The story of the new version of 'Nosferatu' began longer than it seems. Director Robert Eggers has always been a fan of the film ever since he came across a photo of the protagonist of Murnau's masterpiece, Max Schreck, in a book about vampires when he was in elementary school in New Hampshire. The image took him to the video store, 45 minutes away, where he ordered a copy of the film just for him, until he wore out the VHS, according to the author in Variety.
But what many do not know is that 'Nosferatu' by Robert Eggers is the second remake of 'Nosferatu by Robert Eggers. The creator of 'The Witch' had already made his first sketch in his last year of high school, and showing his first signs of being a gifted creator, he co-directed and starred in a stage adaptation of the silent film, even a local director was so impressed by the production that invited Eggers and his collaborators to perform it in his theater.
The director told how Max Schreck's performance, the makeup he designed, his strange movementswere basic for his cinephile training:
“I also loved Dracula, and Bela Lugosi, and the Francis Ford Coppola version, and Christopher Lee. But there was something about the haunting quality of Nosferatu and its simple fairy tale, Nosferatu enigma, that was very appealing to me. The VHS I picked up was printed from a weathered 16mm print, so you can't see the bald spot or the layer of makeup, and sometimes her irises look like cat eyes. In the restored version it no longer looks like that. But in what I saw, it had a little more realism, due to the degraded quality that I was seeing.”
In its production, still without tens of millions, cHe collaborated with a classmate to create the stage version by 'Nosferatu'
“Yes, I was 17 and I did it with my friend Ashley Kelly-Tata, who is now a theater and opera director. We made it in high school and it had nothing to do with this new movie. I did a lot of theater and other kids had directed plays in the past, so I said to myself: 'What if we do it in black and white on stage? Maybe it's a stupid idea.'
And then Ashley said, 'No, that's a great idea. We should do it.' So we painted ourselves black and white with makeup, and the sets were monochrome, and we acted in an expressionist silent film style. “There was music and supertitles above the stage instead of the intertitles that are in the movies.”
The artistic director Edouard Langlois was so amazed by the institute's production that he saw that asked Eggers and his team to bring his work to his Edwin Booth theater space.
“And then a more experienced gentleman, who ran a well-regarded local theater, saw the play and invited us to do it at the Edwin Booth Theatre. It changed my life because I knew that was what I wanted to do. Not necessarily Nosferatu, but directing stories that I was passionate about.”
Klaus Kinski, Bill Skarsgård and… Robert Eggers
One of the curiosities of this original production is that It was none other than Eggers himself who played Count Orlok in the sessions.
“I have incredibly strong memories of the Edwin Booth sessions and all of us putting on the pot of makeup and gluing each other's facial hair and sideburns. That smell and that world are very nostalgic to me. To this day, I have always liked the smell of a fog machine, which certainly never went off in this most recent Nosferatu. It's hard to believe, but I weighed like 52 kilos and I played Orlok. There are some photos of it that can be found on the internet.”
Perhaps the key to the new characterization of 'Nosferatu' is hidden in that first interpretation, in which Actor Bill Skarsgård spent six hours in the makeup room for each session, since Eggers confesses that a certain series of vampires influenced his appearance on stage.
“It was aggressive makeup. Back then, because of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' there was a time when you could buy vampire makeup with a prosthetic forehead with an evil expression on it. So I bought a bunch of foam latex, ready-made foreheads and cheekbones, and then added the bald head and ears. “I got some canine teeth that were too big.”
Buffy's teacher, inspired by Nosferatu
From then on, Eggers had two dreams: to be a director and to bring 'Nosferatu' to the big screen again.. In 2015 it was announced that the remake would be his new project, but the possibility fell apart several times for different reasons, until, on the verge of giving up, with the feeling that “Murnau's ghost is telling me to go to hell”approached Focus Features' Peter Kujawski with his script, and he only had to name the vampire to convince the film studio executive of his idea.
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