[LEN-E] Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)

[Thomas Köhler]

Yes, I have seen both "Pandora" (though not the Criterion version) and 
"Diary". I wouldn't say that "Pandora" is SO much better than "Diary", 
as both are very well worth seeing. "Pandora" is in a way THE great 
Brooks classic, and is also the far better constructed film, and of 
course even sexier :-) But "Diary" is also a captivating film which I 
would really recommend. Ahh...Louise....

If you can't or won't wait for the MoC "Phantom", it's already out in 
the US from a small, but classy company called Flicker Alley. Stupidly, 
they replaced the German titles by English ones, and for me as a German 
that was the sole reason to wait for the MoC. Otherwise, I only hear 
rave reviews of the Flicker Alley disc.

The new version of "Vampyr" is already out in France by MK2, but sadly, 
that company got the aspect ratio wrong. They used standard 1.33 instead 
of 1.19. This is a somewhat 'smaller' format often used especially in 
Germany with early sound films to make room on the negative
for the optical audio track. It went out of fashion soon, but it is 
absolutely essential for a dvd producer to adhere to it, otherwise the 
image is zoomed in and some heads are simply chopped off or at least the 
framing seems 'crammed'.  If I remember correctly, you have that 
problem  for instance with some of the discs of early Fanck sound films 
as well ("Montblanc" perhaps, can't remember which one it was). In any 
case, MoC have already said that their version will be in the correct 
1.19 ratio, so that will be the one  to go. Otherwise, the new version 
as on the French disc looks very, very good, and not just in comparison 
with the truly bad US disc. It's almost like watching a totally 
different film, it's so much superior.
And finally, I'm not so sure that we Europeans are so much luckier than 
you are. For example, most German discs are much weaker than their US 
counterparts, at least if it comes to 'old' films. Also, if it comes to 
silents, by far the most are available in the US. And even though Kino 
often produced discs which were not really good, they have improved a 
lot in the last two years. If only they kept  the original intertitles 
with foreign silents, they would be among my favourite labels. Look: 
just recently they again released two German classics available 
absolutely nowhere
else: Wiene's "Hands of Orlac" and Pabst's "Secrets of a soul". So they 
really have a knack for finding these gems. I'm raving about the three 
films by Swedish silent director Mauritz Stiller, for instance.

The only advantage for Europeans at the moment is the dollar rate. The 
usual Kino disc, even with shipping from the US, is generally not more 
expensive or even cheaper than any normal German dvd of a 'rarer' film.  
And  the customs rarely are a problem unless you order from amazon....

 In any case, there's so much to discover still....

Best
Thomas



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