Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau is born in Bielefeld on December 28, 1888 as Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe. His father Heinrich works as a cloth manufacturer and his mother Ottilie is a teacher. Murnau has two brothers, Bernhard and Robert, as well as two stepsisters, Ida and Anna.

He spends very little time in Bielefeld as the family moves to Kassel in 1892, where Plumpe spends an unburdened childhood. He is interested in art and theatre from an early age, encouraged particularly by his mother and his sisters. His father, on the other hand, is not enthusiastic about his son.

In 1907, Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe graduates cum laude from high school in Kassel and then travels to Berlin to study philology. Following a short stay in Heidelberg in 1908/09, where he also enrols to study philology, he goes on to continue his studies in Berlin from April 1909 on. It is here that he meets Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele, with whom he shares both a deep friendship and a common passion for literature and art. Together, the friends decide to go to Heidelberg, where they both enrol to study art history and literature in April 1910. Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe quits his studies at the end of the summer semester of 1911 and turns to acting. As a result, he increasingly distances himself from his family, who has very little understanding and sympathy for his choice of vocation.

Around 1911, he takes on the name Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau as an homage to the Upper Bavarian artists’ colony he has joined with his friend Ehrenbaum-Degele. He has always regarded the name of “Plumpe” as a burden. He finally returns to Berlin and assumes, at the German Theatre, small roles, not only in the classics but also contemporary plays.

In October 1914, he is drafted into the infantry and dispatched to Potsdam and finally promoted to lieutenant in 1915. His friend Hans, who has volunteered for the army, is killed on the eastern front in 1915, to where Murnau is also dispatched. Even during this period, he tries to maintain contact with the theatre and stays in constant correspondence with his acting friend and colleague from the German Theatre, Lothar Müthel, who keeps him up to date with cultural life in Berlin.

He spends his home leave in the summer of 1916 with the parents of his deceased friend, whose villa in Berlin he makes his permanent residence. In 1917 he volunteers as an observer for the German air force and, in December 1917, he and his pilot land in Switzerland for unknown reasons where they are subsequently interned. During this period, Murnau once again dedicates his time to theatre rehearsals; however, this time not as an actor, but as a director.

In February 1919, he is released and returns to Berlin, where he takes up residence in the home of the Ehrenbaum-Degeles. He refreshes his contacts and starts shooting his first movie, DER KNABE IN BLAU, in 1919. In the same year, he realises the episodic movie SATANAS under the artistic direction of Robert Wiene, with Conrad Veidt in the lead role.

In the following years, Murnau becomes a very busy director indeed. Around 1920, he makes six movies: SEHNSUCHT, DER BUCKLIGE UND DIE TÄNZERIN, DER JANUSKOPF, ABEND – NACHT – MORGEN, DER GANG IN DIE NACHT and MARIZZA, GENANNT DIE SCHMUGGLERMADONNA. In 1921, he completes SCHLOSS VOGELÖD, in which critics have already identified Murnau’s unique talent for blurring the boundaries between reality and non-reality.

Murnau’s next movie, NOSFERATU – EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS also plays with reality. Murnau shoots the film in real locations in Wismar, Lübeck, Lauenburg and Rostock. As in other movies, he draws on motifs from paintings. NOSFERATU becomes a German silent movie classic.

In 1922, he makes DER BRENNENDE ACKER and in 1922, with extraordinary technical expertise and daring, PHANTOM, based on a novel by Gerhart Hauptmann. This is followed by DIE AUSTREIBUNG, based on Carl Hauptmann’s play of the same name as well as DIE FINANZEN DES GROSSHERZOGS, Murnau’s only comedy.

In 1924, he makes his big breakthrough with his first Ufa production, DER LETZTE MANN, with which he also receives international acclaim. The movie is celebrated particularly as a result of Karl Freund’s “released camera”. Even before the Berlin premiere on December 23, 1924, the movie is presented to influential representatives of the movie industry and press in New York on December 5, 1924. In January 1925, it is released in the United States under the title THE LAST LAUGH.

With his next movies, TARTÜFF, and – above all – with FAUST, Ufa hopes to latch onto the huge success of DER LETZTE MANN, but the German critics remain somewhat reserved, although Murnau is highly revered for his adaptation of the script.

At the premiere of FAUST on October 14, 1926, Murnau is no longer in Germany, as he has already signed a contract with the American producer William Fox, who having seen DER LETZTE MANN is convinced of the German director’s genius: Murnau travels to the United States in July of 1926. He is celebrated in New York, where – en route to Hollywood and his first movie venture with Fox, SUNRISE – he makes a stop.

August of the same year sees the beginning of the filming of the love drama SUNRISE. The technical details for this movie – Murnau constructs an entire town on the Fox lot – puts all other projects to date in the shade. The total financial and artistic freedom awarded to Murnau for this production becomes legendary.
SUNRISE receives enthusiastic critical acclaim and three Academy Awards, although the movie is a total box-office failure. At Fox, doubts start spreading about whether Murnau would be able to attract the entire spectrum of the American audience. Murnau is disappointed to be requested to orient the contents of the movie more closely on the interests of the audience and to take this into account when directing.

In 1927, Murnau briefly returns to Berlin, to make a final movie for Ufa, but the project is scrapped. Back in Hollywood Murnau prepares intensively for his next movie, FOUR DEVILS, which he hopes to shoot with a completely moving camera. To this end, he has a crane constructed with a platform so that he can swivel the camera to any angle. However, his venture can not be implemented as he has planned and he has to reshoot the end of the movie, to dilute some of the tragedy in it. There is also discord with Fox during the next project, OUR DAILY BREAD/CITY GIRL. Murnau, no longer willing to compromise, terminates his contract with the studio.

He takes his captain’s licence, purchases a yacht and plans to change his life. Together with the documentary maker, Robert Flaherty, he decides to make a film far away from Hollywood: namely in the South Seas – TABU. He signs a contract with the, at the time, new production company Colorart. Full of enthusiasm, Murnau sets off on his yacht in the spring of 1929 to Tahiti, while Flaherty stays in the US attempting to sort out the financing. However, Flaherty arrives in the South Seas with empty hands, as Colorart proves unable to pay. The two directors begin filming without any secure financing, with Murnau supporting the work with the last of his own savings.

Due to the tense financial situation and the discordant conceptual ideals, Flaherty and Murnau go their separate ways. Murnau completes the movie alone and subsequently returns to Hollywood. To edit the movie and complete the soundtrack, Murnau goes into great personal debt, but there is a silver lining – Paramount is interested in the movie and offers Murnau a distribution agreement.

Murnau plans to return to Tahiti to complete further movie projects. He also wants to return to Europe to study the development of German talkies. However, he is unable to realise these plans, and is not present at the premiere of his movie TABU, either. While driving from Hollywood to Monterey, Murnau is involved in a serious accident and dies from his injuries on March 11, 1931 in a hospital in Santa Monica. His body is transported to Germany and put to rest at the Waldfriedhof Stahnsdorf cemetery near Berlin.

Further information on CD-ROM:
"FRIEDRICH WILHEM MURNAU »Der ideale Film...« Leben und Werk";
available at F.-W.-Murnau-Stiftung.