What Do You Think? Tupapaoo

1938-11-16

"The film recounts pretty much what happened to the director Murnau in Tahiti, during the shooting of Tabu. Murnau had wanted to use the decor of a real cemetery. The Tahitians refused, because of the phosphorescence at night in the swamps. But Murnau shot in this location all the same. The natives said it was a sacrilege. Returning to Hollywood to edit his film there, he was driving a car along the beach. He missed a turn, and killed himself. It’s claimed that it was because he had violated the sacred cemetery. For our film, we wrote the similar story of a man who doesn’t respect the Tahitian cemeteries, and who dies."