NOSFERATU and Escaping Abuse

This episode of Cinema Therapy is brought to you by Squarespace. The all-in-one platform to build a beautiful website and grow your power. I mean brand. You deceive yourself. Orlok sees in Ellen someone to possess, to control. I have brought People who are in abusive relationship patterns are full of shame because they feel like they have a hand in creating that. It is your nature. She wants to be a person of light and decency, but she feels herself drawn to the darkness. Does evil come from within us or from beyond? We are all drawn to darkness. It was you that gave me the courage to be free of my shame. Thomas didn't see how strong Ellen was. I abhor you. When you embrace that strength and you embrace your worth and you embrace that you are the freaking hero of the story, that's how you break free. Hello and welcome to Cinema Therapy. I'm Jonathan Decker, licensed therapist who loves movies. This is Alan Seawright and I am spooky. Indeed, it is spooky. We're going to be talking about Nosferatu and Escaping Abuse. Another vampire love triangle movie. Like Twilight? Just like that. Except for not garbage. Well, Stephanie. Oh man. What the ****? No, this is a masterpiece. All I can think of was Dear God, Save Me, I'm Terrified out of my mind. So scary. Nobody has made a movie like this in a long time. Like it really just leans into the melodrama of, you know, the old silent film from the 20s. And it's not jump scares, it's menace. On a rewatch, Ellen's story really came to the forefront for me as such a powerful tale of a woman escaping abuse and understanding why she was in abusive relationship patterns in the first place. So even if Nosferatu or scary movies aren't your jam, stay with us because I really feel like this is going to be one of our better episodes. And by better, I mean most helpful. Okay, so we start off with Ellen. At this point in the story, she is single, but she is young, she is mentally ill, and she is rejected and scorned. And she calls out to an angel to help her to be with her because she's so alone. Whoopsie. Lily Rosedep's performance, the physicality, and then just the performance in general is amazing. Yeah, it's an instant all-timer. It's Oscar worthy. It is Oscar worthy, 100%. And she is the heart and soul of the film. Yeah. And everyone around her is great. I'm not taking it away from everybody's performance in this is spectacular. She's being lied to. I don't know. I think he means it. Oh, I know. That doesn't mean it's true. Oh my gosh. But why do people get drawn into abusive relationships? Because they get something out of it. At least initially. Yeah. Well, because there's the allure of danger, but then there's also, generally speaking, somebody who has been mistreated or neglected, ignored, abandoned, or abused. And you have that person, and they have been taught to believe that they are worthless, that they are pathetic. And this is the state he finds her in. She's calling to an angel or a celestial being to be with her, so she's not alone. Why? Because she's been rejected by everybody else and mistreated. And what does he tell her? You are special. Yes. You are not for this world. You are not for mere mortals. We will be together forever. And immediately, it's a hook. Now, granted, he's got supernatural powers, which some men are like that. Who are you? A friend. Bye. I am not one of them. But the point is, she is terrified, but she's also intrigued and aroused. And most of all, being told how special she is. In some cases, it's a manipulation. In some cases, they mean it. In some cases, it's both. I think Nosferatu does mean it. I think the level of obsession he has with her throughout the film suggests that, no, he sees her as this divine, dark creature that is to be his. Well, it's to be his and his ticket to eternal life, salvation, and pleasures unknown, and whatever. There's a weird psychosexual component to this movie that is, for a lot of people, very off-putting. But it's also intriguing. It does such a great job of nailing that, again, from abuse. This is dark and wrong and gross, and I kind of like it. Yeah. And does that make me bad? It's such an interesting experience watching the film. I love that you brought that up. We're going to get there in a second, because she wants to be good. She wants to be a person of light and decency. Yeah. But she feels herself drawn to the darkness, and so there's a lot of shame there. So, she finds Thomas, and marries Thomas, and clings to him like a life preserver. Have you seen our cinema there? It was so easy to build and customize our site using Squarespace. We chose one of the many professionally designed templates from Squarespace. Then, using their intuitive drag and drop editing, we customized our website to suit our purposes. You can also use Squarespace domains to find the best site name for your business, at one all-inclusive price. No hidden fees or add-ons, or arcane blood oaths required. And every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools. Your site will be safe, protected from perverse appetites. So, whether you need to build a website for your real estate brokerage, or your cultural research institute, Squarespace will work for you. And you won't have to spend an eternity building your website. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash cinematherapy and use code cinematherapy to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. She dreams of marrying Orlock. So very happy. We exchanged vows, we embraced, and we turned around. Everyone was dead. Father and everyone. The stench of their bodies was horrible. And, but I'd never been so happy as that moment. As I held hands with death. I could never speak these things aloud. Never. Just a trifle foolish dream, just as your past fancies. Everything is well. So he's trying to be supportive, but he doesn't know how, and so the way he's trying is avoidance. Yes. Look, when I return, I will finally make something of myself. I shall buy us a fine house of our own with a maidservant. We needn't any of that. I wish you to have all you deserve. You mustn't leave. I love you too much. This is brilliant writing. It's so, so, so good. In fact, oftentimes brilliant writing, you only notice how and why it's brilliant on a revisit. Yeah. Because the first time you're just drawn into it, but what this is telling us about Ellen is she has formed a codependent relationship with Thomas. Yes. She needs him and he needs to be needed. Yep. Because to him, his purpose is she's broken. She's mentally ill. She's damaged and disturbed. I love her. I must take care of her. I must protect her. And look, on the surface, that's all good. But the issue is that she's not focused on getting well or developing her own strength. She's relying on him to be her light. You mustn't leave. I love you too much. And the fact is we often have nightmares, especially recurring nightmares, because we're not dealing with things in reality. Right. And so the subconscious says, well, this is when you're going to deal with it then. And what scares her is she says, I've never been so happy as when I was holding hands with death. That terrifies her. A lot of times people who are in abusive relationship patterns are full of shame and self-doubt because they feel like they have a hand in creating that. I chose to enter this relationship. I am drawn to it. Therefore, and she even says the words, what is wrong with me? Well, and beyond that, there are parts of it that I've enjoyed. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, in any relationship with a person nearly no matter how bad or evil, there's going to be something about them that's great. Yeah. It's wonderful. That brought you in in the first place and maybe continues to be attractive. Yeah. I had a friend who was in a horrifically abusive relationship. And she told me that one of the reasons she didn't get out sooner is because he was invested in making sure she experienced pleasure because it confused her. Oh, okay. That if it was pleasing and she sought it out, then she consented to it, is the idea that he was conveying to her. And then she gets into what Ellen gets into. I don't deserve goodness. I don't deserve to be treated well. Obviously, I am dark. Obviously, I am evil. Obviously, I am bad. That's why I sought this out. That's why I enjoyed it. And the thing about a good therapist or trauma recovery or taking a look at yourself is acknowledging and embracing we're all drawn to darkness. Yeah. We are all drawn to things that are not good for us, but are exciting or are titillating or distracting or help us cope with the pain. Yep. And Count Orlok is very bad for her. Yeah. And Earth. Yeah. And Thomas is the better alternative. He is a good man. Sure. The fact that he's trying to sweep this under the rug and be avoidant means that he's a flawed man. Right. But he is a genuinely good man who loves her and wants to provide for her. And even though they have real love, they have an unhealthy dynamic. So, Ellen talks a lot about feeling like she's under the control of another. Yeah. Like she's a doll. She doesn't have life. She just exists to do what she's told. This is codependency. And it describes both of her relationships, both with Thomas and with Orlok. Both of them are fixated on her. Both of them are obsessed with her. Both of them do everything they do for her. In both cases, she needs them and they need to be needed. Right. My heart is lost without my Thomas. The biggest difference, of course, is that Thomas is a man of conviction and decency and integrity and Orlok is evil incarnate. Now, what she's done is she's traded one codependent relationship for another. And this speaks to an essential truth. And one of the reasons why couples therapy is such a beautiful thing. You can be a good person and be in a relationship with a good person and have real love. And that relationship can still be unhealthy and unsupportive. Because in their case, it's the codependency. It's she is seeing Thomas as her lifeblood instead of finding strength for herself. And by the way, if escaping abuse, the topic and horror, the genre, if you like that combo, we've got an episode on Invisible Man, one of our early episodes. Yeah, one of our very early ones. Worth checking out. Great movie, too. At last, Papa found me once lay unclothed. I was my body, my flesh. Sin, sin, he said. He would have sent me to that place. I shan't go. No, no. It all ended when I first met my Thomas. From our love, I became as normal. Yet these visions and night wanderings have returned to you. I fear for him so. Professor, my dreams grow darker. Does evil come from within us or from beyond? That's the question, right? Yeah. That's like the question. Well, it's a major philosophical question for the human race, especially in the context of Ellen and her relationship with Orlok. She called, he came. Does that mean she is evil? Does that mean she summoned him? Does that mean? And then he was invested in her experiencing pleasure, and her father found her. You get it. She questioned, am I dark? Am I evil? Because I chose this, because I enjoyed this. What is wrong with me? Right. And this speaks to Ellen's upbringing. Her father pushed her away, called her a sinner, called her evil, called her bad. And then she's with Thomas, and Thomas is a life preserver. Maybe I can be good if Thomas loves me and sees in me the goodness, and maybe I'm not a sinner. Maybe I'm not bad. The issue I have with this is it's not a bad first step to find people who see your goodness, who see your worth, and who value you. The issue is that she is reliant on Thomas to sustain that feeling within herself. She has yet to say, you know what? I see and accept all of me. The righteous, quote unquote, good parts, the parts that I'm ashamed of and that are scary to me, that it's all me, and that as I love and accept me, then I can start making choices for not what is good or evil, but what is supportive and healthy versus what is unsupportive and unhealthy, and strip the judgment from it. And the temptation to cling so tightly to a person, I don't know if you've ever met a person where you meet them, and as they're getting to know you, you feel like a different person around them. Like your internal life changes because you're around them, and the temptation to just clutch to that person, like I'm better with you, is real, and not necessarily bad. What's bad about their relationship is she's taking it too far. I am becoming a complete person through knowing you. It's you are making me better, and without you, I will go back to being this bad thing. Well, and another point is that she believes herself to be wicked. That's internalized messaging from her father. Yes. So it's one of the reasons why, though she is with Thomas, she's drawn to Nosferatu, or Orlok, because she doesn't feel like she deserves better. Right. She believes that awful is what she deserves, even though she yearns for something more. Now, if any of this is relatable for you, we want you to know you are not evil. No, you are not bad. You are human. And the things, any of the things that you've done that you feel shame for, you did to survive, you did to cope, you did out of curiosity. These are all human emotions. The beautiful thing about life is that we can choose to learn and grow and be different when we see what is supportive and what is not. Who we want to be and who we don't want to be, and we can choose that. And that is, spoiler alert, that's Ellen's path, and we're going to get there, but we just wanted to say it to you right here, right now. Okay, patrons, this is a Director's Cut only scene that we're going to talk and assess. It's because it's a tangent. It's not directly related to what we're talking about. Not about Ellen's story, really. But it's a badass scene, and I wanted to talk about it. Till you did wake me. You woke me up. Enchantress, and stirred me from my grave. You wore my affliction. I care nothing of your afflictions. Blaming the victim. Now, we are fated. Wise. Yeah, that's a manipulation. Your husband has signed his name and... Destined to be with me. I'm the only one for you. If I can't have you, no one will. No one else will want you. And your husband signed a contract for gold. He didn't know what he was doing. He lied to him. You know nothing of him. And the resignation must be completed by you, freely of thine own will. You are a deceiver. You deceive yourself. I was but an innocent child. I thought you I would not return. Thought you I would not. Your passion is bound to me. He breathes. This is so creepy. You cannot love. All of the most effective lies contain a curl of truth. She is passionate about it. You cannot love, I cannot. Yet I cannot be sated without you. She's both repulsed by him and turned on by him. A moment to remember. Which is, this is the only scene in the movie that we can show that illustrates that. And classic abuser right there. Yeah. As soon as she stands up to him, he gets physical. Yeah, because that's all he has left. I can bully, I can intimidate, I can threaten, I can terrify. Yeah. And like you're saying, like with a lot of abusers, he starts with lies and manipulation. You know, it's not me, it's your nature. You summoned me. And she's right when she says, you cannot love. To his credit, he's like, yep. Sure, yeah. Because it's all about obsession and control and possession and satisfaction and desire to him. Yeah. And she sees him rightly as a villain. And then he counters with, I'm an appetite. I'm your appetite. Yeah. In other words, he's putting this all back on her. This is classic manipulative avoidant and gaslighting. None of this is my fault. And sometimes abusers paint themselves as the good guy. And sometimes they say, yeah, I know I'm bad, but you like bad. This is on you. Well, and another classic abuser move is every accusation is confession, right? He's telling her she's all these things that he is. Yeah. It's a projection. Bill Skarsgård is, you know, rapidly showing himself to be one of the great character actors. Like everything changes. His physicality changes. His voice changes. The way he moves changes. But it's all in the performance. There's a lot of me going like, whoa, just between. I cannot speak it. He is come to this book for you. No, I've brought this evil upon us. I just love that. I've never shared my. As she opens up. Secret with any soul. And starts taking strength. She stands to be the same height as him. I sought company. I sought tenderness and I called out. What do you mean by this? At first it was sweet. I had never known such bliss. And then? And it turned to torture. It would kill me. But Thomas. It was you that gave me the courage to be free of my shame. You. What are you telling me? Don't you understand? Please help me to. He is my shame. He is my melancholy. He took me as his lover then. And now he has come back. He has discovered our marriage and has come back. Impossible. He stalks me in my dreams. All my sleeping thoughts are of him. Every night. Don't touch me. I am not to be touched. Lots of really powerful things going on in the scene. As you said, she stands when she's ready to confess. This is the turn. This is the fulcrum. This is where Ellen starts to decide. I'm going to stand for myself. Yeah. And I'm going to find courage and strength within myself. Why did she not tell Thomas before? She was afraid that she would lose him if he knew. Yeah. And she couldn't live without. And that's what she said earlier. My heart is lost without my Thomas. And now she knows I have to be my strength. I can get strength from Thomas. Sure. And I can get love from Thomas, but I have to be my strength. This is how you start to build a healthy relationship with someone who is good. You start by finding your own identity. You have to know who you are. You have to know your worth. And you have to be willing to draw boundaries of what you will and won't tolerate. You have to be able to tell the truth. Why must you remain so exasperatingly contrary as I am in the right? That's what she does here. She tells the truth for the first time. Right. Because whether Thomas stays with her or not, she's going to live in truth. Yes. And, you know, to Thomas's credit, he learns this about her, and he takes the fact that they were lovers mostly in stride because he's more afraid we're all going to die. Right. There are extenuating circumstances here that you are almost certainly not going to go through. Right. But there's a difference between having unhealthy dynamics with a good person and having unhealthy dynamics with an abuser. Yes. The biggest difference is that when you want to make changes, a good person will support that because they want that for you and they want that for your relationship and dynamic. And an abuser is going to say, no, hell no, this is how we're going to do it. Right. And that's what Orlock is. And it's important to note that one of the reasons their relationship was unhealthy is because the shame that she carried inside and the fear and self-loathing that she carried inside led her to be dishonest. Right. Led her to hide and led her to cling. Yes. But with accountability, with trust, with vulnerability, and when those things are rewarded with acceptance and belonging, everything can shift and the relationship can be healthy and supportive. The physical work that Lily-Rose Depp does with her character is bananas. It had to have been so exhausting. I love you. You're safe with me. It's me. Keep away from me. I'm unclean. Never. He will murder you if I do not go to him. He sees through... I will be torn apart and the world will be despaired. The lie that she believes about herself still. Kill him, I will. He shall never harm you again. So listen, find someone who loves and respects you despite what you think about yourself. If they offer to kill your abuser, I mean... Can you get away with it? No. What? I am joking. I am not advocating murder. Maybe just a little bit. Listen, if your abuser is... Say it. ...a vampire. Outlaw. Can you kill someone who's already dead? I love that she says, get away, I am unclean. And earlier she says, do not touch me, I am not to be touched. This speaks to the shame, the internalized self-belief that she is wicked and bad, that she inherited from her father, from how her father saw her and how he treated her. And Thomas says, never. Well, and the I am not to be touched feels to me like something that she got from Orlok. Yeah. Right? She's internalized things from her father. She's internalized things from Orlok. None of them are true. Yeah, none of them are true. And Thomas says, never. He says, I love you. You were talking about... I mean, you turned it into a joke and it was a good joke. But going back to the beginning before your punchline of finding someone who sees you and your worth no matter what choices you've made or whatever has been done to you when you didn't have a choice. Right. To say, I still love you, I still accept you and you belong, is an incredibly beautiful, powerful thing. Yeah. And as we were saying, you have to give it to yourself because you can't always rely on others being there to give it to you. Right. But when you find people who give you that and it's sincere and there's no ulterior motive, keep those people in your life. It's okay to lean on it. Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to hold yourself up by yourself all the time. That's why we have relationships. Yeah. But we're going to see that even though Thomas wants to be the hero and he wants to protect her, he's not the hero of the story. She is. I know. It must be me, Professor. I am but an able tourist in this occult world. You were born to it. I love everything he says, how it's written. It is a rare gift. His pull to me is so powerful, so terrible. Yet my spirit cannot be evil as his. We must know evil to be able to destroy it. We must discover it within ourselves. And when we have, we must crucify the evil within us or there is no salvation. I need no salvation. My entire life I've done no ill but heed my nature. Then hearken to it. I fear Nosferatu is impervious to any of our iron stakes. I'm convinced only you have the faculty to redeem us. Alan, let us make haste. Yeah, I have a lot I want to talk about in the seat. Yeah, for sure. But I don't want to interrupt it either. In heathen times, you might have been a great priestess of Isis. Yet in this strange and modern world, your purpose is of greater worth. You are our salvation. Thank you. Orlok sees in Ellen someone to possess, to control, to own. Thomas, it's better. It comes from a pure, decent place. He sees someone to love and to cherish and to protect, but it's also control. Yeah, in a way. It's benevolent. Like it comes from a good place, but it's still, let me take care of you, tell you what to think, what to do, how to act so that you can stay safe, so that you won't be ridiculed. Yeah, don't fall to these flights of fancy, right? Telling her what to think and how to feel. Thomas is a good-hearted mansplainer. He just is. Sure, yeah. And he also sees it as his role to protect her. Professor von Franz is the only one to truly see her, that she is the one who's going to save them all. Yeah. That she is the one, he talks about faculty, and it's not just that she is a woman and Orlok is drawn to her, it's that she will have the courage to lure him in, to use herself as bait and to vanquish and kill him. Well, and he interprets her saying, I have experienced this darkness and he's like, you have to find the darkness within you. And she says, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. No, that's not what it is. Yeah. I have never done anything wrong. I have been a victim. And he immediately says. He pivots and she says, I've only done that which was my nature. And he says, then hearken to it. You know, that inner voice inside of you, who you are, like, listen to that, trust your instincts on this, because again, he sees that she is good. She convinces him. But when you hone in on Ellen, it's a powerful, uplifting, beautiful story, even amidst all the darkness. Yeah. Because she's finding a way to escape her abuser and to escape these codependent patterns by embracing her worth, by embracing her goodness, by undoing the story that her father told her and embracing a new narrative that is true. But how do you escape abuse? I mean, there's all sorts of practical components when it comes to shelters and authorities and ways to stay safe and protect yourself. I'm not an expert in all of the ins and outs of what are the very practical steps. Like, I can direct you to the people who would know that. But what I can say psychologically, finding the strength to leave means questioning and defying the narratives and the lies and the manipulations that have been fed to you by people who are invested in controlling you, like Orlok was, or people who are too short-sighted and trapped in their worldview to see your worth and to see how good you are because they're so full of judgment and bigotry and bile, like her father. Or even the good people, like the good-hearted people like Thomas, who want to be there for you, but they see you as fragile and in need of protection. Now, don't get me wrong. You can need protection and be strong. You can have people who are like, I've got your back. I'm ride or die. You don't have to do this alone. Let's do this together. What I'm suggesting is Thomas didn't see what was in front of him all along, which is how strong Ellen was and how strong you are. People won't see it doesn't mean it's not there. And when you embrace that strength and you embrace your worth and you embrace that you are the freaking hero of the story, that's how you break free. It has so much depth and heart and there's so much good buried inside the darkness. Yeah. Truly a masterpiece. Yeah. Robert Eggers, if you're watching this, please come on our show and talk to us about this and your whole filmography. So until next time. We want to thank our patrons over on Patreon for supporting this show, getting significantly longer director's cuts and special episodes and all kinds of... It's just great stuff over there. Go to our Patreon and check it out. And you can meet people like... Wendy Darling. Movie fans. Paradigm Dad. Nicky. Sloth-topus. Thank you, patrons.