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- cdlforheavIy-4 'cwsvi. '3j0 M 1ce4 ot a ss Hiking through 1 internship Jung: ...c-co p ,. u8 . 1, t of~ St.- Goy Cav '.4 *1 El P1 c W M vK a ' Y &Pt Q '1 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 .-_ A S t- .._ 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+ According national job dicott Repor prepare, 18 graduates w year than las surveyed in indicated t engineering 1979 than in 1 But the coi stronger tha ternships is because so r money, Lind the competit vice internsl In addition financial re perience f decision-ma the likelihoc their caree satisfying," students dis nships that planning isr Liang said. out a myth career plans Everyone needs to get ficulties of graduate si perience of from a su spent a tw tenement in social work the size of a ting to her," See Us