Robert Eggers shares some of his cinematic references, including for “Nosferatu”, and explains how they inspired him.
“Andriesh” (Yakov Bazelyan and Sergei Parajanov, 1954)
“It’s like a Moldovian folktale. This is a spoiler, I suppose, for Nosferatu, but it features a evil sorcerer with a phallic personality and a really large moustache. Parajanov love of folk culture is something that I can really relate to and his films are very inspiring because of how much he dives into the details of folk culture”.
“Cries and Whispers” (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
“Probably my favourite Bergman movie. Very influential to “The VVitch” and to “Nosferatu”. For me, one of the best horror movies ever made even though it’s not, strickly speaking, a horror movie.”
“The Insulted and the Injured” (Andrei Eshpai, 1990)
“This was something I showed to some of the actors in “Nosferatu”. Dostoiévski does work with melodrama and he works with very heightened emotions. I love this russian tension between being very stoic and very explosive.”
“The Eve of Ivan Kupalo” (Yuri Ilyenko, 1968): “This is based around a Gogol story of a certain Pagan celebration, and a deal with the Devil that goes wrong. As they always do. But it has some truly truly memorable, weird shots, weird edits, and a very haunting final scene in a shrine. And it was inspiring to me for a couple of the moments with Orlok in “Nosferatu”, and also Robin Carolan, the composer, was very inspired by this score.”
“The Devil” (Andrzej Żuławski; 1972)
“Another movie I watch twice a year. His wife, who plays the female lead, divorced him after the movie, and he was asked to leave Poland after making this movie, so it’s got to be good. It’s very dark, it’s very disturbing. And I love Grotowski like super inspired, super intense, obsessed, possessed performances, obviously, and I find them deeply inspiring.”
“The Queen of Spades” (Thorold Dickinson, 1949)
“This is one of the best looking Gothic horror movies. The horror is not super strong, but the atmosphere is so excellent. And there’s a thing called a snow candle, which used to be very common to make snow on movies. It’s like a bucket you light on fire, and you swing it around and snow goes all over the place. That’s usually, all Ridley Scott movies were always with that stuff. And they became outlawed just before we started to shoot “Nosferatu”, and I really didn’t want to have to use CG snow. And there was a lot of conversations in the production office, “you will have to use CG snow, just suck it up”. And I’m like I’m not going to do it. And then I’m watching this, again, and I’m sending, I was kind of drinking a little bourbon, too, and like taking videos on my phone and sending it like to everybody, being like “look at all this great snow. It’s not CG, it’s not a snow candle, let’s do it like this.” So we did potato flakes, which are freeze-dried potatos that you make mashed potatos out of an American Thanksgiving back in the day. And we bought all of the potato flakes in Europe, and I think the snow in “Nosferatu” looks quite lovely. Thanks to this movie.”
“Svengali” (Archie Mayo, 1931)
“I love John Barrymore’s perfomance, and his make-up. He has scenes with the first contact lenses in cinema, where his eyes go white, when he’s telephatically calling out to Marian Marsh. And there’s definetly like in Marian Marsh’s doll-like features, and the features of Svengali, are not terribly different from how we designed Orlok in this film, so there’s a similar kind of Death and the Maiden vibe that I found very inspiring. Also there’s a shot in “Nosferatu” that’s in the trailer where the shadow of Orlok’s hand goes over the town of Wisburg that… that shot doesn’t exist in here, but it’s inspired by a scene in this movie.”
“The Devils” (Ken Russel; 1971)
“I also feel a kinship for Ken Russel because we’re both reading books but don’t have good taste. Like this movie, the dialogue is insane. But there’s so much shit going on, you, on first watch, can’t follow how rich and detailed the dialogue is. I gave Lily [Rose Depp] so many movies to watch, and the fact that she said I told her to watch this, I’m kind of like why? Like, you get it already.”
“The Innocents” (Jack Clayton, 1961)
“Perhaps the largest cinematic influence on my “Nosferatu”, aside from the Murnau film. Freddy Francis, the DP, his staging with Jack Clayton, in this and [others] is the best for both of their careers it’s working together […] the staging is always so elegant, and I strive to have that kind of elegance in the movies that I make.”
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