2,284 words
It’s not clear why human beings enjoy being frightened. Indeed, in most circumstances we don’t. I find nothing particularly “thrilling,” for example, about the frightening threat posed by mass non-white migration into the lands of my ancestors. Nor do I enjoy how I feel when I’m the only white person on the J train at midnight. But I thoroughly enjoy the imaginary threats posed by ghosts, witches, and vampires. There’s a lot to be said here about the human fascination with the uncanny, and what it reveals about us. (more…)
7,194 words
Many people consider F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: Song of Two Humans (1927) to be the greatest film of the silent era. But most are unaware that it was remade under Hitler as Die Reise nach Tilsit (1939), and directed by the notorious Veit Harlan.
Both films were based upon a novella – titled Die Reise nach Tilsit (The Journey to Tilsit) – by Hermann Sudermann. (more…)
2,894 words
English original here
POLYP POHLCUJÍCÍ SVÉ MLADÉ: Odpoutaný Paracelsus
Analýza filmu F. W. Murnaua Nosferatu: Symfonie hrůzy (more…)
2,909 words
Czech translation here
A POLYP DEVOURS ITS FEED: Paracelsus Unzipped
An analysis of F. W. Murnau’s film Nosferatu
F. W. Murnau’s 1922 movie Nosferatu, starring Max Schreck, begins with bourgeois sentimentality or its tableau. Yet this comfortable familiarity can be vitiated by intrusion, even obtrusion. Darkness occurs amid light; there is a hint of delirium, as well as madness and despair. (more…)
2,284 words
