I watched Eggers’ Nosferatu, and I just dont see the point in it. I get people like him, and love the mood and atmosphere he brings, and were excited at what he’d do with it, but it felt really derivative. The original Nosferatu itself was simply a cheap copyright infringement dodge on Stoker’s Dracula, so it seemed like a decision to brand you dracula story this way would surely only be done if you had something relevant to say. Instead it was just a familiar period peice that borrowed the same old timey style without doing anything to point to why it was worth redoing? I didnt think the acting was great but the main point was it was just a boring retread of something seen plenty of times.
I also saw Longlegs earlier in the week. I get why it got attention because it was creepy, but it was all just a bit shit.
On a more serious note, while I’m firmly against all sorts of remakes (and usually against prequels, spin-offs and similar money-grabbing exercises), I think I get why Eggers wanted to direct his take on a classic story. Obviously, I didn’t expect it to tell me anything new but I wanted to see him capturing the atmosphere of a folk-tinged vampire story in his own manner. For that alone, it was worth it for me. At times, it looked like a theatre production of the highest order.
On a personal level, I was quite happy that he name-checked an old Yugoslav/Serbian horror film called Leptirica (“She-Butterfly”) as an influence. Believe me, that film caused me a lot of sleepless nights when I was a kid (I will always love the story it was based on), and I didn’t expect anyone outside of former Yugoslavia to know about its existence, let alone one of my favourite directors, so this was a welcome surprise.
As for Longlegs, I loved its take on
Summary
Faustian pact and motherly love taken through the lens of The Silence of the Lambs and Sinister
. Everyone focused so much on Cage’s unhinged performance (which I loved - the man is simultaneously a guilty pleasure and an amazing actor) but Alicia Witt and Maika Monroe were the real stars of the film. The former especially, she gave such a heart-breaking performance that only a truly evil, cynical person on a Liverpool forum would have bad words to say about! How do you sleep at night?!
So I concede that I know nothing about She Butterfly so if that was referenced I clearly missed it. The result was to me it was just a case of a guy saying “look at me making a film that looks and feels like the 20s version…the one that you could have already watched if you wanted to see this story feel like one made in the 20s.” Even the scene of his hand reaching out over the city was one made to deliberately look one from early cinema, again something we’ve seen in the original, rather than projecting the same idea with the tools he has available to him.
It felt like going to an Amish furniture shop and instead walking next door to buy something from someone who uses modern tools to make Amish style furniture.
Totally disagree, this version of Nosferatu captures the vampire theme, Stokers original vision and the atmosphere of the original book brilliantly. The acting was top notch, the cinematography excellent, the colour and the settings were atmospheric. Of course it’s a retread of stuff you have seen, but it is done with style, taste and brilliance.
I am a huge fan of Dracula the book, its structure and its darkness. Coppola did it justice with his film. Gary Oldman was excellent. This movie isn’t similar, except in story, but is in its way as brilliant a retelling as we could hope for. It won’t win Oscars, except perhaps for costume or cinematography, but it is another important and excellent film in the history of “proper” vampire films.
Excellent.
The weather was unexpectedly shit yesterday causing afternoon plans to get cancelled so I retreated to the couch to do a Gene Hackman marathon. Hoosiers, French Connection II and The Conversation.
What struck me about the last of those is it is a film that just wouldn’t be made today. The plot, at least as it would be described today, is paper thin and requires only about 30 seconds to describe. The result is SO much film time is occupied by him just being the character in a way that doesn’t really drive the plot forward, but it does give you the context for his growing anxiety over the situation.
It’s a fascinating film and a characteristically superb performance.
Yeah, brilliant film. Sound design by Walter Murch is like a character in the film. Murch also did editing on many great movies, there’s a great book, ‘The Conversations’ with author Michael Ondaatje, about his editing and sound design work/career, really recommend it.
I watched Heretic last night. Hugh Grant is spectacular and very ably supported by the two young actresses playing the mormon missionaries, but the film doesn’t quite stick the landing in way that the first 2/3 of the film deserves. I think for a film with such a compelling set up and one so excellently delivered on by the 3 actors that was likely always going to be the case though.
One of the last Cameron did in the era where he was still interested in telling a story, before he fell into using films just as a means to fuck around with technology
I remember seeing that in the cinema and being blown away by the water effects. I didn’t really know what CGI was at the time and I just had an incredible sense of wonder about it. I think the film makers did too, which came across on screen.
They used a similar effect in Terminator 2, and it just felt like an old trick, ill used by that point.
Apparently Cameron’s first treatment of the original Terminator had the cyborg have that fluid like property we ultimately saw in T2. He obviously didnt have the technology to do that back then so changed course to making Arnie a bog standard robot. But his thoughts about how he’d achieve that look led to his work on The Abyss and the success of it allowed him to go back to that concept when taking on T2.
