Die Nibelungen (1924) Directed by Fritz Lang

 

Die Nibelungen is a 2 part film, almost 5 hours long, that tells the story Siegfried in the first part who rises to legendary status by killing a dragon on his way to find the love of his life who he has only heard of in a tale told by a story teller in the place he learned to forge swords. By the end of part one he has married and been betrayed by his best friend. The second part is the story of Kriemhild, his wife, taking revenge on her brother the king and everyone else even peripherally involved in the murder. 

I won't spoil too much as even though this film is legendary I don't feel many people have sat through it all - either seeing the first part only (the dragon part) or just seeing clips about it. To be honest I do understand the idea of sitting through a 5 hour silent film seems like a punishment to many people but they are WRONG. This is a prize, an epic fantastic journey with stunning visuals, great performances, effects and sets that will amaze you. 

The pacing is not as fast as a modern film, but so what? Almost every frame is mesmerizing. Siegfried is the iconic muscular, blonde hero who will be copied throughout future films and the story covers a lot of ground from his modest start to his finding of the the treasures of Die Nibelungen in the dwarves underground layer to his epic fight with the dragon after which he bathes in it's blood to become invincible, only to be foiled when I leaf lands on his back blocking the blood and giving him a vulnerable spot. To win the woman of dreams, he helps the king wed his, the formidable Brunhild by using an invisibility device to secretly aid the king to beat her in 3 competitions of strength and battle. Brunhild leaps from one end of the set to the other in a way that today's superheroes could learn from. 

The effects are fantastic. The dragon is a huge puppet controlled by 32 people inside, the castles and landscapes are stylized but also seem like real places. The biggest success is the forest scenes. They are beautifully film with light streaming through the trees and intriguing in their look and structure. And.. they are all fake and inside a studio which seems impossible watching the film. 

Kriemhild's revenge, the second part is all intrigue and battles as she finds favour with a foreign king, marries him and convinces him to help her with her revenge and reclaiming the treasures of Die Nibelungen. 

This is the sort of epic film Lange was famous for before coming the states to escape the nazis and he never made again in the United States. The budget is girnormous and it shows and highlights his attention to every detail. 

Silent Summer: Metropolis (the novel) 1925 written by Thea von Harbou

 

This was a book I looked decades for in either English or German and never came across a copy until I recently searched again, but this time for digital copies and easily found a one for under 2$ on Kindle! I had read the script and seen the movie many times and finally was able to compare the film to the source material.

Von Harbou wrote the book with a film adaptation (by her then husband, Fritz lang) in mind and it was serialized in a magazine as way to get the story out to the public as pre-publicity for the upcoming film. 

The story and characters are pretty much the same overall, thought Joh Frederson, the Master of Metropolis, is more fleshed out and has a mother who makes it very clear that he has become a terrible person after the death of his wife after the birth of their son, Freder who he adores but shows little emotion to.

Another difference is the religious symbolism, heavily Christian -  but sprinkled with other mythologies throughout. It is something not really seen in the film and a little overdone. As it was written in 1925 there are also some lines of racism and quite a bit of sexism thrown in for good measure, thankfully missing from the film. The biggest was a huge surprise for me, the absence of the film's iconic message: "There can be no understanding between the hand and the brains unless the heart acts as mediator."

The robot, so iconic in the film is less here and is much more human-like in the novel, It arrives on the scene already made, can talk and begs Joh Fredersen to give her a face. She still gets the face of the Maria the defect leader of the poor and the love interest but her role is smaller and a little muddled in book form.

Well worth a read if you never have and having read the script long before any restorations of the film were done, this would have been an amazing revelation as to the many missing elements from the presentations of the movie I was seeing at small theatres and church basements in the early 80s. 

False.

Coming Soon to your living room!

Hooray for those of us not living in a major metropolis! The restored "METROPOLIS" is coming to us! Turner Classic Movies will air Fritz Lang's masterpiece, commercial-free (of course) on Sunday, Nov. 7 at 8PM Eastern.

Debra Paget's First Dance for Fritz Lang

Two years ago or so Debra Paget's dance from Das Indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb) was on a bunch of sites owing to her "artificially nude" appearance juxtaposed over Fritz Lang's exotic and tense mise en scene. It looked cool. This clip:



is not dissimilar and it's from the first film of his Indian Epic Trilogy - Der Tiger Von Eschnapur. The set is pretty spectacular as is Paget's gusto towards getting the performance maximized. A great lepers-that-look-like-zombies scene shortly follows in the film.