Nosferatu is Robert Egger’s biggest hit to date, but the process he underwent to create this compelling new take on the horror classic is consistent with everything he’s done his entire career. The director explained his mantra to MovieWeb: “Every single thing is deeply researched and considered. You’re always working to be as historically accurate as possible.”
His MO has always been research, accuracy, and specificity in world building (which is one of the many reasons why what Eggers does next is of such great interest). He knew his Nosferatu and Count Orlok would be faithful to historical lore. “The vampires of early Balkan and Slavic folklore were walking putrid corpses, more visually similar to a cinematic zombie than a handsome, suave, pale Robert Pattinson,” said Eggers. Historically correct details win out over nearly everything in Nosferatu, even when Eggers knew some details might leave portions of the audience unhappy. He explained:
“The mustache was absolutely crucial. For people who aren’t into the mustache, because they were expecting something that looked more like the iconic Max Schrek look, I get it, but with my approach, based on history, there’s absolutely no f*cking way ever, in any possible situation, that this guy wouldn’t have a mustache. And that [also] goes down to, like, all the clothing that he’s wearing, his complicated shoes, his hat, it’s all based on research.”
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Given that vampires, well, don’t exist, it’s hard to be “historically” accurate. So what motivated the decision to give Orlok a flavor saver? Eggers explained:
The question that I immediately needed to ask, given who this vampire is, was: ‘Well, what would a dead Transylvanian nobleman actually look like?’ So that meant we based the facial features on certain things to make him scary and masculine and noble, but also on some portraits.
So come hell or high water, a mustache was… a must. Sometimes the details of Eggers’ different worlds conflict a tiny bit with cinematic needs, and how he navigates those decisions defines him as much as anything else in his work.
Cinema vs Research in the Work of Robert Eggers
As much as Robert Eggers is creating a ‘world,’ he’s also ultimately creating a movie to entertain, and there are demands there that sometimes have to be considered. “In Victorian mourning clothing of the period, there would be no shiny stuff on the clothing at all,” said Eggers as an example. “But because a lot of that clothing was going to be worn at night [in the film] we need to be able to see it, you know? So that was something that was changed, but it’s only very tiny little things like that.”
Eggers also shared an instance where he was tempted to go farther with something but had to consider the context of the rest of the film, and how an audience would take it:
“The costume designer wanted Orlok’s hat to be even larger than it was. You certainly see examples like that. I said, “If this was a story about Hungarian and Vallakian warlords, if every other character had a giant fur hat, we could go that big, but because this is the only one we’re going to see, aside from a more humble version in Transylvania, you need to dial it back. [Otherwise] it’s going to go too far.”
Interestingly, some performers run with Egger’s meticulous style, leaning into the specificity and making it work, like this anecdote about Aaron Taylor Johnson’s hair, “We were trying to go with historical hairstyles that were accurate but also flattering,” explained Eggers. “But Aaron Taylor Johnson went for kind of like a pretty out-there hairstyle, and we were concerned that it was going to be too much, but he had the personality and the physicality to pull it off. So we said, ‘Great!'”
Ultimately, Robert Eggers pushes back on the idea that he would be forced to change too much based on audience expectations. Rather, his instinct is to embrace the research and share what he discovers in the hopes that people will find it as interesting as he does. “The more that you can defy expectations in the right way, the more satisfying it can be. That’s one of the joys to me about doing all this research — finding things that are a little bit unexpected. Perhaps [like] the mustache.”
Nosferatu is available to rent or buy on digital platforms such as Google Play, Fandango at Home, and Apple TV. Nosferatu comes to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 18. If you buy on Apple TV, you can access the extended cut and get a variety of special features.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
