Madonna/whore dichotomy in “Nosferatu”
Did I enjoyed this movie? Yes. You know this feeling, when you walk along the street, and suddenly there’s an inviting poster of a big, juicy hamburger, with a glistening piece of meat, and a melting cheese, and the first bite feels like heaven. You might even feel euphoric for a couple of minutes or so. But with the last bite comes remorse: the meat was more of a cardboard quality, the loaf of bread felt synthetic. That is how I feel about Robert Eggers “Nosferatu”.
To a greater extent “Nosferatu” owes it’s success among audiences to a meticulous work of cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, who has been working with Eggers for years. I believe it is Blaschke who is by and large responsible for all the beautiful praise, with people calling this movie a “masterpiece” and a “work of art”. Visuals are great, so are technical qualities of acting performances (Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter and Bill Skarsgård as count Orlok). But why I am hesitant to add my voice to the chorus of praise?
In a couple of interviews Eggers mentioned that one of the main reasons why Stoker’s “Dracula” became so popular was due to its simple fairy-tale core. Fairy-tale or not, but “Dracula” is a pretty damn good novel, where classical gothic elements attuned to perfection. Of course, vampires in literature existed before; “Carmilla”, a sensuous sapphic vampire novella by Sheridan Le Fanu saw light twenty five years (!) earlier and is way bolder. Perhaps, it was way ahead of it’s time, and prudent Victorian reader wasn’t ready for it; perhaps, Bram Stocker managed to put together a quintessential vampire novel, creating one of the most charismatic and ambiguous characters in literature.
One might say that “Nosferatu” director aspired to do something similar to what Stoker did in literature: to produce a vampire movie to end all vampire movies. According to the box-office, he succeeded: Nosferatu is a classical Hollywood high-budget movie, that is prone to over explain things, so that the audience could notice at least some of the references. Things were different in Eggers’s debute feature the “The Witch”, where the ending is very ambiguous and leaves audience guessing. I believe the ambiguity and mystery of this movie made it so popular among horror fans, so that it managed to occupy its own niche. “Nosferatu” caters to a much larger audience, with consequently less space left for riddles.
Eggers, known for his commitment to historical accuracy, this time sets the story on a fairy-tale rails. A fairy-tale-sque narrative devices dictates the movie narrative style and a very magical ending: with Ellen sacrificing herself in order to save everyone else from the darkness and death. But before all of this happens, fairy-tale takes a “Freudian turn”, and I think I saw a Ghost of Father (of psychoanalysis) creeping in the shadows once or twice.
If you ever came across Sigmund Freud’s essay “Beyond the pleasure principle” (1920), the concepts of “libido”, “mortido” and “drive to Death” would definitely ring some bells. According to Freud, human live is regulated by two strong drives. One of them, “libido”, is powered by Eros and gives us the impulse to live and procreate, while thanks to “mortido” we have a tendency for self-destruction. Eros and Tanatos are personified life and death in the Ancient Greek mythology. Ellen’s souls becomes a battlefield between good and evil, life and death, or “libido” and “mortido”. So where am I going with this?
Ellen has formed an unhinged relationship with the centuries old, dead bloodsucking Romanian nobleman. She was driven by her loneliness, and Orlok was the only one who answered her call. Later on, she found happiness in the face of her young husband, but Thomas does not understand her in a way Orlok does, and thus she remains restless. Ellen has certain dark impulses and covert sexual desires embodied in count Orlok, who is literally called “Death” one or two times in the movie. Freud would say, that Ellen is driven by Tanatos, or the instinct to self-destruction, which we already know will lead her to a bad ending. Or will it? Or rather, does it have to?
This is when we come to one of the main problems I see with the movie’s finale – despite it being cathartic by the Hollywood standarts, with a strong female character who saves the day, I can’t hep but feel that this is just a folding screen, and behind it is an old a quite worn-off narrative. After all, Ellen’s dark and carnal desires were represented as evil and wrong: she couldn’t embrace her darkness and go unpunished. She has sinned, thus she has to atone for her sins. Women was yet again put to martyrdom.
The idea of female martyrdom and sacrifice is incredibly interesting in itself, and was was well represented in Luca Guadagnino “Suspiria” (2018), a remake of the Dario Argento’s cult horror. The movie is set in post WW2 Germany, in 1977, and explores complex topics of women’s eternal circle of suffering and motherhood. There is even somewhat visually similar scene in a bedroom, when we get to know the origins of a protagonist. Most of the things worked out in Guadagnino’s remake. The visuals, the time frame, “the deeper meaning”, and the occult. Maybe an ending was a bit chaotic, but at least I didn’t feel like I was spoon fed.
In my opinion, this concept of martyrdom was introduced on a quite superficial level “Nosferatu”. Ellen sacrifices herself, so that everyone else could be happy, and I don’t see anything new or unusual here. Isn’t it a centuries old pattern of behavior, that was ascribed to women? Fair maiden who renounces darkness, because there’s only two ways – a saint and a whore, apparently.“Nosferatu” relies on traditional stereotypes around women, representing their dark sexual desires as inherently wrong, and thus channeling a worn out Biblical narrative about womenkind having to pay an enormous price for pleasure.
All this being said, I think that “Nosferatu” attempts to encompass a universal human condition when there is no such thing. It just doesn’t exist. The movie strives to represent the complexity of women experience, but looks oversimplified, dismissing psychological complexity in favor of a conventional magical ending.