Something similar was said by Robert Eggers while promoting his debut film "The VVitch", about how the titular witch manifests itself through different family members: "The original draft was about how the titular witch manifested herself to different members of the family, meaning the film spent roughly equal time with everyone. “But through working on the second draft with my producers, Thomasin became the protagonist,” he said, adding that the film still works as an ensemble piece. In the story, the witch and her demonic partners take several forms: a goat, a raven, a rabbit, a beautiful woman, and a disfigured crone. While most of the other family members are besieged by these figures, Thomasin is targeted instead with suspicion from her parents and siblings, who come to think she’s in league with evil forces." The director has acknowledged the parallel between the plots of his "Nosferatu" and "The VVitch" in a podcast, and when discussing the struggle to get his adaptation of Murnau's film made: ""Look, let’s push pause on this, and why don’t we do Nosferatu? I’m telling you right now, it’s a more commercial version of The Witch." In another interview, Eggers confirmed the connection between the narrative of his four films, to date: " I have a primal narrative that comes out. It's not something that's designed, it just sort of happens. Everyone likes to die naked and insane…! I'm interested in folklore, mythology, fairytales, and archetypal stories."
In 2024, Robert Eggers wrote an essay to “The New York Times”, titled "Plumbing The Depths Of Darkness, and Finding Liberation", where he mediates about the role of supernatural creatures and darkness on his artistic creation: "as a creator of horror films, I get to take control of my fears — to face them and share them. Like many people in creative fields, I often turn to my own dreams and nightmares for inspiration. Of course, these dreams reflect ourselves", as he quotes Carl Jung. "My interest in the macabre is often one of liberation. It is liberating to control my fears by recreating them cinematically. It is liberating to feel close enough to the darkness of death to fear it less. For my own personal interest and in researching my films, I have read extensively in different disciplines of the occult. For my so-called art, I have plunged deep into the darkness."
The director has been vocal about his nightmares about witches in his childhood, and how creating "The VVitch" has exorcised such fear: "the witch of my nightmare was terrifying because she was inescapable. As much as I was frightened of her, I was even more drawn to her — even though I knew that meeting her meant my death, or worse. Fear, whether we explore it or shun it is, like my witch, inescapable. She was, somehow, within me. Though I have rid myself of this witch, I find the nature of fear is elusive. In earlier periods witches, vampires and werewolves could be the external scapegoats to our inner fears. But today: a stabbing on a subway platform. The abduction of a child. The atrocities of war. These daily monstrosities are also inescapable. These evils haunt us. They force us to ask ourselves, how are we as humans capable of such darkness? It must be the humble horror author’s duty to probe this malevolence in our nature. If an audience partakes in a story that endeavors to articulate some of life’s inner and outer demons, can we meet them face to face and pass though the perils of Hades together? Can we do this and come out unscathed, and even more."
Unlike the historical 17th century setting of "The VVitch", where, and as Robert Eggers also discussed, witches were believed to be real and "the real world and the fairy tale world were the exact same thing in that period. When someone was calling you a witch they really believed you were an archetypal, fairy tale ogress capable of doing all the things that happen in my film"; 19th century society no longer believed in vampires or witches, or, as Count Orlok describes it "morbid fairytales", as the old world of folktales is being left behind in favor of scientific and medical truths.
In European folklore, vampires were used as scapegoats for death and disease, mostly during plague epidemics, and the belief in such creatures reached it's peak during the 17th century, which is present in Robert Eggers "Nosferatu", in a deleted scene where Professor Von Franz and Dr. Sievers discuss German physican Johann Friedrich Glaser’s treatise on the “pestilent revenants” of the Eastern frontiers of the Habsburg Empire. Glaser medicalized vampirism based on contagionism theories in disease origin, which is at the genesis of the "Dracula" novel, as the Count spreads his vampirism by infecting his victims (which isn't rooted in folk belief). The account present in "Nosferatu" (2024) is incorrect, because this is not the conclusion Glaser came to, however, this was done on purpose, since the victims of Nosferatu do not turn into vampires, they die from the plague, and to become a vampire in this tale, one has to make compact with the Devil. Give the actual version of Glaser's account (contagionism) would confuse the audience.
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Every Robert Eggers' film to date evokes the same question on the audience: are these supernatural events truly happening, or are these characters taken by collective psychosis and hallucinating all of it?
As with Thomasin, and Ellen Hutter's character, Robert Eggers words about the "evil witch" or dark feminine archetype, ring true: "it's clear that in the early modern period, the evil witch [represents] men's fears and ambivalence and fantasies about female power. And in this super male-dominated society, the evil witch is also women's fears and ambivalence and fantasies and desire about their own power. It's a tragedy to read about a young girl upsetting someone, and since she didn't think she could have the kind of power to create that reaction, it has to be the devil. And thus, she thinks she's an evil witch". Which is an idea the director discussed in another interviews, at the time: "The evil witch of the early modern period [represents] men’s fears, ambivalences, desires, and fantasies about women and female power. And she also manifested herself as women’s own fears and ambivalences about themselves in this male-dominated society." As Eggers describes his re-interpretation of Ellen: "a dark, chthonic female heroine", and a "witchy role" in past interviews (when Anya Taylor-Joy was meant to play her).
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Coming from this Early Modern Era historical context, there's late 16th century Count Orlok calling Ellen an "enchantress", and Professor Von Franz (the scholar obsessed with Early Modern European occultists like Agrippa, Paracelsus, Dr. John Dee and the like) uses a similar description for her: a great priestess of heathen times, interpreting her mental illness (hysteria and melancholia) first as demonic possession, and then as seeress' shamanic ecstatic trances. From her part, and evocative of Robert Eggers' words, Ellen believes herself to be evil ("does evil comes from within us or from beyond?"), and possessed by a demon ("I felt you crawling like a serpent in my body") in a society which tells her she has no sexual desire of her own, as such, her sexual desire has to be the work of some demonic force.
Both Thomasin and Ellen's characters inhabit patriarchal societies which fear their sexuality and gender identity, and demonize it as a witch terrorizing a Puritan family (17th century) or a contagious plague (19th century), manifesting as the folk plague-carrier vampire. Ellen says "I have brought this evil upon us" when she called out during her teenage years, and her awakening sexuality unleashed a plague upon humankind, as female sexuality was perceived in the early 19th century. In a way, Thomasin and Ellen are two sides of the same coin: Thomasin believes herself to be innocent but is seen as evil by others; while Ellen believes herself to be evil but is seen as innocent by others. Thomasin taunts her siblings with the idea of being a witch, while Ellen is deeply ashamed of herself and her own sexual desire.
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As Robert Eggers pondered about vampire folklore: "you wonder what's the dark trauma that doesn't die when someone dies. How do you explain it? It's pretty tragic to think about it in a modern context. The vampire is a much better scapegoat than a witch, because when you kill a witch, you're killing a human. But when you are disinterring a corpse, they're already dead. This is the power that these creatures have. [So you suspect something terrible happened between them in real life and that this story was a way of grappling with that?] That is my hypothesis, and I don't think it takes a great student of psycology to come up with it. They're an outlet for these darker things that are frankly just hard to comprehend otherwise."
Both films evoke the question: is this witch or vampire real? Or these characters only believe them to be as scapegoats and psychological cope mechanisms to their repressive societal environments? This is, after all, and as Robert Eggers addressed, at the core of folktales, worldwide. Eggers "Nosferatu" is a strigoi lover folktale, and, at the genesis of this folk belief is also the fear of adultery, as essayed by Montague Summers, on his “The Vampire in Europe: True Tales of the Undead”, as it was believed dead husbands returned from the grave to assure their wives' fidelity.
The "adulteress", as Véronique Molinari writes on "Fearing the passions of women. Female desire and sexuality in the nineteenth century", was one of Victorian's society worst nightmares: "While male adultery and recourse to prostitution was accommodated within the dominant codes of morality, female adultery was regarded as another form of sexual deviancy, both as a betrayal of husband, home and family and a violation of women’s femininity, whose effects were irrevocable. In a society in which a respectable woman was not expected to have sexual desires, female adultery was represented as excessive, and therefore “deviant”, essentially presented as sin but also, at a time when female desire came to be pathologised, as a disease that could be transmitted. Thus, [doctor William] Acton argued that “the sin of unfaithfulness is often inherited, as well as many other family diseases” and that it might be better, as a consequence, not to marry the daughter of a divorced woman"."
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George Drysdale was the first doctor in England to advocate for contraception and a supporter of women's emancipation, and, on his "Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion: by a Student of Medicine" (1855), exposes how female sexuality was perceived at the time: "There is a great deal of erroneous feeling attached to the subject of sexual desires in woman. To have strong sexual passions is held to be rather a disgrace for a woman, and they are looked down upon as animal, sensual, coarse, and deserving reprobation. The moral emotions of love are indeed thought beautiful in her; but the physical ones are rather held unwomanly and debasing, this is a great error. In woman, exactly as in man, strong sexual appetites are a very great virtue, as they are signs of a vigorous frame, healthy sexual organs, and a naturally-developed sexual disposition ... If chastity must continue to be regarded as the highest female virtue; it is impossible to give any woman real liberty."
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As analysed in previous posts, Friedrich Harding is Count Orlok's mirror foil character, mostly on how his sexual appetite for his wife, Anna, parallels Count Orlok's for Ellen's heart blood (soul). He arbors a deep resentment for Ellen, and blames her for his wife's sickness ("contagion"), but also sees her as a social embarrassment to Thomas. Nevertheless, there's a moment in the film, at the beach, where Ellen looks at Harding with yearning, and has a "hysterical spell" after witnessing a instant of passion between him and Anna ("I cannot resist you, my love"). There are two children on their household and another on the way, which means sex. Harding is very passionate about his wife, unlike Thomas who is waiting to get wealthy before having children with Ellen, which means sexual abstinence.
Ellen is left at the Hardings' care as Thomas goes on his business trip, in a house which is filled with physical representations of sexual activity (children and pregnancy), and where she keeps having these "hysterical spells", night after night, and erotic dreams about a vampire which can be described as an "undead version of Friedrich Harding" and his relationship with his wife, one she wishes she had with Thomas... or with Harding himself?
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"What of your discovery of macabre hallucination pathologies? I do not wish to dispute you, yet, I have myself seen women of nervous constitutions invent any manor of delusion."Harding is the father archetype, and embodies much of the characteristics of Ellen's own father. Robert Eggers is fascinated by family dynamics ever since "The VVitch", as he discussed at the time: "I think also good fairytales and folktale are always family dramas, and a family drama is the most interesting drama. This is what we’re always living out, in our lives, with all of the relationships that we have, and there’s a reason why Lear and Hamlet tend to be considered the finest Shakespeare plays. There’s a reason why [it’s] “Luke, I am your father”, not “Luke, I am some guy”. And in the complex dynamics of this family within this cabin-fever situation, all this Freudian stuff is brewing up and then exploding – and exploding in Jungian ways."
Like Ellen says her touch started to frighten her father ("I frightened him. My touch."), Harding also doesn't allow her to touch him, in two scenes, while Count Orlok yearns to touch her but won't until she gives her consent by re-pledging herself to him. As Ellen talks of her dream (the one she awakes after the prologue): "I had never been so happy as that moment... as I held hands with Death.”
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In Jungian psychology, the father archetype represents authority, protection, order and guidance, alongside social norms, law and the rational aspect of existence. All archetypes are dual in nature, and a negative father archetype embodies authoriarianism, opression and control, leading to repression of individuality. While in men the "father complex" manifests in the persona (identification) and aspects of his shadow; in women, it's present in the nature of the animus, colored by the projection of her father's anima: "The father is the first carrier of the animus-image. He endows this virtual image with substance and form, for on account of his Logos he is the source of "spirit" for the daughter. Unfortunately this source is often sullied just where we would expect clean water. For the spirit that benefits a woman is not mere intellect, it is far more: it is an attitude, the spirit by which a man lives. Even a so-called "ideal" spirit is not always the best if it does not understand how to deal adequately with nature, that is, with animal man. . . . Hence every father is given the opportunity to corrupt, in one way or another, his daughter's nature, and the educator, husband, or psychiatrist then has to face the music."
In Ellen's case, her father "corrupted" her view of her own sexuality, causing her to perceive it as something sinful, demonic and evil. As she reveals to Professor Von Franz (and as already analysed in previous posts) her father found her masturbating in her teenage years, and not only called it a "sin" but threatened to send her to "that place", an asylum, as it was common practice at the time, since masturbation (especially female) was considered a form of epilepsy and lunacy, and one of the major causes of female hysteria. As consequence, Ellen internalized an extremely negative and "demonic" view of her own sexuality, embodied by Nosferatu; and whenever he is real or a collective psychosis the characters are experiencing, the meaning is equal, which allows for the two readings of the story. As Robert Eggers explained: "as far as the end of The Witch, it’s real if you believe it is real. And that’s sort of the stance for the characters in my films".
I. Scapegoats
In the original 1922 "Nosferatu", Herr Knock is the character the townsfolk of Wisborg chooses as their scapegoat for the plague, and accuse him of being a vampire because he strangled the guard of the hospital to escape.
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In Robert Eggers' adaptation, and true to his fascination with family dynamics, it's the Hardings who find a more direct "scapegoat" for the plague. Anna asks Ellen to "tell me, what is this insufferable darkness?" she's experiencing, and Friedrich Harding expells her and Thomas from his household as a consequence. From his part, Harding blames both Ellen and Professor Von Franz and their "diseased minds" (madness) for the deaths of his wife and children, even though he's represented as a man who believes in scientific truth, rejects what he calls superstition, and argues rats were the culprits for infecting Anna. Nevertheless, one of the symptoms of this plague is delirium.
At the end of the 19th century, there was a moral panic surrounding madness, where "degeneracy" was tied together with moral and civilizational failure, which is what many literary critics see in the "Dracula" novel, as well. For instance, Daniel Pick, on his "Terrors of the Night”: Dracula and “Degeneration” in the Late Nineteenth Century" (1988), wrote: "The novel provided a metaphor for current political and sexual political discourses on morality and society, representing the price of selfish pursuits and criminal depravity. The family and the nation, it seemed to many, were beleaguered by syphilitics, alcoholics, cretins, the insane, the feeble-minded, prostitutes and a perceived ‘alien invasion’ of Jews from the east who, in the view of many alarmists, were feeding off and ‘poisoning’ the blood of the Londoner."
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In a way, this is also present in Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu", as the only dialogue the viewer has from townsfolk of Wisburg is in reference to "the mother of harlots" (prostituiton) and demonized female sexuality. The victims of the "blood plague" also have "fatal sepsis" marks on their bodies and suffer from a sort of madness, which can be evocative of a metaphorical syphillis. Although these symptoms also find parallel in the "Black plague" (bubonic plague); uncontrollable fever, delirium, hallucinations, paranoia, vomiting, heavy sweating, excruciating pain, bleeding under the skin, etc.
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During plague outbreaks, it was common for people to keep their distance from those whom were believed to be infected, and panic quickly followed. As seen in "Nosferatu", it was not uncommon for corpses to be left on the streets because gravediggers hesitated to remove them, and priests refused to go into people's homes to give the last rites. Search for scapegoats was also common, with many interpreting the plague as a divine punishment.
Rats were connected to witches and sorcerers, in European imagination during the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age. In the 16th century, in England, rats infestations were abundant, and so were accusations of witchcraft. Between 1587 and 1588, witchcraft trials were rampant in Europe, still. Both witches and vermin (rats; snakes; toads; spiders; etc) were linked in European imagination at the time. Both sorcerers and rats were to blame for plagues, disease, bad crops and misfortune in general.
Contagion theories in the 15th to 17th centuries were based in religious and metaphysical explanations for the plague (unlike the 19th century, which began to embrace scientific views). The two main theories were of God’s punishment or wrath on a sinful and corrupted earth, where rats were either agents of witchcraft and the Devil, or God’s direct agents in punishing the very presence of sorcerers among humanity. In 1666, William Austin, in his poem, “Anatomy of Pestilence”, argued the plague appeared after the Great Flood as a sign of God’s indignation towards a “fallen world”. He saw plague as God’s punishment for a sinful and cursed earth, infested by witches. To him, the plague was a gendered issue, as he will draw parallels with Greek mythology, of female “furies” and Pandora opening the box; and Eve from Christian-Jewish tradition. Witches and sorcerers, and their sexualized alliances with the Devil, were the cause of God’s punishment on earth; they were the direct or indirect sources of plague contamination.
In theological texts throughout this time period, “plague” and “pestilence” were all connected to God’s wrath: disease, famine, bad crops, animal infestations, etc. Jean Bodin, “On the Demon Mania of Witches” (1580), argued that moral corruption, blasphemy and atheism caused plague, evil spirits, wars and famine. Witches and sorcerers were morally corrupt, associated with vermin (rats, toads, flies, spiders, etc.), and were the cause: “If one lets the vermin multiply, it engenders corruption and infects everything.”
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In his treaty “Contagion” (1603), Thomas Lodge argued the plague was caused by the corruption of the four humors of the human body (Humoral theory), by the corrupted human spirit and body because of “evil vapours” from breathing air (environmental causes). Edward Topsell, “Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes” (1607), calls rats “creatures of putrefaction”, and connects them with similar vermin (considered monstrous and useless animals) rats tails are similar to poisonous serpents, associated with disease. In the 17th century, George Wither, “Britain’s Rembrancer”, doesn’t blame the rats, but witches for the plague. He reimagines the witch as a “feminized basilisk” who infects others with “her poison”, and the plague was a sort of “airborne venom” because of witches. To this author, “pestilence” is sorcery, and the “master of all poisons”.
As mentioned above, the 19th century no longer believed in witches nor vampires, but the time period views on female sexuality makes it the scapegoat for the plague that fell upon Wisburg. The townfolk don't blame any woman in particular, but women's sexuality outside of patriarchal control as a whole, as well as sex workers and adulteresses. Due to their existence in their midst, God's wrath fell upon the town as punishment.
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II. Madness
Professor Von Franz foreshadows Count Orlok's imminent arrival to Wisburg: "there is a dread storm rising!", which is a reference to the "Dracula" novel; the night the Count arrives at Whitby, in the Demeter, a terrible thunderstorm hints the port town: "Whitby. One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique."
Analogous to the 1922 original, the ship where Count Orlok travels to Wisborg/Wisburg is called "Empusa", while in the novel it's Demeter, and, presumably, in the 1979 version, as well, since Werner Herzog returned the characters to their book counterpart names. The journey from the Count to his destination is somewhat similiar in all three versions, as descripted in the "Dracula" novel; the ship's crew dying from the plague, and suspecting something is on board the ship with them.
Francis Ford Coppola, "Bram Stoker's Dracula", 1992
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As discussed in previous posts, Prosthetic designer David White explained Count Orlok has "two looks", and his "day look" is different from when he's in his sarcophagus: "when he’s out and about, it’s a little bit more full and rich and elegant". As White elaborated: "I were very careful because Robert had mentioned that he’s going to shoot him not only in low light, but he didn’t want to reveal the decay and rot that was coming from the back of his head forward. On the one hand, you’ve got to sell him as this normal guy who is maybe a little eccentric, but on the other hand, he’s actually falling apart.” In other interview, the designer explained: "Robert said he’s going to be charismatic and noble, and we’re going to have all this strength. On the other hand, he’s also going to be decaying. It’s like, how on earth does this work? The idea was, Robert said, have the decay at the back of the head."
The main idea behind Count Orlok’s design, according to Robert Eggers is “a beautiful man at some point, but now he’s covered in maggots,” the director said. “That’s interesting to me.” This was an idea, the director would mention again: "Orlok, before he was dead, was probably a handsome guy, a harsh face, but a beautiful face, too.” Costume designer Linda Muir also discussed this contrast between beauty and decay: "under all of that prosthetic decay and decomposition, there was such a strong, visceral feeling of the guy, obviously wealthy, entitled, the beautiful young man that he might’ve been centuries before." “In my mind, Orlok was definitely handsome when he was alive,” Eggers said. “I wanted him to have strong features, and for there to be a kind of beauty in his brows, cheekbones, and nose because those are the parts of himself that he can show a little bit of in the light to a house guest before they realize that he’s actually rotting and falling apart.”
Bill Skarsgård discussed his Count Orlok "sexiness": "He’s gross,” Skarsgård begins, slowly. "But it is very sexualized. It’s playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what that appeal has to you. Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.” From his part, Robert Eggers was more blunt in saying: "I think Bill’s vampire is sexy,” Eggers adds, followed by a chorus of agreement from his cast.” An idea he shared with “Rolling Stone”: “And also make him look like he’s literally just risen from a grave.” A pause. “I still do think our Nosferatu is bit more handsome, though!”
Count Orlok's design has been on Robert Eggers' mind for decades, and he created digital paintings of the character. Back in 2016, the director considered casting older actors like Mads Mikkelsen (who was 51 years-old at the time), Daniel Day-Lewis (59) and even Willem Dafoe (61). Him and David White started to work on the character, however, their plans changed with the casting of Bill Skarsgård, as the designer revealed: “Robert's the driving force, he's the one with the vision. But when we got hold of Bill, things changed, because any actor brings their own ideas. So it's quite a strange journey.”
As such, the trio began working on creating Count Orlok's face, which, according to David White is based on Skarsgård's: "White always begins his prosthetics work by hanging onto one aspect of the actor’s face. In Skarsgard’s case, it was his big eyes and “fantastic” bone structure”. As the Prosthetic designer explained: "This isn't a creature; it's not a beast; he's a guy. He's somebody who once lived as a nobleman of that time. As far as Bill was concerned, he came on board because he's so used to the prosthetic elements. It was helpful because he was very patient, and it took us a little while to get up to speed. He warmed to it straight away. There were a few little tweaks we did, but generally speaking, he was on board from the beginning. I knew I had to give him a certain amount of area around his eyes and mouth so that it was him, you know, just to let Bill breathe. He's got these wonderful eyes, and it's really important that he can express himself so there are no eye bags, no hoods to age him. It's just Bill, which I think he was really happy about."
The Cossack-inspired look was always Robert Eggers idea, according to David White: “Robert’s [Eggert] intention from day one was to use the mustache and the fall up”. The idea of Count Orlok’s figure: “He's going to be tall, he's going to be noble-looking, and he's going to have this strength and sort of strange vitality to him, even though he's dead.” White elaborated: “I was keen to keep his age ambiguous — ageless, so to speak. I did this by being very particular about the amount of wrinkles and obvious character lines, keeping the look more sparse with no hoods over his eyelids and no eye bags. He also has to be appealing and charismatic to Ellen and able to disguise his filthy rot and decay by keeping in the shadows as cover”. According to David White: undead “Count Orlok hasn't got eyebrows”, some elements are tribute to Max Schreck’s Count Orlok (rat-eaten ears, hunched back, fingernails, teeth); he doesn’t have any “scars, but there’s a little tweak that I had with the hair – with the mustache or with a little silver. There’s a little whisper of silver that runs through the hair”.
Robert Eggers discussed casting Bill Skarsgård also came with other advantages, mostly to “help the audience to know on some level that there’s a beautiful man beneath all that makeup”: "it was important to have a young, beautiful person underneath that,” said Eggers, “maybe that’s a good thing for Lily-Rose [Depp], but there is something seductive in this powerful figure. Bill’s a good actor". The director explained this is connected to the psychological effect it has on the audience: "I also cast a young, handsome, charming actor rather than digging up Christopher Lee's corpse and trying using it as a meat puppet. Because you know that on some level, everybody knows what's going on under [the Orlok costume]. In theory, that's something I would be against, because what's on screen is the only thing that should matter, but I think it's probably helpful psychologically to the audience."
The concept of Count Orlok as a handsome and young man in life, now decaying and riddled with maggots, can be thought of as another facet of the "memento mori" motif ("remember you have to die"), common to all "Nosferatu" adaptations, mostly in Werner Herzog's version: an allegorical confrontation with our own mortality, the inevitability of death, fear and longing for death.
Herr Knock is based on Renfield, although he also incorporates Solicitor Peter Hawkins of Exeter role as Thomas/Jonathan's employer, which is a common thread to all "Nosferatu" adaptations. In the "Dracula" novel, the Count hires the services of Hawkins firm to find him a house in London, and the same is true in the "Nosferatu" tale, as the correspondence between Knock/Renfield and Count Orlok/Dracula makes an appearance in all three films, and on the character's introduction scene.
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Unlike Werner Herzog, Robert Eggers returned to the original 1922 "Nosferatu" to include the occult associated with the dealings between Count Orlok and Herr Knock, and expanded on it. As Production designer Craig Lathrop revealed: "The occult is not just in the props—it’s in the very fabric of the world we’ve created".
While this character has a "maniac laugh" in all adaptations, here it's a "mephistophelian laugh", the audio storytelling of the Count's Faustian bargain. In the 1979 version, Renfield calls Count Dracula "the master of rats", here Knock says "Nosferatu" is "the prince of rats", and that's the secret he's after, to be "immortal" via vampirism. Hair designer Suzanne Stokes-Munton revealed Knock has psoriasis (as seen in his scalp on his introduction scene). Until 1840, this skin condition was often confused with leprosy, perhaps, Knock believed he was dying and this might provide an explanation to him accepting to make compact with Nosferatu, and serve him so fiercely.
Johann Heinrich Füssli, “The Nightmare” (detail), 1781The communications between Herr Knock and Count Orlok do not occur merely by letter, as Knock performs conjuring rituals to speak with the Count in a more direct way, as well. The one present in the film is to inform about Thomas travel to Transylvania: "Your Lordship. It is entirely as you have demanded of me. He shall presently be in thy rule, and I shall attend thee here, near the object of thy contract!"
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At the end of the scene, a strong wind sweeps the room and blows out the candles. This indicates Count Orlok’s astral presence in the room, and a reference to him being a Solomonar. Visually, this scene makes a callback to Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), when Count Dracula blows out all the candles in a room while crying “Winds! Winds!” due to his reincarnated beloved marriage to Jonathan Harker.
During this ritual, Knock is naked, sexually aroused, and he cuts his arm to extract blood to draw a sigil. This scene was meant to open the 2016 script, where the masturbation was explicit, while here is more subtextual (similar to Ellen at the prologue), yet the Sex Magick element is still present.
This "Solomonari ritual" is inspired by both Solomonic and Enochian magic systems. While it's not visible in the film, the Solomonari codex of secrets is present in this scene, as Knock is reading from it, and probably gathering instructions to draw the sigil and incantations.
Solomonari altar in Herr Knock's officeHerr Knock’s office is also his ceremonial chamber, where he has a Solomonari altar, which will later be discovered by Professor Von Franz and Doutor Sievers. There is a skull, an inverted pentagram, and a hourglass. The skull establishes the connection with death, and the hourglass is often associated with Saturn, and it can be used to calculate planetary hours, at the center of Solomonic Magic rituals (each day and hour is governed by a specific planet).
Pentagrams are associated with King Solomon (connection to the Solomonari), and, before the 19th century, their orientation (up or down) wasn’t really established. It was not until 1854, with the publication of Eliphas Lévi’s “The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic”, that inverted pentagrams became associated with Baphomet (a symbol of union of opposites, the concept of perfect equilibrium), and, in the 1900s, Aleister Crowley declared the inverted pentagram as a symbol of evil, and, in the 1960s, Anton LaVey adopted it for his Church of Satan, alongside the deity, Baphomet. Nevertheless, the choice to have this inverted pentagram can also work as a visual clue to Herr Knock's true affiliations.
Herr Knock's Solomonari Table of Practice is inspired by Dr. John Dee Holy Table from the Enochian system, central to Dee's Heptarchia Mystica, considered a form of angelic planetary magic, working with Heptarchial Spirits (49 spiritual kings and princes, associated with ruling planets and days of the week).
The sigil on the cover of the Solomonari codex of secrets is the same as in the floor of Herr Knock's office, being the one he uses for conjuring and communicating with Count Orlok. The heptagram with the alchemical symbol for blood equals Orlok's personal sigil, establishing his ownership over this book, as it's his "book of wisdom" according to the folklore which inspired his character.
The sigil Herr Knock was drawing during the invocation ritual to communicate with Count Orlok, using his own blood, is not the Count's sigil. And, as usual in cinema, most likely doesn't translate into any real occult sigil, even though it's visually reminiscent. The heptagram appears to be a reference to the Great Pentacle of Solomon (establishing the connection to the Solomonari).
The symbol at the center seems evocative of Agrippa’s sigils of Saturn, and a combination of these figures. The planetary sigil of Saturn is associated with the dark spirit (demon) Zâzêl, and the angel Agiel.
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Herr Knock/Renfield, like his book counterpart, getting admitted into an asylum is a part of every adaptation of "Nosferatu", yet Robert Eggers explored the inhumane and brutal medical treatments psychiatric patients (or perceived as such) were subjected to during this time period; as he did with Ellen's character.
In Robert Eggers’ version, Ellen is said to have a “sanguine temperament” ("too much blood"), placing her in connection with Renfield, whom Doutor Steward determines: “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 analysed in a different post, the treatment for an unbalanced "sanguine temperament" is "Bloodletting" (draining the excess blood), which Doutor Sievers confirms he has been employing on Ellen's case, to balance the "humors" on her body and restore her to health. This is a subversion of Lucy Westenra's treatment in the novel, as she receives blood transfusions while she's being attacked by Count Dracula and degenerating into vampirism. Here, Ellen's cure is to be drained of blood.
As opposite, and from his part, Herr Knock keeps consuming the blood of living creatures, to emulate Nosferatu vampirism. Which is a reference to the "Dracula" novel and Renfield's pets, mostly, the birds (probably as a reference to Nosferatu being called "death bird" in Murnaus's original): "The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed, selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts.”
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“There is a method in his madness […] I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood […] 11 am.--The attendant has just been to see me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is, doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!”
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Both Herr Knock and Ellen smile during these scenes, and Herr Knock laughs, as usual. Yet he says: "Twas he that invoked me! ’Twas I that was chosen to serve him for I know what he covets", while his laughter turns into mockery at "what he covets", and his hand is upon his chest, above his heart.
“[Promised?] She means her husband!”
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Anna Harding connects this with Thomas' return and Ellen's sickness, as discussed in the previous post. She does not trust Professor Von Franz, either, as she thinks "his thoughts are so queer, so sordid"; like her husband (and Victorian society), she believes the Professor to be mad. This distruct on Von Franz's methods can find reference in the "Dracula" novel when Mrs. Westenra, Lucy's mother, takes down the garlic flowers (where re-interpreted into the lilacs) meant to protect Lucy from Dracula, because her daughter’s room “was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odor would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air”.
Ellen, on the other hand, wants to speak with the Professor ("If only I could speak to the professor-") because not only he gave her a taste of the understanding she yearns for, but also the answers she seeks about herself, and her inner conlfict (her "torture"). As Lily-Rose Depp explained, "in the story, she has to cope, not only with the threat from Count Orlok, but, most importantly, with herself". However, this conversation will only happen at Anna and the children's funerals, as she won't have the opportunity to talk with him, earlier.
It's significant Thomas tells her "you were right" when he arrives, and she fills with hope he understands her, at last, as the actress also said about her character "what I think is so beautiful about her relationship with Von Franz, Willem’s character, because he sees her in this way and understands her, I think, in a way that she longs to be understood”.
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As analysed in a different post, Orlok takes possession of Thomas during the night, for him to expell Ellen out of bed, and she asks Anna if they can spend the night together. This can find reference in the "Dracula" novel, as both Mina Murray and Mrs. Westenra sleep with Lucy. From her part, Mina writes: “Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand, even in her sleep she seems to be watching me.” [...] “There's some consolation in that. I am so happy tonight, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming […] Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time […] I do not expect any trouble tonight.”
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In the "I Know Him" scene, Ellen's degeneration into vampirism is complete, and, like Lucy Westenra in her vampire form, she's "unclean", the dreaded devouring woman: "Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew". In the "Dracula" novel, it's Mina Harker who'll provide the reader with more information about this uncleanliness, connected to being infected by Count Dracula's vampirism, but she will meet a different fate from Lucy, as she's rewarded by the narrative with a happy marriage to Jonathan and a child, while Lucy gets punished with death and sort of drifts into oblivion, as even her beloved fiancé Sir Arthur Holmwood is said to be happily married seven years after the end of the novel.
Ellen becomes the "Victorian nightmare", as she realises Count Orlok is not a demon possessing her body, it's her own nature ("it is not me. It is your own nature"); not only her sexual desire is her own, but so are her psychic gifts (seeress). None of which have a place in Victorian society, where she'll always be medicalized by her nature, and her ultimate fate would be institutionalization in an asylum like Herr Knock, as her father threatened with when he found her masturbating ("He would have sent me to that place... I shan’t go...") and Friedrich Harding says: "Frau Hutter is mad and should have been locked up long ago."
Thomas Hutter was Ellen's last connection to Victorian society, which is severed at the end of the "I Know Him" scene, as Nicholas Hoult has explained: "it’s obviously the culmination of their whole relationship and journey. A lot is revealed, and it’s also tragic and emotional".
In the 2016 script, this scene was meant to conclude with Hutter saying "You’re mad. You’ve always been mad. You should never have married me? I pitied you. Your father should have pitied you as well, and brought you to the madhouse long ago". In the 2023 script, however, this line was given to Friedrich Harding, the man Thomas aspires to become. And Hutter vows to destroy Count Orlok and "He shall never harm you again. Never!", which carries the same meaning, as Thomas doesn't recognize Ellen's nature as her own, and believes everything will return to "normal" once Orlok is destroyed. In the long run, "the madhouse" would be Ellen's fate in Victorian society.
* * *
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 1]: Prologue
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 2]: Ellen’s Dreams and Thomas’ Aspirations
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 3]: Thomas Lost in Nosferatu Shadow (1/3)
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 3]: Thomas Lost in Nosferatu Shadow (2/3)
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 4]: Dreams Grow Darker
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 6]: Thomas Lost in Nosferatu Shadow (3/3)
- Dissecting "Nosferatu" (2024) [Part 7]: The Ending
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