The Michigan Daily-Sunday,NI
Page 6-Sunday, November 4, 1979-The Michigan Daily
Film
Isabelle Adjani and Klaus Kinski (left) in Werner Herzog's new "Nosferatu, The Vampyre."
At right, Max Schreck in a scene from the original "Nosferatu," made in 1922.
Herzog 's anemic new 'Nosferatu'
RELEASED IN Germany in
1922, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu
;remains in many ways the
greatest vampire movie ever made.
Though countless films have been
fashioned from the Dracula myth.
Murnau's is the most faithful to its
modern source-the 19th century
Bram Stoker novel, which crystalized a
world of wooden stakes, virgin victims,
and midnight bloodsuckers into a haun-
ting psychological fantasy. Made a
scant three years after the com-
paratively pedestrian Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari, Nosferatu must have shocked
its first audiences. Technically, the film
was, for its time, a stunning tour-de-.
force of cinematic trickery.
Imaginatively, its ghastlier gothic con-
ceits are still remarkably evocative.
Long after the stylized excesses of
Caligari and corny show-biz spookiness
of the Bela Lugosi flicks have worn off
into pure camp, Nosferatu still draws
blood.
Even those who saw the film as
children remember the catatonic zom-
bie-vampire, as immortalized by actor
Max Schreck: That white shaved
leath's-head, sunk between the
shoulders; a body cloaked in black and
emaciated down to its long, lean bones;
and those fingers! Thin and skeletal,
with garishly long nails that curve
slightly as if clutching at some invisible
softball. Today, when audiences are
always trying to laugh off horror -
especially when it comes wrapped up in
the obvious crudities of a silent film -
Schreck's monster casts one terrifying
shadow.
F. W. Murnau transposed Stoker's
tale from England to Bremen, Ger-
many. He also took some large liberties
with the plot, eliminating certain
characters and events and condensing
others. But he retained the central
Owen Gleiberman is co-editor Qf
the Sunday Magazine.-
By Owen Gleiberman
story and, more importantly, the
mysteriously macabre atmosphere. In
the movie, Jonathon Harker, a recently
married young real estate agent, is sent
to Dracula's isolated castle on business
matters. Trapping Harker inside,
Nosferatu (literally "the un-dead")
sails to Bremen, carrying pestilence
and killing the entire crew. Once in the
village, the vampire infects the
populous, which starts dying off like
flies. Harker escapes the castle, but
proves no match for the evil forces at
work. It is up to Harker's wife, Lucy, to
rid the town of its curse by spending the
night with the monster. Sick with fear,
she does the grisly deed, detaining him
until the first vampire-melting rays of
morning sunlight flood her bedroom.
Nosferatu is of a rare breed - a
horror movie whose unintended eccen-
tricities add to the ghoulish effect. Like
the opening cemetery scene in Night of
i the Living Dead, where the
amateurishly offbeat performances of
the brother and sister make things that
much more insane and nightmarish,
Nosferatu's oddities seem other-
worldly. The use of negative footage
during the coach ride is ominously ef-
fective; the fast-motion is downright
surreal. And the grainy black-and-
white photography gives the movie the
feeling of nightmarish history. Since
the film looks old, we don't feel, as with
last summer's slickly romantic version
of Dracula, that the archaic conception
is somehow lagging behind the
technique; in Nosferatu, the two are
ideally matched.
Nosferatu is an alien from society,
driven by a single, overriding need -
his unquenchable thirst for human
blood. The phantom's crazed obsession
is something common to the heroes of
Werner Herzog's films, and perhaps it's
that quality that drew the visionary
German director to remake Murnau's
classic. From the outset, Herzog's
Nosferatu seemed like a promising
project. Aside from its own merits, the
first film provided the exact sort of
simple, spare source material that
Herzog thrives on. In Aguirre, Wrath of
God, he took remaining fragments
from the actual log of a Spanish
conquistador and fashioned a spectacle
of a sublimely mad dictator who leads
his men down a Peruvian river in sear-
ch of El Dorado and finds something
closer to the Heart of Darkness. Played
by Klaus Kinski, Herzog's Aguirre was
an extraordinary, almost Nietzschean
figure whose eyes gave off a glint of
madness. Snaking his way into the
South American jungle, Aguirre was
leading his men to certain death; but he
was headed somewhere out of this
world.
ILMED IN 1978, Nosferatu, the
Vampyre is Herzog's first film to
be financed and distributed by a
major American company (20th Cen-
tury Fox). Klaus Kinski is back from
Aguirre, only this time his head's been
shaved to recreate Murnau's creepy in-
carnation of vampirism, and he's
wearing more make-up than Lon
Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera.
But the movie has so many conflicting
elements that Herzog doesn't seem able
to in any of them down. Is Nosferatu
a strict "remake" of Murnau's
masterwork, is it an homage, Qr Her-
zog's own film? The answer seems to be
a bit of all three, and while the different
frameworks don't clash, they don't go
anywhere either. Herzog's documen-
tary-like approach is wonderfully effec-
tive at reproducing the day-to-day
touches of small-town life. When it
comes to gore and macabre set-pieces,
though, it isn't up to scratch. Herzog
could have played a vampire story on
his own terms and dropped the sort of
stagey horror that worked only when
filmmakers were less sophisticated and
less overtly thematic and werejust
initiating special effects. Unfor-
tunately, he didn't. Herzog's Nosferatu
isn't a horror story stripped of sen-
sationalism and pumped up with an
"art-film" director's lofty conceits. It's
an essentially straightforward fright
parable, and for all his visionary-
genius, Herzog isn't up to it. His heart
isn't in the dramatic flow of the
material, the way Murnau's was, or
even Tod Browning's in the original
American Dracula, made in 1931.
Herzog retains Murnau's story but
throws in a few grisly touches of his
own, most of which backfire miserably.
The agent who sends Harker on his
journey to the Carpathian Woods where
Dracula resides is under the vampire's
spell from the start, and the actor.
(Roland Topor) does a strained
variation on the old Hollywood staple of
the leering hunchbacked assistant,
cackling between every other word like
some stoned chicken. Late in the film,
when Nosferatu dispatches him to a
neighboring village to spread the
plague, one half expects the runt to peer
over his shoulder, drool running down
the back of his coat, and grunt with a
Peter Lorre rasp, "Ye-ye-ye-yes,
Master!" Herzog also manages to bot-
ch some simple expository scenes that
worked wonderfully in the original.
When Harker tells an innkeeper that
he's headed for Nosferatu's castle, the
inn's patrons turn in stunned silence as
if he'd just said his broker was E. F.
Hutton.
Visually, the movie is more suc-
cessful. Herzog recreates several
SeelFILM, Page7
ALMOST EVERY grade school
student has faced the peren-
nial fall essay assignment:
"What I Did for My Summer
Vacation." They fill their stories with
tales of swimming, playing tag in the
backyard, and unbearable automobile
trips to Washington, D.C. or the Grand
Canyon. As the grade schoolers
blossom into eager college students,
summer becomes a time not for bathing
suits and popsicles, but for internships
- temporary jobs that provide referen-
ces, experience, and contacts so
necessary for breaking into a tight job
market.
Jim Gold, an LSA junior, helped
produce two weekly public affairs
shows at a Detroit television station
during the summer. He planned and
researched the topics to be debated on
WXYZ programs Haney and Point-
Counterpoint.
Although he received only a few
college credits for the 50 hours he spent
at the station each week, the New
Yorker said he looked at his internship
at WXYZ as a "valuable investment."
During the three months he spent in
Washington, D.C., another University
junior, Mark Gerstein, said he "learned
a lot about politics and research . . . It
was an exceptional summer."
Gerstein had an internship with the
Democratic National Committee. The
Compliance Review Commission he
worked with analyzed the plans of each
state for selecting delegates to the par-
ty's presidential convention. As a
volunteer he worked hard. He said,
"They take interns and treat them as
staff."
Via a computer science and math
major, Debby Meredith qualified for a
job as a computer operator trainee at
General Motors (GM) in Detroit. She
helped supervise the processing of
computer programs as part of GM's
summer placement program for
college students. In addition to a good
salary, "you get exposure to your
field . . . in a nice environment,"
Meredith explained.
Gold, Gerstein, and Meredith are
among hundreds of University students
who secured a summer "experience" in
the realms of government, public ser-
vice, business, and engineering. A few
months spent in an internship or pre-
professional summer job can be an in-
valuable experience according to
students, college officials, counselors,
and corporate spokespersons. They say
students are becoming more aware of
the value of practical pre-graduation
training. And while more organizations
and businesses are offering students
positions, the world of interning has
become intensely competitive.
An internship does not guarantee an
eager student a job offer, but these of-
ficials and students report that an in-
ternship is considered an advantage
when students apply for permanent
jobs after graduation.
Ninety per cent of the seniors who
secured internships in Summer 1978
through the University's Business In-
tern Program were offered positions in
the offices where they worked, accor-
ding to the Career Planning and
Placement program supervisor Cheryl
Liang
"In terms of your attractiveness to an
employer ...it is greatly enhanced by
an internship," Liang said.
"A lot of students ultimately do get
jobs out of these positions," said
Richard Johnson, placement service
director in the School of Business Ad-
ministration. Internships, he explained,
are a "nice thing to have ...but it's not
the end of the world if you don't have
Patricia Hagen covers City Coun-
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Miling list (beginning Oct. 5, 19/9), a new General JO
t returned to Career Planning, & Placement along with th
Please corplete thi sform and return to: Leyna Mulholl
OEly you can give us the information that we need to as
career objectives. This informnation will be kept confi
data will be used to assist students & alumni in makir,
Supplying infonration concerning your present position
ceiving the full assistance of our office at the presery
year, or at any tire in the future The more inforati
ter we are able to assist you.
1005 ISS___
~ r --er Street city
DEGREE PILD -_ ATE RECEIVD_ _ FIELD
1 Plans xbllowin- Graduation
_ Have accepted a job. Full-Tire... Part-Time
Job campaien not completed -have received at 1
Job carrpain not comnleted -no firm offers to
2 Plan further educet-ico. School______
Other (specify)__ ____________
2. Position Acepted
Employer -
location
Job itle
t ype of flg.loyer - based on pri..7ry product, service
Ila
Idenfify dcpornsent or division of the organization
Annual SalaryAdditional Compensation
I wish to ucdate ny credentials. (Note: Crede7
updated by the candidate for a ten year peric
send re the necessary form.
' I wish to receive the General Job Orenighi [Bull(
year. Pleasc send me the data card which I an
the $S.00l fee.
rn your fm, Yous assistance in this survey. RM7I1NT,
APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMEP
PLEASE PRINT IN INK OR TYPE REOUESTEOINFORMATION AN
PERSONAL DATA
NAME LAST FIRST
PIRSENIT ADDRESS NMER-o STREET 1
pL 4MfS4 .-_
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Nov
By Patricia Hagen
r i. ,,, . ,es ...
that kind of experience on your
resume."
Between Summer 1977 and Summer
1978 the total number of interns in
government-related offices in
Washington, D.C. increased by 15 per
cent, according to a coordinator of the
University's ten-year-old Public Ser-
vice Internship program, Joanna
Steinman. Last year 75 LSA students
were selected by the program and
placed in congressional offices and
public service organizations in the
nation's capitol.
Students realize an internship can be
an advantage especially when applying
for a career in government or public
service, and the competition for inter-
nships is intense, Steinman said.
"There are so many people vying for
so few positions," Steinman said, even
though most of the "Washington inter-
ns" do not receive a salary. She added
that students from all over the country
beg for a chance to do any type of work
in a congressional office just for the ex-
perience and the chance to make con-
tacts that could be valuable when job
hunting season begins.
"Things are so competitive in
Washington," Steinman said, that a
bachelor's degree doesn't have much
clout when applying for a government
job. An internship often convinces a
student to go on to graduate school to
garner the necessary qualifications.
Students know "they need to have
some sort of a 'plus'," on a government
job application, according to Beth
Grove, another coordinator of the
Washington Intern program. They
justify the expense of an unpaid sum-
mer - "They write it off as experien-
ce" -- because the people they meet-
and the job exposure is a more valuable
return for the time they spend, Grove,
herself a former intern, explained.
University Prof. George Grassmuck
also pointed out the importance of an
internship for students interested in
government and political science. "You
need some type of preparation," he ex-
plained, to get a job in this field.
"Any experience like this which ap-
pears on a transcript. . . and shows a
knowledge of Washington ... is some
advantage," he explained. "Students
are more and more concerned with
what type of preparation will be
valuable to them. . . to go on to
careers," Grassmuck said. He added
that the faculty is also becoming more
aware of the need for pre-professional
training for students in non-technical
fields.
Grassmuck teaches a course in which
returning interns apply political scien-
ce techniques to their summer ex-
periences in Washington and New
York. In the past several years the
course has become more popular.
Grassmuck attributes this to the fact
that "people are more oriented toward
jobs while still in college."
N ADDITION to the, potential job
contact, an internship affords the
student who spends his or her un-
dergraduate years learning the
academic side of political science in the
libraries and classrooms an oppor-
tunity to put this knowledge to work -
"to see what works and what doesn't."
At Northwestern University, also,
"Students are becoming more sensitive
to how important the experience is,"
according to the Director of the Student
Placement Center Victor Lindquist.
The Placement Center there-is working -'
to develop m
and goverm+
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