A Response to Nosferatu
How Robert Eggers’ Count Orlok is just centuries of women’s sexual shame materialized
By Angelica Marin
Over winter break, I watched Nosferatu in IMAX. Contrary to my expectations, I wasn’t that scared by the vampire’s physically monstrous qualities—the ancient, incorporeal yet invincible entity, complete with four-inch long nails, wet, heavy breathing, and blood-red eyes. I was deeply disturbed, however, by the relationship between the protagonist, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), and Nosferatu, aka Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard).
Picture this: Ellen, a young girl who recently lost her mother, is brought to prayer by her immense loneliness, seeking out celestial comfort in a world that consistently disregards her. One night, her prayers work, but not in her favor. She awakens a centuries-old malevolent being, Nosferatu. At first, he provides the comfort a half-orphaned Ellen needs, but such attention quickly turns torturous, painful, and persistent. Nosferatu’s grip on Ellen is agonizing, but somehow, her desire for his company never ceases. She takes comfort in this familiar voice in her head and figures in her dreams. From then on, Ellen’s time in her mind is consumed by Nosferatu, her secret friend, her only shame.
Nosferatu’s face, stature, and powers are, without a doubt, horrifying. Yet, his appearance is the least important thing about him. His pervasive presence in Ellen’s life, both conscious and unconscious, is indicative of the secret sexual shame that existed among women throughout history and likely still exists among many. In Victorian-era Europe, women were only allowed to exhibit any promiscuous behavior when under the pretense of baby-making. This means that Ellen’s fantasies and dreams in which she flirts with Death (Nosferatu) come close to making her worthy of exile. In an article by Forbes, Dani Di Placido writes, “In some ways, Orlok is more like a demon than a traditional vampire. He’s a manifestation of Ellen’s repressed sexual desires, smothered by the restrictive social norms of the time period; Orlok is the answer to Ellen’s desperate loneliness, the companion she doesn’t want to want.” This becomes apparent in one scene in particular, where Ellen reveals the nature of her secret to her husband, Thomas. Describing Nosferatu and his presence in her body, Ellen calls him “my shame.”
Ellen, a lonely girl, was forced to resort to inexcusable, inappropriate, twisted thoughts that made her uncomfortable, yet she could not bear to be without them, to be alone. Once married and free of solitude, she seemed fully satiated by her husband’s love, a satisfaction that disappeared the minute Thomas did.
Think about it: once solitary, considered strange and perverse with a sexual appetite, a woman may soon be deemed normal by society as soon as she is married. When that veil of normalcy is removed, she once again has to face the reality of her unusual tastes.
In this case, she succumbs to them. Once a brave endurer of Nosferatu’s terror, Ellen is forced to give in to this decade-long evil boyfriend, this admittance of abnormality and acceptance of the strangeness that society convicted her of. Her death is a sickening metaphor for the social exile a woman can face when her undesirable desires come to light.
Women everywhere, both fictional and not, are shamed for their developing sexualities. Nosferatu, a film aimed at petrifying its viewers, achieved its goal in its entirety, on a much deeper level than it could have ever aimed to do.