The Playlist: Nosferatu's Ellen
By Robert Bound
Nosferatu, dir. Robert Eggers, 2024
THE PLAYLIST ►
Nosferatu ’s Ellen
Listen to composer Robin Carolan’s playlist for the film’s tormented protagonist, played by Lily-Rose Depp
Director Robert Eggers wanted the score for Nosferatu to be “big and grand,” according to the film’s composer, Robin Carolan. The initial building blocks for the music came from long discussions and text conversations between the two friends, as well as playlist-swapping to conceive sonic worlds for the film’s key characters—including tracks from artists as diverse as Hungarian modernist composer Béla Bartók and contemporary British electronic duo Autechre. “To begin with we just start building up playlists of music, things that we think will be inspiring or interesting or there’s something to really excavate and go further with,” says Carolan, the UK-based founder of the highly regarded, now defunct Tri Angle record label whose collaborators ranged from Clams Casino to Björk. “I start to whittle them down into what I think the sound of the film could be.”
“I made playlists for each
separate character,
imagining their backstory and creating their
sound world.”
Carolan made compilations for each character by imagining their backstory and devising a corresponding sound universe. The most complex profile was for Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), the tragic heroine who seemingly cannot be saved from her deathwish romance with the vampiric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). “Ellen is a misunderstood, haunted figure who’s gone through life feeling a lot of sadness, melancholy and confusion about where she is in the world,” says the composer. A woman of her temperament would have been deemed “crazy” in the Victorian era of the film, but Carolan wanted to tap into her range of emotions, be they obsessive, tragic or, by Nosferatu’s finale, triumphant. With this arc in mind, he was listening to “Romantic 18th- and 19th-century classical music, but also a track by Sky Ferreira called ‘Downhill Lullaby,’ this really dark thing with lush, deep strings, and it’s all very dirty.” Here’s a condensed rundown of some of the inspirations for Ellen’s eerie soundscape.
