Comment on Just saw Nosferatu (2024, dir Eggers)
OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
As someone who has seen Murnau’s Nosferatu quite a few times, I appreciated Eggers’ ending. The original really kinda ends when Hutter returns home. You get a couple of comedic scenes with Knock causing a ruckus in town, but basically the plague is a backdrop and Ellen just stumbles into discovering Orlock’s defeat. Then it’s over.
Meanwhile, Eggers added a real sense of dread and drama to Wisborg’s plague. The physical + mental toll of the plague is reflected in a more interesting way.
I did get taken out of the moment briefly at the end:
spoiler
When the occultist/paracelsian tells Hutter “No man can outrun his fate” after they fail to kill Orlock in his mansion. The exact same line is from the original, where Hutter is hurrying down a street and encounters the paracelsian on his way to work. Whenever I watch the original, this line seems out of place and kinda pointless. Then to encounter it again in Eggers’ version interrupted my immersion. Granted, I think the context of the line makes way more sense in Eggers’ version, but it just struck me as an obvious reference. ___
maegul@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Interesting! I haven’t seen Murnau’s, but Herzog’s and Coppola’s (if that counts). Interestingly, I don’t remember much of Herzog’s at all apart from enjoying Kinski.
Which forces me to wonder if it isn’t that great a story, or at least not worth remaking. I’m not convinced that the whole “he’s coming” thing, after having literally been in his castle for a whole sequence, really works. I think in the three tellings of the story I’ve seen (including Eggers’), I’ve probably felt a let down from that structure.