Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is finally here, and in many ways it’s the culmination of his career thus far for both its extraordinary development of atmosphere and dread, and its rich return to the story’s source material and folkloric roots. Like The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman, Nosferatu is layered with haunting details, complex worldbuilding, and emotional performances. It’s also an appropriate celebration of the last century of horror via its respectful reimagining of a stone-cold horror classic.
The film boasts an incredible central cast in Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, and Bill Skarsgård (as the titular vampire), but one of the most memorable characters in its stellar cast is Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, played by long-time Eggers collaborator and recovering Nosferatu, Willem Dafoe. In an interview for the film, we spoke with Robert Eggers and Willem Dafoe about what goes into the creation of such an atmospheric horror experience, and the process of portraying characters with god complexes.
‘You want every scene to end badly’
“It’s hard to say,” Eggers admits when asked about his ability to create tales with such immersive tones, like Nosferatu. “Creating an atmosphere and creating something transportive is an accumulation of details.” Like any good film, it starts with the story. “In the script, you want every scene to end badly,” he explains. “You want it to end with a problem, and that keeps the tension going. That’s one technique.”
Eggers proceeds to explain the aspects of production that went into crafting Nosferatu’s rich sense of dread and command of tone. “Actual physical atmosphere, like, the fog machine’s pumping every goddamn scene, is a technique.” Then there’s the rich audio atmosphere. “The music is a technique,” the director proceeds. “The sound design that becomes the score when there isn’t music… a gust of wind under a certain line of dialogue, which does the same thing as score. It’s an accumulation of all these details that hopefully transports the audience there and makes something spooky.”
Playing god to ‘capture that other way of seeing’
The atmosphere in Nosferatu isn’t the only aspect that’s fueled by otherworldly vibes. Willem Dafoe shines as the alchemy-obsessed Professor Von Franz, but he’s also played Jesus of Nazareth (The Last Temptation of Christ), supposedly ‘real-life vampire’ Max Schreck (Shadow of the Vampire), and the life-creating Dr. “God” Baxter (Poor Things), three among a career filled with larger than life characters and characters with God complexes. “…and they get offered to him!” Eggers chimes in, on Dafoe’s career of playing characters with God complexes and unique natures.
“With any character they have to offer up, they’ve got to be a proposal to learn something or go someplace else, give you an excuse to be, do, think in a different way, imagine another way,” he explains, “And those usually I respond most to [are] characters that have an extremely different point of view, people that are on the outside.” Dafoe continues to explain why he gravitates towards less conventional characters. “I’ve never particularly liked family dramas, because that kind of psychology doesn’t interest me,” he says. “I’m interested in people who don’t think the normal way, because sometimes, because they’re on the outside, and, this is almost a political stance, they see clearer because they don’t have the responsibility to pass, because either they’re unable to or they’ve got the wisdom to not want to.” Being an outsider encourages a freedom to look at and approach the world differently. “Whatever the reason is, that doesn’t matter… it’s just to capture that other way of seeing.”
This all ties into what Dafoe loves about film as an art form. “I’m always struck that the most beautiful thing that a movie can do is not only transport you, but challenge your way of seeing,” he notes. “To watch something and say ‘oh man, I thought this way, and this is another way to think…’ you’re bombarded with [it], not just through empathizing with other characters but really challenging your thinking.” It’s this constant search for characters that provoke growth and insight that drive Dafoe’s quest for characters outside the norm, often larger than life. “I guess I gravitate towards those characters that trigger me, that say ‘come here, kid, I got something to tell ya’.”
Like filmmaker Robert Eggers himself, in Nosferatu, Professor Von Franz certainly has a lot to say.
Nosferatu debuts in theaters December 25th.
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