NOSFERATU (2024)

I planned to jot down a few words here about Robert Eggers' NOSFERATU, which I saw at the Paseo Nuevo Theater in Santa Barbara on opening day; however, before I had time to begin writing, I read the latest FILM INTERNATIONAL review by cinema scholar Gary D. Rhodes (with whom I wrote the nonfiction book BELA LUGOSI AND THE MONOGRAM NINE). I soon discovered that Rhodes' article, "'Night Wandering' with Nosferatu (2024)," expresses my thoughts about Eggers' approach to reimagining F.W. Murnau's vision far better than I could have done myself. What follows is a brief except from Rhodes' thoughtful piece:

My experience of Eggers’ Nosferatu was one of rebirth. He expands the mythos far beyond where Murnau left it, as if taking up the captainry of a death ship crashing against the waves before docking at new shores. The rather tenuous long-distant relationship between Orlok and Knock (Alexander Granach) in Murnau, founded solely on a grimoire contract, gains far more narrative and emotional depth with Count Orlok and Knock (Simon McBurney) in Eggers.

More striking is Eggers’ depiction of Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp). Depp is a deep well of emotions conjured, a soul in turmoil, such a striking contrast to Greta Schröder in Murnau’s film, who was distinctly less compelling than Weimar actresses like Brigitte Helm and Lil Dagover. Particularly fascinating is the backstory Eggers develops for his Orlok and Ellen, which solves something of a mystery in the narratives of Murnau’s film and Stoker’s novel: why would the vampire risk choosing his real estate agent’s wife/fiancée, rather than any other woman in his new city? In so doing, he greatly amplifies becoming exposed and hunted.

Hence the sexual triangle between Orlok, Ellen, and Hutter is heightened in Eggers, particularly when Orlok bites Hutter in Transylvania. Rarely have I seen parallel editing stir such power, such illicit and passionate power. Bells tolled cannot be unrung. (I cannot forget that editing suites in early Hollywood were sometimes understandably called “joining rooms.”)

Much of what distinguishes Eggers’ Nosferatu is his use of sound, including dialogue. Like Murnau, Eggers situates most of his film in the non-existent German city of Wisborg, a shadowy elseplace, but it assumes an even more mythical status because all of its inhabitants speak in pronounced British accents. Here is a paradox, one well suited to the paradox that is the “Un-dead,” the nearly incomprehensible state of conscious and ambulatory while being neither alive nor dead...

To read Rhodes' entire article, click HERE.