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Warning Shadows - A Nocturnal Hallucination
List Price: $29.95Our Price: $26.99 You Save: $2.96 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0738329046521
Format: DVD-Video, Full Screen, Silent, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Kino Video
Languages: German (Original Language),
Manufacturer: Kino Video
MPN: D4652D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Kino Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 18, 2006
Running Time: 85 minutes
Studio: Kino Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1922
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Editorial Review:
There's no more archetypal German Expressionist film title than Warning Shadows, and this gem of a movie lives up to its name in a variety of ways. It was based on an idea by Albin Grau, who wasn't a writer but had just earned a permanent place of honor in film history as the art director and costume designer of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, functions he also performs here. Except for the deliberately artificial opening, when all the characters and players are identified--in a setup that simultaneously suggests a stage proscenium and a motion picture screen--there's not a single title card. A stunningly imaginative and visually adventurous creation, the movie rivets the eye, beguiles the mind, and delivers several genuinely amazing twists and surprises--the best of them deriving from the audience's willing complicity as voyeurs of light-and-shadow plays on a two-dimensional screen. Add that the film is a virtual who's-who of German screen actors, and you've got a major candidate for delighted rediscovery.
The action takes place within a single night, when a handful of guests assemble for a dinner party at the home of a well-to-do couple. Most of the men dream of seducing the wife (Ruth Weyher)--and for her part she often seems perilously close to falling out of her gown! The husband is played by Fritz Kortner, a thick-set, beetle-browed man who was the Expressionist actor par excellence, using his massive head, body, arms, and volcanically changeable stance to architecturally rearrange the very dynamics of the motion picture frame. The husband's inveterate suspicions of everybody within range are intensified by the devilish intervention of a strolling showman (Alexander Granach, Nosferatu's Renfield), who crashes the party and initiates an extravagant lightshow.
The film's director, the American-born Arthur Robison, appears to have encouraged a more antic mood among the players than we expect from the grim German cinema of the '20s. Not that that diminishes the dark psychological and metaphysical undercurrents of the film, or trivializes the experience. The Murnau Institute's restoration relied principally on a clear, handsomely tinted original print deposited with the Cinémathèque Française and a good print of the American release version archived at the Museum of Modern Art. Barring only a few brief passages, the restoration looks very, very good--and the film looks great. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Expressionist masterpiece
Why is this 1923 German film so obscure? I don't recall ever hearing of "Warning Shadows" until I ran across it here on amazon last week. It sounded sufficiently interesting, and although there is very little information on the movie anywhere, it was an impulse purchase. And a good one. This is one of the most fascinating and sexually-charged examples of early world cinema that I've come across. The plot isn't anything spectacular, but as an expressionist piece an intricate plot isn't necessary; ... Read More
Rating: - Silent era masterpiece
This film is as great as Caligary both visually and by concept. True German silent masterpiece! Just see it!
Rating:  - A great example of German Expressionist Film
The full title of this German 1923 silent classic is "Warning Shadows: A Nocturnal Hallucination" and what better subject for an experimental Expressionist film than a play with light and shadows which cause intense emotions and confusion in the characters involved! The 1920s saw some revolutions in cinema style and technique, and German Expressionism was at the forefront with its artistic and surreal style, using light and shadow extensively and even attempting to eliminate intertitles completely. ... Read More
Rating: - And Now For Something Completely Different.
That phrase so closely associated with Monty Python makes for an apt description of this legendary 1922 German silent film which has been unavailable in America for many years. Made the same year as F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU and featuring many of the same performers, WARNING SHADOWS is like a combination of it and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. It also predates Murnau's THE LAST LAUGH as a silent film without intertitles by a few years. The plot which concerns a mysterious stranger showing various people ... Read More
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