Session 2: Project

Session 2: Project.

Visually respond to the film Nosferatu.

Above are some images that respond to the film Nosferatu. When viewing the film, the most interesting visual aspect for me was the contrast and tension between light and dark, and cast shadows. The way the film has been made creates a very specific feel where the viewer feels a sense of anti-realism and surreal forms appear from the darkened spaces within the scenes. Simple objects that may otherwise feel homely are made sinister and malevolent through angled lighting that exaggerates outlines and forms, this makes the film overall seem as though from a nightmare. The tensions gained from the contrast between light and dark are reflected in the actions of, and relationships between the characters.

I chose to take the iconic image of a rat, taken literally from the film, and cast shadows on the walls of my home creating a shadowy space that i feel captures an essence of the film. I made the rat's hands mimic that of Dracula's in order to represent the blaming of the plague epidemic on Dracula. He is the bringer of the black death. The Rats represent his manifestation among the towns people and how his darkness spreads much like a plague.

Session 2: Notes and tasks

Notes and research

My thoughts overall on the film:

Nosferatu: Werner Herzog...

lighting seems very staged and as though purposely aimed at creating malevolent shadows. We see this in particular when Count Dracula sits to eat with his guest. Dramatic attention is payed to his gaze and the light which falls upon his face. He is isolated some how. In addition the accompanying sounds are placed purposely in order to create a static and troubled energy within this film. The clock ticking and sounds of "night children" are made prominent. It wasn't until the end of the scene that I noticed Dracula is the only member of his party to speak throughout their initial meeting thus creating a sense of power and dominance over Jonathan. 

Where Jonathan sits and writes a letter to Lucy, I feel his statement "This castle is so strange, at times i wonder if it isn't part of that dream, everything about it looks so unreal" is a reference to German expressionism where there was elements of anti-realism. Also where "intelligent" topics and issues were raised with regard to madness, that blurred vision between nightmare and reality could be concerned with that.

The whole film seems full of symbolism and metaphor. Rats and the plague, the vampire as lord of the rats seemingly the body of the plague as it travels across land and sea. Which later, as Lucy sacrifices herself to a sexual encounter with the Count explores the issues surrounding Aids as a sexual and viral epidemic. Reference to the plague again when traveling on ships. 

Visual cues such as the wing of the bats and the ships sails which seem to embody the same message... "The plague/death/danger is coming"

I wonder if the little girl who sneezes at the side of the ship in dock is a sign that the plague has arrived.

 Janet Harrison - "I asked you to watch this film and see if you could recognise any any art works it referenced the ones I picked out were Casper David Friederich, The german expressionists such as Emile Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and of Kathe Kolwitz.  I also quickly looked at Claude Cahun because she references the film in one of her self portraits which again you could look up.

Kollwitz:

Kollwitz  with her series "peasant war" achieves a dramatic command of light and shadow. This series focuses on peasant life during a revolution in the early 16^th century. Within that focus, Kollwitz seems to have an affection for women subjects and mothers in specific. Many of her pieces show a mother searching for her children or, in her most famous work "woman with dead child", a mother mourning over the loss of her beloved child. It is fair to say that Kollwitz is one of the most prolific artists of proletariat life and suffering.The film equally, takes on a dramatic use of light and shadow in a surreal and expressionist manner where concerns over sanity and the real versus the imagined are explored visually and in plot.

This image is a self portrait of Kollwitz and I feel is replicated to some extent in the film through the choice of lighting and shadow during the initial meeting of Jonathan and the Count.

Casper David Friedrich:

Friedrich's mysterious landscapes and seascapes, proclaimed human helplessness against the forces of nature. This notion is reflected throughout the film through the populations inability to fight the forces of the black death. In addition particular scenes strike an uncanny resemblance to that of Friedrich's pantings. I have included just a couple below but there are many more.

Also this image by Emil Nolde entitled: Huile sur Toile

This image also bears a striking resemblance to the beach scene from the film. Even to the textures under the subjects feet and the section of land in the background.

Janet Harrison - "I want you to look up German expressionism and try to eplore its ideas and how the film explores these issues.  I talked a bit about the concept of things going viral as one of the things about Nosferatu is the blaming of the plague epidemic on Nosferatu which bring in the notion of illness and epidemics."

Taken from online source: 

Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned more foreign films in the nation. The demand from theaters to generate films led film production to rise from 24 films (1914) to 130 films (1918). With inflation on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's worth was constantly diminishing.

Besides the films' popularity within Germany, by 1922 the international audience had begun to appreciate German cinema, in part due to a decreasing anti-German sentiment following the end of World War I. By the time the 1916 ban on imports was lifted, Germany had become a part of the international film industry.

Various European cultures of the 1920s embraced an ethic of change, and a willingness to look to the future by experimenting with bold, new ideas and artistic styles. The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity,betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films). Later films often categorized as part of the brief history of German Expressionism include Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), both directed by Fritz Lang. This trend was a direct reaction against realism. Its practitioners used extreme distortions in expression to show an inner emotional reality rather than what is on the surface.

The extreme anti-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light, etc. to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of film making was brought to the United States when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood. These German directors found U.S. movie studios willing to embrace them, and several German directors and cameramen flourished there, producing a repertoire of Hollywood films that had a profound effect on film as a whole.

Two genres that were especially influenced by Expressionism are horror film and film noir. Carl Laemmle and Universal Studios had made a name for themselves by producing such famous horror films of the silent era as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera. German filmmakers such as Karl Freund (the cinematographer for Dracula in 1931) set the style and mood of the Universal monster movies of the 1930s with their dark and artistically designed sets, providing a model for later generations of horror films. Directors such as Fritz Lang,Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles,Carol Reed and Michael Curtiz introduced the Expressionist style to crime dramas of the 1940s, expanding Expressionism's influence on modern film making.

Influence

German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of cinema in Hollywood.As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood, developments in style and technique which were developed through Expressionism in Germany impressed contemporary film makers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.

A good example of this process can be found in the career of the British director Alfred Hitchcock. In 1924, Hitchcock was sent by his film company to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. An immediate effect of the working environment there can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for The Blackguard.

The influence can also be seen throughout the rest of Hitchcock's career. In his third film, The Lodger, Hitchcock introduced Expressionist set designs, lighting techniques, and trick camera work

^] to the British public against the wishes of his studio. In his later films, this influence continued through his visual experimentation. For example, in the shower scene from Psycho, Norman Bates' blurred image seen through a shower curtain is reminiscent of Nosferatu shown through his shadow. The development of these themes and techniques are not coincidental. Hitchcock said, "I have acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios Berlin". Hitchcock's film making has in its turn influenced many other film makers and so has been one of the vehicles which have propelled German Expressionist techniques into the present day.

Expressionism has also had an influence on contemporary films. For example Dark City is influenced by German Expressionism's stark contrast, rigid movements, and fantastic elements.

Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht was a tribute to F. W. Murnau's 1922 film. The film uses Expressionist techniques of highly symbolic acting and symbolic events to tell its story. Notably it links the vampire myth with the black death through the use of black rats. One may even notice the link between the evil character of the vampire portrayed byKlaus Kinski, and Nosferatu's star, Max Schreck

Before watching The Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, I actually watched the original from 1922. I have included some images below of scenes i found interesting for various reasons that visually contribute to my responses later...

Session 1: Project

Session 1: Project

"Students to find an object that they really like and to make it into an art work using whatever media you wish including creating a story board/story for the object."

Abandonment

The exact story of this little bear is for the viewer to define as my intention is for open interpretation, however my personal thoughts were that the bear, an iconic object of childhood may, in this situation have been abandoned, left and forgotten about as a representation of leaving childhood behind. As life takes on responsibilities and progressively we lose our sense of play and imagination due to the restrictions and truths in life, our childhood items and objects become ignored. Somehow this is very sad but I have been reminded of that sense of play and magic in objects since having my son.

I couldn't have stood to do this to one of my own bears from childhood so unfortunately this one was bought from a charity shop, which perhaps brings with it a real sense of abandonment.

My aim with these images was to play with objects in a similar manner to Man Ray, This particular object, a tatty old teddy may be essentially an empty thing with no meaning in particular to a given person. However, a teddy in general can be seen as a reminder of childhood, security and comfort. I believe most people will have had a teddy as a friend during early childhood and will have a closeness and bond to it that is unbreakable despite the loss of their beady eyes or ripped fur. These imperfections even becoming admirable. Children's characters for years have taken the form of a teddy bear, such as Winnie the Pooh, Paddington or Rupert and their warm cuddly faces have built many relationships with young imaginations. They are some how human and with emotion and consciousness. Endless films and animations have featured teddies and other toys coming to life at night. Often these films deal with issues that children go through at the different stages in their life.
Therefore by showing such an object in this content, cold, alone and abandoned, I hope to provoke feelings of isolation and empathy. Reducing the viewer into a child like mind-set where they associate this particular bear with that of their own childhood. Feeling sorry for this essentially unimportant object. 
Some how the images address children's welfare and their situations of loneliness or abandonment. And pose questions such as "where are the parents?" and "why has no-one gone back for him?" and that somehow this speaks of a negative situation that a child may be involved in potentially raising awareness of that also. 

Session 1: Notes and tasks

Session 1

Notes:

Janet shows a Man Ray film, L' Étoile de mer...

Below: A description of the film and poem taken from an online review

Almost all of the scenes in this film are shot either off a mirror like the final shot, or through diffused and textured glass.

After opening to the couple walking along a road, the scene cuts to a caption

Les dents des femmes sont des objets si charmants... (Women's teeth are such charming things...)

A short scene where the female alters her stocking.

... qu' on ne devrait les voir qu' en rêve ou à l'instant de l'amour. (... that one ought to see them only in a dream or in the instant of love.)

From this point the couple retire to the upper bedroom of a house and the female undresses and retires, at which point the male bids her farewell.

Si belle! Cybèle? (So beautiful! Cybèle?)

The male leaves the house.

Nous sommes à jamais perdus dans le désert de l'éternèbre. (We are forever lost in the desert of eternal darkness. Éternèbre is a portmanteau of éternel (eternal) and ténèbre (darkness))

The film cuts to a female selling newspapers in the street, this is André de la Rivière in drag.

Qu'elle est belle (How beautiful she is)

A man is shown purchasing a sea star in a jar, returning it home to examine further.

"Après tout" ("After all")

The film then changes focus, following newspapers being blown in the wind while a man attempts to pick them up. Scenes from a railway journey appear briefly, tugboats docking at a wharfside followed by a panning city scape.

Si les fleurs étaient en verre (If the flowers were made of glass)

Followed by a montage of various rotating objects, including the sea star in a jar. A few still lifes appear, again featuring the sea star.

Belle, belle comme une fleur de verre (Beautiful, beautiful like a glass flower)
Belle comme une fleur de chair (Beautiful like a flower of flesh)
Il faut battre les morts quand ils sont froids. (One must strike the dead while they are cold. cf. Il faut battre le fer quand il est chaud - Strike while the iron is hot)

We rejoin the man as he ascends the staircase to the upper bedroom in the house, leaving the sea star at the foot of the stairs. The film cuts to the woman brandishing a large knife superimposed with the sea star.

Les murs de la Santé (The walls of the Santé)
Et si tu trouves sur cette terre une femme à l'amour sincère... (And if you find on this earth a woman whose love is true...)
Belle comme une fleur de feu (Beautiful like a flower of fire)
Le soleil, un pied à l'étrier, niche un rossignol dans un voile de crêpe. (The sun, one foot in the stirrup, nestles a nightingale in a mourning veil.)

We return to the female reclining in the bedroom.

Vous ne rêvez pas (You are not dreaming)

The film then reveals a short end to the characters love triangle.

Qu'elle était belle (How beautiful she was)
Qu'elle est belle (How beautiful she is)

The female appears in a mirror with the word 'belle', which shatters. The affair is over, and the film brings to a close.

Task 1:

Consider the use of objects in the film...

The film was adapted from his friend Robert Desnos's poem "la 'place de l'etoile". The title of Man Ray's film meaning "the starfish" or the "sea star".  I believe that Man Ray uses the star fish to represent the embodiment of a lost love. 

"Both Desnos and Man Ray thought that the starfish "inhabited liquid depths as well as heavenly reaches." - Ryan Doyon

Man Ray seemingly has an affinity for vague objects which, through his surrealist thinking are used as metaphors and become dominant and established objects that then convey powerful messages. Such as the Star fish which makes numerous appearances throughout the film. Every time there was some sort of conflict this object would be on screen somewhere. There are a couple of reasons I can think that the star fish is an appropriate and representative or metaphorical object; it is delicate, and precious, and in this content trapped where it should be free in the ocean. It is almost preserved in this glass jar, perhaps this is how he saw his love to his wife. Trying to preserve it somehow, but in this manner inevitably it is impossible. There is something equally exquisite and exotic about a starfish, much like true love. 

The film stared his wife Kiki as the female lead, this makes it somewhat autobiographical, and certainly it is insightful into their personal affairs. The woman (Kiki) and a man, during the film, drift apart from one another. Which was the truth in reality as their marriage ended during the films release. 

To me the most interesting aspect of this film is that it was shot through a sheet of uneven glass which helped to emphasize the nature of the romance between the two lead characters, through its lack of clarity, and also through the materiality of glass itself which is thin, fragile and to an extent transparent.