The directors Robert Eggers wants to emulate: “Works for me”
Even though Robert Eggers‘ stylistic approach has been described as singular by many, he would be the first to admit that it’s a result of a studious absorption of his pioneering predecessors. This aesthetic amalgamation, which is evident in Eggers’ works like The Witch and The Northman, may be referential but it’s also managed to maintain its own identity.
Considered by many to be one of the most original voices in the current cinematic landscape, Eggers has struck a chord that has left a significant impression on many filmmakers who are currently emerging. However, alongside his own innovations, anyone who wants to understand Eggers’ artistic sensibilities must take a deeper look at the sources of artistic inspiration that have shaped his cinematic vision.
Such an exercise appears even more essential in the context of the release of Eggers’ upcoming feature, a modern remake of Nosferatu. Other talented auteurs, such as Werner Herzog, have attempted to reinterpret F.W. Murnau’s 1922 original, which is why fans will be eager to see how the American filmmaker will bring his own twist to a classic that many think shouldn’t be touched.
While it’s easy to see the artistic lineage within which Eggers will operate for his Nosferatu remake, it’s a bit harder to identify the same when it comes to some of his other projects. During a conversation with Filmmaker Magazine, Eggers opened up about the specific set of inspiration he used for the terrifyingly immersive world he created for The Lighthouse, starring none other than Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as the two leads you can’t take your eyes off of.
Eggers explained: “There are many different approaches to period films, and I have an approach that works for me. When this topic comes up, I often bring up Guillermo del Toro, who’s happy to invent his [period] worlds, and he does that very successfully. But I’m more Franco Zeffirelli, [Luchino] Visconti, [Stanley] Kubrick: ‘This is exactly what it is. Copy it. Do it.’ We’ve made a choice, even though we didn’t really have to make a choice—we’ve just done what the research told us to do.”
The director added: “I find that it’s a satisfying way to work because all of my collaborators know where we stand. In the end we have a clear bar, we know what it is. I also feel like, for my movies, the atmosphere can be an accumulation of details. There are a lot of details. If you have that specific reference and you’re not spending time trying to invent it, you can get to that atmosphere efficiently.”
Be it Kubrick’s portrayal of a cruelly indifferent universe or Visconti’s grand spectacles, The Lighthouse contains many different influences that Eggers internalised and transformed into a new kind of artistic thesis. However, apart from the directors he already mentioned, the one shadow that looms large over his 2019 gem is John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, whose morbid fascinations and obsessive insanity permeate the heavy air of The Lighthouse’s bizarre world.
