Product Information

Kino International is proud to release a new six-film, thinpak box set dedicated to the German films of legendary UFA director F. W. Murnau.

"Essential viewing for anyone wondering how movies told stories before there was sound: brilliantly!"
- Time Magazine, March 2009

Contains

• FAUST - Disc 1 of Restored Deluxe Edition (NEW)
• THE HAUNTED CASTLE (NEW)
• THE FINANCES OF THE GRAND DUKE (NEW)
• THE LAST LAUGH - Disc 1 of Restored Deluxe Edition (previously released)
• NOSFERATU - Disc 1 of The Ultimate Edition (previously released)
• TARTUFFE - Restored Authorized Edition (previously released)

All six films included in the box set, The Haunted Castle (1921), Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), The Finances of the Grand Duke (1924), Tartuffe (1925), and Faust (1926) have been recently restored by the Murnau Foundation and Transit Films, Germany, and were mastered from 35mm archival materials.

Of these six films, three of them are new to DVD in the US: Faust, being presented in a restoration of the German release edit never seen in the US, as well as The Haunted Castle and The Finances of the Grand Duke, both being made available for the first time in the US.

Kino's all-new Murnau box set comes with a suggested retail price of $99.95, and a prebook date of February 17, 2009. Its street date is March 17.

Nosferatu, The Last Laugh and Faust are presented in the new Murnau box set on single discs, containing the latest 2007 and 2008 restorations, along with all the special features found in the double-disc sets. The deluxe versions of Nosferatu (Kino, 2007), The Last Laugh (Kino, 2008) and Faust (Kino, 2009) continue to be available as double-disc sets on DVD.

Born on December 28th, 1888, in Germany, Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe (F.W. Murnau) studied art history at the University of Heidelberg before dedicating himself to filmmaking. Greatly influenced by the work of Max Reinhardt's theatre company, Murnau inherited the expressionistic use of high-contrast lighting from Reinhardt's work. Also highly influenced by his art history background, Murnau's work has direct references to Rembrandt's paintings and other masterworks of European art.

Murnau's ability to create an uncanny combination between camera movement, choreographed action, and then-unseen lighting techniques, makes him one of the archetypes of the "artist filmmaker."

More than pushing cinema into new aesthetic grounds with his revolutionary use of multiple exposure and warped lenses, Murnau will always be remembered as a director who further developed the relationship between the moving image and its subject matter.