‘Nosferatu’ Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke on Shooting the “Romantic” Film to Look as If It Were Basked in Moonlight
When you think of Nosferatu, romanticism doesn’t necessarily come to mind. Blood, maybe, and fangs. But it was something director Robert Eggers envisioned for his interpretation of the classic story, as he told director of photography Jarin Blaschke before filming began.
“He made it clear that it was going to be a romantic movie, as far as how it looked and how it felt and how it differentiates from the original — it’s important to do something new and reflect the time of the characters and not necessarily what someone has already done,” the cinematographer says of Eggers’ desire to stand apart from F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic. “From very early on, the romantic game became the focus.”
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The film was lighted to make each scene look as if it were constantly basked in the pale glow of moonlight, even the interior shots. Having used the same technique on Eggers’ movies The Northman and The Witch, Blaschke intentionally utilized the monochrome look of moonlight to depict the visually striking and eerie atmosphere of Nosferatu. The film was shot in color on 35mm but desaturated using filters that discard yellow, orange and red light.
“The big challenge, technically and aesthetically, was moonlight interiors and getting them to where they don’t look too movie-ish and too fake, but you also need to tell the story and see what the heck is going on and read faces, which inherently is unrealistic — in a moonlit room, you are not reading people’s faces,” says Blaschke, adding that he chose to film this way rather than shooting in black and white because the latter would’ve given him a different texture and contrast ratio.
“It’s all just the blue layer of the filming working — it’s color film used in a black-and-white way,” he explains.
Nosferatu intentionally doesn’t show Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgard) until well into the film. Leading to his reveal, he’s always out of focus in the background, lurking in the shadows or shown from behind.
“Rob doesn’t like seeing too much of a monster in general,” explains Blaschke of that decision. “He really enjoys drawing it out and having your imagination fill it in as long as possible. Here, we do the reveal over the course of two scenes: The first is the banquet, essentially, where you don’t really see Orlok, and then you have the library where you see his face, finally, at the end of the scene in a wide shot of the whole room. We thought, ‘What are our tools?’ We had darkness, we had backlight, we had shots of just the eyes, and we can omit the rest of him.”
Symmetry in the shots and framing also was an important factor in creating Nosferatu. “Symmetry is just Rob’s taste,” says Blaschke. The result is beautiful shots of 19th century Germany, spooky forests and the Transylvanian castle in which Orlok resides, framed perfectly and centered on the scene’s protagonist, whether it’s Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen or Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas.
Blaschke’s work on the horror film, which has been recognized with an Oscar nomination and by the National Board Review, came with its challenges — mainly, the crossroads scene in which the carriage comes to pick up Thomas on his way to meet Count Orlok.
“That was a pain in the ass,” recalls the cinematographer. “Also, the numerous candle scenes — you’re trying to light the candles and they’re burning out as quickly as you’re lighting them and you have all these 80-year-old nuns and you’re trying to not have wax fall on them or have candles fall on them and set them on fire.”
He also points to the scene where Thomas discovers Orlok in his sarcophagus, which involved a sunset and a moving mirror that took months of planning so that the light would “hit this mirror that’s lowering.” Adds the DP, “There were plenty of challenges; you could ask me on any given day, and I’ll give you a different answer.”
But his work on the film paid off: Along with best cinematography, the Academy nominated Nosferatu for hair and makeup, costume and production design.
Read about the craft that goes into the making of award-winning movies and TV at the dedicated site THR.com/behindthescreen.
This story first appeared in a February stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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