This clip has appeared on the web all over the world:
In almost all instances, it is prefixed by this comment:
Whether these clips are authentic has been debated, but, they a remarkable look at Nietzsche's 'last days' in Weimar in the summer of 1899...
So where is the debate? I can't find mention of a debate on this "footage" anywhere. Perhaps if there were one it might mention the difficulty of filming anything indoors in 1899, the lack of zoom lenses, how closeups were not yet in use and just who in 1899 would go to the sanitorium where Nietzsche was being cared for and shoot film footage of him?
IMHO -- a phony.
spadeneal
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 2:54 am
by Penfold
I'm no expert but.....
Filming indoors; of course problematical, but sanatoria, purpose-built ones, did have lounges with immense windows for the patients to get health-giving sunlight without going outdoors. The indoors shots are dark....perhaps that's why at least one set-up is actually on a verandah....to increase the light. No artificial lighting seems to be being used.
Zoom lens; Could equally be a camera being moved forward slightly.
Close-ups; Perhaps no-one told the filmmaker he wasn't allowed to until the year after; they were plentiful in 1900/01....I'm pretty certain there was no technical reason why a close-up could not have been shot in late 1899.
Who and Why ?? Apparently an artist called Hans Olde; my money would be on him preparing a portrait and was using the new fangled cinematograph in lieu of a sketchbook, but that is a guess. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... lde_01.JPG
My question would be; if not Nietzsche, who on earth have they found to play him, without seemingly needing make-up ??? He was an exceedingly unusual-looking man....here's the (un?)finished portrait by Olde. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... s_Olde.jpg
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:15 am
by Richard M Roberts
The first thing I would want to verify this is a look at the original print material, if a print actually exists, for I would bet there is nothing but video.
There was no equipment in 1899 that could execute a smooth zoom shot like is seen here. And the easiest way to spot a zoom from a camera move is to realize when it's a zoom forward, the distance from background to foreground is crunched and telescoped, when the camera is moved forward and back, the background stays the same distance from the foreground. And I'm actually seeing neither happening here.
Definitely a phony, some if not all of what we're seeing here I think is actually still photographs of the actual person that have computer generated movement also hidden by computer-generated foreground texture to make it look old and damaged. When pulling in on a photograph, the background obviously does not change at all, and that appears to be what we're seeing here. Notice also in the shot of the hands, the fingers seem to be moving from the middle of the hand, where there are no joints.
RICHARD M ROBERTS
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:20 am
by Rollo Treadway
Googling for Nietzsche photos to compare, one of the first I found was this:
It's exactly the same image that's in the "film clip" at 00.30 — but this is definitely a photograph and not a frame blow-up, no?
Noticeable in the film is that all movement is very slight and somehow too "controlled", likewise the "light flickering" is suspiciously steady.
So, in my layman opinion you're right, it's a phony. Somebody's been having a little fun with animation software.
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 7:31 am
by Penfold
Ah right, I see what you're saying; starting with a set of genuine still photos of Nietzsche, using a computer to fill in the 'missing frames', thus animated to look like cinematography. At the bottom of the first link I posted it does say that the image is one of a series of photographs,etc.....and also in which archive they're deposited. However, I've often seen contemporary references to early film as 'Photographic Series' so that doesn't entirely rule out the image being a frame enlargement. I assumed the OP meant it was some kind of acted recreation.
Just one question, then..... Why???
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:47 am
by Einar the Lonely
Well, this is so obviously a hoax, even the phrasing about the "debate" hints at that. The photo that was used is pretty well-known actually (among Nietzsche fans at least )...
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 1:42 pm
by urbanora
This is palpably a fake, and a worrying one too. If animation software can manipulate photographs in this way, not only does it falsify the historical record but makes you wonder what the value of the historical film record might be. Why does it matter whether the motion picture camera was there or not, if a fake like this looks like it was to most eyes? What's the difference between the fake and the true record when what the audience believes is what counts?
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 2:57 pm
by Brianruns10
I do extensive work in historic documentary, and I'm intimately familiar with all the effects this video utilizes....the flickering and unsteady image is easily created by a Nattress film effect filter, or GFilm or Magic Bullet. I've frequently used the effect to convert tape based reenactment footage to appear like Super 8 or 16mm, complete with film grain, lines, hairs and flicker. The apparent motion of the subject can be achieved using still images, with portions cut out in photoshop and then animated in a program like After Effects or Apple Motion. In a new museum film I just completed, I use the same process to animate the famous photo of the Wright Flyer, so it appears to be taking off. The method is quite simple to do with a little practice and a lot of patience.
On top of all this, the creator gives himself away by anachronism. There are several shots that zoom in, even though the time frame in which the footage was taken would predate zooms by quite some time. The speed is wrong as well. It clearly has been "shot" at a constant, governed frame rate, when as we all know, an 1899 film would be hand cranked and less consistent in the FPS. And the film simply feels wrong from a style point of view. Film footage from the 1890s tends to be rather flat and direct in its composition, with few closeups. It was very much still tied to the scientific/sociologic mode of use, being a tool to document an actuality. The way this film is shot and edited is far more modern and complex in the compositions and arrangements of the shots.
It's most assuredly a fake, and not a particularly good one either, IMO. Just angers me the filmmaker has disabled comments on the clip, clearly so no one is able to call shenanigans on the footage.
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:57 pm
by Doug Sulpy
Agreed.
Very similar flicker and jitter effects are in iMovie, as well.
Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2010 5:36 pm
by Brooksie
This looks like the work of a particularly notorious fraud who has posted numerous other videos on YouTube along the same `Look! Amazing footage that should really not exist!' lines.
I first encountered him when I followed a link from the Wikipedia entry on Vaslav Nijinsky to the `only known footage of Nijinsky's `Afternoon of a Faun' to this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMqLLYrEF60. If footage existed of Nijinsky dancing, it was news to me and every Nijinsky biographer.
If it had been openly proclaimed as a technical exercise I would have found it clever and a little whimsical, but there are so many examples of its author attempting to use the films to deliberately and non-playfully deceive that I don't have a whole lot of sympathy.
Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:46 pm
by Scatter
Well, the Nijinsky footage is so laughably inept that it wouldn't fool a child. The technical expertise has advanced considerably in the pseudo-Nietzsche footage, but isn't yet to the level that CGI brought the Lincoln animation. But then no one tried to convince us that this was actually Lincoln either.
Indeed! And that's very badly done. Poe's southern drawl has been replaced by a yankee NPR announcer.
spadeneal
Re: Nietzsche's So Called Last Days Footage
Posted: Fri May 06, 2016 12:26 pm
by Ar_Taud
This has been making the memetic rounds again, and I was (very briefly) fooled. However I'm pretty sure I've found the actual source---a German video (intended for art installations) from 2000, based on the 1899 photographs.
Elisabeths Wille – Rekonstruierte Sequenzen FILMINSTALLATION / VIDEO INSTALLATION 2000
"Film-installation, 35 mm, crank-handle camera, manual and digital over-worked, cinematographic noise, length: 4.13min, presentation over video beamer, loop
The four film sequences are based on authentic photographs of the diseased Friedrich Nietzsche, which were taken by Hans Olde in 1899. The shown gestures between Nietzsche and his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche are conceivably unspectacular."
Explanation:
Lastly, the movie ends with an unfortunate sequence: with deft manipulation and reconstruction of Hans Olde's still photos from 1889, it managed to fool many into believing that it was real, and spawned another internet legend about Nietzsche. It's not actual film footage of the incapacitated philosopher.
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