CHARLEY BRADY
Robert Eggers is playing games with my head. And he’s winning.
I positively adored his directorial debut The Witch: A New England Folktale; and I remain convinced that it is one of the few modern films to which H.P. Lovecraft would have given his stamp of approval. So naturally I was pumped up for what he was going to follow it with.
Unfortunately, despite its Lovecraftian elements, I was less than thrilled by his next feature, The Lighthouse. Although in fairness it did confirm that if a live-action Simpsons is ever tried, Willem Dafoe is a shoe-in for the Old Sea Captain. Arrr! (Just as Ariana Grande is a natural if a remake of Orphan ever comes up.)
With The Northman, Eggers lost me altogether. I’m still not the better for… whatever it was.
So I went along with low expectations to the very busy six o’clock showing of his latest film at Pálás Cinema on the second day of this fine New Year. It’s a remake of Nosferatu, which had me asking if the world really needed another take on the Dracula story.
How wrong can you get? I was rivetted from the first moments and stayed like that throughout, not noticing two plus hours flying by in the slightest. How wonderful that after so many years a film will show up that can simply set me on fire! In fact, I had to fight the temptation to go back again the next night; but I will. I will.
It stars Bill Skarsgård – seemingly stamping the horror field for his zone of interest – and a quite remarkable Lily-Rose Depp. Oddly, the one weak point is Eggers regular Willem Dafoe, who appeared to have overindulged the ham a little.
Still, what am I doing writing about a 2024 film on a silent film site?
Well, come on now. The original 1922 Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror from FW Murnau is one of the yardsticks by which horror films have been judged by connoisseurs ever since its first appearance. And rightly so. It is a classic not only of the silent cinema and of the cinema of terror, but of cinema in general. And of course I’ve always loved the Irish angle.
For a showing of the original some years back in Chicago, I wrote for an American magazine:
“There has been an Irish link with Nosferatu right from the start. In fact, Florence Stoker of Clontarf, Dublin did her level best to have all prints of it destroyed (and came very close) when it became clear that she was not going to receive any badly-needed money, even after winning a case against the company that had shamelessly plagiarised her late husband Bram’s great work, Dracula.
“Intriguingly, this beautiful Irishwoman was the link between two of the great enduring literary monsters of the late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Oscar Wilde had presented to us a certain famous attic hoarder of paintings in the 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray, while along came fellow Dubliner Bram Stoker in 1897 with none other than the King of the Vampires himself.
“Florence of course married Bram; but years before she had been courted by none other than Oscar Wilde himself. Indeed, as something of a muse to him, a sketch by Wilde exists that shows a winsome, elfin lady. It is rather precious, as Florence allowed no photographs of her to be taken after she turned forty.
“And just as an aside, now that you’ve got me started, yet another Dublin man had come along decades before either Oscar or Bram. Sheridan LeFanu gave the world the immortal Carmilla in 1872, the first tale of lesbian vampirism.
“Leave it to the Irish.”
I really don’t want to talk too much about the film itself – please make up your own minds – but Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu is a highly respectful take on Murnau’s original (he also wrote it), whilst remaining still very much his own vision. And I would have to say it contains some of the most searing and unforgettable images.
This is not a film that will appeal to everyone. But for myself, I quickly accepted it as an uncompromising, pitch-dark gothic fairy tale, complete with its own internal laws and logic. Indeed, it now makes me wish to go back and reevaluate the films of Eggers that I didn’t like, and view them with fresh eyes.
It’s a given that there is so much about early movie history that I’m in love with; but how heartwarming it is to see so many people flocking to a film that was inspired by one made over a century ago.
I can’t wait to see it again.
charleybrady@gmail.com