One of the stars of Robert Eggers’ gothic horror Nosferatu has taken aim at TikTok following the film’s release.
Willem Dafoe stars as the eccentric Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz in the film, which released in cinemas in the UK on New Year’s Day. It tells the story of a woman who finds herself connected to an evil force and is a remake of the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.
Before Dafoe’s turn in the film, he already had a number of horror and thriller credits to his name, including a role in the highly controversial Lars von Trier flick, Antichrist. The 2009 film became infamous for its graphic depiction of genital mutilation.
Appearing on The Louis Theroux podcast, the 69-year-old actor defended the film, claiming it was ‘misidentified’ by viewers.
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“I think it gets misidentified because of some of its extremeness, but I think it really speaks to interesting things about women’s power, men’s fear of women, the struggle between the logical and the magical in life. There’s lots of sexual politics in it, and it’s not about misogyny at all,” he explained.
“I think he [Von Trier] identifies with the women more than the man. I can tell you because I play the straight, logical one in the movie… But I think he’s genuinely curious and he’s a great filmmaker. So, you know, the opening of that movie and the epilogue of that movie is great cinema.”
The star also took aim at TikTok, claiming it had resulted in a ‘lack of nuanced discussion’ around films in the wake of Nosferatu’s release.
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FOCUS FEATURES)
“Listen, there’s this problem where we reduce these things that are very complex to kind of the warts, you know? And then that’s what goes out,” he said, highlighting what he believed happened with Antichrist.
“It’s particularly a problem as real film criticism disappears and gives way to short form and TikTok influencers and all that. There’s not the dialogue that some films of sophistication deserve.
“And you can say, ‘Ah, shut up be an actor, make a movie,’ but I think it’s a problem because it’s starved cinema a little bit, that the high-minded cinema actually makes way for the popular cinema.”
Nosferatu is out in cinemas now
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