Renfield and Control (Nosferatu)

Note: apparently the character names have been changed in different localizations of this film, with at least three different names being listed for each character on the Wikipedia page. I'll be using the names from the Amazon localization I watched, which seem to have been written to replicate the original book.

A uniquely unsettling scene in Nosferatu, in my view, was the cut to the imprisoned Renfield after Drakul kills the people on the ship. Renfield is downright giddy about the the arrival of the one he calls "master", going as far as to strangle his guard and break out in order to try and find him. It made me realize that Renfield was more than a disposable character who was thrown in to advance the plot, but rather a persistent character whose role within the story extended beyond the initial incident. Alexander Granach's performance as Renfield also sticks out to me due to the sheer energy he exudes in many of the scenes, moving with a frantic excitement even when he's just sitting at his desk or in a cell. We know little about how Renfield entered this state, but we can figure out a few things about him.

1. Renfield's stability decreases over the course of the film. In the beginning, he's working as a clerk and his behavior isn't anything out of the ordinary for Jonathan. When next we see Renfield, he's incarcerated in a cell scrawling designs on the walls, indicating that whatever condition he's in is getting progressively worse.

2. Renfield obsesses over Drakul, heavily implying that Drakul has or has had some sort of control over the man's mind. The effect seems to stick around even after Drakul sees no more use for Renfield. It is not clarified whether this effect is magical in nature or if Renfield is just fanboying over the mysterious lord (the first option is much more likely in my opinion, but I won't rule out the second for reasons I'll get into later).

3. Renfield is very protective of a piece of paper covered in occult symbols, even going as far as to replicate the symbols on the wall of his cell. We see Drakul carrying the same symbols on a piece of paper when he eats with Jonathan, which could mean that the paper/symbols are either a means of long-distance communication or a mechanism for Drakul to control people's minds. Renfield may be afraid of having other people seeing the paper for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being the risk that somebody might be able to decipher the encoded spell and figure out what it actually does (the alternatives could be that the magic of the paper is finite and could be drained by another user, or that a pseudo-stable Renfield wanted to protect Jonathan from its effects).

From the information we are given, we can be interpret the actions of Renfield to take several different directions, each of which possesses a unique space for commentary and thematic value.

In the first conceptualization, Drakul was able to reach out to Renfield at some point in the past and magically brainwash him, using the paper to keep in touch while Renfield returned home. In this case, Drakul's mind control represents how easily people can be seduced into servitude by propaganda, promises of wealth, or other forces. Renfield's personality has been overwritten by whatever Drakul put in his head, his goals having been magically replaced by Drakul's own. Once those goals are completed, Renfield is just cast to the side, the clerk still enslaved to Drakul's intenions.

The second idea is similar to the first, except that Renfield's brainwashing is neither magical nor symbolic. The clerk was promised money, prestige, camaraderie, or other resources by Drakul and these promises blinded him to his own humanity while slowly stripping away his stable facade. In the age of stochastic terrorism, it is quite easy to believe that people could be swayed to absurd acts just through promises, and this approach makes a great deal of sense within the context of postwar Germany (which was fueled by false promises of glory from the elite).

The third idea is that Drakul stopped communicating with Renfield after their initial meeting, but gave the clerk the paper as a reward for his service. The symbols encoded on the paper could function as some sort of magical drug, inducing immense pleasure in somebody who knows how to work them (this would explain why Renfield wrote them on his wall). In this case, the story of Drakul and Renfield is that of a promise fulfilled, mirroring the empty accolades which were given to soldiers after the war (or perhaps the inflated-to-uselessness currency of the Wiemar Republic). This reading could serve as an effective commentary on the pursuit of prestige and aristocratic respect, displaying the grotesque lengths that someone will go to in order to acquire what is little more than a piece of paper.

Other combinations of these factors could exist, but these are the three that I think are most sensible and thought-provoking. I would love to hear the thoughts of others regarding these dynamics.