Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. For his first Femme Fatale Friday of the New Year, I just had to write about the leading lady of all the Nosferatu films. While I kept my post on Saturday about the three films spoiler-free for the new one, this post will not be spoiler-free as I analyze the Ellen (or Lucy as she is named in the 1979 Herzog film) characters in the three films today. So please proceed with caution if you do not want the Eggers film spoiled for you.
That being said, all three films are perfect films in their own ways, and I have always appreciated the 1922 and 1979 films for centering the softer and more traditionally feminine Lucy character over the more logical Mina of the novel. Now, I know that many people may be a bit confused, as Ellen is married to Thomas Hutter, whose place in the film is the Jonathan Harker character. It is often assumed that the character of Ellen in the original is directly based on Mina, but even Warner Herzog named her Lucy when he went back to the Dracula character names in his version. Of course, this does sometimes happen in the history of Dracula cinema, that Lucy and Mina’s names are switched or that there is only a Mina character and she is named Lucy for that film. However, I will argue that in the case of Nosferatu: The Vampyre from 1979, this was a deliberate choice because Ellen had more in common with Lucy in the novel than with Mina on a personality level! In the source novel, Lucy is very much shown to be the more traditionally feminine, as she is softer in nature. Even her uncertainty over who to marry is not because she wants all the men under her spell but rather a very sweetly empathetic notion that she does not want to hurt any of the men who have become her suitors! Mina, on the other hand, is much more logical in her dealings, learning to type so that she may help Jonathan in his work, for instance. Of course, these differences may be partially chalked up to the fact that Mina had no choice but to learn a skill, having no real family and only her engagement to Jonathan to provide stability for her in life, whereas Lucy Westenra is much more well off. Lucy would be provided for no matter who she ended up with, as she is from a more affluent background.
You may wonder just what I mean when I say that I view Lucy as having a softer feminine energy than Mina. Make no mistake, both are feminine in energy, but Lucy does not have a need to be harsh with others, and this is part of what leads to her victimization by Dracula in the novel, as she is very naive and trusting. Mina is much more practical in learning skills, making her energy a bit more shrewd than Lucy’s. So, what about Ellen’s personality in relation to Lucy? To begin with, both the 1922 film and the 2024 film have a scene where Ellen is upset that Thomas Hutter has cut flowers to give them to her because he has killed the flowers. The delivery is different (as the silent film has a card describing the dialogue), but the energy of her caring so deeply and feeling so nurturing to all living things is kept the same. We also see this in the fact that in each of the three films, she has a pet cat she nurtured (or actually two in the Herzog film). The nurturing she shows in the films can be interpreted as maternal love, even though she does not have children, as the nurturing still has a maternal quality. Even the way she saves the town in the end, or at least attempts to in the Herzog version, is a very feminine and receptive act. Ellen submits to the Vampire; she allows Count Orlok to feed on her until the sun rises so that he will die! Of course, she is also giving in to her own temptations and embracing her sexuality, which is greatly fleshed out in the new film. I would even argue that embracing your sexuality is a very feminine act, as it was female sexuality that was feared and often maligned in the Victorian era, not male sexuality! Therefore, a woman embracing her sexuality is aligning herself with the Divine Feminine. But alas, even as she is embracing her sexuality and possibly giving into deep-held temptation, she is also willing to die to save the people she loves, even if they cannot understand her!
Next, I want to focus on the Robert Eggers film and deep dive into how Ellen is fleshed out. In the new film, it is made obvious that Ellen, played to perfection by Lily-Rose Depp, has long suffered from melancholy, but this does not have a natural origin. With all the references to Faery lore, as well as Vampire folklore sprinkled throughout, one is left wondering if she is quite literally a Changeling. She herself referred to wondering if she is one during her childhood early on in the film, and Orlok himself states that she is not of this world, not human (to which she reacts with great offense). This ethereal, otherworldly, Slyph-like (to use Knock’s term) energy gives the sense that the reason the Soul Bond with Orlok was formed was her own inherent magick! Ellen was isolated because of her sensitivity and the fact that people did not understand how deep her feelings were, making them believe her to be mad. This isolation led to her calling out for comfort and attracting the attention of Orlok.
I actually found out through watching YouTube reviews of the film after I had seen it (as I never want spoilers) that Robert Eggers also stated that he was partially inspired by Wuthering Heights and the toxic love story of Catherine and Heathcliff when interpreting this bond between Ellen and Orlok. As a side note, I will link a couple of those reviews at the bottom of this post if you want to watch them. This makes a great deal of sense that I interpreted the film as having Ellen canonically indeed be a Faery Changeling and that she had interacted with Orlok in another Realm (a Faery Realm or Vampiric Realm) when the bond was formed, as we see in the opening scene. For those unfamiliar with my love of Wuthering Heights, it is one of my all-time favorite novels, and I have come up with a theory in recent years that Catherine was, in fact, a Faery Changeling, much like it seems Ellen may be here!
Ellen is very clearly shown to be a woman who was not understood due to her psychic abilities, hence being called melancholic, a common occurrence in the Victorian period. In the film, she is acknowledged by Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, Willem Dafoe’s Van Helsing character, to have been living with the supernatural all her life. He even goes as far as to say she may have been a Priestess of Isis in times gone by, showing her natural psychic gifts and hinting at how the Soul Bond with Orlok may have formed.
At the end of the day, Ellen (or Lucy as she is called in the Herzog film) is a very deeply Romantic and tragic character. She is a woman who is misunderstood by those around her, much like Lucy’s ailments are misunderstood by most in the Dracula novel. Yet, she still shows a huge depth of love and nurturance (again, soft, very feminine qualities) for those around her. It is Ellen’s choice to sacrifice herself and ‘Succumb to the Darkness’ (to quote the Eggers’ film tagline). She willingly allows Orlok to feed upon her and even likely gives into her sexual desire for Orlok in the Eggers film, as it is heavily applied in the final scene that he did both feed on and bed her. This is a woman willing to make a sacrifice to save her town but also claiming her own sexual desires (even though she dies in the process), showing an ending that is tragic yet slightly hopeful, at least in the Eggers film. Ellen only found freedom from a society that did not understand her in Death, as it is made clear in an early scene that Death never frightened her (when she recounted a dream of marrying Death and feeling happy). Ellen also got to save her husband, who she loved, and the remaining survivors in her town! It is this ending that is both tragic but vaguely hopeful in the freedom of the Soul in Death that definitely shows the echoes of Wuthering Heights that Eggers clearly pulled from, as that novel also shows the lead characters finding freedom being together in Death. The two earlier films do not have such a focus on Death freeing Ellen, more highlighting her only sacrifice to save those she loves, but that is the some of the beauty of how Eggers has fleshed out the story! The last thing I want to say to wrap up this post is that the final scene is utterly stunning, with the final image of Ellen and Orlok wrapped up in an embrace being so tragically beautiful I told my husband I would love to frame the final shot and put it on the wall. Yes, it may be a bit ghastly, but it is very much the medieval Death and the Maiden motif to me, and I think, like Poe famously wrote, “There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.” Specifically, the shot reminded me of paintings by Hans Baldung Grien! I do not know if that was a direct inspiration or not, but I would not be surprised if it were.
I hope you have enjoyed this long analysis of the heroine of Nosferatu. Have you seen the new film? Did you notice the nuances I discussed in this post? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a still from the Eggers film featuring Lily-Rose Depp. I found the picture on https://robert-eggers.fandom.com/wiki/Ellen_Hutter.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Watching/Reading
- Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
- Nosferatu: The Vampyre (1979)
- Nosferatu (2024)
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- https://youtu.be/uh9j5Rgp_MI?si=D_wnFy4DtbJI2jx6
- https://youtu.be/JbIN2owKWu8?si=UcYxT94YDcwoTlzt