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Review of Nosferatu (Robin Carolan)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... For a proficient, textural extension of Robin Carolan's
approach to The Northman, the harsh despair omnipresent and
alternating between creative instrumental and vocal applications and
standard horror techniques.
Avoid it... if you've heard Christopher Young's concurrent re-scoring of the 1922 film, a masterful alternative that conveys the horror and romance of the concept in a far superior balance.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Nosferatu: (Robin Carolan) A remake of the 1922
classic film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror and also inspired by
the famed Bram Stoker concept of Dracula, 2024's Nosferatu is a
highly stylish modernization that focuses strongly on its production
design, costumes, makeup, and cinematography, all of which recognized in
the year's awards. The earlier film's script was adapted to revitalize
the story of Ellen and Thomas Hunter, a young married couple in Germany
who find themselves tormented and eventually tortured by the elusive
vampire Count Orlok, whose obsession with Ellen spans much of her life
and is certain to lead to their destruction. In support of the Hunters
are their friends and Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, who team up to
track down and destroy the villain and suffer significant consequences
as a result. The depictions of the drab location in the 19th Century are
key to the success of Nosferatu, concepts of religion intertwined
with fear of the plague to generate a perfect atmosphere of horror that
is conveyed in the extremely dark visuals of this remake. Despite the
psychological terror and mental and physical rape scenes in the movie,
Nosferatu became a surprise success at the Christmas season in
2024, mostly for its look but also supporting elements like Willem
Dafoe's performance as the professor. One of the most fascinating
aspects of this project is the history of the music that has accompanied
Nosferatu through the years. Most of the 1922 score by Hans
Erdmann, performed live to the film's premiere, was lost. Several
attempts to re-score the film have been made through the years, but most
notable in this case is the commissioning of modern horror master
Christopher Young to re-score the movie in 2022, resulting in a popular
campaign that triumphed in yielding a full symphonic performance and
album release for that envisioning. Young's tackling of the concept is
expectedly gothic with magnificent scope, balancing all the best
characteristics of his writing in the genre for both a terrifying and
beautiful result. His work proves that the world of Count Orlok can
thrive with an intelligent balance of power and restraint, tonality and
atonality, and melody and dissonance.
The 2024 film would have been well served either utilizing Young's services or learning from his re-score of the original 1922 entry. That didn't happen. Director Robert Eggers instead continued his collaboration with British music producer-turned-composer Robin Carolan, whose major experience in film scores was largely limited to the pair's prior work together, 2022's The Northman. It's safe to say that the end result of Carolan's toil for Nosferatu is a direct extension of his approach to The Northman, and all the benefits and drawbacks of that previous work carry over. That score was highly focused on the orchestral texture of its sounds but largely failed to convey any narrative whatsoever, with no modulation of nuance or useful thematic development. That strategy isn't particularly well suited for Nosferatu, but we receive it anyway, and, at the very least, the composer's dwelling on texture does serve the basic needs of the visuals. Until Carolan can concoct a convincing structural narrative, however, and balance the tonal and atonal elements along that journey, he won't find the path to success that Young has defined time and time again. Like The Northman, what's most oddly lacking in his music for Nosferatu is a sense of resonance or gravity, the force applied but not with any feeling of engrossing, elegant style to serve and perpetuate the historical allure of the concept. Instead, he extends the role of specialty instrumentation to compensate, pushing the religious element into the confines of a few cues like "The Monastery." There is an abundance of tiresome cheap tricks in the jump scares and dissonant violin techniques throughout, with surprisingly little rhythmic momentum to accompany Orlok on his sick, determined quest. When Carolan does emphasize this inevitability, as in the striking "Lost," some listeners might reflect back on a Jerry Goldsmith work like Hollow Man. The choral usage varies wildly, just as it did in The Northman, with many of the same techniques. Voices are often applied like the strings in their suspense role, though "The First Night" and "The Third Night" resort to outright, angry chanting. The ambience is brutally oppressive, and the tactic will work for some listeners, but that constant drubbing comes with a price. The narrative suffers mightily as a cost of the concentrated soundscape, making Nosferatu proficient sonically but underwhelming intellectually. The score for Nosferatu takes a very long time to develop its themes, never really doing so convincingly. While there are technically three themes at work in the score, only one really makes any impact as a point of reference throughout. That consistent representation comes for Orlok, though don't expect to be able hum this identity after you've finished the film. The theme comes in two parts, the actual melody containing both descending and ascending four-note phrases, all linear in formation, perhaps as means of suggesting his unstoppable nature. The strategy of the upwards and downwards lines is intriguing but not clear; normally it represents the rise and fall of a character, but the logic is inverted here so that the descent comes first. Sometimes heard along with this theme is a thumping repetition of deep bass notes on key, a simplistic tool just as appropriate for Godzilla but lending a maximized sense of doom in a few places. The Orlok theme is introduced on a music box in "Once Upon a Time," but that instrument only marginally figures later in the score, so it's a largely orphaned tool of foreshadowing. The choir first takes the theme in the middle of "Come to Me" and announces the Count's presence without him actually being there in "A Carriage Awaits." It's fragmented with striking fear from strings in "Come by the Fire," and these formations continue in "Destiny." The identity's underlying rhythm is chopped violently on bass strings in "Lost" under the theme's fragments. Eerie shades return to the choir in "Devourance," both the upward and downward movements of the four notes featured. The choir returns to primarily the four-note descents in "Increase Thy Thunders," the orchestra inverting it to the ascendant variety for the culmination of the cue. Twisted into a more romantic string setting in "Dreams Grow Darker," the Orlok theme is expressed with panic in the latter half of "An Arrival" while chilling choral layers convey the theme in "Orlok's Shadow" in both the up and down formations again. It shifts to cello in creepy movements but fails to muster dread in this pivotal cue. The idea is only barely alive in the whiny strings of "Codex" and torments the love theme as counterpoint late in "Never Sleep Again." Its fragmented, abbreviated version is romanticized sickly in "Her Will," and this technique intensifies in the pivotal "Daybreak" for a moment but dies quickly. The theme receives one last morbidly romantic rendition late in "Bound" as a reminder of the psychological horror to ever affect the surviving characters. The other two themes in Nosferatu are tremendously frustrating because they each hold significant potential for development and tortured resolution but fail to really entice the audience into their meaning. The love theme for Ellen and Thomas Hunter is foremost the problem here, its elusive melodic lines set against meandering counterpoint figures that intentionally introduce torment at high levels without earning the journey there. Because Carolan provides no transition from light to dark for this idea, it is thus a tool of despair from the beginning, its underdevelopment thus later robbing it as a tool of drama. Better identified by its instrumental tone than its actual progressions, this theme guides the ambient romanticism of "Premonition," struggles on strings and choir in "Goodbye," barely informs "Departure," and offers no true warmth in the tortured strings of "Last Goodbye." The love theme does factor prominently in the climax of the movie. After slowing even further and offering little solace in "Never Sleep Again," it achieves some purpose as it is hopelessly intertwined with the descending lines of the Orlok theme in "Daybreak." In the resolution scenes, it endures a desperate end in "Liliacs" with little tonal connection despite a high volume and fails to really clarify itself when given the opportunity in "Bound." Even after the ultimate sacrifice, there is no true love expressed in the score, which seems like an emotional miss. Meanwhile, more subtlety engaged is the Von Franz theme, which is a reasonably refined but subdued idea without much personality or appeal. Plucked on harp and layered with sparse strings in "The Professor," this material is almost invisible in "A Curious Mark" and turns into something of a scientific, rhythmic harp rhythm with strings in "These Nightmares Exist" prior to a more serious incarnation in "A Priestess of Isis." Don't expect to recall either of these supporting themes by the time Nosferatu is done, the four-note phrasing of the Orlok identity the only one marginally memorable. Carolan certainly nails the brooding sorrow and suspense of the topic, throwing enough standard horror techniques at the film to suffice, but this score was an enormously wasted opportunity because it offers none of the genuine romantic allure inherent in the concept. Hearing Young's alternative recording for the 1922 film illuminates the creative possibilities for Nosferatu, and to receive a slightly more dramatic variation of the textures from The Northman for this concept instead is a major disappointment. In context, the score suffices to slash its way through the darkness, but be prepared for an extremely laborious and unsatisfying experience on the brutally long album.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 97:00
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
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