biography
| name: |
Murnau, F W
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| |
pseudonym of Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe
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pronunciation:
[moornow]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1888–1931)
|
| biography:
| Film director, born in Bielefeld, NWC Germany. He studied at Berlin and Heidelberg, and was influenced by Max Reinhardt. After World War 1, he made his directorial debut with Der Knabe in Blau (1919, The Boy in Blue). Experimenting with the mobility of the camera, his expressive use of light and shade heightened the menace in such macabre works as Der Januskopf (1920, Janus-Faced), and Nosferatu (1922). After a successful trio of films with actor Emil Jannings, including Der letzte Mann (1924, trans The Last Laugh), he moved to America and made Sunrise (1927), which won three of the first-ever Oscars. He had just completed the much-praised South Seas documentary Tabu (1931) before his death in a car crash. |
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