6B -The M higai Daily Weeken agie - Thursday, October 30,1997 © FillmFeature , The Mchigan Daiy Weeke Magazil _ _ _ . _- ,mac I n 1 Y 3 it tI$ Iris 'Nosferatu' mystifies audience with ghoulish soundtrack Horror-fiction genre terrifies, enthralls two centuries of readers By Joshua Pederson Daily Arts Writer Each year on Halloween night, the Michigan Theater presents a showing of "Nosferatu," the great-great-grandpap- py of every horror flick out there. What, you've never heard of it? Well, if you don't recognize the name, you'd surely recognize the actor. The vampire Orlok is played by the immortal Max Shreck. Don't recognize the actor? Okay, now, all of you have seen " M u p p e t P RE Babies," right? You remember the vampire in At t black and white To that often ter- Live org rorized Gonzo and Fozzie? I bet you know what I'm talking about now, While "Nosferatu" may, unfortunate- ly, be best known for its cameos in car- toons, it is truly the predecessor of the horror genre. In addition, artistically and aesthetically, the dark mood that is created in the filming of "Nosferatu" is the raw beginning of the film noir genre. Its dark sets and innovative cam- era angles are the forerunners of a com- pletely new and different kind of film- making that would create such classics as "Citizen Kane" and "The Maltese Falcon." From this angle, its importance in the evolution of film is monumental. So place yourself back in the roaring 1920s. ' he year is 1922. President Warren G . ardinL is in office. Flappers are iapping. uGangsters are being fitted for cement shoes. Prohibition is in effect. Times are good. (Well, the Prohibition thing is a bum- mer.) The movie industry is in its for- mative years. But one thing is missing from the film productions of the era: sound. And so, you walk into the theater and sit down. Up from the bowels of the the- ater rises a dull, golden form. As your eyes adjust to the darkness; the shape of a pipe organ materializes. A dark figure When "Nosferatu" was first released, the field of film scoring was in its infancy, undeveloped and unexplored. Leaffe has chosen to draw upon the the- atrical music traditions of the '40s and '50s to create melodic strains that will be both more sophisticated and more engaging. It is his opinion that the music is essential to creating the film's dark mood. In order for him to create this somber mood, it is necessary to utilize the expansive brilliance of a full orchestra. But Leaffe has only a single instrument. Accomplishing the task is a not only a tribute to Leaffe's talent but to the quality of the instrument. "For a small. instrument, the (Michigan Theater's) organ is very versatile," Leaffe said. Think of the role of music in movies of today. What would "Jaws" be with- out its famous bass line? What would "Psycho" be without its screeching strings? It is Leaffe's obligation and his privilege to create the mood on the spot, and he will not disappoint the audience. Whether you are going to see "Nosferatu" for the talent of the artist who will perform on the organ, the experience of seeing an integral link in the development of film as an art form, or just to be frightened on this most ter- rifying of evenings, "Nosferatu" will surely live up to expectations. Nosferatu he Michigan Theater morrow at 9:30 p.m. gan accompaniment. begins to finger the keys and eerie strains of music erupt. The musical accom- paniment to "Nosferatu" is no dig- ital-stereo-surround- sound-acoustic-virtu- al-audio-theater expe- rience. This is (gasp) a human being with immense talent playing an authentic musical instrument. This man is no phantom inhabiting the building's underbelly. He is Jim Leaffe, the pro- fessional organist employed by the Michigan Theater. Leaffe got his start in the silent- movie field in New York and then made his way to Ann Arbor, where he has established himself as a fixture on the organ bench at the Michigan Theater. One might expect there to be a set score for a production of "Nosferatu"'s magnitude, and this would be a correct assumption Incredibly, though, Mr. Leaffe has chosen to abandon the origi- nal score and improvise his own accom- paniment. By Amy Hayes For the Daily Skulls explode on a movie screen, spattering scenery with brains and blood. A melted man sharpens knives strapped to his fingers, his gruesome face illuminated by a growling base- ment furnace. Maniacal killers slit throats, throw axes, strangle, mutilate, slam their victims into trees so hard that pieces of their faces and eyeballs stick to the bark. Drawn to these scenes, moviegoers and bookstore patrons have come to relish fear. Why do we like to scare ourselves? Critics of horror literature and cinema have postulated that human beings, unlike animals, know they have to die. This knowledge is too frightening to deal with directly, and is thus portrayed unrealistically in entertainment - vio- lent deaths, insane murderers and the walking dead become thrilling, but safe. With the popularity of pulp novels and television, the line between real and unreal has become sharply drawn for modern audiences. As horror critic Walter Kendrich writes in "The Thrill of Fear," "Horror films and stories are fiction and admit it; they revel in being made articles, presenting themselves to an audience that knows the fact well and is ready to play the game on those terms. In this way, the horror of death and dying is rendered safe; it is turned into a cele- bration of being permanently alive, for- ever immune to decay" Addicted to the excitement of being caught off guard and realizing the ultimate safety in fic- tional displays of death, modern society has turned horror literature into a sig- READ THE DAILY ONLINE AT: htt p://www.pub. umich.edu/ daily Online by 3 a.m. daily. nificant genre. Although horror novels and short sto- ries were written as early as 1765, the growth of the genre skyrocketed in the late 1960s. The first horror novel, "The Castle of Otranto" (1765) by Horace Walpole, led to experiments in horror writing by Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, John Polidori and Charles Robert Maturin. The popularity of Edgar Allen Poe's frightening short sto- ries encouraged similar efforts by his contemporaries: Henry James, Edith Wharton, Rudyard Kipling, Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Oliver Onions. The publication of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1887), Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891) and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) established horror writing as an art form. H.G. Wells experimented with "realistic" horror, and H. P. Lovecraft, known for his macabre short stories in the pulp magazine "Weird Tales," ven- tured into the "cosmic" wing of horror writing. With his horror tales and his treatise on horror fiction, "Supernatural Horror in Literature," Lovecraft inspired many modern horror writers. The uncanny aspects of his fiction were employed by writers Roald Dahl and Robert Bloch, two key figures in the horror explosion that has influ- enced today's horror genre. Lovecraft also inspired television shows like "The Twilight Zone," whose stress on irony and otherworldliness can be found in the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and the writings of Ray Bradbury. In the 1960s, horror novels and movies intertwined. Movie and novel versions of "Jaws," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist," "Psycho" and "The Amityville Horror" became wildly pop- ular. Audiences became more interested in gore and fast-paced fear, a contrast to earlier horror fiction that employed old legends, spiritual entropy and single- death conclusions. These stories, as well as the writings of Peter Straub ("Ghost Story"), Bloch and Stephen King, form the founda- tions of current horror. King's work has been successful from the very beginning. His first novel, "Carrie," portrays a teen-age girl whose telekinetic powers run awry when she is humili- ated at prom. "Christine," a novel about a possessed car, and "Cujo," about a rabid dog, explore the possi- bilities for terror in everyday life. "Salem's Lot" and "Cycle of the Werewolf" re-evaluate the legends of vampires and werewolves, and "Misery" and "The Shining" narrate human madness. These earlier novels are frightening, creative and more entertaining than much of King's later work, such as the epic failure "Insomnia" or the sado-masochistic delight "Gerald's Game." More visionary than King, Clive Barker has stretched the limits of any kind of literature with his horrific "Weaveworld," "Cabel" and "Dam- nation Game." Barker's complexity involves the reader tightly with his work, and his moralizing and descrip- Author Stephen King, shown here in tive powers add a depth to his writ that is absent from other modern hor VC. Andrews mixes her Freudi nightmare romances with horror, es cially in her first novel, "Flowers in Attic." Describing four children loc in an attic, tortured by an evil gra mother who sprinkles arsenic on tl powdered donuts, Andrews begin: genre of her own. Soap opera me graveyard when an incestuous relati ship begins between the oldest brot and sister, followed by the death of youngest brother. Anne Rice, who may be oust Stephen King from the horror thrc has become famous for her lush a I LO(Ah. 0 « LIS . s « * JogI . " " ." j 10m « . . 0 " " . . wo TOro uow IUNWITJ AUoii AOL1 "Nosferatu" brings terror and fright, along with live musical accompaniment, to the Michigan Theater tomorrow night. it' Weekend Magazine SI. Moxy Frvus merges tricate vocal harmonies 'th sly comic plot6lins." -The New York Times . an ingratiatingly playfr -urn... Mrhey] muster rich vca harmonies and provide lye ,rhythmically varied insryental backing, tossing he occasional accordion Sand banjiff. r t People Magazine APPEARING AT THE ARK WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5th tOORS AT 7:30 PM - ALL AGES SHOW YOU WILL GO TO THE MOON AVAILABLE AT VIlI s_: .,.1 J 3 C: G - '' x ST T' 00 eet Presents t, Everything and anything that 'U' want to read - and more. Thursdays. *~:I44.-- Tikt areavlaui .EMTMU.Bor'fficc, 31314f ,Monday-Fi~a, t So-530-p.unh Foxorers to 313/ -Fo moe inoiiortmcontact Camipus Life Pggraa Spnoe bLeague Programming Board: A Division of Student Affairs - - 1119 S. University Ann Arbor, MI 48104 (313) 747-8272 (across from Good Time Charley's) " xww x + w i s.._ _ P w. x5 523 East Liberty St. Ann Arbor 31393O-s1 :.----#' -,-Mm 0 -7. -- -W-P j: