Nosferatu is a story about being true to yourself
Even if it means you need to take Dracula to bed
I cannot stop thinking about Nosferatu. It’s a movie that leaves space for any number of takes on its meaning - and I like this about it, it’s open to interpretation in such a way that it mirrors the prejudices of the audience. In that way, I think your take about Nosferatu will say much more about you than it does about the movie.
This, for what it’s worth, is my take: Nosferatu is a manifestation of the desire and sexuality that lives within all of us (for good and for ill) which is condemned through counterproductive social structures that in turn lead to greater ruin. By criminalising our very nature, we do more evil than our hunger ever could. It is, ultimately, a movie that speaks to avarice and the infinite well of human desire, but it is not that that it seeks to judge. Instead, it is in judgment of the social structures under which such desires become sin.
"In heathen times, you might’ve been a priestess of the Egyptian goddess Isis. yet in this strange and modern world, your purpose is of greater worth.”
This is what Willem Dafoe’s delightful quack doctor says to Ellen, the one Count Orlok (horny Dracula) covets, as she determines to sacrifice herself for the sake of the city and those she loves. It’s this quote which (to me) underlies the thrust of the whole movie - it is supposedly Ellen’s perverse inner nature which drags Orlok’s desire into being, when in reality it is a virtue. It’s the context of the times in which she lives that condemns such impulses as sin. In a more understanding age, Dafoe’s Von Franz believes, her nature would be celebrated.
As an isolated young girl Ellen begs the heavens for company, and it is this intense desire that is said to have woken Orlok. This is the puritanism of the times writ large: a young girl’s desire for company is to blame for the evil men do as they covet it. The sexualisation of the young is both incessantly sought and inevitably condemned. While this could be read as a condemnation of the selfishness of desire which wrecks what it touches, I don’t think this is what the director Robert Eggers wanted to say.
A friend recently pointed out to me that all the women in the movie are killed by Orlok. I think that is what makes the point somewhat stronger: the monsters driven to act in response to the sexual desire of women punish women the most. They do not even spare the little girls.
Importantly, this movie shows that sexuality and morality are not contradictory: Ellen and her husband Thomas have an incredibly strong relationship. They show it through the way they care for one another, particularly after Thomas returns from a predictably eventful trip to Transylvania and is in need of moral and medical support. Upon Thomas’ arrival, Ellen is woken immediately from her own malaise and starts acting to bring Thomas back to health. However, her love for Thomas is something that can only add to her sexual desire, but it can never take it away.
Meanwhile, Orlok too arrives in town and brings a plague of rats with him. The plague serves as a counterpart to Orlok’s greed made manifest. While Orlok only covets one, his malign influence brings with it the plague of a thousand little hungers, a literal that consumes society indiscriminately.
To save her husband and the city, Ellen gives in to Orlok, keeping him in place (in bed) until the sun rises and he burns away (this is a Vampire flick, after all). She dies. It is by accepting her desires, rather than rejecting them, she defeats Orlok, while it is his all-consuming avarice that prevents him from leaving Ellen. Once brought into the light of day he withers away.
It is an act of heroism. Yes, she gives in to what she is compelled to want but it is the choice that matters. She chooses to give herself up for the sake of those around her, while Orlok chooses to immolate for his unstoppable avarice. If Ellen had rejected desire for Orlok she would have only left him in power, whereas it is her choice to embrace her sexuality, rather than reject it, that saves them all. This mirrors the path to sexual liberation more broadly - to shrink in response to condemnation is to give it power, but to accept yourself is to in spite of it is salvation. This is especially the case when the condemnation itself is a gross perversion of their own desire.
In this way Ellen and Orlok represent two different paths in response to similar sets of circumstances; while their mutual desires set the story in motion, only one of them was a source of the literal plague, while the other was its end.