Murnau, Flaherty and Crosby were the only professional filmmakers working on Tabu ; the rest of the crew was made up of the local natives.

Friedrich Wilhelm " F. W ." Murnau ( born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe ; December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931 ) was one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s.

( translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror ; or simply Nosferatu ) is a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok.

Murnau ; under chief producer Erich Pommer the company created landmark films such as Dr. Mabuse ( 1922 ), Metropolis ( 1927 ), and Marlene Dietrich's first talkie, The Blue Angel ( 1930 ).

UFA wanted Ludwig Berger to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety ; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer to let him direct the movie.

Murnau uses two cameras, both filming multiple shots ; many scenes were filmed time and again.

The US version includes titles and scenes filmed especially by Murnau, where for example the scene in which Aunt Marthe offers Mephisto a drink that he rejects as causing heartburn: in the US version, Mephisto rejects the drink for having had alcohol, a joke aimed at the Prohibition era ; again in the US version, Mephisto offers Marta a necklace, from the Great Khan of the Tartars, rather than the cousin from Lombardy, as Murnau believed the US audience would not have heard of Lombardy.

Murnau was a village untouched by industrialization, progress, and technology ; it was here, in Münter's landscape paintings, that she emphasized nature, imaginative landscapes and an opposition to German modernism.

German film director F. W. Murnau had recently made The Last Laugh and Sunrise and was the most critically acclaimed director in Hollywood, and Hawks's attempted to imitate Murnau's style with this film.

Flaherty then agreed to collaborate with F. W. Murnau on another South Seas picture, Tabu, but this combination proved even more volatile, and while Flaherty did contribute significantly to the story, the finished film is essentially Murnau's.

* Tabu ( 1931 ) co-wrote with F. W. Murnau

Director F. W. Murnau was at the height of his film career in Germany and had high ambitions for his first film with UFA.

Her performances in Seventh Heaven ( the first of twelve movies she would make with actor Charles Farrell ) and both Sunrise, directed by F. W. Murnau, and Street Angel ( in 1927, also with Charles Farrell ) earned her the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1928.

After rereleasing a few silent feature hits, such as Seventh Heaven, with recorded music, Fox came out with its first original Movietone feature on September 23: Sunrise, by acclaimed German director F. W. Murnau.

The two directors knew each through Flaherty's brother David, and Murnau expressed a desire to make a film in Tahiti with Flaherty who had experience with the natives there.

Flaherty worked on the story with Murnau during production, but he was not the co-director as he originally thought he would be.

The DVD contains a commentary with R. Dixon Smith and Brad Stevens and a booklet containing essays and the original stories Turia and Tabu by Flaherty and Murnau upon which the film is based.

Born in Bielefeld, Murnau had inspirations of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakesphere, and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and made friends with director Max Reinhardt.

Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu in 1931 with documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty, who left after artistic disputes with Murnau who had to finish the movie on his own.

After World War I ended, Murnau returned to Germany where he soon established his own film studio with actor Conrad Veidt.

F. W Murnau with Henri Matisse at Tahiti in 1930.

Together with documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty, Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu in 1931.

Flaherty left after artistic disputes with Murnau who had to finish the movie on his own.

After filming the beginning scenes of his film in a sound stage with his leading actress, Greta Schroeder ( Catherine McCormack ) who is incredibly displeased about having to leave Berlin, Murnau and his team travel to the remote inn where they will be staying and shooting further scenes for the picture.

One night, Murnau rushes his team up to the main setting for his film, an old Slovak castle, for the first scene with the vampire.

A week prior to the opening of the film Tabu, Murnau was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, California.

A week prior to the opening of the film Tabu, Murnau had driven up the coast from Los Angeles, California in a hired Rolls Royce.

Whilst filming a dinner scene between Gustav and Count Orlok, Murnau deliberately startles Gustav, making him cut his finger with a bread knife.

Murnau, Albin, and Fritz are forced to drug her, and Schreck feeds on her while the others film the scene.

One scene was done with a text juxtaposition, as again, Murnau believed the American audience wouldn't grasp the imagery by itself.

* Phantom ( 1922 film ), a silent movie directed by F. W. Murnau

The self-deluded lead characters in many expressionist films echo Goethe's Faust, and Murnau indeed retold the tale in his film Faust.

Murnau, German film director ( d. 1931 )

The Last Laugh () is a German 1924 silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer.

" Murnau called screenwriter Carl Mayer someone who worked in " the true domain of the cinema " and agreed to make The Last Laugh after Mayer and film director Lupu Pick fought and Pick left the film.

Murnau and cinematographer Karl Freund used elaborate camera movements for the film, a technique later called " entfesslte Kamera " ( unchained camera ).

The film was a major critical and financial success and allowed Murnau to make two big budget films shortly afterwards.

Murnau Foundation released a digitally restored version of the film in 2002.

After a series of telegrams asking for the rest of the money, Murnau got fed up and decided to fund the film himself.

To cut costs, Murnau sent the Hollywood crew home and trained the natives to work as the film crew.

A couple of days after the wrap, Flaherty sold his share of the film to Murnau for $ 25, 000.

Returning to Los Angeles, Murnau spent the winter editing the film and used the last of his money to hire Hugo Riesenfeld for the music scoring.

The film had its premiere on March 18, 1931, a week after Murnau died, at New York's Central Part Theater.

The film was not a box office success upon release, grossing just $ 472, 000 worldwide, which failed to recoup Murnau and Paramount's investment.