“When you say realism, I
think of naturalism, and I think about natural acting. And when I think about
natural acting, I think about natural behavior. And I think sometimes that
destroys movies, you know? Because we don't just want to see imitations of
life. We want to see something that is beyond that. Cinema is not just
about telling stories. Everybody clings to this. Telling stories, telling
stories, telling stories! It’s about light. It’s about space. It’s about tone.
It's about color. It's about people having experiences in front of you, where,
if it's transparent enough, they can experience it with you. You become
them. They become you. That's the communion. That's the experience."—Oscar-nominated
character actor Willem Dafoe, quoted by Matt Zoller Seitz, “The Art of
Surrender,” New York Magazine, Dec. 2-15, 2024
It would take that most
prolific of movie actors, Willem Dafoe, to present the most passionate defense possible
of cinema as a different style of storytelling—a primarily visual one.
Some screenwriters might
be annoyed at one word conspicuously absent from his description of
cinema—dialogue. But “light,” “space,” “tone,” and “color” are certainly
defining characteristics of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire classic Nosferatu.
Now audiences will decide
if variations on these traits are worth seeing in that film’s remake, in which
Dafoe (pictured) has a key supporting role as a vampire-hunter.
