Nosferatu Tints

Jim Henry · Post by **Jim Henry** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:58 am

There seems to be a lot of variation in the tinting amongst the various DVD releases of Nosferatu. Do any close to original tinted film versions survive? Or any notes of the tinting to be applied? Or does each person making a DVD transfer just apply tints as best they can according to the norms for the use of tints?

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:09 pm

There were some excellent notes on this accompanying the Masters of Cinema restoration, if you can get hold of it.

-Mike

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:37 pm

My understanding is that the Murnau Foundation restoration used some sort of documented tint scheme, but that the surviving prints of the film are all different. This is fairly common.

Lokke Heiss · Post by **Lokke Heiss** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:59 am

When interest in Nosferatu returned in the '60s and '70s, film archivists looked at the available copies to investigate the tinting scheme.

The huge question to be answered: Was this film originally tinted?
The available copies did not answer the question. They were black-and-white.

Even so, everyone thought that the film was DESIGNED to be tinted, since the story plays out with the sunlight/night as critical to the plot, this was a film that almost asked to be tinted.

Restorations took place without direct knowledge of how or where the tints were made.

Real evidence was scant, until finally an original released print of the film (as I remember) turned up in the '90s (maybe a S. American print?) which had the film tinted. So it was confirmed that at least some prints, as it was originally released, were tinted.

So to repeat, the real question is not--was this film tinted, but rather, was it designed to be tinted, since probably a lot of copies ended up NOT being tinted. And my impression about the tinting was that it was a bit like music--back in the early '20s--there was not a clear concept (or perceived need) that the tinting had to be exact.

So the tinting depends on who is releasing the film, and unless we find a 'master tinter' scheme somewhere in Germany, there will probably never be a consensus about how it's done.