Nosferatu (2024)
There’s something about remaking F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” that feels just a bit different from taking on Bram Stoker’s creation directly. While yes, Murnau’s film is clearly built on the bones of Stoker’s narrative, it’s the left turns he took in his 1922 masterpiece that is unique to this version. When I rewatched Werner Herzog’s 1979 “Nosferatu the Vampyre” a few years ago, it became clearer, and in Robert Eggers’s new adaptation, it crystalizes just how distinctive this vein of Stoker’s creation is from most of the films from this iconic source material.
One of the things I love about Eggers’s film is how it lets the narrative Murnau spun breathe; while yes, adding 50 minutes to an 82-minute narrative feels foolhardy (Herzog only added 25), Eggers uses that time to create haunting images that accentuate what makes “Nosferatu,” as a Dracula story, different from the likes of Tod Browning or Terence Fisher of Francis Ford Coppola’s films. There are choices in how he uses technology and ideas to make the film more dream-like and entrancing that I love, as well. For instance, he and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke bleach out the color of the dream sequences, giving them a monochrome feel that harkens back to the silent era, where filter processes were used to add color and a sense of perspective to the settings and action. This choice affects the way they light Craig Lathrop’s lush, stunning production design, and it also plays into the way we see Count Orlok, here played by Bill Skarsgård largely in the shadows, which is a big change from the earlier films, but allows a more ominous presence than if Orlok was a constant visual sight in the film. There is value to each film’s approach to Orlok, but I think Eggers’s approach works for this film, and almost makes its ideas more manifest, as a result.
Theatricality has always been a big deal in any cinematic Dracula/Nosferatu adaptation. One of the things that makes the Murnau silent film so unnerving is how, due to the lack of verbal dialogue, the visual performances of the actors sometimes feel like something out of slapstick. The performances of Hutter and Knock are prime examples of this, with Max Schreck’s Orlok being even more menacing because of the lack of spoken dialogue. In his adaptation, Eggers makes a bold choice to allow some of his actors (especially Nicholas Hoult as Hutter, Simon McBurney as Knock and Willem Dafoe- who was famously Oscar-nominated for playing a vampiric Schreck in the playful “Shadow of the Vampire”- as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, this film’s Van Helsing) go to town, and chew the scenery. It makes sense to let those three cook, because they love being weird and wild on screen, but all of the major actors have some of that in them, from Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich Harding to Emma Corbin as his wife, Anna, to Lili Rose-Depp as Ellen Hutter. Like I insinuated, Skarsgård is more in the shadows than his predecessors in the role, but when Eggers is ready to unleash him, he delivers beautifully. There is not a weak performance in the bunch.
If I haven’t really dove into the narrative, it’s because of how familiar it is after 102 years in film lore. Hutter is a newly wed, and sent by his boss- Knock- to finalize the paperwork with Count Orlok on a run down property in town. He goes, anxious to help get his marriage with Ellen off on the right foot financially, unaware of the terrors that await him. In his vision, Eggers has done a lot to find a contemporary spin on the cinematic language of Murnau’s film, and that’s especially true on Hutter’s journey, and Ellen’s separation from him. It hits all of the same beats, but in a way that is uniquely Eggers, especially as we consider “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” as his horror precursors. This is modern cinematic storytelling brought to an iconic story- and way the story was told. It’s not as iconoclastic as Herzog’s version- in part because Klaus Kinski was a singular on-screen personality- but it’s very much its own film.
The key to “Nosferatu” working, however, is how Ellen is portrayed. As I wrote a few years ago, Ellen’s character is the lynchpin to defeating Orlok; her willing sacrifice is crucial to the plague he brings being defeating. It’s something distinctive to this particular narrative, and Murnau, Herzog and now Eggers have all found their way into bringing it to reality. Because of the longer running time, we are given more time with Rose-Depp’s Ellen to flesh her character, and her ailments, out, and it makes for an greater sense of the character, the unique pull Orlok has on her, and why her actions matter, and Rose-Depp does successfully in the role.
Does Murnau’s film, the best horror film I’ve ever seen, need updated? It never did. Like with comedy, there’s something about silent horror that just resonates in a different way. The fact that we have three different versions of this story, all from filmmakers who find their own ways into it, is miraculous, and exciting, as different audiences can choose which way they enter into Orlok’s world, and not be disappointed.
