nell

Thank you, kind stranger!

The “astral” vampire you mention it’s called moroi in Romanian folklore, although it has other names in other countries. In Eggers’ “Nosferatu” it’s Orlok’s shadow, basically. Vampires in folklore target and attack their living relatives, yes, not random victims like literary or pop culture vampires (Eggers said he had no interest adapting because Folk Horror is his brand).

I’m very curious to see what folklore Eggers went with in “Werwulf”. One of misconceptions I keep seeing is that werewolves are “created” via deals with the Devil, which it’s not really the case. The most common folktale is boys being born with the curse, and doomed to become werewolves, usually seventh sons. Personally, I think Eggers went with this (he already did the “deal with the Devil twice), but I can be wrong. My country has a rich werewolf folklore, actually, but also very diverse, and sometimes just bizarre and not really horror film appropriate (ex: in some places, it’s believed you can break a werewolf curse by turning their clothes inside out).

Esquire First Look: Robert Eggers Reveals Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Werwulf

My first though reading this: so… he’s Count Orlok. No, a very different character but I’m already sensing the parallels with Orlok and Amleth (“The Northman”). Also; talk of trauma. We have three traumatized male characters over here; also connected to death, maybe? Father/uncle; wife/daughters… mother/sister?

Esquire First Look: Robert Eggers Reveals Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Werwulf

My first though reading this: so… he’s Count Orlok. No, a very different character but I’m already sensing the parallels with Orlok and Amleth (“The Northman”). Also; talk of trauma. We have three traumatized male characters over here; also connected to death, maybe? Father/uncle; wife/daughters… mother/sister?

As a fellow individual living with stutter, I cannot appreciate enought the quality of representation the community is getting from how Lestat's character is written. The attention and care paid to portraying his stutter and the social trauma resulting from it deserve wider recognition. This includes, amongst other things, the fact that his stutter (in his case) is only present when:

he is in extreme distress or converses with people that wear him out/mock him regularly (contrary to popular belief, most of us don't stutter constantly, certain social situations can exacerbate the frequency of it. When we are with our close friends or family, it can happen that the stutter doesn’t show at all.)

pronouncing certain letter combinations or words (each of us usually has a set of trigger words that we try to substitute with synonyms) – stutter also not only manifests in repeating the first syllabil of a word, also can mean 'strained' pronouncination (not being able to 'get out the words at the right time', often accompanied by 'hissing' sounds).

in his childhood (the severity of stutter can fade over time, leaving most affected individuals with mild to light symptoms when they get older).

Sadly, this kind of basic emotional intelligence and sensitivity is not the norm in the entertainment industry, where mocking people who stutter is usually what we get. Happy to see this change.

“Mourning jewellery is a singular, emotional manifestation of grief, recollection, and cultural rituals within the substantial fabric of historical artefacts. This style of jewellery, which dates back to the Victorian era, combines intricate craftsmanship with the nuanced feelings associated with loss to create a concrete representation of sorrow. These elaborate creations, made of materials such as black jet, onyx, and even woven human hair, are testaments to the grim craftsmanship that arose in the face of loss. […] Mourning jewellery was an essential component of Victorian-era culture as it allowed people to express their grief and memorize loved ones […] rings, brooches, and lockets.

[…] Human hair has been incorporated into jewellery since at least the seventeenth century. Around that time, the hair of the dear departed began to be incorporated into memento mori pieces, as a wearable remembrance of those who had gone before. […] gifts were exchanged between friends and relatives. Although hair jewellery had been worn before 1861, Queen Victoria's usage of it following the passing of her husband, Prince Albert, revived and increased its appeal. Due to Queen Victoria's loss, jewellery designs changed from modest memories and symbols of affection to more dramatic and solemn mourning jewellery that featured the hair of a deceased loved one.”

— Alexander Lappin Mackay; “Victorian Mourning Hair Jewellery (1840-1900)” (2024)

Is this because of this exchange? Orlok calls the ritual Hutter witnessed “filthy” not due to racial bias, but because it's a practice which can destroy him, and prevent him from escaping his Faustian bargain. He’s not saying the Romani are “filthy”. The moment Hutter talks about seeing “gypsies” the previous night, Orlok gives him the side-eye:

And then he explains what “last night” was (Saint Andrew’s Eve) and talks about “our common people”, and Hutter calls them the “peasantry”. He’s identifying the Romani as his people. Not as in his relatives; this Orlok (like book Dracula) is of Székely ancestry. The History of the Romani people in Romania is dark with accounts of slavery (especially in Wallachia and Moldavia), with Transylvania (where Orlok is from) being a sort of exception, where the Romani, according to the law, were free men, not slaves. By the 16th century (during Orlok’s human life), there’s accounts of many Romani in Transylvania as no longer nomad.

Which leads me to the next point: the Romani work for Count Orlok, the same way they work for Dracula in the novel. That’s why there’s a shovel at the crypt. Unlike the previous adaptations, this Orlok needs help to get his sarcophagus around, like shown by his scenes with Herr Knock once he arrives at Wisburg. Meaning, someone transported his sarcophagus to the harbour for him to travel. That’s where the Romani also come in, like in the book (they are the ones who assist Dracula moving about, as well). The Handsome Roma Man has a gold tooth, and the brunette Romani dancer has golden coins on her hair… And later Orlok exchanges a sack full of Roman and Dacian gold coins for Thomas’ signature in the covenant papers. Based on these details, the Romani are getting paid in gold for their services.

I never mentioned the novel’s xenophobia, nor antisemitism, for that matter. Stoker included the Romani as superstitious and as Dracula’s helpers, that was my point. Thomas Hutter uses the G-slur because his book counterpart Harker does the same and, unfortunately, it’s period accurate; this was something I’ve seen being used against Eggers several times. Including the fact there are Roma people in his film connected to Orlok/Dracula, when this is Stoker’s creation, not Eggers. Romani people also held beliefs about vampires, as folklorist Jan L. Perkowski explores on his “Vampires Of The Slavs” (1976). Stoker never set foot in Transylvania, but he did do some research to write “Dracula”, and many of the misguided notions he had are often blamed on Emily Gerard “The Land beyond the Forest” (1888).

“Yet, difficult is the sword's nature, for it can only be unsheathed in the dark of night.”

THE NORTHMAN (2022); dir. Robert Eggers

and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.

there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't think anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.

Yes! This is whole reason the mainstream interpretation of this film is all wrong and is baseless in film canon. Plus why Eggers himself never retracted from saying his version is a “demon lover story” and a Gothic Romance between Ellen and Orlok, and kept bringing up “Wuthering Heights” in the face of backlash. Or why Bill Skarsgård so confidently called Orlok the “romantic lead” to “Fangoria”.

And that’s exactly what Willem Dafoe explained, as well: “This [Nosferatu] had a real sacrifice and obsession to it, and I liked very much my relationship to the understanding of what Lily-Rose Depp's character must do, the kind of sacrifice she must make, her willingness and her understanding of it, and her passion for this force that she can't quite identify.” And to “Deadline”: “And then on the other hand, you have this demon lover that attracts her, and she doesn't know why, but somewhere there is a deep understanding there and a deep attraction.”

Ellen doesn’t know who the shadow at the window is (prologue), she calls it a “presence” to Von Franz. And, exactly, it’s only after the Professor says she’s possessed of some spirit, perhaps a daemon, she will insist there is a demon. In her scene with Anna (“Professor Franz said a demon!”) and Thomas, on arrival, also told her; “He has your locket.” Then, while Friedrich is out and Thomas kicks her out of bed, she dreams of meeting/facing this demon, and accuses him of possessing her: “I felt you crawling like a serpent in my body”, which he denies saying it’s her nature. The next day, she tells Harding the Professor was right, there is, indeed, a demon. It’s not her nature, it’s a demonic force who’s to “blame” for her “behavior”, which Harding dismisses because he sees right through Ellen. I really prefer the interpretation where the supernatural is real (otherwise this is bleak as hell) but once you go down the rabbit hole of the collective psychosis is hard to see anything else because it’s all very clear.

“The highly coded conventions of melodrama performance, with its over-determined practices of characterisation, acting, and staging, constitute a self-referential sign system which exploits the playfulness and artfulness of the theatre to a high degree.

The issue of theatricality in the popular theatre of the nineteenth century is an important one. The theatre of this period is remarkable for its employment of illusionary techniques which draw attention to the play's existence as play: that is, as a game of apprehension in which both performers and spectators participate. The metatheatrical nature of the nineteenth century stage drew on this general acknowledgement of the artificiality of the stage and a sophisticated knowledge of its conventions. […] such devices often worked to increase the spectator's awareness of the artifice, and thus the process of the creation of the performance itself.”

While melodrama establishes the primacy of the feeling individual as a defence against the depersonalising forces of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century, it also stages Victorian anxieties about the existence of the individual, and the innate theatricality involved in the performance of the self. However, despite the deep suspicion of the theatre and theatricality in Victorian culture, the evidence of plays about the theatre in the nineteenth century suggests that such anxieties were mixed with delight in the power of the theatre and theatricality, and use of its performance energy to counter anxieties about identity and its representation.”

— Katherine Newey; “Melodrama and Metatheatre: Theatricality in the Nineteenth Century Theatre” (1997)

The core themes here are sex and death, so sexuality is only half of the equation.

Nosferatu is Death personified, as Professor Von Franz says: “Is a force more powerful than evil. It is death itself.” Orlok, as the folk vampire, brings plague, disease = death. However, due to the time period views on sexuality, sexuality itself (especially female) was seen as a disease, which makes that connection and this as the perfect time frame to explore these two topics together, through the human characters. It’s Freud’s Eros and Thanatos theory. It’s also present in feminist literary criticism of “Dracula”.

As Marie-Gabrielle Rotie explained, Ellen’s character is more about the medicalization of women’s bodies and sexuality by 19th century medicine, rather than owned by her husband and motherhood (that’s Anna’s case). So that connection between sex and disease is very present in her character, yes. Of course, this takes us to larger themes of pregnancy/childbirth related death or even STD’s (very affiliated with the Dracula mythos), and masturbation was believed to cause death during this time, and it’s more thematically appropriate with this version, and Ellen herself.

But, then, of course, this story goes deep into the occult. And Ellen’s trances have another meaning other than Female hysteria, connected to a form of mediumship. And this is where the Death half comes in. Literally, since is through her trances Ellen is able to communicate with Orlok, and has visions she calls “dreams”. Folks need to keep in mind what Robert Eggers explained: Ellen doesn’t have the language to talk about this, or even understand her gift due to the environment she’s a part of. And even the Professor is learning; as he says after his examination of Ellen, he must return to his studies.