UPROXX’s own Mike Ryan sat with The Witch director Robert Eggers to discuss that film back in February and some of the rumors about his future projects. That’s where this quote comes from:
You mention Nosferatu, and I saw that you’re now working on a remake of Murnau’s film. How do you plan on making that your own thing?
That’s not until far in the future. It’s so presumptuous and egomaniacal and disgusting for someone to want to do that again. [Laughs.] But I’m working on a medieval knight epic currently.
Time seems to change all, especially when it comes to the pursuits of the egomaniacal. A commenter at the time thought he was tossing shade at Werner Herzog, but it would seem that he was just tossing a bit at himself. And it would also seem that that medieval knight epic is on the backburner. While chatting with the IndieWire Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, Eggers confirmed his next film will be Nosferatu with Warner Bros. President Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 and he seemed to call back to his comments above during the confirmation:
“[It’s shocking] to me,” said Eggers. “It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do ‘Nosferatu’ next. I was really planning on waiting a while, but that’s how fate shook out.”
Following The Witch, I’d be interested in seeing a version of Nosferatu in that style. The atmosphere in The Witch was creepy and certainly seemed to lend itself to the creepy expressionist visuals from Nosferatu. I wouldn’t really say the movies are scary, but they are good at carrying the aesthetic for horror films and horror literature.
Egger’s desires for Nosferatu come from his childhood, watching films from Hammer and Universal and stumbling upon Max Schreck’s Count Orlock in a textbook according to Indiewire:
“Then, when I was 17, I directed the senior play [of] ‘Nosferatu,’” said Eggers. “It was very expressionist, it was much more expressionist than the film is. It was ‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ style [German Expressionistic].”
A local theater owner saw the high school performance and hired the teenager to re-stage the play professionally.
“Then, when I was 17, I directed the senior play [of] ‘Nosferatu,’” said Eggers. “It was very expressionist, it was much more expressionist than the film is. It was ‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ style [German Expressionistic].”
A local theater owner saw the high school performance and hired the teenager to re-stage the play professionally.
“That’s when I realized this is what I want to be doing,” said Eggers. “‘Nosferatu’ has a very close, magical connection for me. Though if I were to make the movie 17-year-old Rob was going to make of ‘Nosferatu’ it would have been something between like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and ‘Sin City,’ whereas this is going to be the same approach as ‘The Witch,’ where 1830s Biedermeier Baltic Germany needs to be articulated in a way that seems real.”
You can listen to the podcast below for the full story and hopefully check out Nosferatu in the near the future. It should at least be interesting and something that may make you want to live deliciously.
(Via Indiewire)
