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Nerven
(1919)

This German expressionist drama, directed by Robert Reinert, stars Eduard von Winterstein and Erna Morena, with Paul Bender, Lia Borré, Lili Dominici, Rio Ellbon and Margarete Tondeur.

Edition Filmmuseum
2008 DVD edition

Nerven (1919), color-tinted black & white and color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 110 minutes, not rated, with München im Zeichen der Räterepublik (1919), black & white, 11 minutes, not rated, and Bilder von der Volksbewegung in München (1919), black & white, 3 minutes, not rated.

Edition Filmmuseum, 41, UPC/EAN 4-260100-330214.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 576 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 6.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 50 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; German language intertitles, optional English and French language subtitles; insert booklet; 10 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; €19,95.
Release date: June 2008 (second edition, June 2009; third edition, October 2015).
Country of origin: Germany •

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 8 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.

This PAL DVD edition has been produced by Filmmuseum München from their 2008 reconstruction of the film, which utilized a number of incomplete prints (and still about one-third of the film is presumed lost). The source materials are generally very-good, with dust and speckling, emulsion chipping, mild frame jitters, and other print flaws seen.

The film is presented with an improvised piano score performed by Joachim Bärenz.

Supplementary material includes a side-by-side comparison of the different fragments: Marja’s Wedding Preparations (5 minutes), At the Nerve Specialist’s (8 minutes), Roloff’s Paranoia (6 minutes); two 1919 short films (3 minutes and 11 minutes); a section of posters, stills and lobby cards; and a booklet with essays by Jan-Christopher Horak, Stefan Drössler and David Bordwell.

This is an enthusiastically recommended home video edition of the film. North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

This Region 0 PAL DVD edition is available directly from . . .