Orlok the Oligarch
How Robert Eggers' latest version of the horror classic adapts the classic aristocratic trope to match our current strain of oligarch.
Contains some spoilers for Nosferatu (2024) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Part of the vampire myth has always been about class. Count (no less!) Dracula immediately springs to mind as an embodiment of the seductive aristocrat. But, beyond the veneer of mannered seduction, the undead noble is ultimately driven by his appetite and his need to consume.
Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive introduces us to two nice, posh and ethical vampires played by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. After their long-lived torpor is torpedoed by the chaotic actions of another vampire, they embark on a new beginning which turns out to be some Moroccan poverty tourism – Hiddlestone’s vampire buys an Oud before they decide on feeding on a young straight couple. The vampire may present itself as a regal predator, but much like the ruling classes it evokes, it is really a parasite.
Orlok, the featured vampire of the Nosferatu movies, is something different. Some of these changes from the canonical vampires of Stoker's Dracula came from intentional attempts to evade the wrath of the Stoker estate – a miscalculation that resulted in the order for all extant versions of F.W. Murnau's horror classic to be destroyed. Luckily, enough copies survived this edict for us to be able to talk about it today.
From the rat-like (and plainly anti-semitic) countenance of Max Shrek’s make-up design, to the animated corpse of the current incarnation played by Skarsgard – Orlok comes across as more of an oligarch than an aristocrat. The aristocratic vampire is directed by its hunger but also, like monarchs and aristocrats, needs to perform its cultural and intellectual superiority. Eggers' Orlok feels no such inclination to compete in the fineries of cultural dressage.
In a later moments of Robert Eggers' 2024 update, the Count has decamped from his overseas passage and coffined down in his new castle. Orlock confronts Ellen, the film’s tragic heroine (a breathtaking turn by Lilly Rose Depp whose Ellen is the film’s version of Stoker’s Mina). In this confrontation, Orlok states that he IS appetite. He is the naked drive to possess and consume all things, ultimately bringing them to ruin.
Orlok, as with the other versions of Nosferatu, is linked with pestilence and death. He brings plague rats with him on his voyage but he is himself a plague. While he states that he is appetite, there is no nourishment or revivification that comes with the consummation of this hunger. The Nosferatu does not grow younger like some depictions of Stoker's Dracula, but continues to rot – perhaps at a slower rate than he would if he didn't feed. In this sense I am reminded of the billionaire class, how, despite being obscenely wealthy, they can only act and be motivated by the desire to accrue and hoard more wealth – even when this appetite erodes and dismantles the social apparatus of the hierarchy that they lord over and ultimately benefit from.
Much like the other versions of Nosferatu, Orlok is not defeated by a heroic group of men as happens in Stoker's Dracula, but rather by the submission of Ellen, who coaxes him into feeding until the sun rises and shines through her bedroom window. This process of the Vampire being destroyed by his own urges is already set in motion when he leaves his Romanian castle and enters society. As mentioned earlier, Orlok arrives with a plague that ultimately decimates the population of his newfound home and plunges the remaining citizens into madness and social collapse.
If the billionaire analogy is at play then it could be argued that the billionaire class is stronger when they are almost invisible and only come undone when they over-stray their boundaries and become too involved in social and political discourse.
There is no way of making this point without pointing out Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and how the the website went from being the main home of news and political discourse to a broken mess of far right mania and phone footage of waffle house punch-ups.
This chaos is in turn dwarfed by the chaos currently being inflicted on American infrastructure and federal agencies by a DOGE department that is mostly staffed by young male followers. While it could be seen that Musk is the disciple to Trump's Orlok, I can't help but feel that it might be the other way around. Barely a single digit billionaire himself, Trump's mania resembles the fervour of the familiar more than the tempered calculation of the master.
While the billionaire class may initially weaponise mania and cultural pestilence to satisfy their urges for power and capital, they are ultimately setting up the grounds for their own undoing. This may be the product of them becoming too visible to effectively exercise their power or it might be a case of them simply not being able to outrun the inevitability of death itself. The billionaire may be able to live a longer life if they manage to reign in their own hankerings for Big Macs or ketamine; they may play around with the idea of having their brain preserved cryogenically or digitally; but each must ultimately face their moment in the sun.
In the final moment of Egger's movie, the creature who is able to exert so much power from the shadows (or as a shadow of a hand that stretches across the city leaving a trail of screams in its wake), the Nosferatu is rendered entirely visible by sunlight. Whereas Shrek's vampire fades into the Skarsgard's Orlok remains illuminated as he appears to expel every stolen drop of blood from his body. He is revealed to the viewer and the world in the form that he has always possessed – a living corpse – before he becomes a dessicated and lifeless shell, resembling the real human mummies that are shown in the opening credits of Werner Herzog's earlier remake.
Skarsgard's Orlok is ultimately exposed by his own appetites. He is rendered powerless and pathetic. While this might be seen as a moment of liberation, we should remember that Ellen also perishes in this moment – she has been drained by the vampire and the society that this all takes place within has collapsed. Not so happy an ending then.
The current oligarch of the hour and his presidential familiar will probably meet their undoing when the American people, particularly those that voted for Trump, will feel the sting of recession, have their jobs or businesses fall prey to the effects of infrastructural vandalism or feel the sting when social security payments don't arrive when expected. Tesla shares are also plummeting now that the brand itself has become toxic through association with its Seig-Heiling CEO.
At that point the damage would have already been done. The only consolation would be that they will at least be unveiled in their true form for all to see – as the parasitic husks that they always were. After that, we might have a few decades to rebuild what was so easily ripped down before we all get fooled again.
Thanks for reading this
I was a bit skittish about writing and publishing this one because I really wanted to write about other things than Cheeto Mussolini and Apartheid Stark. One reason why I can't scroll through social media that much is because of all of the toothless dunking content that well-meaning progressives keep churning out. It’s the Liz Truss Lettuce genre of satire that allows us to poke fun at a powerful figure and feel like we’re fighting the power – but this is nothing more than a cathartic spectacle that does nothing of the sort. It doesn’t really do anything to help those that are truly hurt or disenfranchised by the public figure’s actions and policies,
The ideas for this essay took form after I finally got round to watching Robert Eggers' take on Nosferatu. I realised there was no way to do this without straying into toothless satire territory. For me personally, there's no way to give my take on the themes of the film without venturing into some details of our current collective predicament on Planet Earth.
If you haven’t yet figured it out, I really did love the film. I said in my last essay that silent cinema (and here I am echoing Mark Cousins) is still perhaps the most protean and experimental form of cinema. Eggers is one of the few filmmakers who creates work that feels like it could come from that era while also feeling truly groundbreaking and current. I love how his films look, if he was capable of making a bad film I think I’d still be happy to sit in front of it for two hours and soak up the vibes. That’s what a lot of art is about for me these days, the vibes.
I’ll finish by adding that my favourite modern film maker is Bong Joon Ho, who, despite his own middle class background, has a brilliant grasp of class dynamics. I can’t think of a Mike Leigh or Ken Loach film that made me feel angry for as long as I felt after watching Parasite. It might be a Korean thing, as other Korean directors seem to be similarly adept at intertwining class struggle narratives into more standard genre fare. I managed to catch Mickey 17 with Mrs O’Sullivan a few weeks ago and I’m still digesting it. I might need to see it again before I can write a fraught-but-entertaining essay about it.
Cheers,
Niall