#nosferatu 2024 meta

[distort-opia]

There's a fascinating aspect of Ellen's character that I've seen some people touch on before, but now that it got into my head I need to go through to it too-- her nature not being of human kind. It's actually one of the very first things Orlok himself says: that Ellen is not human, and he reasserts it later. But then what is she?

"Almost a sylph," Knock says of Ellen. "His little changeling girl," Ellen says her father had described her as, when she wandered off into the forest as a child. "You mustn't be caught up in her fairy ways," Harding admonishes Anna. Hell, in the 2016 script, when the Hardings accompany Ellen on her walk along the sea shore, she and the children dance in a circle while Ellen cries out "round and round the fairy ring". Furthermore, there's more than one explicit reference to Ellen loving the sea in the scripts. Prior to the sea shore walk, Ellen fervently asks Anna to go there, because "it calms her". Later on, Anna herself says that "she loves the sea so". While this didn't make it to the movie in such direct terms, we still see Ellen looking out windows and yearning, again and again... visiting the sea twice, having a seizure in the water itself. "Look at the sky! Look at the sea! Does it never call to you? Urge you?" she cries to Anna.

It's clearly an intentional implication on Eggers' part: that Ellen is some kind of fairy-like nature elemental. The term sylph originates from the works of Paracelsus, and described as a female air spirit, though over time water has been conflated with it too. Changeling also refers to a child kidnapped by supernatural beings (interestingly birthed by the Devil or a water spirit among others, in German mythology) and replaced with... something else. And we could leave it at that-- Ellen is not entirely human. She was born with witchy and fae-like characteristics, an attraction to the wind and the sea.

When she called out in the dark, it's possible Orlok answered also because he recognized this within her. But. There is a type of female nature spirit in Romanian folklore (which ultimately pervades the mythology of Nosferatu) that has specific parallels and a particular relationship to the Solomonar, the kind of sorcerer/supernatural creature Orlok was in life. It feeds into the overarching theme of destiny and fate so beautifully. I find it all very interesting, but I got pretty long already, so I'll put the rest under the cut.

Female nature spirits can be found all over the place in European folklore, and Romania is no different. They can have many names, though the most popular one is probably iele, a name that is literally derived from the female plural "ele". Iele are fae-like feminine spirits associated with the winds and the sky, often seducing and luring men away. What attracted my attention though, is the variation/subtype of vântoase (root word vânt = wind) or the associated vâlvă. In some accounts [1], this supernatural creature is a marked human who was born with the capacity for their spirit to leave their body at night and then go towards the sky, where they wrestle with other vâlve or balauri (which are a Romanian mythical equivalent of dragons, alongside zmei). Their fights are said to be what cause storms, and rains, and other catastrophe-related weather events. When put in contrast with Ellen, the similarities are obvious... especially when it comes to her affinity for nature and her spirit "wandering off". It also must be emphasized that these spirits are not inherently evil: they can do both good and bad, bring luck or misfortune, aligning with Ellen saying that "her spirit cannot be as evil as his [Orlok's]" and that all her life she has "simply heeded her own nature".

But the thing is... a marked human born with powers is also what a Solomonar is: children able to control the weather, ride balauri or zmei, control and turn into different animals-- who are then recruited by the Devil into the school of Șolomanță/Scholomance. Although despite this demonic current association, initially Solomonari were also more of a neutral figure in Romanian folklore. They are theorized, among other hypotheses, to be a later version of Geto-Dacian ktistai, who were selected from priests or kings (Orlok is a count, a prince or voivode) and might've worshipped Zamolxe, a Geto-Dacian God associated with the sky as well as immortality (Ancient Dacian is what Orlok speaks; Zamolxe is written within Orlok's heptagram sigil; on his coat of arms, sigil and coffin there's Dacian wolves as well as balauri-- a serpent-like creature with the head of a wolf which is on the Dacian flag). Some Solomonari were believed to be protecting villages from calamity, and influenced the weather in order to grow crops more easily. But of course, when Christianity spread in the region, things from Pagan times began to be associated with the Devil, hence why the Christian Orthodox Abbess we see in the Nosferatu movie calls Orlok a "black enchanter". More importantly for us though, the Solomonar was also said to leave their body at night in a trance, riding up into the sky to fight the weather spirits. Orlok's Shadow, that we hear so much about, is an integral part of a Solomonar's powers: the ability to project one's spirit away from their body. Them riding balauri is a metaphor for them taming winds, summoning vântoase.

So. Vâlvă, vântoasă, ială and Solomonar share quite a lot of characteristics, don't they? A source I found made the comparison directly, which is what set me on this path [1]. Humans born with powers-- one typically male, one female. But the male one is schooled and part of a cult or hierarchy, taking control of the nature element, while the vâlvă/vântoasă/ială is the nature element.

Yet the expected dynamic between summoner and summoned is so deliciously subverted with Ellen and Orlok! Orlok definitely recognized someone of his own nature in Ellen. Someone born with magic, essentially. Someone not of human kind. But Ellen's power is something Orlok's kind traditionally controls. A Solomonar tames and summons the winds (vântoasele)... and don't we see Orlok's spirit call to Ellen more than once? Orlok asserts his influence through the lilac-scented lock of hair, latching onto Ellen through it. He trespasses in Ellen's dreams, brings her spirit to him in the Castle when he feeds on Thomas, and we see her naked and on top of Thomas too, eerie and with blood spilling out of her mouth (very female-spirit-who-preys-upon-men coded, which is even more directly spelled out later in the scene where Ellen provokes Thomas into having sex with her). All along, we see Ellen overcome by seizures and trances, writhing under Orlok's Shadow. This is the power he has over her.

Hah. But Orlok is not just a Solomonar, Ellen is not just a spirit of the wind, and here's where I think another fascinating layer comes in. In the movie, ultimately, Orlok is a strigoi. The strigoi is a Romanian folk creature that can be vampiric, though that's not always what it does. It's a troubled spirit that rises from the grave to prey upon the living (especially their loved ones, to whom they return to first), by eating/killing their animals, poisoning their crops, drinking their blood and creating all manner of disaster. One can become a strigoi in many ways, including a life of sin, suicide, being cursed by a witch, etc. But importantly, there's also two types of strigoi-- the alive strigoi, and the dead strigoi [2]. The alive type is a sorcerer who in life already slips into these evil behaviors with intent, while the dead type rises from the grave and mindlessly feeds upon their loved ones and their village (the revenant we see killed by the Romani vampire hunter in the film). Orlok is a mix of things that make him unique, much like how Dracula was described as atypical multiple times in Bram Stoker's novel. He was a sorcerer and a Solomonar in life (an alive strigoi, something a source from the 19th century asserted-- that Solomonari were strigoi), who was then risen from the grave by a witch (becoming a dead strigoi). As a result, he has retained all his mental faculties and his magical powers.

But the enchantress who calls upon Orlok as a strigoi is partly an air elemental. She caused him to rise from the grave, and that is how she asserts her power over him. Yet she's of the air, of the wind, of the sea... all the things a Solomonar is a master of! So I think this is a contributing factor to the Covenant Orlok makes with Ellen. When they first meet there is not only recognition of someone similar to himself ("You... You..."), but also of a specific connection between what the two of them are. He immediately seeks a Covenant with Ellen, and then when she breaks it, comes after her in person. When they first talk and Ellen rejects him, he says "You will submit."

As Eggers pointed out too, there is a huge need for possession on Orlok's side. It's left ambiguous if he wants to own her or destroy her or if he loves her... To me, this added aspect illuminates a big part of why Orlok also resents Ellen ("You are my affliction"). It isn't just that a woman has him in her thrall, a man and a Lord who wielded great power in life-- but also that she is air, a vântoasă, the element of his dominion. It's so delicious how there's a bidirectional supernatural element between them... Orlok may feel he is owed possession of Ellen, with the deeper layer of the male sorcerer taming the unknowable chaotic female elemental. But Orlok is a strigoi risen from the grave by Ellen as an enchantress, hence she is owed possession of him as her summoned Creature. So there's two tethers between them, each connected to a different aspect of their natures; Orlok is holding one end, Ellen is holding the other. (To be honest, my headcanon is that when we see Ellen levitate, that's not Orlok, it's her air-related power. She levitates upwards in the very first scene of the film right as Orlok says she isn't human, as if it's a manifestation of that. When Orlok feeds on Thomas and she is there in spirit, we see them levitate; except it's Ellen we see fall down to the ground, while Orlok and Thomas are shown to have always been on the ground. And in every scene with Orlok in person, it could be that she gets on her tiptoes progressively to get closer and closer to his face; but it also looks as if she's floating upwards.)

This ended up a way too long honest-to-God essay, but I just adore all the complexities of this movie. You can tell how much Eggers researched, how many details and references he wove into the story, all meant to connect but kept ambigous enough that multiple theories are possible. While the association between Solomonar and strigoi and vampire was something Stoker did too, that Murnau did too, none of them thought to take it as far as creating a connection to Ellen steeped also in folklore. The vampire has a supernatural hold over his bride, but now so does she. The Enchantress summons the undead Strigoi, the Solomonar summons the Vântoasă. How much more fated can you get?

I'm supplying two more in-depth sources I used below as downloadable pdfs, but fair warning, they're in Romanian:

[1] Mituri pluviale românești în context universal, Silvia Ciubotaru

[2] Șapte Eseuri Despre Strigoi, Marineasa, 1998

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

"Our spirits are one, ever-eternally": Ellen and Count Orlok in “Nosferatu” (2024)

“Nosferatu” (2024) is filled with unreliable narrators, including Ellen herself. As Robert Eggers tells us in several interviews, Ellen “has an innate understanding about the shadow side of the world that we live in that she doesn’t have language for. This gift and power that she has isn’t in an environment where it’s being cultivated, to put it mildly. It’s pretty tragic”. Robert Eggers tries "to stay in the worldview of [his] characters” in every way; time period, beliefs, behavior and way of thinking. The dialogue doesn't reflect the "true" story (exposition), but what his characters believe to be the truth. Which means: while Ellen possesses this gift (mediumship; enchantress), she lacks the language (and consequently the knowledge) to understand her power, and who she truly is. As a consequence, Ellen is confused, filled with inner conflict and a deep identity crisis.

What Ellen says about her connection with Orlok, during the first and the second act of the film, it's what she believes to be the truth (what Victorian society tells her): because she doesn’t understand herself, nor her own power. Like Robert Eggers tells us, Victorian society doesn’t provide her with the answers nor the knowledge she needs in order to fully know herself, because she keeps "being shut down, and corseted up, and tied to the bed, and quieted with ether. Misunderstood, misdiagnosed"; and "she's isolated [...] and people consider her melancholic and hysterical [...] a woman who's a victim of 19th-century society". Which is why it’s a character outside of this society (outcast) and versed on older wisdom (Alchemy, mystic philosophy, the occult), Professor Von Franz, who begins to unravel the mystery around her “sickness”, and provides her with the language she needs. 

The other character who also gives Ellen this “language” is Count Orlok himself, because he’s a representation of hidden knowledge and ancient truth. And as such, he’s the only truthful character in this entire story, he's the character who tells the audience the true story, and, as a ancient Pagan force, he’s demonized by Christian organized religion as a "devil worshipper". He recognizes Ellen for what she truly is: an enchantress, a necromancer, who can command the elements with the power of her voice. He gives her this knowledge before she’s ready to hear it because he wants to trigger her spiritual transformation and liberation, and for her to accept her true power (death). But more on this later. 

Orlok's Shadow

The first and second acts of the story are all about Orlok’s shadow. At the prologue, he appears at Ellen’s window as a shadow (asking for entrance); the Transylvanian characters warn Thomas about Orlok’s shadow, Thomas feels the heaviness of Orlok’s shadow before even arriving at Castle Orlok, and then he’s lost in Orlok shadow even after being exorcised by the Orthodox Nuns. His hand is a shadow accross Wisburg. He appears at Ellen's window as a shadow, twice. And even in the third act, he’s a shadow walking through Ellen and Thomas apartment when Ellen herself gives him entrance into the house. This “shadow” isn’t aesthetic; this has deep meaning in the narrative.  

This is connected with Orlok being a strigoi from Balkan folklore (with origins in Dacian mythology). In some legends, strigoi possess astral projection powers, being able to appear as shadows or ghosts. This is Orlok’s case in “Nosferatu” (2024), as he haunts Ellen, because strigoi don’t haunt places or communities (as a whole), but one particular person (and others as unfortunate collaterals); after she resurrects him (a fact confirmed four times in the film; twice by Orlok, and twice by Ellen herself).

At the prologue, Ellen is in her teenage years, she's 15-years-old (confirmed by composer Robin Carolan in an online interview, alongside Robert Eggers), and, through her prayer, she commands “a guardian angel, a spirit of any celestial sphere, anything” to come to her (enchantress). She unconsciously brings Orlok back from the dead (necromancer). There’s an immediate recognition from Orlok’s part: he not only knows what she is, but who she is (reincarnation theme: strigoi haunt the one they loved the most in their life).

Next, we see Ellen walking outside of her family manor, and, in garden of lilacs, she starts to moan, in obvious sexual pleasure, as she swears to be one with Orlok ever-eternally. However, he’s not touching her in anyway, because when he does touch her, she has a violent seizure. He grabs her neck, and almost suffocates her in the process. This scene isn't merely symbolic of sexual awakening (sex), but her power (death) has awoken, as well; both through Orlok.

Robert Eggers established several things at the prologue of "Nosferatu":

Orlok and Ellen's communications are telepathic (he talks to her inside of her mind);

Ellen was masturbating;

If Orlok does touch her during their spiritual communications she almost dies (which is something we never see happening again in the film);

Ellen didn't gave Orlok entrance (invitation) into her family manor (Orlok having to be invited in is very-well established in the narrative).

While on his way to Wisburg, Orlok says to Ellen: “Soon I will be no more a shadow to you. Your spirit was never enough. Soon our flesh shall embrace and we shall be as one”. This is the confirmation to the audience Orlok was no more than a shadow at Ellen’s window during her teenage years (because she never gave him entrance into her family manor, which will be confirmed later in the narrative). This is also connected to the "Wuthering Heights" inspiration behind this story: like Catherine's ghost to Heathcliff, Orlok was also a shadow, a ghost, at Ellen's window.

Conjuring and Communicating with Orlok

Fast forward a few years, Ellen is married to Thomas Hutter, and Victorian doctors have diagnosed her as “melancholic” and “hysterical” during her teenage years; she was a sleepwalker, had “epilepsies” and “nightmares”. Everything went away when she met and married Thomas, to the point she believes it was their love that made her “normal”, and she’s also under the assumption that Orlok “took her as his lover” in the past. 

Like Robert Eggers tells us, Ellen doesn't understand her power because Victorian society doesn't give her the language for her to be able to. And her and Orlok were, indeed, lovers, but 300 years in the past (late 16th century), not in the 19th century (and maybe she does have memories of this).

“Melancholia” was a fairly common medical diagnosis in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In this time period, “melancholia” wasn’t connected with depression or depressive episodes as we know it today. In the 19th century, the diagnose “melancholia” was used to describe “abnormal beliefs”, such as hallucinations and delusions. Which is what Dr. Sievers tells Professor Von Franz after his examination of Ellen: “I have myself seen women of nervous constitutions invent any manor of delusion.” And why every Victorian character dismisses everything Ellen says as “fancies” or “foolish dreams” (delusions, things of her imagination, not real);

During the Victorian era, “hysteria” was an umbrella diagnosis, which was used to label almost every single female "medical disorder” of the mind; and it could go from faintness, nervousness, insomnia, muscle spasms, irritability, loss of appetite to a “tendency to cause trouble”. Hysteria was a mental disorder and was exclusive to women, and was believed to be caused by a “wandering womb” (connection to female sexuality). 

In the first act of the film, Herr Knock (Orlok’s fanatical servant) performs a Solomonar Sex Magick ritual (masturbation) to conjure and communicate with Orlok, and inform him that Thomas is on his way to Transylvania. This scene gives the audience two bits of information: 

It’s sexual energy that conjures/summons Orlok; 

Orlok has to be summoned (invited) for these communications to happen. 

And now we have the answer to what Ellen has been doing in her teenage years: she was masturbating, and Orlok’s shadow would appear at her window (because he's summoned by sexual energy). He was a haunting, and he might (or not) have talked to her on occasion, telepathically, inside of her mind. This is a spiritual connection, not a physical one.

And her father caught her masturbating and shouted “sin!” and threatened to have her institutionalized because masturbation was considered the “ultimate sin” in Victorian society. It was called “self-pollution” and “self-abuse”, and both a moral and physical evil. Medical manuals adverted against this “evil”, for both men and women. In the early 19th century, female masturbation was considered a “anti-social behavior”, a form of insanity (“lunacy”) and epilepsy, and was believed to increase the risk of hysteria in women. Which is aligned with the Victorian diagnose of Ellen's character.

Which is what Ellen says to Professor Von Franz: “At last Papa found me once laying… unclothed, I was… my body… my flesh… my.. Sin, sin, he said… He would have sent me to someplace… I shan’t go… I –” She uses the term “Papa” here (after previously addressing her father as “father”) because she wants to project an image of innocence and naivety, as she’s discussing sexual matters in front of men; and in the early 19th century women weren’t supposed to know about such things, nor have sexual pleasure/desire at all.

Ellen’s communications with Orlok are very sexual in nature because, as the narrative has established, it’s sexual energy that conjures him. And so, when Ellen is having sexualized body spasms ("hysteric fits"), she’s channeling her sexual energy to summon Orlok to her, and talk with him telepathically, inside of her mind (like we saw at the prologue and with Herr Knock ritual).

Ellen is the one who controls their entire connection through her spiritual power, and she calls out to him, always. Because Orlok needs an invitation (summoning) to reach others (unless he feeds on their blood/soul like he did with Thomas). It was Ellen's spiritual power that put an end to their communications; she stopped masturbating and conjuring him when she met Thomas, and that's why the "haunting" ceased.

The “maiden’s token” she sent with Thomas was meant for Orlok, and an invitation for him to haunt her again. Ellen has premonitions (she had a dream just after the prologue); and she knows Thomas will be sent to Orlok. She does this token in front of her symbolic window, and the next scene after this is Herr Knock’s conjuring Orlok.

These sorts of gifts were considered a sign of love and devotion. However, during the Victorian era, it was also common to keep locks of hair from deceased loved ones in pieces of jewellery, especially lockets, which is another symbolic connection with Death (Orlok). And this interpretation is also supported by the "Wuthering Heights" inspiration behind this story.

When Thomas is already in Orlok’s castle in Transylvania, the count notices his “maiden token”, and asks to see it. As he opens it, and smells it, he immediately notices the scent of lilacs on Ellen’s hair. To Orlok, this is a confirmation that Ellen remembers their past life together, because like costume designer Linda Muir tells us, lilacs remind Orlok "from when he was alive” and in connection with Ellen. His passion and desire to merge souls with her is the only humanizing trait he was able to keep in his cursed strigoi self (who stripped him of all his best human qualities).

Orlok, then, uses this maiden token to perform his Sex Magick ritual to divorce Ellen and Thomas in the spiritual realm; he already tricked Thomas into signing the covenant papers (divorce papers, where Thomas forsakes Ellen to Orlok), and Orlok pays for Ellen dowery by giving him a sack of gold; they are divorced in the physical world. And he compels Ellen to “dream only of" him, for this specific occasion, in order to perform the ritual, which is why we see her sleepwalking and having visions of herself as Orlok. "Your husband is lost to you." = "You are divorced now".

"It is not me. It is your own nature."

Like any “regular vampire”, Orlok has to be invited into places, he has to be given entrance, and the film establishes this with all the windows, and the narrative itself:

At the prologue, Orlok appears at Ellen’s window: asking for entrance;

The Orthodox Nuns tell Thomas “remain here. His evil cannot enter this house of God” (it has nothing to do with God, but with Orlok not be giving entrance, because, he keeps his sarcophagus in the chapel of Grünewald Manor, to symbolize his yearning for higher spiritual realms and his desire in breaking free from his Nosferatu curse);

Ellen opens a window at Hardings household for Orlok to enter (she also gives him entrance into the city);

Thomas tells Ellen at the carriage scene (when she asks to go with them): “Of course not, Ellen. You must be kept safe away" because Orlok does not have entrance into their apartament;

After finding Harding dead, Dr. Sievers says to Von Franz and Thomas: “But Orlok… Will he not have already risen? Should we not return to our homes?” Where he can’t enter and they are safe from him;

Ellen opens the window of her own house at the end, asking Orlok to come to her and giving him entrance.

However, when Ellen gives Orlok entrance into the Harding household, she doesn’t know this; and opens the window to him, unaware of what this implies (dooming everyone inside). And this is, yet, another confirmation of how Orlok was nothing more than a shadow at her window during her teenage years. And this entire scene also proves how oblivious of her own power (nature) Ellen truly is, because Professor Von Franz has only now recognized her mediumship, her ability to communicate with the spiritual realm.

Ellen believes these communications only happen with Orlok specifically (and not with the spiritual world as a whole). And, now, she thinks Orlok possesses her like a "demon", because of what Professor Von Franz said, but he talked about her being "obsessed" of some spirit, most likely a demon (spiritual obsession).

This is the first time they are meeting "in the flesh", and Ellen appears to have never seen his physical appearance before, as she uses the term “feel”. She says, in a both sexual and accusing tone: “I have felt you like a serpent crawling in my body”, meaning, she believes Orlok, like a demon, has been possessing her this whole time and forcing her to have sexualized body spasms ("hysteria"). And she accuses him of corrupting her innocence ("I was but an innocent child"). Ellen calls herself "child" in this context because the concept of "teenager" or "adolescence" didn't exist in the 19th century (only created after World War II); people would go from "childhood" into "adulthood" with no phase in-between. All of this is connected with Victorian views of female sexuality; in the early 19th century, women were believed to have no sexual desire whatsoever, and their sexuality was owned and controlled by their husbands, which is why she refutes Orlok (“It is your own nature”) with “No, I love Thomas”.

Ellen doesn’t understand her own power and Victorian society tells her she doesn't have sexual desire (or if she does it's evil and demonic), and, as a consequence, she can't take accountability it is her whom has been summoning Orlok to her this entire time. Which is why Orlok asks her: “And thought you I would not return? Thought you I would not? Your passion is bound to me.” For his part, he is under the impression Ellen knows what she's been doing, because she keeps conjuring him to her, and her hair smells of lilacs. Which is why he accuses her of being false when she claims to hate him ("l abhor you").

Ellen also accuses him of being a "villain" ("evil"), to which he replies "I am an appetite, nothing more", denying being the villain she claims him to be. He’s a strigoi who has to feed on blood/souls in order to sustain his wrecked existence, but he takes no joy, nor pleasure, in this. An existence she cursed him with, as he’ll elaborate next:

"O’er centuries, a loathsome beast I lay within the darkest pit ‘til you did wake me, enchantress, and stirred me from my grave."

During this scene, Orlok gives Ellen hidden knowledge about her true nature (power): “I told you, you are not of human kind.” He calls her an “enchantress” (or “incantrix”); a practitioner of feminine magic (a witch), who uses words, incantations, songs, spells and prayer to shape reality, gifted with magic power and authority to command the elements by the power of her word. He also discloses her being a necromancer, who brough him back from the dead (“you did wake me, enchantress, and stirred from my grave”), and she's connected with him being a strigoi (“you are my affliction”). “Affliction” as in “sickness”; “disease”, “plague”, "sorrow of all sorrows".

The reincarnation theme is introduced in this scene, as Orlok says: “Yet I cannot be sated without you." In 16th century English, the term "sated" is connected to the verb “sit”, as in “rest” or “lie”. Which translates to: “I cannot rest without you”. Which explain their covenant of being together ever-eternally. He can’t find peace in death without Ellen's spirit at this side. 

This scene culminates with Orlok giving Ellen a “three nights countdown”. This was the first night where she denied herself, because she denied taking ownership or even acknowledging her power/nature (death), and, as consequence, she will suffer him, the monster of her own creation, to bring death (her power) to those she loves (the living; Victorian society). 

If Ellen doesn’t submit to her power (death) on the third night, Orlok says he'll destroy her "called husband", and she thinks he means Thomas. Orlok attacks Anna Harding, first, to show Ellen how she gave him entrance into the house. On a symbolic level, Anna Harding is the perfect “Victorian woman ideal” (God-fearing, devoted wife and mother, living exclusively for and by her husband and children). Orlok's true purpose with this threat is to destroy Ellen's Victorian self-deception ("you deceive yourself"), and force her to see what he told her twice already (“you are not for the living, you are not of human kind”). He wants her to see that her nature (power) will never be accepted by Victorian society. 

"Another night has passed..."

The next morning, Friedrich Harding (the “Victorian patriarch”) expels both Thomas and Ellen from his household, because he blames Ellen for Anna’s sickness. Anna is the “Victorian woman ideal”, and she spent the night with Ellen (the "hysteric melancholic"), and now she’s “sick”: Ellen’s contagion is the one to blame. Ellen tries to reason with Friedrich to let them stay. She also mentions Professor Von Franz, which indicates her desire to speak to him, and get advice from the Professor (but this won't happen until the next day).

Friedrich Harding scolds Ellen for her behavior (nature): “Find the dignity to display the respect for your caretaker” and calls her a social embarrassment to Thomas because of it: “And for your husband’s sake, I pray you might learn how to conduct yourself with more deference".

At home with Thomas, Ellen reveals her personal history with Orlok (“I know him”), and she has accepted she was the one who unleashed him into the world ("I have brought this evil upon us") with her prayer ("I called out..."), because she wanted company and tenderness. However, and since she didn't got the opportunity to talk with Professor Von Franz, Ellen doesn’t understand her power, and she still thinks of Orlok as a demon possessing her, and that it was Thomas’ love that drove Orlok away, and not her withdrawing her invitation of him.

Ellen says she dreams of Orlok every night, and it’s very shameful to her (which implies these are sex dreams): "He stalks me in my dreams, all my sleeping thoughts are of him, every night–" And this can’t possibly be Orlok compelling her to have “dreams” because he, as a strigoi, can only create nightmares, fear and terror in his victims, and the film itself established this with Thomas himself, and even Anna Harding, as they both collapsed mentally in Orlok's presence in absolute horror because that’s his lore as a strigoi. When Orlok compelled her to “dream only of him”, she sleepwalked but she didn’t see his physical appearance (because this was before the first night at the Harding household, when she actually saw him for the first time ever) and her "dream" was, in fact, a nightmare of her feeding on Thomas because of the "divorce ritual".

Whatever Ellen has been dreaming about, Orlok himself can’t be the one who’s forcing her to have these erotic dreams of him. They might even be flashbacks of her past life, and of them as lovers then, because the narrative has proven that didn't happen in the 19th century (he has been nothing more than a shadow at her window, until the first night at the Harding household).

Ellen takes upon herself to show Thomas her true nature, her mediumship, as she starts her communication with the spiritual realm. And given the context, she probably believes Orlok will appear and possess her like a demon, to make Thomas understand. And this is why she talks about what Orlok has told her about Thomas, in the hope of conjuring him in the process. But that's not what happens because the narrative has established it's sexual energy that summons Orlok, and he can't possess her either because he has never fed on her blood (soul).

The importance of this scene to Ellen’s character arc is that, at the end, she realizes three things about her own power:

Her trance mediumship allows her to communicate with the spiritual realm as a whole (not only with Orlok);

Orlok isn't "a demon possessing her body", it's all on herself;

It’s her who has been summoning Orlok this entire time, which is why she says she'll become a demon without Thomas (without her husband owning and controlling her sexuality) and "I'm unclean!".

Concerning Thomas, Ellen is now aware that he doesn’t recognize her power (nature), and will never accept it. He will always call the doctors to deal with her, and if he manages to destroy Orlok, he might even have her institutionalized like her father. Before, Thomas saw Ellen’s power as a consequence of her “melancholy” and “hysteria” (Victorian diagnose), now he believes it’s Orlok who’s making his wife “sick”, and once he gets destroyed everything will be back to normal, and she will be the perfect Victorian wife to him, then: "I’ll kill him! I will. He shall never harm you again. Never!" But Ellen just realized it's not Orlok, it's her own nature (power), and that he was right about everything he told her, but she's still conflicted. Nevertheless, she says she must go to Orlok, and even uses his threat of him killing Thomas for her husband to allow it, even though Orlok doesn't have entrance into their house.

"More blood shall stain thy hands, another night has passed. Tomorrow night, the third, shall be his last."

And, as Thomas is asleep, Ellen awakes to Orlok's shadow, placing intentions inside of Thomas' head in his sleep. He doesn't have physical access to this house, and he can only reach Thomas. However, Ellen appears to be able to hear him, probably due to her supernatural powers. Orlok is influencing Thomas into killing him; which is why Thomas feels Orlok’s grasp on him in the next evening ("I feel his hold upon me this night") and he won’t wait until morning to destroy Orlok ("No. I will not wait ‘til morning! We must stop him now."). Orlok had no intention of killing Thomas if Ellen didn’t summoned him on the third night. And he would allow himself to get killed by the vampire hunters, in a subversion of the "Dracula" novel ending.

And this explains Thomas’ behavior during and after the funerals. As Friedrich Harding tries to expel Professor Von Franz (also Ellen, too), Thomas intervenes, and begs for his forgiveness, because he truly believes it’s his fault ("more blood shall stain thy hands"). As he says so himself: "Please, it is my fault! Forgive me my dear, sweet friend!"

What does Count Orlok want?

In an interview to Robert Ebert, Robert Eggers revealed: “I think that what ultimately rose to the top, as the theme or trope that was most compelling to me, was that of the demon-lover. In “Dracula,” the book by Bram Stoker, the vampire is coming to England, seemingly, for world domination. Lucy and Mina are just convenient throats that happen to be around. But in this “Nosferatu,” he’s coming for Ellen. This love triangle that is similar to “Wuthering Heights,” the novel, was more compelling to me than any political themes."

In "Nosferatu” (2024), Count Orlok, like Robert Eggers says, isn’t interested in world domination or spreading his plague, he wants Ellen’s soul by his side for all eternity. For her to “be one with [him], ever-eternally". And he also wants her to break the curse of Nosferatu, for that to be possible. Which is what Professor Von Franz discovers when he finds the Solomonari codex of secrets in Herr Knock’s office; codex (a book of laws), and Orlok's final assignment at the Solomonărie school to become a Solomonar, and this is his "book of wisdom"; the source of his power, according to Romanian folklore.

"The compact commands she must willingly re-pledge her vow. She cannot be stolen.", Orlok tells Herr Knock when he offers himself to kidnap Ellen. In this context, the "compact" Orlok talks about is the brief text (instructions; rules; laws) from the Solomonari codex of secrets where the word "willing" is also mentioned, marked, and written in it's Latin form "voluerunt", because codex were usually written in Latin. The root for “volontario” (Italian); “volontaire” (French), “voluntario” (Spanish); “voluntário” (Portuguese); and “voluntariat” (Romanian). In English, “voluntary”, or “willing” as it is used in the film.

Orlok also has his sarcophagus at the chapel of Grünewald Manor, beneath a rose window; while he's resting on his sarcophagus during the day, he’s bathing in sun light from the heavens. Which symbolizes his desire for his spirit to be set free from the Nosferatu curse, and the rotten corpse it's trapped in, and to ascend spiritualy (yearning for higher spiritual realms; which aren't a monopoly of Christianity): "Deliverance." as Herr Knock final words, or Professor Von Franz: “Go forward Thomas, set the daemon’s spirit free!” when they enter the chapel and see the sarcophagus.

“When the sun’s pure light shall break upon the dawn: Redemption! The plague shall be lifted! Redemption!”

"Behold the third night"

The next day, Ellen wants to speak to Professor Von Franz, because she seeks his counsel. She has accepted several things about her power (nature), but she’s still conflicted about whenever accepting Orlok covenant, or not. But not before Friedrich Harding attempts to expel Von Franz (and possibly Ellen, too), from Anna and the children’s funerals, driving home how neither of them has a place within Victorian society. Von Franz is seen as a laughingstock and a charlatan, and Ellen as a “melancholic hysterical” who should be institutionalized.

“Take that blackguard from this place! Your diseased mind has brought all of this outrage– Your very presence does me wrong!” 

In the meantime, Von Franz already knows what Orlok wants, and as the Victorian characters come together to devise a plan to destroy Orlok, Ellen grows restless. She has yet not had a chance to speak to Professor Von Franz, and she offers to come along with them, which Thomas, obviously, declines because she must stay home, where Orlok does not have entrance and she’s safe from him. Thomas says he'll "drive a spike of cold iron through him" like he saw it done in Transylvania. And this is how a strigoi is killed in Romanian folklore, but the Solomonari codex of secrets speaks about "freeing", breaking the curse of Nosferatu. And when confronted with Orlok's destruction is when Ellen intervenes, as she tells Professor Von Franz: "Professor, allow me to walk you to your door" but her voice sounds different. We can't forget she's an enchantress, after all, she has the power of commanding the elements with her voice.

As she walks Professor Von Franz to his home, Ellen says she must be the one to do it, because she wants to accept Orlok's covenant and she wants the Professor to take Thomas out of the house. Von Franz never told her nor anyone about the instructions on the Solomonar codex of secrets ("Do not reveal what is sacred to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine"). And he tells Ellen she was born into the occult, and it’s a rare gift. And Ellen feels comfortable sharing her attraction (pull) to Orlok with him, because he recognizes and respects her power (nature). But she’s conflicted about it, still: “yet my spirit cannot be evil as his”. 

And Professor Von Franz finally gives her the answer to her question when they first met (“Does evil come from within us or from beyond?"): “We must know evil to be able to destroy it, we must discover it within ourselves. And when we have, we must crucify the evil within us, or there is no salvation.” And this sparks something in Ellen because she says “I need no salvation” (and she doesn’t need to crucify any evil within herself either), because “my entire life I have done no ill but heed my nature”. And her "nature" is dual, she's both good and evil, a Pagan elemental spirit, like Orlok himself.

And Professor Von Franz doesn't talk about "destruction", anymore. But redemption, because he knows what Orlok seeks (to be free from his curse): "I believe only you have the faculty to redeem us." Von Franz is an alchemist; in Alchemy “redemption" is connected to the “Philosopher’s Stone”, the “Stone of the Wise”, the “Magnum Opus” of transformation and enlightenment: “gold-making”, Chrysopoeia, transmuting common metals into gold; which was what Von Franz himself was attempting when we, the audience, are introduced to him: "I had nearly unlocked the final key of the Mysteriorum Libri Quinque. [...] No... no matter. I miscalculated the stars. Hermes will not render my black sulfur gold this evening."

And what this means it's that Professor Von Franz is telling Ellen only her can transmute black sulfur into gold, only her can redeem Orlok (break his curse), and himself (because he's seen as a charlatan and a fraud). All she needs to do in order to accomplish this is be faithful to her nature, her power, fully embrace herself. And this is no coincidence, because Orlok has the alchemist symbol for blood on his personal sigil, which indicates he was an alchemist himself in the late 16th century, and Von Franz recognized him as such, after reading the Solomonari codex of secrets. The Professor also diagnosed Ellen with having "too much blood" (sanguine temperament) and the cure is bloodletting, being drained of the excessive blood; Ellen and Orlok's are each others' cures.

Von Franz is not only giving Ellen her agency back in this scene, but also validating her power (nature), one for which she has been medicalized her entire life and one she has been trying to understand this entire story, like Robert Eggers tells us in one interview: “She's an outsider. She has this understanding about the shadow side of life that is very deep, but she doesn't have language for that. She's totally misunderstood and no one can see her [...] this demon lover, this vampire [Orlok] who is the one being who can connect with that side of her." 

And Professor Von Franz confirms what Orlok has told her twice already ("You are not for the living. You are not for human kind"), by telling her that in Pagan times she could have been a great priestess of Isis, Queen of the Underworld (whose "myth of Isis and Osiris" finds reference in Ellen and Orlok's story). Her power is death (necromancer, mediumship). Neither Ellen nor Professor Von Franz has a place within Victory society, they are both “relics” of a different time, a different place, with a different way of believing, thinking and behaving. In Pagan times, they would have been respected as priestess (Ellen) and physician (Von Franz), but in the modern world they are demonized. And the same is true for Orlok himself; who’s the personification of demonized Pagan beliefs, and wants to be free from his curse. Still, she's their salvation.

Professor Von Franz vows to keep Thomas at bay for the night as they'll go on their fake "vampire hunt", but Ellen is still worried that he might return and stop her from breaking Nosferatu curse, as she also makes him promise: “You promise you shan't return to me ‘til he is no more? Promise you won’t return.” She knows the “vampire hunters” are set on destroying Orlok, and are armed with spikes of cold iron. If they arrived at the house before dawn, they would destroy Orlok and prevent her from breaking the curse and be one with him, ever-eternally. Which is why Ellen has a “fiery reckoning” in her eyes at dawn; the "vampire hunters" didn't arrive in time to stop her. And they sure tried. She won. 

Orlok symbolizes everything Ellen, as a Victorian woman, isn’t suppose to desire nor have. He’s not merely passion, erotism and sex, he’s also hidden knowledge and education, as a Solomonar who studied at the Solomonărie (germanization Scholomance). All the things that were off limits to the average woman in the early 19th century, who should confide herself to the domestic and whose destiny was marriage and motherhood (Thomas). Passion is not the only thing Orlok has to offer; he’s a pathway to Ellen’s true nature and destiny as enchantress, Pagan priestess to Underworld deities, the secrets of life and death, and immortality. Which is why she accepts him; he also represents her freedom and liberation. Which is why Robert Eggers calls Ellen a "dark, chthonic female heroine" who "makes the ultimate sacrifice, and she’s able to reclaim this power through death". "Chthonic" is related to spirits and entities from the Underworld.

Breaking the Curse of Nosferatu

As Lily-Rose Depp reveals in one interview, the point of the final scene is: "she’s [Ellen] doing a good deed and she’s breaking the curse”. The goal is to break the curse of Nosferatu Orlok has on himself for his spirit to be set free. And Ellen herself has to die, as well, because that's the only way to break the curse and for them to be "one [...] ever-eternally". And, as Bill Skarsgård, stealthily confirms in the same interview: "maybe that is what Orlok wanted all along.”

To Robert Eggers, "it was always clear to me that Nosferatu is a demon lover story” and "a tale of love and obsession and a Gothic romance". Ellen is "totally misunderstood and no one can see her […] this demon lover, this vampire, who is the one being who can connect with that side of her" and “the only person who can understand and fulfill a part of Ellen”. Bill Skarsgård calls Orlok "the romantic lead" and describes this story as "a very heightened fairy tale/dark story, but also it’s two people potentially falling in love. It isn’t love, it’s something else, but love is maybe the closest thing to it that you can kind of relate to."

The breaking of the curse is a Solomonar Sex Magick ritual: “with him lay in close embrace until first cockcrow” indicates sex (which is what we see happening in the actual scene, because the first penetration can be heard in the sound design, so the audience has no doubts about what’s happening). Orlok drink Ellen’s blood (soul), as their spirits are merging together inside of his rotten corpse (strigoi myth). Orlok is a psychic vampire, it's souls he feeds on (soul trapped in the blood; life force), and that's what sustains him (which is why Thomas had to be exorcised, and he said to Ellen "I will drink upon thy soul" in the first night). At dawn, when the rotten vessel (Nosferatu) is destroyed, their united souls are set free as the blood comes out of it (“freed them from the plague of Nosferatu”). The "willing sacrifice" is Ellen allowing Orlok to kill her, obviously.

"You are mine."

What breaks the curse is sexual energy, and that’s the power Ellen and Orlok are harvesting to manifest their will into being (break the curse). Near the end of the ritual, Ellen has an orgasm as the dawn begins to remove the decay from Orlok’s face, and he starts to resemble his human-self, indicating the Nosferatu curse on him is being broken. At the end, the ritual is confirmed to have been successful (according to the Solomonari instructions), by Professor Von Franz, as he places their symbolic lilacs around their bodies.

And that "last look of love" is not about Thomas' at all, because Ellen is fully possessed by Orlok, as her soul is joined with his and being set free from Nosferatu, which is now an empty shell because Ellen and Orlok's souls have been liberated into the Afterlife. Their souls were separated by death, and are now united by death, forever.

[the-crooked-library]

Nosferatu (2024) is unquestionably a multifaceted work, but what I personally consider to be the unifying idea behind its facets is that, for Ellen, Orlok represents validation.

Her fears are dismissed and called childish?.. He's a nightmarish manifestation of them.

She is consistently disrespected by everyone around her?.. He considers her his only equal. She never uses his title, it's permitted.

She is told to fix herself, misunderstood, and always isolated?.. He knows all the darkest parts of her and is delighted by them. He wants her just as she is, so much that he will lie, kill, and cross the ocean to find her.

The scene in their death/wedding bed is a direct parallel to the scene of her waking in that bed at the beginning of the film. She complains to Thomas that the "honeymoon is yet too short" and tries to pull him down with a kiss - however, he is worried about being late for work, and so he extricates himself and leaves. Cut forward to her sharing the same bed with Orlok, similarly early in the morning; he is startled by cock-crow and begins to rise, but she guides his head back down - and, even though he knows that he will die, he stays. He is her sexual and emotional desire, realized.

Given that there is a plethora of emotions Ellen is forced to suppress on daily basis, there is no singular correct interpretation of her relationship with Orlok. To erase any one of them is to render it shallower than it actually is; but there is no doubt as to why their attachment is mutual. To each, the other is something they’ve never had before.

[ladykatibeth]

Another thing I like to think about: Imagine stumbling across these three married vampires and one of them is like “I am so powerful a sorcerer that I literally beat death itself and can pass it down to my kin” and the other is like “I’m such a powerful sorceress I enthralled a demon and I can walk the line between worlds effortlessly, and see premonitions” and you ask the third what his deal is and he’s like “Um….I used to be a real estate lawyer. I was decent at it. That’s something, I think.”

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

But how would Bella and Edward react to watching Nosferatu?

They'd both be very into the aesthetic of it, the cinematography and set design, the 19th century German setting in general, and the story.

Bella, I think, would be taken a little too out of the movie by comparing the vampires she knows to the walking plague that is Orlok. She gets it's a metaphor, she does, and she gets that they know nothing about vampires but because of all of that she really can't project herself into the character the way she does Romeo and Juliet or even... Cathy and Heathcliff for some reason.

While Bella's more than down for having affairs with the creatures of darkness that man fears--Edward also isn't something she fears or wants to fear and her life isn't like this.

So, in the end, while she'd appreciate the artistry of it, I think she wouldn't think much about it again and it'd be shelved for her as "unrelatable vampire media", which to be fair is most media for Bella.

Bella's also not really a movie person, she always gravitates towards books when she can, and when she does do movies it's either when she's at her lowest (New Moon) or she had to for class.

Edward would think it's great, especially the part where vampires are inherently evil creatures of destruction and plague who hunger for purity they were never meant to touch. And also that part where Orlok dies because he makes love to a beautiful maiden and we see his dead body in the sunlight at the end.

Edward would really relate to this movie and feel that it says everything he would ever want to be about vampires and how Ellen is just like Bella, for real, and how if all was right with the world that would be how Edward dies.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024 (Pt3: I Was Seen)

"Now look, with your Vampire Eyes."

--Lestat de Lioncourt, Interview with the Vampire (1994)

[diamantdog]

So, I have this question about Nosferatu (2024) and I'm curious to know what others think. First of all, I'm aware of the different interpretations, and I'm not one who thinks that the story is about the abuse and victimization of Ellen Hutter. So, if that's what you believe, feel free to stop reading now.

The way I see it, Orlok is a manifestation of Ellen's desire. He returns to Ellen's life after her honeymoon is over and Thomas insists that he must leave her for work despite her pleas. In my opinion, Thomas is also a victim of the society they're living in. He outright tells Harding that he envies Harding's wealth, position, and virility, driving him to accept the task given by Herr Knock. But Ellen repeatedly tells him she doesn't need riches and begs him to stay. Anyway, off he goes, and afterward, the horrors commence (or re-commence) immediately.

So, my question is: would Orlok and the plague still happen if Thomas decided to stay? Since Thomas would be able to fulfill Ellen's desire if he did. If so, then Anna is technically right, and the seizure attacks happen because Ellen's husband is away. Or! Maybe Thomas staying wouldn't matter anyway because Orlok would still be bound to Ellen?

Anyway, asking for myself lol.

[tempural]

Just Gorly Thingz #46: Denial part 1.

Yumejoshi meta in which I have no horse in 🐎

Just thought it's funny when people try to defend the morals of fake cartoon villains, because the fake cartoon villains you like reflect on your personal morals of course, because conspicuous consumption is the only way to display morality in our Joker Society that intentionally tries to distract from real world issues by shifting energy and emotion to fake stuff 😜🤪😵🥴

ANYWAYS changing color schemes of my comic after 46 pages... Very smart and well organized I am. 🤔 I'll just leave the other pages in the warm color scheme and randomly start doing everything afterwards all purple. Wanted to post these panels first to see how the new colors look... i'll finish inking the next parts sometime whenever I feel like it. yap yap yap

[ceccolia]

⚠️Warning⚠️ spoilers for Nosferatu (2024) and The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

Underdeveloped meta/thinking out loud:

There’s something so interesting to me in holding up The Devil’s Minion chapter and Nosferatu (2024) side-by-side. Both portray a kind of attraction to death, where a very young and naive person actively seeks it out, as represented by a vampire. And as our protagonists wrestle with “l'appel du vide”, they deal with madness and visions, repressed desire and sexual deviancy, and their own desire to live against the pull of the vampire. If you believe The Devil’s Minion chapter is an allegory for HIV/AIDS, then death comes as an epidemic in both. And in the end, both succumb to it as well.

One of the main differences is, of course, that Armand and Orlok are very difference kinds of vampires. Armand appears young and beautiful. He hides the reality of what he is. He obsesses over the modern age, walks among mortals, attends shows, and runs the Night Island. He does his killing in darkness and hides the body disposal from Daniel.

Orlok makes no such pretense. He is old and rotting. He still wears the decomposing clothes of his era. His death doesn’t wait in silence, it is putrid and obvious. Ellen knows what she is confronting.

And of course, how they die is very different as well. Ellen chooses to die at the hands of Orlok, with no resurrection in sight. Daniel drinks himself to near death, which forces Armand to turn him.

I’m still chewing on how these differences, especially the endings, affect my interpretations, but damn is it fascinating to compare and contrast.

[theirwolfbicanthrope]

it is tiring seeing ppl in the vampire rat man fandom on different sides positing their readings and interpretations as Correct, often using language that talks down to and is condescending to others.

and I know this happens in every fandom that possesses more than like, two people in it, but still. that being said, I hope that with the blu-ray release and the movie streaming on peacock does bring some more positivity and maybe even more throuple enjoyers.

[distort-opia]

Have we talked about how bonkers it is to get married to someone else while wearing the symbol of your fucked up bond with the undead dark wizard corpse you rose from the dead? It's probably been discussed already, but I need to exorcise all my thoughts on Nosferatu (2024)... so yeah, I just find it such a deliciously insidious choice. When Ellen wears her wedding dress at the end of the movie, welcoming Orlok, she has dried lilacs in her hair from her prior wedding to Thomas, as the shooting script itself confirms. And Ellen had to know that marrying Thomas would break her Covenant with Orlok, right? She swore to be with Orlok ever-eternally, and then swore the same thing to Thomas at a chapel. Later, she tells Thomas, "He took me as his lover then, and now he has come back. He has discovered our marriage and has come back!" She must've had some inkling of what would happen, if she broke her Vow. So then what must've gone through her mind, to put those specific flowers in her hair as she was giving herself to another?

I got so long with this one, hence the cut. In fair warning, this interpretation is very Ellen x Orlok oriented, so if that's not your preferred view on the movie, you might not enjoy reading the rest.

It's almost mocking, her flaunting of lilacs as she marries Thomas. It's almost a "come back and get me". It's almost as if she knew she was preparing this dress for a different kind of wedding ("I have brought this evil upon us"). It's keeping in tone with that dark, eerie scene of Ellen clipping her hair and putting it in the locket, to give to Thomas... but as we know, the locket ends up with Orlok instead. And he uses that lilac-perfumed lock of hair to re-establish his hold on Ellen! It's as if she sent him a means of communication with her, because prior to Orlok obtaining the locket, we don't see him speaking to Ellen. The Covenant between them was broken by her, and Orlok needed to use earthly means of influence via Herr Knock in order to get to her and her husband. Of course, she has premonitions (her nightmare of marrying Death, steeped in the scent of lilacs once more) but it's not a dream induced by Orlok; it's part of her own psychic powers. And so, by putting a lock of hair inside the locket, knowing where Thomas was going... she gives Orlok a way to talk to her. Because we constantly see him use the locket as an anchor of some kind, as he spreads his influence towards Ellen. And then, all the while afterwards in her trances, Ellen moans "He is coming to me, he is coming..." Gleeful, orgasmic.

Am I saying Ellen intentionally and in full awareness did these things, so that Orlok would come to her? No, not entirely. I don't think it's something so planned and so conscious. She is as terrified and hateful towards Orlok as she is attracted to him, and that's the thing. It's a compulsion, a yearning. All along, through the entire movie, Ellen yearns. It's all over the shooting script; she pines and wants and hungers, in relation to Thomas, and to Anna, and to Orlok himself. And it isn't something spiritual. It's a yearning for touch.

"I frightened him [my father]. My touch..." Ellen says to Von Franz, when he consults for her. She feels the need to highlight that, as if her father recoiling from her touch was the hardest part she had to bear, the thing that made her the most lonely-- desperate enough to call out for any kind of companionship and tenderness. At the beginning of the film, before Thomas leaves, we see how much skinship Ellen seeks with her husband; she asks him to stay and make love to her when he was late for his meeting with Knock, they kiss each other ravenously after the Hardings depart to put the children to sleep. And both times, the script describes Ellen as "hungry". Even when Thomas leaves and gives her a small goodbye kiss, the text says "It's not enough for Ellen." Later in the movie, after Thomas is returned and dreams horribly due to Orlok's influence, Ellen is cuddling with him, but he pushes her away, asking her to "get off". She feels rejected enough that she seeks out someone else's physical touch-- Anna's, with whom we see her in bed next, and once again, the script uses "yearning" more than once to describe Ellen's behavior.

The theme of repressed sexuality and how in Victorian times, a female want for sex was demonized, has been discussed again and again in relation to Nosferatu (2024). Orlok is, indeed, a dark mirror to Ellen's desires: he is monstrous because she sees her own wants as monstrous. He destroys and brings disease, because Ellen sees that part of herself as destructive and unclean. But I do think there's a fascinating element to Ellen's nature that is not part of Orlok's symbolism, but rather extends to him as a character... her ravenous appetite for love. Her father deprived her of it, but the Shadow that came to her when she called was just that-- a shadow. A presence. It was not a person that could hold her, a person she might touch. Orlok, a spirit only, was not enough. He himself says it, while he's on the ship set for Wisburg. "Soon I will be no more a shadow to you." And this line was cut from the movie, but in the 2023 script, he also says, "Your spirit was never enough."

It was the script that made me think of this whole thing, really. Mostly because of how it describes their first meeting:

"...for the first time, she faces him in THE FLESH." It's emphasized. It's important, that Orlok is not a shadow here. That he is there, that Ellen can feel him and smell the blood on his breath. But the most damning thing she accuses him of? "You cannot love." As if that's the most important part for her, as if saying "That's what I need from you, and you can't give it to me". And Orlok admits that he cannot love her the way Thomas does, but that he hungers for her nonetheless.

I don't know, I just find this a much more compelling interpretation than a simple "Ellen is Orlok's victim and he is her abuser". Yes, Orlok is an appetite, but so is Ellen. Ellen is an active participant. She is the one to summon Orlok, the one to dictate his actions via his sheer want of her, the one to lure him to her so she could indulge her desire. Except, as it is a staple of dark and gothic romances, Ellen cannot directly act upon what she wants. Not like Orlok can. That's the point-- her desires are repressed, she believes them to be shameful, and so she needs an excuse to let them out. That's what characters like Orlok, who threaten and coerce, provide. A way to give in that preserves the heroine's "purity"; she sacrificed herself to save Thomas and Wisburg! She said she abhored him, she wanted Orlok dead! But then, why wear lilacs at her wedding? Why give Thomas the locket with the lilac-scented strand of hair? Why call Orlok her lover? Why wear a wedding dress and then cradle him in her arms as they died together, once again needing to touch him?

And I will say, it's great how this conflict, this self-hatred regarding her own feelings, is contrasted also in Orlok. "Till you did wake me, enchantress..." "You are my affliction." It's almost scornful, accusatory. You get the feeling he resents how much influence Ellen has on him, but he cannot help himself in the slightest. He denies that it's love, he says he cannot love-- but we have to keep in mind what he says prior. "Love is inferior to you." He considers love a weakness, something that he (as something inhuman, and something he believes Ellen is as well) is above of. But love is Ellen's craving, while life is Orlok's. Orlok is equated to Death. An all-consuming appetite, and they end up infecting each other with it, and then hating themselves for it. Ellen is oppressed by the society around her; her father had nearly institutionalized her, she had to marry Thomas to escape him. She is seen as strange and ill, as having "childish fancies", even by her own husband. She is tied to a bed and quieted down with drugs in the house of a man who's pretty much a representative of benevolent patriarchy. And so, does she not hate them all for doing this to her? Orlok bringing death and destruction on the society and people who stifled her is no coincidence, obviously.

But then again, Orlok ends up with a yearning for a person. Desire for someone's soul and body, not just their life-blood, which is ultimately something human... and he can't deny her, not even when he knows he would die. In that first scene in which Ellen calls upon him, he says "You are not for the living. You are not of human kind." It's the unspoken "You are for me. You are like me," that dooms him to an inescapable obsession, his own version of Ellen's yearning.

Ultimately, the human is a little bit monstrous, and dies for it. And the monster is a little bit human, and dies for it too. I, for one, am fucking obsessed with it.

[the-crooked-library]

Nuance, Narratives, and Nosferatu

As of today, Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) has only been in theatres for 4 full days; and, coincidentally, that is about as long as I am able to let my thoughts marinate before they demand to be communicated. Before going into any further detail, let it be known that this film was made by freaks for freaks; it exists for the goths, the gays, the monsterfuckers, the historians, and for all those who delight in moral and thematic complexity.

With that being said - spoilers under the cut!

There are two principal narratives running through the flesh of Nosferatu, both of them rooted heavily in the cultural and literary origins of the story. It is a nightmare; it is also an erotic fantasy. It is horrifying, and it is also achingly romantic. From what I've seen so far, the vast majority of discourse that has already emerged around the film is caused by people misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring the relationship between these different lines of analysis; so please trust me when I say, from the bottom of my heart, that this duality is the very lifeblood of the movie.

The reason for that is, quite simply, that Nosferatu is a gothic horror film, set in 1830s German Confederation; and its plot relies on the same (sometimes contradictory) complexities often displayed in Victorian gothic fiction.

From the beginning of the movie, we are given to understand that Ellen Hutter met Count Orlok - the eponymous nosferatu - psychically, when she was very young. They spoke, she pledged herself to him, and was horrified to realize what she had done when he revealed his true visage to her in their first visual (and sexual) encounter.

Here, under the lilacs, the paths diverge.

The first reading of the film is perhaps the more straightforward. A young girl is essentially catfished and groomed by a much older, dangerous man. When they meet for the first time, she is a teenager; the lilacs that bloom where it happens become a trigger. He is the source of her madness and "melancholy" (depression), she has nightmares about him regularly enough that her husband is aware of them, and it is implied that she has been institutionalized in the past. Thomas Hutter is the physical representation of her one desperate hope for a normal life - but as the story progresses, she finds herself being denied even that. Orlok's psychic connection with her verges on demonic possession; in chilling, The Exorcist-inspired sequences, she writhes and mutters, prophesying a city-wide reign of death and terror. In pursuit of his claim on Ellen, Orlok terrorizes her husband, murders her friends - and, eventually, she gives her life to take him with her to the grave, saving the city from the plague he caused.

That is the horror element of Nosferatu; it deals with an exploration of childhood trauma, of PTSD, of difficulties maintaining a social life after the fact. It is easy to understand even from a modern viewpoint, and it pushes the film to its conclusion with a bleak, heart-wrenching punch.

The horror is not the only element of Nosferatu.

To contextualize the alternate - though just as correct - reading of the film, it is essential to understand that Ellen’s society was extremely sexually repressed, especially in regards to female and queer sexuality.

Both were severely medicalized, demonized, and restricted; and as such, when these topics do make an appearance in contemporary fiction, they are often inextricable from disgust and fear.

Dedicated as always to historical accuracy, Eggers maintains the same setting-based narrative coding.

In anticipation of morality arguments vis à vis monstrosity, depiction, and modern purity culture, let me clarify: this is something that works within his chosen genre. Horror, and especially gothic horror, invites a deeper analysis in regard to morality and motivation, and in this case, Eggers' homage to the origins of that genre grounds the narrative in its time and location, as well as fleshing it out much further than a purely modern cultural lens would permit. In this context, the details of Ellen's connection with Orlok become paramount to the understanding of the film.

As bits and pieces of their background become revealed, the audience realizes that her psychic gift did not begin with him - and neither did her melancholy, or her isolation. She was born with her abilities, and throughout her childhood, she was a bit of a tomboy by her contemporary standards, running wild in the woods near her father's property; however, once she foretold her mother's death, and once she was too old to get away with eccentricities, her father became frightened of her abnormality. She was isolated, confined indoors, and that is when her melancholy had begun. Painfully lonely and aching for some form of companionship, she called out into the ether; and Orlok responded.

Over the course of their story, he becomes the physical manifestation of everything Ellen perceives as dark and sinful about herself.

He is psychic, he is vicious, possessive, and blatantly sexual; her sensual affection with Anna parallels the evident and physical attraction he displays towards Thomas; and the social power he so easily commands is the same that she lacks, being a woman in a rigidly patriarchal society.

In the end, the severely questionable age gap, the murders, the coercion, the betrayal - all of that comes down to respect. Throughout the film, that is the one thing that Ellen is consistently denied. She is young when she meets Orlok, yes; but she is aggressively infantilized by her surrounding society even when she is a grown, adult, married woman.

It starts from the beginning of the film, when the Hutters visit the Harding family. During those scenes, the men are shown talking business - while the women play with children in the parlour; and the same social framing persists into the body of the film. When Ellen is suffering from what appears to be some form of mental illness, she is referred to as a child by multiple different characters; and when the condition progresses, she is swiftly diagnosed with hysteria and drugged - thus being forcibly removed from the discussion of her own illness. The general reactions to that illness - which is, in fact, a display of her psychic abilities - range from annoyance to fear to curiosity; it is seen either as a disability or a curse, rather than anything entirely innate to who she is. Her fears are dismissed. Harding tells her to learn some deference. Even closer to the finale, when Von Franz admits that she could have been a great priestess in another age, he does so with pity rather than anything else; in their industrial era, he cannot help but see her only as a tragic sacrifice - horrible, but necessary to save the city from a plague. Brought in to heal her, he instead guides her to her death.

All these aspects of Ellen's circumstances find a direct opposite in her relationship with Orlok. Unlike all other characters in the film, he only ever sees her as his equal, which is made even more evident when his interactions with Thomas and Herr Knock are brought into consideration. With both men, Orlok insists on being addressed by his lordly title, "as his blood demands it"; and yet, Ellen never calls him by any title at all, be it "My Lord" or even a simple "Herr." She argues with him freely, and there is a familiarity between them that he is demonstrated to never tolerate from anyone else. Similarly, while he disguises the covenant he makes with Thomas, the terms of his covenant with Ellen are laid out clearly, in full. He does not hide from her; she already knows the worst of him, the same way he knows that she is intelligent, that she is powerful, and that she is not meant to be demure and deferring. Again and again, Orlok insists that Ellen is not meant for humanity - and the true horror, the horror she cannot bring herself to face, is that he is right.

In a sense, he is a mirror held up in front of her own face. Ellen is painfully aware that she does not fit in, and that she never has. The "normal" society, epitomized by the Hardings (wealthy husband, pretty blonde wife, 2.5 kids), has no place for her - and actively dislikes her.

The film makes this ostracism impossible for the viewer to ignore. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the other human characters - even those that do sincerely care for Ellen - never truly know her. Anna loves her, but wishes she would not talk of dreadful things - and lashes out as a result of that discomfort, scolding her. Sievers finds himself bewildered by her; Knock sees her as an object to trade; Von Franz pities her, Harding hates her, and Thomas cannot truly satisfy her, even after being touched by the supernatural himself.

Seeing a flash of a monstrous face while they are together, he flings her away. To him, his experience with Orlok is merely traumatic, and he wishes for nothing more than to leave it behind. However, to her, it is something she cannot help but crave; and she continues to wear her lilac perfume.*

All that to say - Count Orlok is, simultaneously, everything Ellen wants and everything she is terrified of being.

That specific dichotomy reaches its climax during their mutual finale. As it is to be expected from a vampire wedding night, they rejoin in a sequence of sex, blood, and renewed vows - and what is particularly notable is that (unlike Murnau) Eggers makes it clear that this Orlok never intended to kill his Ellen, despite his inability to resist her blood. Though he drinks from her through the night, he stops at cock-crow; and she guides his head back down herself, distracting him long enough for the sun to rise. It is a duet of accident and intention. He drains her; and she holds him as the sun drains him. They cling together as they end - on a bed that serves their wedding and their death.

It is romantic. it is unquestionably romantic. However, that does not mean that the horror isn't also present; Ellen's consent, under these circumstances, is highly debatable, and Orlok is cruel, amoral, and murderously possessive. At the same time, the characters are also acting out folkloric archetypes, with precious little adjustment to that framework - which further removes them from a modern understanding of morality. He is Death, a Koschei the Deathless, a monster; she is the Maiden, a Vasilisa, a damsel. I hesitate to liken them to the Beauty and the Beast, largely because in the original premise of that story, the Beauty falls in love with the kindness that the Beast consistently displays; and it is essential to stress that Orlok has none. He does care for Ellen, in his own way, but he admits to being incapable of love as she defines it in human terms;** and, curiously, that seems to be her primary concern when it comes to the idea of accepting his proposal - rather than all the blood and carnage.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that there are multiple ways of following a story, and multiple different stories in a film as nuanced as Nosferatu. Yes, it is about grooming and trauma. Yes, it is about finding love outside of the cage that is "polite society." I'm sure that it is many other things besides, with as many meanings as there are people in the theatres; after all, I am only one person, and the film grossed something over $40M in its first three days. The point is, really, that this is a story in which a rotting vampire is woken from centuries of deathlike slumber by a lonely voice asking him to be her friend; and whatever these two strange and aching souls do with that can go down any myriad of paths. The film trusts the viewer to interpret the narrative they choose.

* LILAC PERFUME - in fact, it is such a consistent favourite of Ellen's that Orlok smells it on her hair in the locket she sends with Thomas to the castle. Thomas never really learns the reason she likes that scent - even though he knows that preference well enough that he gifts her lilacs in the beginning of the film.

** ORLOK'S OBSESSION - this is a side note, but: the vampire wedding sequence reminds me strongly of the third season of NBC's Hannibal. I suppose that was to be expected, considering that Hannibal is also a Dracula offshoot, much like Orlok himself. When Ellen snaps at Orlok that he cannot love, he responds that "no; but only with you, I can be truly sated." Similarly - "Is Hannibal in love with me?" asks Will; and Bedelia responds - "Could he feel a daily stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you?" I'd say if you liked that series, you should try and see the film. It works with a familiar blend of aesthetic horror.

[ladykatibeth]

It is so interesting to me how little effort Orlok puts into murdering Thomas given his marriage to Ellen is what moves him to interfere more directly with Ellen’s life in the first place.

I know on a doylist level it matches the 1922 version which is based heavily in Dracula (where Dracula just genuinely wants London property to take over England and fucking with the real estate agent is a bonus). But that still leaves watsonian perspective to fill.

Like if he just killed him the marriage contract wouldn’t have been needed. Legally and spiritually speaking (at least in this stories character’s Christian background) it’s fine to get re-married after the death of a spouse. Orlok wasn’t dependent on him being alive to manipulate Ellen because he seems to be surprised, though not concerned, that Thomas survived the wolves.

Maybe he wanted the contract signed to manipulate Ellen with or for gloating reasons, but then immediately after it’s signed he still doesn’t kill him, he’s just like “stay here you can’t travel if you’re sick”and then goes to sleep.

He can control Thomas’s actions to make him unlock a door but simply plucks the pick axe he tried to kill him with out of his hands like you would a kid holding a knife, and then lets him make a run for it. He drains his blood but not to the point he’s so debilitated he can’t jump into a creek (or even to the point where he’s dead!!! It’d be so easy!!!) he leaves him to the pissed off wolves and assumes that killed him but doesn’t check for sure.

Also all this occurs after Orlok is figured out, so like what was his plan if Thomas didn’t interrupt his slumber? Keep him in his evil castle as a midnight snack forever? Let him head back home after marrying his wife?

Then we see that Orlok generally rips people’s throat out to drink their blood instead or gives them literal plague instead of the chest method he does for exactly two people, his supernatural covenant obsession, and Thomas (for some reason??? I get he’s cute but isn’t that the guy who you see as the mistress???). Also given this development it would have been really easy to kill him the entire time and Orlok just chooses not to.

Then he’s surprised to discover he’s alive but won’t let Knock try to kill him or bring him to Orlok to kill him. He does threaten his life to get to Ellen but that’s like the first time in this movie direct murder is on the table.

Anyway this is one of the weirdest responses to a perceived love rivalry in film history. I need to shake him around in a jar.

[hollowingearth]

hey a lot of projection going on there, friend, why did you think any sense of moral superiority was ever even implied in my post? quite the contrary, im criticizing that very attitude, where whenever such romantic depictions (with big monstruous man x tiny dainty girl) get their turn in the sun in pop culture there's this collective effort from said fans to gaslight everyone that actually its revolutionary and everyone who hates it and point out the abuse/inequality usually baked in such media are just too vanilla™/dumb too understand. you dont need to be transgressive in every aspect of your life and i'm certainly no arbiter for good taste or what you should enjoy in your spare time, however, it is disingenuous to not call a spade a spade.

my take on Nosferatu and a lot of the discussions on those same sort of ships that get popular around these parts is that so many people want to be cool girls™ so bad but the truth of the matter is that liking amplified heterosexual dynamics does not make you any different than the Colleen Hoover girlies, except they at least aren't pretending to be transgressive

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024 (Pt6a: Loustat & Thorlock)

"He rushed me headlong through the encounter as if it were something to put behind us. Death, rebirth, coming out, homicide--too many firsts for one night."

-- LDPDL: Interview with the Vampire (2022 - )

[ceccolia]

my beloved mutual @mi-kitamura keeps sending me devastating Armand meta and headcanons so it’s up to me to restore order to the universe. here are five Armand headcanons that are happ(ier)y in nature:

⚠️Warning⚠️ I’m not good at headcanons this just came from a place of deep need that we have some balance in the ecosystem. Have my half-baked ideas.

He goes all out for date night. This one is barely a headcanon. But I think showmand in particular has really demonstrated a love for the cheesy romantic shit. He’s lighting candles and scattering rose petals on a white table cloth. He’s drawing a bath with carefully selected oils and herbs. He’s taking Louis to a fairground with a detailed itinerary. He will get irrationally mad at a carnival game that’s obviously rigged because he has to win that stupid stuffed bear for Louis to prove his worth

It makes me happy to think maybe he has a little secret sketchbook. This is not based in anything really except his history as an artist except now he just doodles for fun. Magnolias are a reoccurring theme.

While I’m on the topic of hobbies I’ve been screaming this from the rooftop for months but HOROLOGIST ARMAND. He was DEFINITELY part of the clock craze in the 90s. He would love taking them apart to see how they work. I just know he’s got a workshop in that penthouse somewhere.

He’s weirdly defensive over Nosferatu (2024) because it commits so deeply to its aesthetic and we know that a cohesive aesthetic in art is important to him. He’s definitely not still mad about Santiago backseat directing and suggesting to get rid of the projections. It has nothing to do with that at all.

I think he convinced Malik to “accept” that he “wanted” to die by bullying him so hard about the sunglasses. Which he then immediately stole 😭