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Biography
German

F.W. Murnau

1888 — 1931

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was one of the greatest directors of the German Expressionist cinema, whose films Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) are foundational works of cinema. Murnau was not a writer, but books about him — critical studies, biographies, and analyses of German Expressionist film — form a substantial collecting category within cinema literature.

Past sales0
PeriodModernist
NationalityGerman
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888–1931) was a German film director whose visual mastery and psychological depth made him one of the most important figures in the history of cinema. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) — an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula — is the foundational vampire film. Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, 1924) pioneered the “unchained camera” technique. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), made for Fox Studios in Hollywood, won the Academy Award for “Unique and Artistic Production” at the first Oscars ceremony.

Murnau died in a car accident in California at forty-two, a week before the premiere of his last film, Tabu (1931).

Collecting Murnau

Murnau did not publish books. The collecting interest centres on books about him — Lotte Eisner’s Murnau (1973, University of California Press), the definitive critical study, and other works on German Expressionist cinema. Film memorabilia (lobby cards, posters, production stills) from Nosferatu and Sunrise is extremely valuable.