section_path: Production/Script
section_name: Script
paragraph_text: Script
  
  Eggers's early fascination with Nosferatu ignited a passion for filmmaking that would shape his career. He became inspired by both Henrik Galeen's screenplay and Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and with high school classmate Ashley Kelly-Tata adapted the story for the stage, performing it at their school. Their production caught the eye of Edouard Langlois, who invited them to transfer it to New York City 's Edwin Booth Theatre. Eggers stated that " vampirism and Dracula is the thing that I've been thinking about and looking at for a long time". "I had read Montague Summers as a teenager, and many other authors of vampire lore, but I think, until I set out to make Nosferatu, I was still too contaminated by the cinematic tropes. And so, you're infusing things you're reading with cinematic tropes that aren't there. In doing the research to write this script, I needed to be disciplined to forget what I knew. And then, you start looking at the really early vampire accounts, and you're like, 'They're not even drinking blood, they're just strangling people, or suffocating people, or fucking them to death.' And that was really interesting". He also decided to let Orlok drink from the victims' chest instead of their neck, as old folklores often imagined vampires drinking blood from the chest right above the heart.
  
  The character of Orlok is partially inspired by Vlad Dracula, the 15th-century Voivode of Wallachia, whom the original Dracula was named after. Eschewing the monstrous appearance of Murnau's Orlok or the Anglo-literary vampire appearance, Eggers preferred the appearance of a folk vampire, claiming that "there's never been a version of Dracula or Nosferatu dressed like a Transylvanian nobleman with authentic Hungarian attire from the 16th century." The count was written more like an undead corpse, instead of looking sexy or as an actual monster, an element from early vampire myths. Costume designer Linda Muir sought inspiration from the Transylvanian military from around 1560 to the mid-1600s, incorporating pieces of clothing such as dolman, mente or kolpak into Orlok's costume. Eggers explained that Orlok was given a mustache because "there's no way this guy can't have a mustache". In old Transylvanian culture, all men who could grow a mustache, would have a mustache. According to prosthetic makeup effects designer David White, Orlok's physique was partially influenced by Ötzi, a natural mummy discovered in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps: " really wanted the feeling of Orlok having had all life sucked from him, every last drop of blood." Conceptualizing Orlok as an ancient Romanian count, Eggers made the decision to have him speak a reconstructed form of the Dacian language in the film, while Romanian and Romani are spoken by other Transylvanian residents. The film also makes a nod to director Victor Sjöström 's silent classic, The Phantom Carriage (1921). Eggers also explored the work of French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his findings on so-called hysteria and took inspiration from Andrzej Żuławski 's films Possession (1981), The Devil (1972) and The Third Part of the Night (1971).
  
  Eggers's early fascination with Nosferatu ignited a passion for filmmaking that would shape his career. He became inspired by both Henrik Galeen's screenplay and Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and with high school classmate Ashley Kelly-Tata adapted the story for the stage, performing it at their school. Their production caught the eye of Edouard Langlois, who invited them to transfer it to New York City 's Edwin Booth Theatre. Eggers stated that " vampirism and Dracula is the thing that I've been thinking about and looking at for a long time". "I had read Montague Summers as a teenager, and many other authors of vampire lore, but I think, until I set out to make Nosferatu, I was still too contaminated by the cinematic tropes. And so, you're infusing things you're reading with cinematic tropes that aren't there. In doing the research to write this script, I needed to be disciplined to forget what I knew. And then, you start looking at the really early vampire accounts, and you're like, 'They're not even drinking blood, they're just strangling people, or suffocating people, or fucking them to death.' And that was really interesting". He also decided to let Orlok drink from the victims' chest instead of their neck, as old folklores often imagined vampires drinking blood from the chest right above the heart.
  
  The character of Orlok is partially inspired by Vlad Dracula, the 15th-century Voivode of Wallachia, whom the original Dracula was named after. Eschewing the monstrous appearance of Murnau's Orlok or the Anglo-literary vampire appearance, Eggers preferred the appearance of a folk vampire, claiming that "there's never been a version of Dracula or Nosferatu dressed like a Transylvanian nobleman with authentic Hungarian attire from the 16th century." The count was written more like an undead corpse, instead of looking sexy or as an actual monster, an element from early vampire myths. Costume designer Linda Muir sought inspiration from the Transylvanian military from around 1560 to the mid-1600s, incorporating pieces of clothing such as dolman, mente or kolpak into Orlok's costume. Eggers explained that Orlok was given a mustache because "there's no way this guy can't have a mustache". In old Transylvanian culture, all men who could grow a mustache, would have a mustache. According to prosthetic makeup effects designer David White, Orlok's physique was partially influenced by Ötzi, a natural mummy discovered in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps: " really wanted the feeling of Orlok having had all life sucked from him, every last drop of blood." Conceptualizing Orlok as an ancient Romanian count, Eggers made the decision to have him speak a reconstructed form of the Dacian language in the film, while Romanian and Romani are spoken by other Transylvanian residents. The film also makes a nod to director Victor Sjöström 's silent classic, The Phantom Carriage (1921). Eggers also explored the work of French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his findings on so-called hysteria and took inspiration from Andrzej Żuławski 's films Possession (1981), The Devil (1972) and The Third Part of the Night (1971).