With Murnau on the Set

Lotte Eisner compiled for her book on Murnau the impressions of Robert Herlt, who was (along with Walter Röhrig) the designer of sets for Faust. Here we selected a few excerpts that give an idea of the fascinating personality of the genius.

One day I got a note inviting me to go and see Murnau. who was then making a film in the studio at Tempelhof, near Berlin. When I entered the studio I was very much surprised at how quiet it was. For in the days of silent films it was the custom to build sets while the shooting was actually going on, while there was usually a crowd of people talking at the tops of their voices. people who were there simply out of curiosity and had nothing to do with the actual shooting. But here there was no one to be seen but the cameramen and one of the actors, Alfred Abel and also, standing in the dark out of the way, a tall slim gentleman in his white work-coat, issuing directions in a very low voice. This was Murnau.

(…)

There is one thing Murnau said that I shall never forget. ‘Art,’ he would often repeat, ‘consists in eliminating. But in the cinema it would be more correct to talk of “masking”. For just as you and Röhrig suggest light by drawing shadows, so the cameraman ought to create shadow too. That’s much more important than creating light!”
And when Carl Hoffmann lit the first set for Faust, Murnau said: ‘Now how are we going to get the effect in the design? This is too light. Everything must be made much more shadowy.’
And so all four of us set about trying to cut out the light, with screens 23 cm wide by 50 m high. We used them to define the space and create shadows on the wall and in the air. For Murnau the lighting became part of the actual directing of the film. He would never have shot a scene without first ‘seeing’ the lighting and adapting it to his intentions. Hoffmann has made masterly use, ever since, of what emerged from a single one of Murnau’s experiments.

(…)

Though he was not a technician himself, Murnau, a ‘Raphael without hands’, knew that it was possible to achieve. And all that was done was done simply because he insisted on it, and because he stimulated us into being capable of it. I think his imperturbable calm in the studio was due not only to a sense of discipline, but also because he possessed that passion for ‘play’ itself which is necessary and essential to any kind of artistic activity. For instance, I’d made a steam apparatus for the heaven scene in the Prologue to Faust. Steam was ejected out of several pipes against a background of clouds; arc-lights arranged in a circle lit up the steam to look like rays of light. The archangel was supposed to stand in front and raise his flaming sword. We did it several times, and each time it was perfectly all right, but Murnau was so caught up in the pleasure of doing it that he forgot all about time. The steam had to keep on billowing through the beams of light, until the archangel –Werner Fütterer– was so exhausted he could no longer lift his sword. When
Murnau realized what had happened he shook his head and laughed at himself, then gave everyone a break.

I have never known anyone else who enjoyed the strange business of filmmaking so much as Murnau, although he took his work intensely seriously.