A vampire’s infatuation with a haunted young woman leads to untold horror in Director Robert Eggers’ supernatural fantasy, Nosferatu.
Eggers’ resurrection of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 German film unleashes the tale of Ellen Hutter, a new bride whose husband’s fateful meeting with the terrifying Count Orlok leads her to be plagued by horrific visions and an increasing sense of dread. She soon encounters an evil force that's far beyond her control.
On December 8, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Eggers discussed the making of Nosferatu during a Q&A moderated by Director Chris Columbus (The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two). He also spoke about the film with Director Michael Almereyda (Tesla) following the New York screening on December 15.
During the Los Angeles conversation, Eggers spoke why the little details in a film can matter.
“Creating an atmosphere is an accumulation of details. The more details you have, the more the world is complete and the more that you as an audience can invest in the world, and therefore, potentially believe in metaphysical things like vampires. But part of that is not just what you see but it’s what the actors are engaged with. Like Aaron [Taylor-Johnson] wore a corset. A guy of his kind of fashion sense of that period would wear a little male corset. You never see it, but it changes how he moves. Emma Corrin talks about opening the drawer of her character’s desk and seeing all these letters that she and her husband wrote back and forth to each other for years. We’re never gonna see that but it helps them feel connected to the world and that changes their performance and the whole thing.”
Eggers’ other directorial credits include the feature films The Northman, The Lighthouse, The Witch; and the short films Brothers, The Tell-Tale Heart and Hansel and Gretel. He has been a DGA member since 2018.