Vampyr [Masters of Cinema] [DVD] [1932]

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The first sound-film by one of the greatest of all filmmakers, Vampyr offers a immediacy that few, if any, works of cinema can cl to match. Legendary director Carl Theodor Dreyer leads the viewer, as though guided in a trance, through a realm akin to a waking-dream, a zone positioned somewhere between reality and the supernatural. Traveller Allan Gray (arrestingly depicted by Julian West, aka the secretive real-life Baron Nicolas de zburg) arrives at a countryside inn seemingly beckoned by haunted forces. His growing acquaintance with the family who reside there soon opens up a network of uncanny associations between the dead and the living, of ghostly lore and demonology, which pull Gray ever deeper into an unsettling, and upsetting, mystery. At its core: troubled Gisèle, chaste daughter and sexual incarnation, portrayed by the great, cursed Sybille Schmitz (Diary of a Lost Girl, and inspiration for Fassbinder's Veronika Voss.) Before the candles of Vampyr exhaust themselves, Allan Gray and the viewer alike come eye-to-eye with e in the face of dear dying Sybille, in the blasphemed bodies of horrific bat-men, in the charged and mortal act of asphyxiation eye-to-eye, then, with Death the supreme vampire. Deemed by Alfred Hitchcock 'the only film worth watching... twice',Vampyr's influence has become, by now, incalculable. Long out of circulation in an acceptable transfer, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Dreyer's truly terrifying film in its film restored form for the first time in the UK. ----SPECIAL FEATURES----* New, high-definition transfer of the Martin Koerber / Cineteca di Bologna film restoration in its original aspect ratio (1.19:1) *New and improved English subtitle translation *Full-length audio commentary featuring film scholar Tony Rayns *Full-length audio commentary featuring O-winning director Guillermo del Toro talking about one of his favourite films. *Two deleted scenes, removed by the German censor in 1932. *Carl Th. Dreyer (1966) a documentary by Jörgen Roos *Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer's Vampyr influences *The Baron a short MoC documentary about Baron Nicolas de zberg *Inspiration for the film - Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla - as an on-disc pdf. * 80-page book featuring rare production stills, a facsimile reproduction of the 1932 Danish film programme, writing by Tom Milne (The Cinema of Carl Dreyer), Jean and Dale Drum (My Only Great Passion: The Life and Films of Carl Th. Dreyer), and Martin Koerber (film restorer).