If watching “Nosferatu” makes you feel uneasy and uncomfortable, that’s exactly what filmmaker Robert Eggers had in mind.
Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke played with the idea of confusion in this gothic horror retelling of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic.
This time, Bill Skarsgård plays the fearsome Count Orlok who torments Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, a young woman who becomes the object of his desire. Speaking with Variety‘s Inside the Frame, Blaschke explains, “We’ll set up something pretty ordinary, a medium shot, but we’re gonna still pull the carpet from under you, and it’s all carefully thought out.”
One example is when Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) travels to Transylvania to meet Count Orlok and have him sign the deed to a castle in Germany.
“Being disoriented and having the camera lead you, and you’re never really sure what you’re going to look at next is an important aspect of this film,” Blaschke says.
It’s the first time the Count is revealed, but even then his reveal is disorienting. Orlok appears in the staircase in one frame, but as the camera pushes through, he’s no longer there.
For those first moments, Blaschke used all the tricks in the book to make Orlok appear and reappear. “We’re using great distance and darkness outside the staircase, and he’s fragmented. Then we come up, he’s gone again.” Blaschke says, “Then you see him as a true silhouette against the fire.”
It’s the first true long look audiences get at Orlok. Blaschke also collaborated with production designer Craig Lathrop to ensure they had the right silhouette when he appeared by the fireplace.
While Thomas appears in close-up, Orlok remains out of focus. “That side of the room is front-lit. So it’s even more important that he remained very out of focus. We’re still using these tricks — what’s real, what’s not, where is Orlok? The camera moves around Thomas, leaving Orlok dealing with the papers, and all of a sudden he’s next to Thomas pouring his chalice.”
With the scene front-lit, Blaschke wanted to avoid the lighting looking flat. Rather that put bulbs in around the fireplace, “We amplified it with mirrors. We’re shooting in Thomas’ direction and you get a nice rich crosslight when he’s at the table.”
“Nosferatu” was shot on film, something Blaschke was no stranger to using. However, he was determined to use real fire this time around, and not electrify things. “We wanted to see if we could shoot fire on film, so I had high speed lenses made by Panavision.”
Dan Sasaki, Panavision’s senior vice president of optical engineering, provided the lenses to help pull it off. Blaschke credits his focus puller, Ashley Bond. “You need a focus puller who can deal with it because we’re not just using static shots in this film, we have people moving through space, and the depth of field, when you’re at those light levels, is extremely thin.” He continues, “Sometimes it’s a centimeter on a shot that’s this big. So you can’t take that lightly. I happen to have one of the best focus pullers in the world who’s willing to work with me. I met him on ‘The Northman’ and he could handle these scenes.”
How did Blaschke pull off the moonlight shot that lights the scene as Thomas approaches the castle? “There’s literally no red information on the negative. So your film has three layers of color. There’s no red at all. There’s a little green, but the blue layers are doing most of the heavy lifting.”
Watch the video above.