Hysteria, Demonic Possession and Priestess: The Three Layers of Ellen’s Trances in “Nosferatu” (2024)

Robert Eggers’ Ellen Hutter is described as a deeply misunderstood and isolated character, who is dismissed by everyone around her, until Professor Von Franz arrives to the plot, and starts to unravel the truth behind her Victorian diagnose. As Robert Eggers explains in one interview: “[Ellen is a] victim to 19th-century society […] she can see into another realm, and has a certain kind of understanding that she doesn’t have the language for,” Eggers said. “But people are calling her melancholic and hysteric and all of these things.”

In a lot of ways, Ellen can be considered an "unreliable narrator", mostly because she, like the director says, doesn't understand her psychic abilities due to the society she lives in: "she 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". Her life revolves around “being shut down, and corseted up, and tied to the bed, and quieted with Ether. Misunderstood, misdiagnosed”, and, to "Deadline", Robert Eggers described his Ellen as a "dark, chthonic female heroine".

Ellen has a premonition Herr Knock will send Thomas away

And this was the angle the director was most interested in exploring on his own adaptation of "Nosferatu", when it came to Ellen Hutter's character: "In that period it was thought that people who are somnambulist were able to tune into another realm. Turn into the spirit realm, the dark realm. That was really exciting because I got to explore her “hysteria” and her melancholy and the ways in which she’s an isolated figure who doesn’t fit into 19th century society. She is as much a victim of 19th Century society as she is of the vampire itself. No one can understand her. She has a very loving relationship with her husband, but he can’t see this other side of her. The one person she does find a connection with, who can understand this other side of her is, unfortunately, a vampire. That makes for a very tragic love triangle."

Ellen creates her “maiden token” while Herr Knock performs a conjuring ritual to communicate with Count Orlok

According to Lily-Rose Depp, Ellen's journey in the 2024 adaptation of "Nosferatu" is one of self-acceptance and self-discovery, as she's learning to come to terms with herself: "Something I was thinking about a lot when constructing the character emotionally is that she is dealing with kind of an internal war, accepting aspects of herself that the society she’s living in has no room for. Coming to terms with the darkness within herself, she’s desperately trying to suppress it". "I think that this is an internal battle for Ellen as much as an external one," Lily-Rose Depp tells ABC Entertainment. "She's been struggling her whole life with trying to accept the darkness within and that there is much more to her than just the kind of well-behaved, perfect wife that everybody seems to want to see."

When she awoke Count Orlok from his slumber at the prologue, Ellen was fifteen years old (revealed by both Robert Eggers and composer Robin Carolan in an online interview). Nowadays, she would be considered a “teenager”, however this concept did not exist in the 19th century, as such, these years are called "childhood" in the narrative (the concept of "adolescence" was only created in the 20th century, after World War II).

As Ellen awakes Count Orlok from his grave; so does her power (death) and sexuality (sex)

From there on, she was medicalized by 19th century society, and considered diseased and a figure of the "sick woman" (which finds parallel in 1970's Feminist analyses of Lucy Westenra's character and the "Dracula" novel), which places her in direct connection with Nosferatu, the folk vampire, a representation of death and disease. From this perspective, she, too, is Nosferatu in this story. Futhermore, from a Romanian folklore point of view, and due to her supernatural gifts and awakening Count Orlok from his grave, this Ellen might even be considered a strigoi vii (living strigoi, witches and sorcerers) in compact with a strigoi mort: a common folk belief connected to Saint Andrew's Eve in Romania (which was introduced by Robert Eggers to replace the reference to Saint George's Eve from the "Dracula" novel).

As the original 1922 "Nosferatu", the story is set in the early 19th century (1838) in Germany, in the fictional port town of Wisburg (the cinematic counterpart to Whitby from the "Dracula" novel). Robert Eggers adapted the beliefs and morals from the Victorian era ("Victorianism"), connected to the Bram Stoker's book from 1897. The year 1838 can be considered the dawn of the Victorian period, as Queen Victorian reign has only begun in 1837.

I. Hysteria

According to Victorian doctors, Ellen suffers from hysteria (“hysterical spells”) and melancholy, and is afflicted with somnambulism (“nightmares”). This is how the 19th-century characters perceive "Ellen’s sickness" for most of the story.

The first night Professor Von Franz examines Ellen, it’s determined she has "too much blood", in connection with "Humoral Theory" ("Humorism" or "Theory of the Four Humors"), which means she has an unbalanced Sanguine temperament, which was also believed to cause Hysteria. The treatment is "Bloodletting" (draining the excess blood), which Dr. Sievers confirms he has been employing on Ellen's case, to balance the "humors" on her body and restore her to health. 

"You [Dr. Sievers] have bled her to decrease the congestion? [...] And her menstruations are also? [Liberal]. Too much blood. Too much."

This is a subvertion of the "Dracula" novel, where Lucy Westenra is subjected to four blood transfusions, due to Count Dracula feeding on her during the night, and Professor Van Helsing, Dr. Stewart and her fiancé Sir Arthur Holmwood give their blood to save her. In "Nosferatu", it's being drained of blood that's determined as part of Ellen's cure. 

This was somewhat already a part of the original 1922 “Nosferatu”, where the doctor also attributes Ellen’s sleepwalking to a mild “blood congestion” (when she perceives Count Orlok is about to attack Thomas, and cries out for her husband). Yet, the narrator of the film says that even thought the doctors saw Ellen's anxiety as some sort of unknown illness, he knew "that, on that night, her soul heard the call of the deathbird [Nosferatu]".

This is also present in Werner Herzog’s adaptation of “Nosferatu” (1979), but the doctor attributes Lucy’s sleepwalking to a mild “fever”, and her “sickness” isn’t really explored in the film, although she suffers from nightmares associated with Count Dracula, symbolized by the bat at her window: which is a reference to the "Dracula" novel where Lucy Westenra also hears "boughs or bats or something" "flapping against the windows" of her bedroom at night, when Dracula is feeding on her, at Whitby.

Yet, this works more as a foreshadowing of death, than of any disease of her own (even though Dracula brings plague to Wismar, all the same, and the two themes are deeply intertwined). On his adaptation, Herzog explored the “memento mori” (“remember you must die”) aspect of the "Nosferatu" story, and the acceptance of the inevitability of death. This is not the case of Robert Eggers' adaptation (where death is a pathway to another life) although there are aesthetic references to the "memento mori" motif (the final "Death and the Maiden", for instance), probably as a tribute to the 1979 version.

In Robert Eggers’ version, the “sanguine temperament” also places Ellen’s character in connection with Renfield (Herr Knock’s book counterpart), whom Dr. Steward determines to have the same temperament: “Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves.” 

As such, Ellen's character often parallels Herr Knock's in Robert Eggers' adaptation, and they are in a sort of mirror journey, with a different outcome.

"‘Twas He that invoked me! ’Twas I that was chosen to serve Him for I know what He covets. And He shall cast upon you curses, confusion, affliction and rebuke, for you have forsaken me! And He shall reign over all your empty corpses! Devourence! Devourence!"

"I shall persist to join you every night, first in sleep, then in your arms. Everything will be mixed with abomination, and you'll be knee-deep in blood. Everyone will cry. There will be none to bury the dead. You are promised to me!"

In the “Dracula” novel, cats are also associated with Renfield’s character, as he begs Dr. Stewart for a kitten or a full-grown cat (which he considers as lives given to him by Count Dracula), as the doctor recalls: “I can't forget how he prayed with almost equal fervor for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth”. There is one character who gets compared to a cat by Dr. Stewart in the book: vampire Lucy Westenra, when she approaches the “vampire hunters” in her crypt: “When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us”. Ellen/Lucy owning a cat has been present in every “Nosferatu” adaptation, but Robert Eggers explored this further, and also associated the cats with Professor Von Franz (a topic for another post). 

“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 per say. In the 19th century, the diagnose “melancholia” was used to describe “abnormal beliefs”, such as hallucinations, paranoia and delusions. Which is what Dr. Sievers tells Professor Von Franz after his examination of Ellen: “I, myself, have seen women of nervous constitutions invent any manor of delusion.” And this is the reason why 19th century characters dismisse everything Ellen says as “fancies” or “foolish dreams”; delusions and things of her imagination.

“These hysterical spells come over her at nightfall, like clockwork.”

During the Victorian era, “hysteria” was an umbrella diagnosis, 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”, being “too loud” or “too quiet”, nearly every women who didn’t fit society standards could be deemed “hysteric” at the time.

Hysteria was a mental disorder and, until Sigmund Freud "Studies on Hysteria" in the late 19th century, considered exclusive to women. Nowadays, it's usually called "Female hysteria" in historical and scientific research to make that distinction. Since Ancient Egypt and then Greece, with Hippocrates and Plato, Hysteria was believed to be caused by the “wandering womb”. Egyptian and Greek doctors thought the womb could displace and travel throughout the body, causing all matter of physical and mental conditions.

“Arch of Hysteria” (Photo by Paul Regnard, 1877)

In the early 19th century, Hippocrates’ theories were still embraced by Western Medicine. To the Greek doctor (considered the “father of European Medicine”), “hysteria” was the result of inadequate sexual life. It was believed the wandering womb created "humors", which needed to be expelled via sex, otherwise they would get stagnant and poison the body. 

(Heterossexual) sex and procreation were thought to widening a woman’s canals and promote the cleansing of the body. Hippocrates believed sexual frustated women were prone to all kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. The doctor urged all single and widow women to get married and pregnant. 

This theory of the "wandering womb" in connection with how early 19th century Medicine perceived Hysteria is also present in "Nosferatu" (2024), as Lily-Rose Depp discussed in interviews: "There was a lot less room for a woman to have basically any complexities about her, or any sort of mental struggles at all were easily written off or trying to be solved by some ridiculous treatment, like tying her corset even tighter so that her womb wouldn't be traveling around the body. I think that was a deliberate choice that was really important and that it just deepens the storytelling so much by doing that. You're not just a voice to the female perspective but you're also deepening the emotional draw of this story."

“I am disposed to recommend that she sleep in her corset. It encourages the correct posture, calms the womb, and revives circulation. And if her stirring escalates, you can  always tie her to the bed.”

Sexual repression is a major theme in this 19th century tale, which fits with Ellen’s “hysterical spells”, althought it's more than that. As Robert Eggers explains: “As a 'Victorian movie' we're in this period that is famous for repressed sexuality, and the more you repress something, the more it wants to explode”. The treatments for “hysteria” involved hanging women upside down (by her feet) to “smelling salts” in the Victorian era. In “Nosferatu” (2024), Ellen is forced her to sleep in her corset (used as a medical device at the beginning of the century), tie her to the bed, and drug her with opiates (the anaesthetic Ether, mostly, which later was discovered to increase hallucinations and psychotic episodes). 

In this story, Ellen's corset is deeply connected with her medicalization by early 19th century society, and considered a vital part of her medical treatment. This was also discussed by costume designer Linda Muir, and how the corset is a representation of Ellen’s repression and control by 19th century society: “one example of costume design serving the plot, as you mentioned, is Ellen's corset. I came across a particular style called a fan-laced corset during my research, which l've also referred to as a "self-tying corset"— though it doesn't actually tie itself! This type of corset can be tightened from the front, allowing the wearer to adjust it independently. For Robert, this design was ideal. When Ellen is in the throes of her supernatural connection with Orlok, the men around her - Sievers and Harding -try to impose control by tightening her corset. Because of the fan-laced design, we can see her anguish and convulsions, as well as the men's oppressive actions, without needing to obscure her face or body by laying her prone.”

Historically, corsets have always been considered an instrument of women's oppression, so it's not surprising to see them having the same meaning in “Nosteratu” (2024). Corsets were restrictive devices that rendered women immobile, passive and prone to fainting, and the Feminist movement of the 20th century saw them as “as one of the quintessential Victorian social horrors”. Corsets were also considered a sign of respectability, because they controlled the body, and, by extension, physical passions. And, indeed, we see Ellen’s corset consume her, to the point she tries to break free from it when she exposes her true nature to Thomas:

As Linda Muir explains, Ellen’s costumes also represent how she’s liberating herself from this society, and provide a justification on why Ellen ends the film naked: “her true nature [takes over] in the end. She liberates herself by ripping herself open, ripping her striped dress open. She liberates herself by wearing the same garment over and over and over again when she's staying at Harding's home. So she's liberated herself in that she doesn't feel the need to dress up completely each and every day. And then she liberates herself completely in the end.”

Ellen mentions "epilepsies" in connection with her teenage years, and in the early 19th century, what was considered as one of the major culprits for Hysteria among girls was masturbation (the ultimate sin in Victorian society), seen as a form of “epilepsy”, insanity (“lunacy”) and “anti-social behavior”. Called “self-pollution” and “self-abuse”, was perceived as both a moral and physical evil. Medical manuals adverted against this “sin”, for both men and women, and the “treatment” could go from changes in diet, exercise, clitoral removal to institutionalization in asylums. Which is what Ellen's father threatened her with, when he found her masturbating in her teenage years: “At last, Papa found me 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 –” 

“At first it was sweet… I had never known such bliss…”

And this provides the explanation to Ellen’s “epilepsies” during her teenage years, the ones she connects with Count Orlok: “I was so very lonely, you see and… I wished for comfort… then a presence… and the nightmares, the epilepsies… I… ” He was no more than a shadow at her window; “soon I will no longer be a shadow to you. Soon, our flesh shall embrace, and we shall be as one”, and Ellen is also oblivious to the fact Count Orlok needs to be given entrance/invitation into places (and she dooms everyone inside the Harding household, as a consequence).

“Yet it turned to torture, it would kill me!”

Choreographer Marie-Gabrielle Rotie has revealed 19th century documentations of hysteria were the inspiration behind the choreography of Ellen's trances: “I was really interested in the medicalization of [Ellen's] body. That's why both Rob [Eggers] and I leaned into looking at notions of hysteria and the documentation of hysteria in the 19th century, which tallied extremely well with the period in which [the film] is set. I was thinking about how that body is literally corsetted in. It's repressed, it's controlled, it's laced up, it's buttoned up— and how Lily might work against that and try to find her way out of it in some form.” The choreographer elaborates: "So, I was very aware of some of the images of the arch of hysteria—where women do these extraordinary backbends on the bed. There was one particular patient of [neurologist Jean-Martin] Charco's, called Augustine, who was very famous for doing these. I was also equally aware of the wonderful visual artist Louise Bourgeois, a French artist in her 90s, and she's done a lot of sculptures called the “Arch of Hysteria” dealing with these images of women in cages or domestic spaces. For me, that was a perfect image to work with."

Which is something Robert Eggers also talked about to "Deadline": "[Jean-Martin] Charcot got an artist in to do engravings of his idea of every hysterical pose that his patients made for different reasons, and so we were able to use that as a roadmap to how we would orchestrate the dynamics of her character through all those different scenes.”

Techniques from Japanese dance Butoh have also been used to choreograph Ellen's trances in the film: "I think of myself as an artist working with the body, and I think of choreography as painting the space with movement or sculpting time with movement. Butoh [for years after it was founded in the ‘50s was] quite male. Women only became involved from the 1970s onwards. Part of my work within butoh has also been to work as a feminist marker to think about How can this language be used to explore my own body, my own desire, my own eroticism, my own sexuality, my own darkness, my own shadow? How can I use all of these things as a language and as a tool to go inside and to express, not just on behalf of myself, but on behalf of other women? Butoh was perfect for Nosferatu because it deals with transformations of the body. In some senses, we open the body to being inhabited by various forces, whether that's wind, rain, becoming a flower, an insect, or an animal. In the same way, Nosferatu is about allowing an entity to manifest. It felt like it was destiny that those two languages should meet somehow."

Thomas Hutter is the first "Victorian character" to change his view about his wife's "sickness" after witnessing, first-hand, Count Orlok is real, and becoming possessed by him (yet, he’s still under Orlok’s influence, even after his exorcism). Similar to what happened to himself, Thomas believes Count Orlok is haunting Ellen the same way, and wants to protect her from his vampirism, because he knows what the Count is after. Like Professor Von Franz (at first), Thomas believes everything Ellen is experiencing is due to Orlok’s influence on her, and it will go away once he’s destroyed.

“Never speak these things aloud. Never. It is a trifle. A foolish dream, just as your past fancies.”

[“Keep away from me. I’m unclean!”] “Never! I will kill him! I will! He shall never harm you again!”

II. Demonic Possession

When Ellen meets Professor Von Franz, she reveals to have been a somnambulist ("these spells") since infancy, years before she awoke Count Orlok ("I cannot always remember them. As if my spirit wanders off. Sometimes it was... it is like a dream”) and, then, she speaks of her supernatural gifts: “I know things. I always knew the contents of my Christmas gifts” and she had a premonition of her mother's death (“I knew when... that my mother would pass”). The term “spells” in Medicine don't mean “magic spells”: “spells” are a sudden onset of a symptom or symptoms that are stereotypic, self-limited, and recurrent.

Later, that night, Professor Von Franz physically examines Ellen, as her trance is beginning, and determines her “hysterical spells” are, in fact, her communicating with the spiritual realm. She inhabits the “borderland”, a peripheral area, a portal between the two worlds: the physical (matter) and the spiritual. As Lily-Rose Depp has said: "There's a ghostliness to her [Ellen]. I always saw [Ellen] as someone who has one foot in the spirit world, if you will, and one on earth."

“Her trance state is begun. [...] The pupil is expanded. It does not contract naturally to the light. […] A second sight. She’s no longer here. […] She communes now with another realm.”

Even though he disapproves of Dr. Sievers’ treatment, Professor Von Franz seems to agree Ellen suffers from Hysteria, since that’s the first reason he points out for her being cursed: “daemonic spirits more easily obsess over those whose lower animal functions dominate”, while saying she’s “possessed of some spirit, perhaps a daemon”. This domination of “lower animal functions” seems to be connected to high drive in aggression or sexuality. Yet, the Professor recognizes her somnambulism as a paranormal phenomenon.

Von Franz introduces three concepts connected to Allen Kardec's Spiritism: “spiritual obsession”, “possession” and somnambulistic mediums. But this is where things get confusing in the narrative because, while the ultimate goal of “spiritual obsession” is possession, the Professor mixes the two when talking with Friedrich and Anna Harding about Ellen being cursed. Yet, the Professor, similar to Thomas, will arrive at the different conclusion about Ellen’s trances seemly after reading the Solomonari codex of secrets.

“Now, do you hear me my child? What then do you see?  I charge you, speak now what you see. [...]  Who, who is coming to you my child?”

According to Robert Eggers, “[Dafoe's] Von Franz has early-to-mid 19th century learned occult knowledge”. In his "The Medium's Book" (1861), writer and founder of Spiritism Allen Kardec defines “spiritual obsession” as when a person's behavior is influenced by evil spirits, through mental communication (telepathy), compelling them to act a certain way, usually out-of-character, morally corrupted or even criminal. Kardec also established three main degrees of obsession, and the end goal is possession (“the free Spirit replaces, so to speak, the incarnate Spirit; he takes up residence in his body”):

• Simple obsession: “it occurs when a bad spirit imposes itself on a medium, intrudes itself against its will in the communications it receives, prevents it from communicating with other Spirits and replaces those that are evoked”;
• Fascination: “it is an illusion created directly by the Spirit in the medium's thought and that paralyzes in a way his ability to judge communications”;
• Subjugation: “it is an involvement that paralyzes the victim's will, causing him to act in spite of himself. [...] The subjugated is led to make decisions that are often absurd and compromising which, for a kind of illusion, he considers sensible.” And this mental subjugation is so powerful it can cause disturbances in the medium's internal organs, mental capacities (brain) and cause involuntary body spasms (muscles).

In his "The Medium's Book", Allan Kardec says mediums are more vulnerable to this sort of haunting, which is what Professor Von Franz believes to be Ellen's case. A obsessive spirit will shut down other spirits and prevent them from communicating with the medium; they influence the medium to behave a certain way. Obsessive spirits are like little devils whispering in the medium's ear and telling them what to do.

Allan Kardec also makes the distinction between several types of mediumship (people with the ability to communicate with the spiritual realm). Kardec studied what he called “Somnambulism Theory”; somnambulism as a phenomenon related to Mediumship, since it was believed it provided a glimpse into the spiritual realm. 

John Everett Millais, “The Somnambulist”, 1871

Robert Eggers also discussed this topic in interviews: “In the 19th century, somnambulism wasn’t just sleepwalking. There were medical theories suggesting that people with somnambulism were better receptors for the ‘other realm.’ This concept became a key to unlocking who Ellen could be — a person who doesn’t fit into 19th-century society. Press notes even say she’s as much a victim of 19th-century society as she is of the vampire itself, which is true. She’s isolated, misunderstood, and burdened by a part of herself that others can’t see. It’s called hysteria, it’s called melancholy, and it manifests in different ways. Before she meets Orlok, the only figure she can connect with, in quotes, is a demon, and that’s tragic. [...] “Lily-Rose Depp, who plays Ellen, describes it as ‘a battle against the darkness that all of these characters are fighting’. But to me, Ellen is fighting the same battle internally. I think she has, you know, almost a war going on inside of her.”

However, and according to Allan Kardec, somnambulistic mediums access their own spirits, while other types of medium act as channels for external spirits, which connects with the Jungian themes in this story, especially as where dreams are concerned, since in Carl Jung’s theories about the shadow, it’s said we meet our shadow self in our dreams, which are a reflection of our unconscious mind (or soul).

“The somnambulist acts under the influence of his own spirit; it is his own soul which, in its moments of emancipation, sees, hears, and perceives, beyond the limits of the senses what he expresses he draws from himself. His ideas are generally more just than in his normal state, and his knowledge is more extended, because his soul is free; in a word, the somnambulic state is a sort of foretaste of the spirit life. The medium, on the contrary, is the instrument of an intelligence exterior to himself; he is passive; and what he says does not come from himself. In other words, the somnambulist expresses his own thoughts, and the medium expresses those of another. But the spirit who communicates through an ordinary medium may do so through a somnambulist; the soul emancipation of somnambulism often rendering spirit communication even more easy. Many somnambulists see spirits perfectly, and describe them with as much precision as do seeing mediums; they converse with them, and transmit their thoughts to us; and what they say, when beyond the circle of their personal knowledge, is often suggested to them by spirits.”

Famous medium Eva Carrière (exposed as a fraud in 1911) in trance during her séances.

Kardec calls those “who receive mental communication that are foreign to their own preconceived ideas” as “inspired mediums”, either in a normal or ecstatic state. However, these type of mediums are difficult to identify because it’s hard to tell the difference between the inspired thought itself (spiritual intervention) and the medium's own thought. “What characterizes the former is especially its spontaneity. We may receive inspiration from spirits who influence us either for good or evil, but it is mainly the help of those who want what is good for us, whose counsels we most often fail to follow”.

Kardec describes “somnambulistic mediums” as “those who are assisted by spirits while in a somnambulistic trance”, while “ecstatic mediums” are “those who receive revelations from spirits while in a state of ecstasy”. However: “many ecstatics are victims of their own imagination and of deceiving spirits who take advantage of their heightened state. There are very few who merit complete trust.”

Medium Florence Cook in a trance with the ghost of Katie King, photographed by William Crookes for his research on Spiritism, and published on the “Quartely Journal of Science”, January, 1874

How can the viewer tell if the spirit who responds is Ellen's or Orlok's? Is she truly possessed? According to Kardec, the difference can be detected “by the nature of the communication. Study the circumstances and language and you will be able to tell. The medium's spirit manifests especially in the somnambulistic or ecstatic state because that is when it is freest, but in the normal state it is more difficult. Moreover, there are responses that could not possibly be attributed to the medium's own spirit. That is why I have told you to observe and study”. Which is what Professor Von Franz asks Anna Harding to do with Ellen's case.

“I must to my studies. Frau Harding, sit with her, observe her, report her behaviour. Sievers, no more ether. [...] Then rave she must! There is a dread storm rising!” 

During her trances, Ellen’s language is the same as when she’s “awake”; she does not speak Count Orlok’s 16th century “English”, nor the reconstructed Dacian, for that matter (even though, she, inexplicably, understands it, as shown by the prologue and the ending). And neither does Herr Knock (the other character who’s invoking/summoning him). From her part, Ellen believes Orlok has been “possessing” her, because she felt him “crawling like her serpent” in her body. Which he promptly denies, and says it's her nature, not him, and he calls her enchantress, a witch, who was able to awake him from his grave with the power of her word/prayer (necromancer).

This tells us something else; she hears Count Orlok inside of her mind, but can’t see him, even though she described him as a “spectre of death” to Professor Von Franz. However, the next morning after the “First night”, and to Friedrich Harding, she calls Count Orlok an “infernal creature” and says Professor Von Franz is right, it’s a demon. It's painfully clear, Ellen has never actually seen Count Orlok before the previous night, and he, himself, says “soon I will be no more a shadow to you. Soon our flesh shall embrace and we shall be as one”. So, it's as Thomas declares: it's impossible for her and Count Orlok to have been lovers... in her present incarnation.

During the “possession scene”, Ellen also attempts to conjure Orlok to make Thomas understand her plight. She rips her dress open, symbolizing her desire to break free from society. However, she quickly breaks off from her trance when Thomas, not knowing what to do, says he’ll “fetch Dr. Sievers” to deal with the situation. Which is the opposite of what she wants, and she promises to be good. This scene proves she does have control over her trances. 

“No! No! Please... I'll be good... I'll be good, I promise.”

Professor Von Franz also has an interest in Alchemy, Hermeticism, Enochian and Solomonic magic systems. In his introduction scene, the Professor is reading “Mysteriorum Libri Quinque” by 16th century Dr. John Dee. We are told he has a fascination with Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, who, similar to Dee, was also interested in Angelic Magic. We see him conjuring angels and demons from “Ars Goetia”, “Ars Notoria” and Agrippa’s “De Occulta Philosophia”. This connects the Professor to the folkloric Solomonari, and to Count Orlok’s 16th century occult beliefs. Count Orlok is a Solomonar, and a cerimonial magician/enchanter. Dr. John Dee, Agrippa and King Solomon all had something in common; they believed they could do Magic work with demons with the help of angelic forces. 

Ellen is not possessed by Nosferatu (not until the last scene when he feeds on her heart's blood (soul), and she, at last, becomes truly possessed). Nevertheless, this connection of Ellen’s trances with “demonic possession” is not random, and having a character interested in the 16th century being the one to introduce it, isn’t, either. Historically, “hysteria” and “witchcraft” are connected, ever since the Middle Ages in Europe. All manifestations of mental illness were seen as sorcery and obscene bonds between women and the Devil. “Hysterics” were subjected to exorcisms, and the cause of their condition was a demonic presence. During the Middle Ages and Early Modern era, if the physician couldn’t identify the cause of a disease, the Devil was to blame. Inquisitors argued the Devil is a great expert of human nature and may interfere more effectively with a person susceptible to melancholy or hysteria. “Female delirium” was then believed to be caused by the Devil and his demons. 

Futhermore, Nosferatu is a demon and, in the early 19th century, women were believed to have no sexual desire, and if they did it was sinful, evil and demonic (or “unclean” as Ellen put it, in a reference to the “Dracula” novel), as such the prologue of the film is Nosferatu infecting Ellen with sexual desire, because the folk vampire was believed to spread disease. 

However, after reading what he calls the “Solomonari codex of secrets” (what in Romanian folklore is called “book of wisdom”), the Professor will change his tune. And this is, yet, another subversion of “Dracula” novel (where Van Helsing is considered Dracula's arch-enemy). In Robert Eggers’ adaptation, the Professor doesn’t try to stop Ellen’s descend into vampirism, he rather acts as a driver. He will destroy Nosferatu in doing so, but the Professor and Count Orlok not only share similar occult interests, but Orlok just gave him the answer to unlock the final key of the “Mysteriorum Libri Quinque”, and render his black sulfur gold: “Redemption” (an alchemist term). In this adaptation, instead of acting against Dracula/Orlok, the Professor is, actually, doing his biding. “She is the way.”

The Professor, named after both Albin Grau (producer and production designer of the 1922 original, and an active member of German Magic order Fraternitas Saturni), and Jungian psychologist and scholar Marie-Louise von Franz (expert on interpretation of dreams, Jungian archetypes in fairy tales and the symbolic importance of alchemy), brings the Jungian interpretation of alchemy and integration of shadow to the plot, as well.

“See that she is cursed. […] This dear young creature is possessed of some spirit. Perhaps, a demon.”

“I’m an able tourist in this occult world. You were born into it. It is a rare gift. […] In heathen times, you might have been a great priestess of Isis.”

III. Enchantress/Priestess

Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max, “The Seeress of Prevorst in High Sleep”, 1892

Friederike Hauffe (known as the Seeress of Prevorst) was a 19th century German mystic and somnambulist. She was said to have “premonitory dreams”, suffered from convulsions,  spontaneous trances, and communicated with spirits. Her case was studied by Carl Jung in 1933.

We arrive at “heathen times”, which belongs to Count Orlok, himself, and the conclusion Professor Von Franz will arrive to; the truth of Ellen's trances. According to Robert Eggers, this “demon lover, this vampire” is the only character who truly sees Ellen. She’s not for the living, she’s not of human kind, and he calls her “enchantress”. In the interview to “The New York Times”, where the director discussed Ellen’s gifts not being cultivated in 19th century society, he ends by saying “then she makes the ultimate sacrifice, and she's able to reclaim this power through death.” Count Orlok is the representation of Death in the story, and through him, she reclaims her power because of the pre-Christian European beliefs surrounding his character. 

Robert Eggers has described his Ellen as a woman "born in the wrong era [with] a certain kind of understanding", "who is an outsider stuck in this period", with "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 idea of Ellen being a character "out of time", and not belonging to the 19th century is also seen in the set design of the Hutters house, according to production designer Craig Lathrop: "it’s a Medieval interior that’s been fixed up to try to be Biedermeier, but without the budget. [...]  it also cements the sense that Ellen belongs to an age before all these eminently modern trappings, and so implicitly to the film’s ancient evil. ‘You’re trying to create character with these environments.”

“It is not me. It is your own nature.”

Ellen’s trances are also recognized in 19th century Spiritism, as mentioned above. It’s what Allan Kardec called “ecstatic mediums”, a sort of 19th century European description of what non-white cultures call “shamans” (tribal leaders who act as a mediums between our world and the spiritual world), and were a part of pre-Christian European civilizations (like the Vikings and Old Slavs in Robert Eggers' “The Northman”).

As Lily-Rose Depp has said, Ellen is “not only being plagued by this demon… She’s also calling out to him”. Which is something the actress addressed, again: “she’s kind of calling the shots the entire time. And he [Orlok], you know, there’s a power play there. He’s trying to overtake her in this way, and, you know, destroy the lives of those around her. But, she calls out to him.” Talking about Ellen’s agency, Lily-Rose Depp shared: “ The character, I found so incredibly empowering. I feel like there's so much strength to her, she has so much agency, also, in the story, without giving anything away. She kind of calls the shots in a very cool way, and I found her incredibly empowering and inspiring. I loved playing her.”

Germanic seeresses were also known for these practices (shamanic ecstatic trances) and they, like Ellen, were said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They were also connected to cats. The Vǫlva, from Old Norse culture, put herself into a trance, where she could to talk with the spirits around her, often drums and songs were used to attract them. In pre-Christian Germanic cultures, the seeress was a clairvoyant, a prophecy maiden, a priestess, a wisewoman, and a witch, and held an important role in society. During the track "I Know Him", when Ellen rips off her bodice, and is convulsing, her eyes white, one can almost hears shamanic drums in the music.

Conjuring the dead for communication: Ellen Hutter and the “He-Witch” (“The Northman”, 2022)

Shamanic, ecstatic trances were also a part of the ancient Dacian religion. According to historian Mircea Eliade, in “Zalmoxis, the Vanishing God”, the mythology around Zalmoxis is related to ecstasy, death, and the peregrinations of the soul (immortality, transmigration, reincarnation), which provides context for Ellen, as Robert Eggers said, reclaiming her power through death; the “enchantress” to Count Orlok’s “enchanter”.

Ellen Hutter and the “Seeress” (“The Northman”, 2022)

“Ecstasy” is not merely sexual pleasure (orgasm); in religious language is “considered a temporary death, for the soul was believed to leave the body”, allowing the priest or priestess to access and communicate with the spiritual world. 

Human sacrifices to Zalmoxis were also a key part of the Daco-Thracian religion, where the sacrificed messenger was believed to earn immortality. Robert Eggers connected this to orgasmic, sexual energy or acts, in a ritualistic setting, reframing the sacrifice of the “Nosferatu” tale into a sacred, ancient context. In French, the post-orgasm phase is called “la petite mort” (“little death”), which will find artistic expression in a Art History motif: “Death and the Maiden” (very popular during the “plague times” in Early Modern Europe).

The sacrificial bed to Zalmoxis