Last Movie You Watched

[George]

[Brahmsian]

Nosferatu (1922)



Now, whether or not the music in the film is the original music, I am unsure.  It just finished playing on a cable channel (Silver Screen).  The original music is by Hans Erdmann.

The music used in what I just watched was very effective.  If it is the original music, the dramatic music used in the film foreshadowed and reminded one of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet (specifically the Montagues & Capulets).

My hunch, however, is it isn't the original music to the Nosferatu I just watched.  It sounds too good, too crystal clear.  Looking at a Google video of the same film, the music is completely different, and sounds more like the music (and sound quality) of a 1920's silent film.

[karlhenning]

Recently . . . Monty Python and the Holy Grail with commentary by Eric Idle, Jn Cleese & Michael Palin

Monty Python's Meaning of Life with commentary by Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones

[karlhenning]

This is a detail which I am sure others have observed (for it is a movie all of whose detail has been picked up on by someone or other ere now) but I smiled to see that the Dude's personalized checks have a blue whale on them. Which ties in with the whale song cassette the Dude listens to later.

[George]

This is a detail which I am sure others have observed (for it is a movie all of whose detail has been picked up on by someone or other ere now) but I smiled to see that the Dude's personalized checks have a blue whale on them. Which ties in with the whale song cassette the Dude listens to later.

Are you watching the Big Lebowski?

[karlhenning]

I'm just going to find a cash machine.

[George]

I'm just going to find a cash machine.

[karlhenning]

Oh! Answer is yes. The cash machine is a line of the Dude's.

[George]

Oh! Answer is yes. The cash machine is a line of the Dude's.

Gotcha. Your OP didn't mention the movie, that's why I was confused. I really love that movie. Will have to watch it again soon.

[karlhenning]

Not many movies you read a ransom note while listening to the Mozart Requiem.

[Scarpia]

Tennesee Williams, score by Benjamine Frankel, Richard Burton, Ava Gardiner, Deborah Kerr, should be a great movie, no?  No!

[karlhenning]

"That wasn't her toe, Dude!"

[Drasko]

Tennesee Williams, score by Benjamine Frankel, Richard Burton, Ava Gardiner, Deborah Kerr, should be a great movie, no?  No!

The Night of the Iguana. I like it actually, so much scenery chewing from all involved that I feared there won't be any left by the end.

Nosferatu (1922)

Now, whether or not the music in the film is the original music, I am unsure.  It just finished playing on a cable channel (Silver Screen).  The original music is by Hans Erdmann.

The music used in what I just watched was very effective.  If it is the original music, the dramatic music used in the film foreshadowed and reminded one of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet (specifically the Montagues & Capulets).

My hunch, however, is it isn't the original music to the Nosferatu I just watched.  It sounds too good, too crystal clear.  Looking at a Google video of the same film, the music is completely different, and sounds more like the music (and sound quality) of a 1920's silent film.

Hans Erdmann did write the original score but it isn't the original music in the sense we have today. With silent films that worked bit differently. Music wasn't integral part of the film (physically) which is silent, has no audio track. Score (when there was one written especially for the film) was intended to be played by pit orchestra, or pianist, organ or whatever band the theatres playing the film have on their disposal.
Erdmann score was first time recorded recently, so there is no reason for antiquated sound quality. And the fact that you heard different music in clip from google is due to the fact that I think at least half a dozen scores were written for Nosferatu over the years.         

[karlhenning]

Funny to think now, but scenery-chewing was how they done it, once on a time.

[karlhenning]

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax."

[Brahmsian]

Hans Erdmann did write the original score but it isn't the original music in the sense we have today. With silent films that worked bit differently. Music wasn't integral part of the film (physically) which is silent, has no audio track. Score (when there was one written especially for the film) was intended to be played by pit orchestra, or pianist, organ or whatever band the theatres playing the film have on their disposal.
Erdmann score was first time recorded recently, so there is no reason for antiquated sound quality. And the fact that you heard different music in clip from google is due to the fact that I think at least half a dozen scores were written for Nosferatu over the years.         

Thanks so much for the response, Drasko.  I sent an email to the Silver Screen Classics cable channel, to see if they have more information.  Do you know anything more about Erdmann?  I couldn't seem to find much on him.

[Drasko]

Thanks so much for the response, Drasko.  I sent an email to the Silver Screen Classics cable channel, to see if they have more information.  Do you know anything more about Erdmann?  I couldn't seem to find much on him.

No, I don't know anything about Erdmann, haven't even heard that score (it's available on British Eureka Masters of Cinema DVD release of Nosferatu). Here's what I found on the net:

http://www.celtoslavica.de/chiaroscuro/vergleiche/nos.html

We discover from the title-list handed down by Lotte Eisner that the credits of the Ur-Nosferatu give Hans Erdmann as the composer of the original music for the film, just as the Nibelungen and Metropolis title-lists name Gottfried Huppertz. Erdmann was a conductor, composer and music critic and from 1926 edited the journal Film - Ton - Kunst ('Film - Sound - Art'). In 1927, together with Giuseppe Becce, he published the Handbuch der Film-Musik. In 1932 he wrote the music for Fritz Lang's Testament des Dr. Mabuse.

Erdmann and Becce have reported that, before completing his films, Murnau used to discuss the music with the composers. Erdmann composed his Nosferatu score as a suite which he called Fantastisch-Romantische Suite. It was published in two arrangements, one for full orchestra and one for palm court orchestra. The score contains ten titles - Idyllic, Lyrical, Ghostly, Stormy, Destroyed, Strange, Grotesque, Unchained, Distraught. None of the ten pieces, wrote Erdmann in an open letter to an orchestra director who had attacked the composition as "too highbrow", was "planned in such a way that it must always be used in the form provided. It is of course possible to do so, but by no means obligatory." The suite was used in the cinemas of Berlin "with varying degrees of success. Sometimes very good effects were produced, but in other cases the results were less satisfactory."

I finally heard this music, arranged by the Berlin musicologist Berndt Heller and played by the DEFA Symphony Orchestra (now called the Babelsberg Film Orchestra), during a presentation of the film in a church in Neu-Ruppin in the Brandenburg Marches. What struck both Heller and myself, completely independently, was how the musical and colouring effects reinforced each other.

[Brahmsian]

No, I don't know anything about Erdmann, haven't even heard that score (it's available on British Eureka Masters of Cinema DVD release of Nosferatu). Here's what I found on the net:

http://www.celtoslavica.de/chiaroscuro/vergleiche/nos.html

Thanks again!  It may also be music by James Bernard, who composed a revised score for the re-release of the 1922 film in America.  I will keep digging and eventually find out! 

[DavidRoss]

"Three thousand years of beautiful tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax."

Yeah, but did Moses ever throw a perfect game...let alone four no-hitters?!

[karlhenning]

Moses had A[a]ron around to help; Sandy was up on that mound alone.