It hasn’t been too long since Dracula signed off (last year alone featured two reinterpretations of the cringe worthy comedic failure Renfield and the utterly new approach of The Last Voyage of the Demeter), but now he is back once again as the star of Robert Eggers’ long overdue remake of Nosferatu. The takeaway from this should be: no matter how many times he resurrects, and dies, Dracula will forever be around.
Dracula has a special place in our hearts. We have a unique fascination with him, and this goes further what I think we seek more than anything else is to find out what makes him so infamous in the first place. I doubt that during the entire history of our culture, there has been a single character who has been so many times almost still in one and the same time as Dracula, and I am talking about just a little over a hundred years. In 1897, Bram Stoker published his novel titled Dracula which was the beginning of what appears (rather unfortunately) to be a neverending and very much tangle of venerated revival.
It may be the case in my opinion that the first few commercially successful versions of Dracula differ a lot from each other. F.W. Murnau’s (pirated) 1922 movie Nosferatu depicted the vampire as a reptilian bat. The 1931 film made by Universal Studios (which was based on a play of 1924 that Stoker’s widow paid for so that the infringing copy of Nosferatu’s was curtailed) gave the vampire the image of a charming foreigner. Both of these, however, do not closely coincide with the physical description of the character in the book. Thus history of the story Dracula and therefore the history of the character Dracula commences with a notion of a general and vague history of identity.
What is the character of Dracula? What actually is the vampire then? These are the issues that have informed more than a century of the deviations and interpretations. They guide Eggers’s new film, as well, though he is one of the few Dracula films that I can recall that seeks to answer those questions and actually does provide the audience with a meaningful context.
But first, plot. Nosferatu is the tale of a young couple, Ellen and Thomas Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult) Who are residents of Wisbourg, Germany in 1838 (Though as my historian friend pointed out after we left the theater, in 1838 such a thing as Germany did not exist; Though, I guess the so called vampires never existed either). In the film, Thomas is offered a promotion that will take him on a work trip to the Carpathians in order to seal a real estate deal with Count Orlok, a wealthy real estate investor. His employer, Mr Knock (Simon McBurney), who is a secret occultist, is aware that Orlok is a vampire and desires to aid in civilizational annihilation by subterfuge. Ellen has special curious gifts, and she has an ominous sense about what could transpire then if Thomas undertakes the trip; what she fails to realize is that she is the reason why the vampire came to Germany. They had long formed a mental connection and Orlok wanted to share er in a more traditional sense.
With the conviction that he cannot be harmed, Thomas first drops off Ellen at a friend’s place and leaves. While he is gone Anna(Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and her outspoken husband Friedrich try their best to settle Ellen’s nerves, but all their attempts seem fruitless. As does Thomas’s travel, particularly when he gets to Orlok’s Castle and meets Orlok himself, played by Bill Skarsgard. I would like to inform the audience that while the film portrays vampires and Dracula their stories are over old to be spoiled by any alerts, romanian folklore is rich in unexposed hpv history, they said exactly this so I will conclude my accounts from this place. However, it should be appreciated that the film builds quite implemental from this point, braids its multiple story veins, and brings them to an exciting conclusion.
These builds of stress, together with a sense of impending doom, are biologically feasible only against the backdrop of several outstanding portrayals, notably Depp in the role of the put upon yet valiant tragic hero Ellen. Eggers’s close ally Jarin Blaschke, who designed the movie as well, says that if he does not get an Oscar for the film… I… It would be an insult to even try to finish the sentence so much more is Blaschke entitled. But I digress the film is about a medieval festival of racing and dancing shadows. Nosferatu was named ‘A Horror Symphony’, and apparently that was the guiding principle of the Harbinger trailers visuals too.
The fantasy seems to be elaborately over the top; moments of filming in ordinary life illustrate a whole color palette and those which take place in vampire time are fully monochrome. Indeed, it is true that the black and white scenes are more striking than the other color scenes but still, the exposure and contrast are so well balanced that they can offer an alternately jarring depth of field or obscure the face of the man sitting right in front of the camera a technique that is effectively and frequently used for filming the vampire Orlok whose silhouette is Boyar like but whose features are well hidden from the audience until the end of the movie. Until then, glimpses of the dark colored bushy mustache resembling the hooked nose, two greedy round balls plump like eyes, and long almond-shaped black nails can be witnessed.
Although Orlock in the film’s context possessed a pointy-eared complexion, sallow and goblin like and not in comparison to Dracula who was the complete opposite.
So let’s divert a little. Here’s a question, is there a difference between a Dracula movie and a Nosferatu movie? Certainly! The Vampire in the Nosferatu movies resembles a carrier of plague a dark, dreary, and gloomy picture, set against the background of disease and pestilence. Let’s not forget that Dracula movies do not usually possess the drabness of its Nosferatu counterparts. The latter has a pinch of gory romance fascination. A fantastic portrayal of sexuality, affection frenzy, and obsession with wealth and power is what a Dracula film is about. Yes, now and then, a Nosferatu film touches upon more erotic notions (for example, Herzog’s adaptation in 1979). In a similar vein, a Dracula movie can accept the Disgusting idea (I mean the recent Moffat/Gatiss miniseries). Usually, this is the split, however. Eggers’s Nosferatu, however, is quite well acquainted with all the materials it draws inspiration from, rather not only from the names it took on. In Shadow of the Vampire, which is set during the filming of the original 1922 Nosferatu in 2000, Willem Dafoe starred as the actor Max Shreck who portrayed Count Orlok, but when it comes to Eggers’s film, he says van Helsing.
Eventually, we will see that Orlock, under his cloak, does look like Shreck’s grainy zombie-like figure. He also draws from Stoker’s novel. most conspicuous is the size and color of the mustache which cannot be found anywhere else in the interpretation of the character on screen. The film also includes elements that are totally or partially unexplored in this movie, like the lipstick smear of Mina Harker and various other primary works.
Moreover, Nosferatu seems to be committed to preserving its precursor from 1922, minus which modern filmmaking might not have evolved as much as it did. Murnau’s Nosferatu features the count’s shadow moving up the stairs, which is perhaps the most lascivious moment of the film; Eggers’s Nosferatu uses this aesthetic to its advantage, including among its threads the count’s capacity to both be in and throw his shadows. (He appears to Ellen as a shadow, as a voice, long before he meets her.)
This is the true strength of Eggers’s Nosferatu he is an intelligent, sophisticated director, whose works such as Conquerors of Cinema tend to function as the ultimate reading list of iconic works in its respective genres but also as stand-alone brilliant successes. But about this, the series of images and stories claimed by the narrative of Nosferatu is exactly what is needed for a variation of an overexposed narrative, an often adapted project. Orlok is invincible with a stake only the sun has the ability to weaken and burn him. His projection and reach are a consequence of his capacity to project a dark aspect of himself through space. Orlok is the embodiment of the cinema. The cinema itself is Nosferatu.
Why Eggers would adapt from Nosferatu and not Dracula seems rather baffling, but having studied both canons it is my answer For a long time, Pirated from the novel and considered to be an illegitimate version, Nosferatu is also one of the very first feature films ever made, together with being one of the best. It’s no secret that cinema and cinematography were built on the fragile skeletal structure of Nosferatu, and Eggers knows that. And with his Nosferatu, Eggers has designed not just a tribute but an entire altar from which to demonstrate due respect.
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