23 Der letzte Mann

[Cinetwist]

I have both the Kino and the 2004 Eureka discs, and the two editions show slightly different camera placements and actors' movements in certain scenes, since Murnau often shot multiple versions of the same film for domestic and international releases.

In fact, the MOC has an excellent documentary by Luciano Berriatua that compares the three different versions--for Germany, the US market, and other foreign markets.

Can anyone explain more fully, why it was deemed necessary for different markets to have different negatives with differently shot scenes? This makes no sense to me at all. I understand this was done in the sound era a la Dracula and Threepenny Opera, but why in the silent era, when film was universal?

And is my dvd player messing with my head or is the MoC dvd NTSC? Not that it matters, as it's easy enough to change the set up, but it's a bit odd for a UK disc.

[PillowRock]

why it was deemed necessary for different markets to have different negatives with differently shot scenes? This makes no sense to me at all.

My understanding was that it was matter of the life expectancy of the original negative with respect to striking prints.

They were striking all of their prints from the original negative and if a movie was especially popular the negative would literally wear out before the demand for prints was satisfied. Therefore, if a movie was expected to be especially popular they would sometimes together 2 or 3 versions with no intention (necessarily) of making them particularly different ..... just using different takes.

Of course, sometimes this would to differences such as what we see in Faust where the "domestic" (German) print has a bear in one scene and the US print as a man in a bear suit in that spot. Plus, when you're doing special effects via multiple exposures in the camera the different takes often would vary some in how well the effect really turned out.

[MichaelB]

And is my dvd player messing with my head or is the MoC dvd NTSC? Not that it matters, as it's easy enough to change the set up, but it's a bit odd for a UK disc.

Quite a few MoC discs are NTSC - they have a policy of not changing the video standard of the supplied master, based on the (pretty safe) assumption that their audience will be NTSC-compatible. Their Japanese discs, for instance, are almost invariably NTSC.

Most classical music DVDs are NTSC too, regardless of whether they originated in Europe or America - though in this case I think it's (a) to secure the largest possible market (the US/Japan being bigger than Europe) and (b) to eliminate pitch-shift issues.

[HerrSchreck]

why it was deemed necessary for different markets to have different negatives with differently shot scenes? This makes no sense to me at all.

My understanding was that it was matter of the life expectancy of the original negative with respect to striking prints.

They were striking all of their prints from the original negative and if a movie was especially popular the negative would literally wear out before the demand for prints was satisfied. Therefore, if a movie was expected to be especially popular they would sometimes together 2 or 3 versions with no intention (necessarily) of making them particularly different ..... just using different takes.

Of course, sometimes this would to differences such as what we see in Faust where the "domestic" (German) print has a bear in one scene and the US print as a man in a bear suit in that spot. Plus, when you're doing special effects via multiple exposures in the camera the different takes often would vary some in how well the effect really turned out.

Export negs were created from a secondary camera, with an assembly meant to be shipped in a single strip without intertitles to other countries. The cost of manufacturing and paying tax duty on prints for each market was far more expensive than simply assembling an export neg for each target market, which then created their own intertitles in their own language (and designs, hence a film like the Italian Man Who Laughs or the French Indian Tomb which exhibit beautiful artwork on their intertitles not present on domestic prints) and then duped distribution prints from there.

Differences in takes could be for a bunch of random reasons. One camera may have stopped whil the others were running, and rather than divert neg material from market to market, when back in front of the camera they had a retake for that one camera. OR retakes that made it into export could be due to censorship of propensities within the target market that camera is turning for, leading the director to want to modify content specific to the target.

All kinds of crazy shit back then that seems to make no sense from todays proximity.

[Cinetwist]

And is my dvd player messing with my head or is the MoC dvd NTSC? Not that it matters, as it's easy enough to change the set up, but it's a bit odd for a UK disc.

Quite a few MoC discs are NTSC - they have a policy of not changing the video standard of the supplied master, based on the (pretty safe) assumption that their audience will be NTSC-compatible. Their Japanese discs, for instance, are almost invariably NTSC.

Most classical music DVDs are NTSC too, regardless of whether they originated in Europe or America - though in this case I think it's (a) to secure the largest possible market (the US/Japan being bigger than Europe) and (b) to eliminate pitch-shift issues.

Obviously it's best practice to not change the video standard, but is the average consumer even aware of PAL/NTSC and how to notice/change it? On my disc there was no mention of it being NTSC and I couldn't find out on the MoC website either, which is why I thought it might have been my dvd player acting up. But when I changed it to NTSC there was no more jitteriness. But most people who see the film will probably think 'oh those quirky silents, all jumpy and fast' and not realise it's not meant to be like that. Or do most people's dvd players automatically switch to NTSC? I know TVs/projectors do but I've never had a dvd player that does.

[MichaelB]

Or do most people's dvd players automatically switch to NTSC? I know TVs/projectors do but I've never had a dvd player that does.

All three of the domestic players that I've had do, and did so straight out of the box. If I want to know the video standard (usually because I've spotted a glitch onscreen and want to do a bit of detective work), I have to check via my MacBook's DVD software's "Disc Info" section.

Mind you, I suppose your location is a factor - from what I hear, US players are much less happy to switch between PAL and NTSC without coaxing, and mine are all European.

[peerpee]

erm... MoC DER LETZTE MANN is PAL.

[Cinetwist]

Or do most people's dvd players automatically switch to NTSC? I know TVs/projectors do but I've never had a dvd player that does.

All three of the domestic players that I've had do, and did so straight out of the box. If I want to know the video standard (usually because I've spotted a glitch onscreen and want to do a bit of detective work), I have to check via my MacBook's DVD software's "Disc Info" section.

Mind you, I suppose your location is a factor - from what I hear, US players are much less happy to switch between PAL and NTSC without coaxing, and mine are all European.

I'm from the UK! Maybe it's because both players were hacked to be region free. But I didn't realise most players just did it automatically, so I have no quibble now.

Apart from the same scene being shot several times for different markets with mind-bogglingly miniscule differences (or quite odd differences), as if they wanted to mess with future archaeologistic cinephiles minds! 'All kinds of crazy shit back then that seems to make no sense from todays proximity.' Exactly.

MoC DER LETZTE MANN is PAL.

See, I knew it was my player! I'm sure it's because I had it set to NTSC the previous night for Judex. For some reason, I don't think it changes back immediately. How terribly strange... Especially as when it was put back to NTSC, I had no problems....

[MichaelB]

The MoC PAL/NTSC list I posted on this thread might still be worth reading, though it needs updating.

[peerpee]

Almost all UK DVD players have a three option toggle between "PAL / NTSC / AUTO". For players made between 1997 and about 2004 the default mode was "PAL" and this has to be switched to "AUTO" for automatic format sensing.

I think most current UK DVD Players now default to "AUTO" -- which they all should have done in the first place.

Sounds like you're flicking between "PAL" and "NTSC" all the time and need to flick it to "AUTO"?

[Cinetwist]

Almost all UK DVD players have a three option toggle between "PAL / NTSC / AUTO". For players made between 1997 and about 2004 the default mode was "PAL" and this has to be switched to "AUTO" for automatic format sensing.

I think most current UK DVD Players now default to "AUTO" -- which they all should have done in the first place.

Sounds like you're flicking between "PAL" and "NTSC" all the time and need to flick it to "AUTO"?

I'll check tonight, but I've never seen an auto option before. It's only a couple of years old, so hopefully it'll have one.

[Bürgermeister]

question...Does this have the original 1924 score?

Can't seem to find anywhere which says it does...

[reno dakota]

question...Does this have the original 1924 score?

I believe so, as the score is by Giuseppe Becce, but Nick will have to confirm . . .

[peerpee]

It's the original 1924 Giuseppe Becce score, "orchestrated, performed, and amended" by Detlev Glanert (2002).

I've added this information to the MoC Series website, thanks for alerting me to its absence.

[denti alligator]

When viewing the film on a monitor with zero overscan I noticed a very annoying digital glitch on the top border of the frame. The left half of the frame flickers throughout much of the film. More precisely, it goes between displaying the full screen and a black strip of between 4 and 8 pixels (I'm guestimating) appearing, at times fluctuating between black strip and image in such close intervals as to look like flickering. Some parts of the film have a soft black border to the image edges, so it's not noticeable, but in other scenes it is very obtrusive.

Do I have a defective disc or is this an authoring flaw? And if the latter, why hasn't it been noticed by others and fixed?

I'll see if I can post some screen caps to illustrate.

EDIT: sometimes it looks like the whole length of the top of the frame is shifting up and down by about 4 pixels (maybe 8 is too high an estimate).

[Matt]

I always thought that was an artifact of my DVD player's conversion of the progressive PAL signal to NTSC. I mean, I've seen it on several discs, not just MoC either. On my old Malata, I just selected "still" as the video format and it went away.

[denti alligator]

Hm. I've seen the break at the top and bottom of the screen, usually around the middle of the length of the screen. But I've never had that break flicker in and out of place before, which is what's happening here.

And I don;t know how much PAL to NTSC has to do with it. Are HD monitors either PAL or NTSC? (I thought they were neither.) And a computer with DVD drive is also neither PAL nor NTSC, right? So looking at this disc on a laptop or an HTPC should give me the exact image that's on the disc.

[SoyCuba]

Hm. I've seen the break at the top and bottom of the screen, usually around the middle of the length of the screen. But I've never had that break flicker in and out of place before, which is what's happening here.

It is indeed propably the same reason that is described in this thread (which you have yourself started). I don't have the MoC Letzte Mann, but I do have a few discs that have this flickering jagged upper/lower border. At least one of the Second Run discs has this problem if I remember correctly.

[denti alligator]

Hm. I've seen the break at the top and bottom of the screen, usually around the middle of the length of the screen. But I've never had that break flicker in and out of place before, which is what's happening here.

It is indeed propably the same reason that is described in this thread (which you have yourself started). I don't have the MoC Letzte Mann, but I do have a few discs that have this flickering jagged upper/lower border. At least one of the Second Run discs has this problem if I remember correctly.

Yes, I figured it was related, but it's a little different here since it's moving up and down. So it's part of the MoC master? Is it visible on the Eureka version?

[SoyCuba]

Yes, I figured it was related, but it's a little different here since it's moving up and down. So it's part of the MoC master? Is it visible on the Eureka version?

I checked the Eureka disc and while it sometimes does have a little bit of flickering at the top of the frame, it seems to be always on the entire lenght of the edge, not just half of it. It also looks different from the kind of flickering I've seen on my other discs and I'd say it's not the same type and I also wouldn't call it distracting as it's very minor. Does the flickering move up and down or just the frame? The frame moving sometimes sounds normal to me and it's present on the Eureka disc as well, but if the flickering moves with it, then the problem sounds different from what I've seen on my discs.

[denti alligator]

I know that on some of these silents the frame size shifts (for reasons I don't quite understand), so that the image will have a top border, say, for some sequences, but not have one for others. This is the case with MoC's Faust, for example, and is not what I'm talking about.

What's visible on this disc is that most of the time only half of the top border of the frame is shifting up and down intermittently, creating a kind of flickering effect. Sometimes it appears to be the entire top of the frame (not just half).

On my 46" display this effect is very visible and I find it distracting. I don't want to sound like I'm nitpicking, but this appears to be a digital glitch of some kind. I was curious if others saw it. If yes, but you don't find it distracting, then I guess I'll have to live with it. If you don't see it at all, then perhaps I've got a defective disc.

[SoyCuba]

What's visible on this disc is that most of the time only half of the top border of the frame is shifting up and down intermittently, creating a kind of flickering effect. Sometimes it appears to be the entire top of the frame (not just half).

Ah, I see. There's definitely nothing like this on the Eureka disc and since I don't have the MoC disc I can't be of much more help. Does anyone here have the MoC disc and can help denti?

[Gregory]

What's visible on this disc is that most of the time only half of the top border of the frame is shifting up and down intermittently, creating a kind of flickering effect. Sometimes it appears to be the entire top of the frame (not just half).

Ah, I see. There's definitely nothing like this on the Eureka disc and since I don't have the MoC disc I can't be of much more help. Does anyone here have the MoC disc and can help denti?

I noticed the same thing when I watched the MoC disc. I would go back and play with the video source setting on my player as Matt suggested but my Oppo 970HD does not have that option.

[peerpee]

Now viewable in the UK & Eire at The Auteurs: http://www.theauteurs.com/films/2149" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;