Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, 2024)

[mfunk9786]

Anna Taylor-Joy and Robert Eggers re-teaming to remake Nosferatu - Eggers is apparently still making medieval epic The Knight first, not sure what happened with that Rasputin mini-series but it isn't mentioned in the Variety article

[DarkImbecile]

Robert Eggers has apparently registered in the Czech Republic to shoot Nosferatu with Anya Taylor-Joy

[yoloswegmaster]

Also, sounds like his Nosferatu has been delayed if not canceled after Harry Styles pulled out

Re: Nosferatu; look, I like The Witch a great deal and The Lighthouse a lot less as time goes on, and I honestly don't know what else could be added that Werner Herzog hasn't already done with the 70s film.

Robert Eggers looks to finally start to work on Nosferatu, with Bill Skarsgard and Lily-Rose Depp to star.

[Finch]

Robert Eggers' Nosferatu remake has wrapped filming. I'm open-minded. I like both Murnau and Herzog films though I do think neither film is among their best works respectively.

[Matt]

Much less interested in this once Robert Pattinson dropped out, but I’m sure it will at least look and sound great

[reaky]

From Robert Eggers, Nosferatu.

I’m aware that trailers often try to goose up films to appeal to a wider audience, but I don’t think jump scares and CGI add anything to Murnau and Herzog’s work. This is Willem Dafoe’s second shot at Nosferatu, after Shadow of the Vampire.

[Mr Sausage]

From Robert Eggers, Nosferatu.

I’m aware that trailers often try to goose up films to appeal to a wider audience, but I don’t think jump scares and CGI add anything to Murnau and Herzog’s work. This is Willem Dafoe’s second shot at Nosferatu, after Shadow of the Vampire.

On the evidence of The Witch and The Lighthouse, I think we can trust Eggers' craft here. If he makes something slow, thick, and atmospheric, I'll be happy.

[knives]

Also, given his one shot at a major budget was an obscure adaptation of a poem that Hamlet is sourced from I doubt he’ll be kowtowing to popular taste.

[Matt]

Another issue with contemporary trailers is that they are framed and cut to play well on TikTok’s vertical screen with captions on. Everything in this trailer is smack in the middle of the frame (which will apparently be 1.66:1 in the theatrical release), and I can’t imagine the whole film looks like this.

As good as Bill Skarsgaard might be in this, I really really wish we would have gotten Robert Pattinson.

[Mr Sausage]

I know what you mean. Skarsgaard is perfect for Orlock, but I feel like I know what I'm getting there. With Pattinson, tho'? The intensity of his commitment and the way he nails roles that on paper you'd never think he'd be good for makes him a really intriguing choice. But absent him, I'm sure we're in fine hands with Skarsgaard.

[Finch]

I'm actually most intrigued by how Nicholas Hoult will turn out as Harker and Dafoe could be a great Van Helsing after Hopkins' broad and hammy turn in the Coppola film. I like that they have kept Skarsgaard off screen for this trailer and hope it stays that way for that second and final trailer closer to the December release date. I'm not expecting the new film to deviate from the Murnau film and the book as much as Herzog's version did but I'm open to being surprised in that regard.

[yoloswegmaster]

List of theaters that will be screening this on 35mm:

Alamo Brooklyn – New York, NY
Chinese Theater – Los Angeles, CA
New Beverly – Los Angeles, CA
Music Box – Chicago, IL
Alamo New Mission – San Francisco, CA
Coolidge Corner – Boston, MA
Alamo South Lamar – Austin, TX
The Belcourt – Nashville, TN
Hollywood Theatre – Portland, OR

[reaky]

There’s some full-throttle Friedkin in there, but mostly this felt like a remake not of Murnau, but Coppola’s Dracula. It has the same ornate art direction, flamboyant visual flourishes, focus on the relationship of monster and prey, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson playing the Keanu Reeves can’t-do-the-accent position.

There was a gesture towards a fresh take here in the suggestion that Orlok is a manifestation of Ellen’s repressed sexual desire, but the final cut skirts that, rather. Necrophilia is also a barely-there feature. Perhaps these will be more central to the three-hour cut that Eggers has said will appear on a physical release.

[Mr Sausage]

This resembles Coppola's film in that it's so heavily stylized, but the styles themselves couldn't be more different. Eggers is actually in control of his style while Coppola never is; and Coppola was going for something gaudy and cheeky, while Eggers is cold and intense. Eggers certainly leans heavily into the Count's erotic obsession with Lucy, but without any of Coppola's romanticism. And, anyway, Dracula's sexual obsession with her is old hat--see: Badham's movie and even Herzog's remake. There's also nothing new about Dracula representing repressed sexual desire; that's been a standard interpretation of the novel for decades. I mean, virile European man hunts buttoned up Victorian ladies while their men band together to be a bulwark for Victorian mores? Didn't take academics long to be all over that one. Also, what about Aaron Taylor-Johnson's accent sounded off to you?

I did like that Eggers returned to Stoker's conception of Dracula as a kind of magical presence, like a spirit or warlock, rather than a purely corporeal ghoul. The parts where the Count's very presence seems to bend reality, or when he seems to possess people ala The Exorcist, were very effective. I appreciated, too, that the movie didn't try to recreate the Schreck/Kinski makeup and instead made Orlock into a decayed Romanian count whose decay resembles but doesn't reproduce the rat-like monster of its predecessors. Eggers also makes the Count into a traditional gothic villain with his attempt to compel Lucy's submission through an elaborate three-day revenge. Not in Stoker, if I remember, but could well have been given how it fits the conventions of the gothic novel.

I've seen a lot of Dracula adaptations, and this was among the most effective.

[beamish14]

I like how Eggers’ entire filmography leans heavily into esotericism and occult systems of belief. You would think that it might be alienating to many audiences, but I think it’s contributed to his healthy cult following. I’m a big fan of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but this one is about the anxiety of starting a family and conforming to social expectations, while Coppola’s has more of a horny old man gaze. Both films have amazing scores and some incredible imagery. Orlok’s hand reaching across the town recalled Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia

I really enjoyed the depiction of Nosferatu in this, as he’s Rasputin mixed with a Mugwump from Naked Lunch. Dafoe is very funny, as he was in The Lighthouse, too.

[The Curious Sofa]

There’s some full-throttle Friedkin in there, but mostly this felt like a remake not of Murnau, but Coppola’s Dracula. It has the same ornate art direction, flamboyant visual flourishes, focus on the relationship of monster and prey, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson playing the Keanu Reeves can’t-do-the-accent position.

The focus on the relationship between Ellen and the monster is there in Murnau's Nosferatu (and of a different nature to that in Coppola's film), and what accent does English actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson get wrong?

[reaky]

There's also nothing new about Dracula representing repressed sexual desire; that's been a standard interpretation of the novel for decades. I mean, virile European man hunts buttoned up Victorian ladies while their men band together to be a bulwark for Victorian mores? Didn't take academics long to be all over that one. Also, what about Aaron Taylor-Johnson's accent sounded off to you?

Oh, I’m aware of the tradition of the vampire as expression of repressed desire (and with your icon, you’ll know how often Terence Fisher dug into that one), but this is the first case I’ve seen in which that desire actually generates the creature (though the ID monster in Forbidden Planet is on the same lines).

As for ATJ’s accent, I’d file it with Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor on the “plummy but not quite natural” shelf.

[The Curious Sofa]

I've always been fascinated by the British obsession with the accuracy of accents in films, and 'not quite natural' is a personal opinion that's impossible to quantify. To compare this with Keanu Reeve's sorry attempt at an English accent seems to me a contrivance to make comparison with the Coppola films that doesn't work.

The main thing that has always bothered me about Coppola's Dracula is that he basically grafted the reincarnation romance that drives the original Mummy films, both Universal and Hammer, onto Bram Stoker's text, which basically defanged Dracula. This was exacerbated by the casting of Oldman, who is one of the greatest character actors of all time, but who simply isn't a romantic lead. Daniel Day Lewis was in the running and would have been a far better choice for this approach. Murnau, on the other hand, drew on a tradition of morbid German romanticism for his adaptation, which, unlike Coppola's film, doesn't rob it of its horrific, inhuman nature. And Eggers runs with it.

[Orlac]

I've always been fascinated by the British obsession with the accuracy of accents in films, and 'not quite natural' is a personal opinion that's impossible to quantify. To compare this with Keanu Reeve's sorry attempt at an English accent seems to me a contrivance to make comparison with the Coppola films that doesn't work.

The main thing that has always bothered me about Coppola's Dracula is that he basically grafted the reincarnation romance that drives the original Mummy films, both Universal and Hammer, onto Bram Stoker's text, which basically defanged Dracula. This was exacerbated by the casting of Oldman, who is one of the greatest character actors of all time, but who simply isn't a romantic lead. Daniel Day Lewis was in the running and would have been a far better choice for this approach. Murnau, on the other hand, drew on a tradition of morbid German romanticism for his adaptation, which, unlike Coppola's film, doesn't rob it of its horrific, inhuman nature. And Eggers runs with it.

To be fair, Coppola wasn't the first to use the reincarnation theme. It is also present in Blacula and the Dan Curtis TV Dracula.

But Curtis handles it correctly by having Lucy be the love of Dracula's life, so that her death at the hands of Van Helsing and co spurs Dracula's revenge. In the Coppola version, Dracula is all lovey dovey with Mina in the day then sneaking off to vamp Lucy by night.

[MichaelB]

I completely agree about the parallels with Coppola's Dracula, in that both films are all too self-consciously steeped in silent cinema in a way that the Herzog version arguably wasn't. There are certainly stylistic differences – Coppola's is flamboyant, Eggers' stark and spartan – but the feel is remarkably similar overall. Some things the Coppola version does better – that gorgeous, swooning Wojciech Kilar score is, for me, right up there with James Bernard's work on Hammer's Dracula and (belatedly) the BFI/Photoplay version of Nosferatu as the best Dracula music – and in other aspects Eggers has the edge (far more tonally consistent performances across the board), and I particularly liked the way that Eggers not only gave Orlok a true-to-the-source moustache but made it a properly period-specific Hungarian/Transylvanian moustache at that.

[The Curious Sofa]

I don't agree that Herzog's remake is not self-consciously steeped in silent cinema. The last time I saw it, the audience giggled at the performances, which obviously reference the silent era's acting style. The mostly static camera and formal compositions also hark back to the era, more so than Coppola's throw-anything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach, which is more MTV than Murnau.

While we're at it, as the Dracula adaptation that most self-consciously recalls silent cinema, Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary probably takes the crown.

[Orlac]

I don't agree that Herzog's remake is not self-consciously steeped in silent cinema. The last time I saw it, the audience giggled at the performances, which obviously reference the silent era's acting style. The mostly static camera and formal compositions also hark back to the era, more so than Coppola's throw-anything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach, which is more MTV than Murnau.

While we're at it, as the Dracula adaptation that most self-consciously recalls silent cinema, Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary probably takes the crown.

Roland Topor excepted, I find most of the performances in the Herzog version to be much more restrained than they are in the Murnau version.

[The Curious Sofa]

It's Isabelle Adjani's theatrical performance that is the closest to silent movie acting. Her movements, especially when acting against Kinski, have a dancer's precision, foreshadowing her work in Possession. They all give stylized performances reminiscent of the silent era, perhaps Ganz the least because he's the most naturalistic, understated actor in the cast.

[Red Screamer]

I don’t like any of Eggers’ films, so I’m sure his fans read my reactions with the same perplexity that I read theirs. Nosferatu is probably his most visually ambitious film yet, though the increased design doesn’t translate to increased effectiveness. It’s a vampire movie from someone who wants you to know that he’s brushed up on David Bordwell’s analysis of Vampyr (the breaking of conventional space through shadows that interact with 3D space and having characters enter the frame from the wrong direction), for better—mostly because those flourishes kept me mildly entertained in mentally reverse engineering them—and for worse—because he can’t sustain such stylistic gambits for very long, unable to integrate them with / do them at the same time as character drama, genre thrills, theme elucidation, what have you.

Eggers operates from effectively the same formula as before: an imitated slowburn of shapeless dialogue scenes which build up to brief shocks of the grotesque that wake us with a jolt, for a moment, from our placid costume drama slumber before plunging us back in. His style is so lifeless and pre-ordained that neither the repression nor the holes ripped in it—his theory of the horror film—register very much.

More than remaking anything, Eggers is aiming to create the archetypal vampire movie, but he has a flimsy conception at best of such a thing. For instance, his Nosferatu recalibrates in any given situation to fit the set-pieces and shocks he’s devised: Is he a vampire from folklore? An incubus? Appetite personified, as he describes himself? A Mabuse-like overlord who mindcontrols a network of villains from afar? A demon who possesses people exactly like in The Exorcist? A demon who signs contracts with husbands like in Rosemary’s Baby? A manifestation of the repressed side of Lily-Rose Depp, which makes her convulse like Isabelle Adjani in Possesion? Or a symbol of her subjection and abuse? Or both, in an expression of Eggers’ insecurity and bewilderment in the face of female sexuality? Eggers spins desperately through these horror movie greatest hits without much dramatic or narrative coherence.

[therewillbeblus]

Great writeup on Eggers' shortcomings here and generally. I'll add that he doesn't really know how to effectively blend humor with his otherwise incredibly self-serious tone. I didn't really care much for the film other than its 'pretty' style so I thought the second half was fairly funny, especially once Dafoe comes in. But even though I appreciate the humorous moments in his films, they function a lot like the "brief shocks" you describe. He can be funny, but it doesn't really gel with his style. It's more of a reprieve from the drab sincerity when it outstays its welcome.