Here at the library, i have been gearing up for the school year and have been spending the last couple of weeks completing my fall programing schedule and trying to nail down an author visit for spring. i haven’t really cooked, cleaned, or did anything even remotely creative in around two weeks. though i must say, i bought a Nintendo DS instead of going anywhere for vacation and I’m loving it.
One of the more intersting programs i have been working on is Nostferatu(1922). i’m currently trying to put together a movie night at my library for Halloween.The advantage to using the 1922 verison of the film is that it, and its original poster are in public domain. Also, this movie gives a good opertunity to talk about public domain materials and copy right. I have been doing a lot of research on this film so that when i presented the idea to the powers that be (powers that are usually not in favor of vampire related library programing) so that i would not get automatically turned down. This film has a facinating history of legal battles with the Bram Stoker family. The biggest hurdle I have incountered so far has be obtaining one of the copyright free versions of the film that can be shown on a large screen. This movie is avaliable on google films, but the resolution is horrid. it seems like my only option is going to be a peer to peer public domain site. When i began this program, i had hoped that there would be several websites dedicated to shairing public domain films, but thus far i havent had much luck. if you know of a good one, i would appreciate it. I have found the film on the Internet Archive which offers a good number of public domain materials and video clips.
This is the version avalible through goolge video. If you have seen this film before, you will probably notice right away in the opening credits that they names used are the mostly the names used in Stoker’s Dracula with the exception of Mina being Nina in this version. In the version of the film that is on DVD, all of the character’s names have been changed probably due to the copyright issues that this film encountered. Thus far, i have yet to find a truly reliable website that has relavent cited historic information on this film, but i’m still looking.
