of the simplest and lowliest things in "The Last Laugh" ; who made brass instruments ring with music on the screen, or lit up faces so that they were loud with speech ; probably the finest director who has come to us from Germany. His Influence Is Felt \17hat will his influence be here, I wondered? It has * * been very great already. It is not as if we have been backward, for in the last year or two a number of film 16 By Matthew Josephson Caricature of Murnau by Leo Kobcr masterpieces made by American or Americantrained directors follow the same tendencies as those of Murnau. They are simple to the utmost and built solidly on the resources of the cinema — pictures like Vidor's "Big Parade," Craze's "Covered Wagon," Henry King's "Stella Dallas." And yet there are people who grumble at the inroads of foreign film stars and directors. How silly ! If they could only see the mountains of inferior American celluloid that are shipped to foreign countries and blissfully consumed by the populace. F. W. Murnau arrives at exactly the psychological moment, as we are on the verge of an era of truly great motion pictures. In his valise he brought with him a new epoch-making film, "Faust," which is to have its first showing in America. At the very moment, "Variety," a seriously inspired German picture, was playing to filled houses with the temperature at ninety. He is deeply interested in America ; he has few false ideas about it, least of all that it is impossible to do anything fine over here. And he is here at the behest of the Fox Film Company, seldom noted hitherto for artistic films, but now going in for bigger things. He is not merely a giant of the films as I have described him, but in stature towers some six feet and several inches. He is red haired ; he has keen, steadyeyes and quiet hands. He is a calm man, not easily ruffled or thrown into despair. His manner is unconventional, not at all formal or formidable as that of many Europeans. He is young, not much over thirty-five ; his understanding and his knowledge are broad. I think that his abilities will make him respected, and his quiet, personal charm (so happily lacking in useless "temperament") will make him liked. Murnau was born of good family in a small town of Westphalia. He was well educated. He became inter