When you watch Nosferatu (especially projected on 35mm film) you are transported to another world. Robert Eggers directed this horror masterpiece that has been enjoyed by audiences all over the world, has critical acclaim, and it has been the recipient of several awards including 4 Oscar nominations (Cinematography, Costume Design, Makeup & Hair, and Production Design). The level of meticulous precision in creating this gothic mood was no easy task. Visionary Production Designer Craig Lathrop was up to the task of literally building this 19th-century universe. Lathrop recently spoke to Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length]
Tell me about first collaboration with Robert Eggers.
I first met Rob at a restaurant in Toronto. I read the script for The Witch and loved it. I prepared before I met him and printed out over a hundred images, which was kind of ridiculous but I went with it. When we were talking I pulled the images out of my bag and we started to talk about them. Rob went into his bag and pulled out an even bigger pile of images which were all the same. We had the same images. It was a good sign that we were literally on the same page.
And how did that experience lead to this one?
After we finished The Witch, he mentioned Nosferatu. Soon after, he sent me the first draft of the script. I started to dig into it, breaking down the script and doing research and then it fell apart, it almost happened again a few years later. We did The Lighthouse and The Northman, and then it finally fell into place.
Excellent, now having worked with him on four films, he’s also a graphic artist. What’s that like having a director who is so astute at design as well?
It’s fantastic. He does a lot of visual research for the script. It’s a blessing because he gets what I’m doing. He’s very attuned to the details, and there’s a level of support that he gives that is rare. When I make suggestions it’s never so much about the budget, I’m always trying to keep us on budget, but I have problems with it when people don’t want me to do something because it’s hard. After all, being difficult is not a reason not to do something.
How much were you inspired by the original film?
It’s iconic. People who have never seen the film know the image of Max Schreck as Count Orlock. It is a great film but I tried to stay away from it when working on this project. They made a spectacular film for 1922 but some time has gone by and there’s a lot more that we can do now.
I didn’t use it for inspiration except for the beach scene. I loved the look of those dunes and those crosses. I knew Rob loved those too. People have asked me about them. Those are memorials for sailors who have died at sea, there’s no bodies there, it’s just a tribute. We ended up doing that on a lake in the Czech Republic. I ended up building those dunes near this lake, which has a dam above – it flooded the whole beach… except for our dunes.
Let us talk about the vampire’s castle. That’s always such a huge thing in vampire films. Talk a little bit about how that came about, and the sparse lighting, how much was planned.
We did look at locations but all the castles that we saw were too beautiful looking. They’re lovely, but they’re just not Orlock’s castle. They’re just clean and they needed to be decaying. We built all of the sets so that we could get the right level of decay. I worked closely with Jarin Blaschke to make sure that we got the geometry right. I designed something, then we would shift it a couple of inches this way and like the staircase a couple of inches this way or that way to accommodate the camera.
So everything was built, that’s amazing… How long did it take to build a vampire’s castle?
Almost everything you see in the film I built. I don’t know if I can remember exactly. I was in Prague for nine months. The project that took the longest to build was the streets.
How many sets were there?
We built over 60 sets. Like we built all the houses, the monastery, and all the frescoes there. We built the chapel at the end where all the rats are. I built all of that so it could be decaying as well. The roof is falling but you can’t quite see it, which is a shame. We built the Romanian Village. Yeah, we built a lot for this film. All of that was built so for two reasons. One, so that we could get that decayed look, and also because Rob and Jarin liked to do very elaborate specific shots, and camera movements.
Interesting. So basically, once you start sketching, you would show Rob then Jarin. How did that collaboration work?
I start sharing my ideas very early. He starts sharing his ideas from the very beginning. Jarin starts a lot earlier than a lot of cinematographers because he and Rob like to plan out every shot. One of my first questions to Jarin is what is the aspect ratio and what lenses are going to be used. Just so that I know how to compose. I’m building a three-dimensional world, but ultimately I’m building a photograph with a lot of other people helping me.
Let’s talk about the end sequence with Ellen and Orlock…
The bed needed to be able to come apart so that you could see the whole thing… and we needed to be able to rip all these different bits off for the camera to get into certain spaces and places. That set was designed to come apart in a very specific way. We also had parts of the room removable as well. I would get this wishlist of shots at the end of the day, and I’d call in a crew and we’d tear the set apart and then they would shoot it.
There were also a lot of rats in this movie, how did that figure into the set building?
The rats were lovely. The big scene was at the Manor House chapel. That one had the most rats. We had several thousand rats in front of the camera. I built plexiglass little containers so you can be sure that the rats wouldn’t get lost.
We also built these rat mats, which were like half a meter square. I took a bunch of toy rats that looked very real and just looked like they were crawling all over each other. We made a mold of those and we put those outside the chapel to make it look fuller.
Another thing for your resume.
I wish I could have taken one. I had all these rat mats. Who’s gonna use them? I should have brought one home.
Did you have a favorite build, other than the rat mats?
I would like to just take a moment to say that this show was a dream for a production designer. The breadth and depth of all the different things that we needed to do and the opportunities that we had. I liked the Harding House. I liked the Monastery and all the frescoes that were done. The street just because it was so big and all the details for each house over each building. I should say we had five different city blocks all jumbled together.
One of the best things that can happen to you as a production designer, and this is in all films, is that you dream about something and you do some sketches and you maybe make a model and then you do the technical drawings and then a couple of months later you walk out onto the studio before everybody gets there and it’s quiet and it’s now it’s fully dressed and it’s ready to go. I can’t believe here it is. I’ve been doing this for quite some time, and even today I get that feeling.
It’s so meticulous. It’s so amazing that so much of that stuff was made because I had no idea. All the crafts are top-notch in this movie. What’s it like being on the other end of this now?
I think that all of Rob’s films have been huge successes, but this one has certainly made the most money. It has a lot of critical acclaim and the main thing about the money is it means that Rob will get to make more films and I think that’s a great thing for all of us.
Nosferatu is still playing in theaters and is also available on home video.
