Although “Dracula” Gate of Stoker is the most popular vampiric novel in the world, now One hundred years earlier Goethe wrote the ballad “Fiancee of Corinth”which was the first significant song on this subject. However, both texts derive primarily from folklore and myths, and the vampire character is heavily rooted in cultures around the world. No wonder that artists very often reach for this grateful motive to create further reinterpretation of bloodsuckers.
Stoker’s book in the 1920s was interested in German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who, due to the problems with the rights to the original text, changed its content somewhat and He created a genre masterpiece, as well as the most valued film in the history of cinema – “Nosferatu – Symphony of horror”. The Count Orlok flawlessly played by Max Schreck became a reference to the next film stories about the sowing death and confusion of the vampire. A look at the figure has evolved over the years. Over 100 years after the premiere of the work of Murnaua and hundreds of screen interpretations of the hero, we got another. I will not lie if I say that the film “Nosferatu” by Robert Eggers, who can be watched in Polish cinemas from February 21, It is the most important premiere for me this year.
Nosferatu [RECENZJA]
I can’t mention a modern director who would be more suitable to shoot another story about the most famous vampire in the world from Robert Eggers. A great “witch” and almost perfect “Lighthouse” is a show of an extraordinary ability to build tension without the use of classic horror scars. These are productions with the possibility of broad interpretation, dense, dark, created with love for art, cinema and tradition. “Nosferatu” turned out to be a slightly more commercial and less complex work of Eggers, but it has all the best features of the director’s style.
The staff are dazzling here. “Nosferatu” is an absolute feast for the eyes, especially those who like the dark Gothic aesthetics. The last scene, which brings to mind the picture “Kiss of Death” by Włodzimierz Błocki, is thundering and stays with us long after the screening. It crowns a work neatly balancing every now and then on the border of beauty and abomination. Eggers’ film deserved an Oscar in each category to which he was nominated. In Orlok it is difficult to find Bill Skarsgard not only thanks to the great interpretation of the character, which the actor proposed, who carefully drew from his predecessors, but also because he did not imitate them.
Characterization has changed Skarsgard into a terrifying creature clearly inspired by the vampire origin and Stoker’s book. At the same time, the ORLOK count does not look caricatured, grotesque, I would be tempted to say that there is something appealing and attractive in his rejecting at first glance. The stage design and costumes basically complement the indispensable climate, which Eggers manage to achieve with natural lightness. Photos turn up the tension, and the work is technically composed that he leads the nose and intelligently uses widely known horror tricks to break the convention and threaten just going beyond the scheme.
Lack of Oscar nomination for Lily-Rose Depp is a huge oversight. Maybe the actress failed to jump to the iconic scene in the subway from Żuławski’s “Possession”, but No one has so far been so close to crazy, inhuman, alarming surrender to supernatural forces on the big screen. Ellen Hunter’s character is really The only reinterpretation of Eggers’s history in the whole moviewhich sources quotes rather skillfully than outlined them again. A director from a character usually treated quite stereotypically, and sometimes even marginally, although for the plot for decades key, He made not only a sufficiently strong unit, but above all a person with great causative force.
Robert Eggers did something that no one has decided before
A woman is not just a mediator here, a helpless victim who supervises matters from behind the curtain in her bedroom. The director and at the same time the screenwriter of “Nosferatu” found the right trail, which no one who interpreted “Dracula” Stoker followed. Unfortunately There was no consequences and courageto focus even more on the character of Ellen Hunter, who in the history of vampire cinema had previously performed under different names. It is hard to believe in the rejection and madness stuck in the heroine for decades. This is another good idea that deserved to be better written.
The thread could also be the one who eventually connected and deepened Ellen’s relationship with the lonely ORLOK. The one we get, not in every aspect has been properly done. I must admit that its sensual overtones in a great way become an excuse to discuss female sexuality, which in vampire threads has great importance for centuries. But There are several inaccuracies in the script that do not harmonize with the image of Orlok. This one also seems inconsistent.
Eggers, inspired by Murnau, wants to give us Orlok in the form of incarnate evil. The vampire before our eyes without blinking with an eye tears the larynx of innocent children. The absolute animal nature of Nosferatu is often disturbed here. In a relationship with Ellen, the vampire takes on a human face, approaches a lonely, tragic character, which “Nosferatu Wampir” from 1979 offered us in his work, Werner Herzog. By a mix of these quite extreme assumptions, it is difficult to clearly state, What is to be and what is supposed to be personified by the Eggers’ vampire.
Side threads suffer in the film due to the clear two -track of the story. A very symbolic theme of the epidemic, which in Herzoga was illustrated with madness prowling the streets and surreal frames, It is almost imperceptible here. A much weaker overtones than in the movie “Dracula” by Francis Ford Coppola and in the book Stoker also has the motif of the fight against evil at Eggers. The thread explores a very interesting trend of the times described, where strongly developed spirituality and faith in supernatural powers easily functioned among scientific theories, and often even supplemented them. Only here was licked.
“Nosferatu” by Eggers is a sixth student at the School Cinema School, but not a masterpiece
The director, however, served us another interesting procedure – he introduced new dynamics into the relations of men who are trying to kill Orlok. Hutter (The role of Nicholas Hoult’s life) and Professor Albin (Incredible Willem Dafoe) They have to deal not only with a monster prowling around the city, but also Friedrich Harding’s unbeliever. Aaron Taylor-Johnson created in “Nosferatu” one of the most annoying characters in the vampire universe And he broke the (especially bothering with Stoker) a tendency in which the heroes in the name of the matter very quickly announce a truce, sweeten each other and nodd each other.
“Nosferatu” is an urgent, sixth student. Eggers passed the horror classic exam, used all the competences to make a beautiful film, which has a great cast and breathtaking frame. However, this is not enough to become a production as important and poignant as the version of Muranua and Herzoga. There is a lack of emotions, not only the cold of Count Orlok’s castle, but also the creator’s calculation. This He created a correct work with craft precision, but as a consequence his creation is like the title monster – only half -lively and soulless.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
