Die Nibelungen: Siegfrieds Tod

When I saw this wonderfully exciting adventure film, it got me thinking, "Why can't people make films like this anymore?". Partly why the film makers don't make films like this anymore is that they are so occupied in having the best special effects around and don't give a hoot about the characters, story or detail (Jurassic Park, Lost World, Independence Day, Armageddon are only a small part). I would love to go and see a film that have real characters from these make-believe worlds. There are so many movies today that have Americans in a make-believe world, acting and talking like Americans, this makes me sick all over. This movie has real characters we care about in a believable world. This is partly why I love silent films so much. It is the acting and not the dialog that the viewer gets to know the character through.

This film has all the elements that makes up for a good adventure film. Very good story, exciting action, wonderful sets, beautiful photography, chillingly wonderful villains and some of the best special effects I've seen (for the time's standard). I especially love the trick photography to make Siegfried invisible and casting a shadow even though he is. I'm looking forward to watching Kriemhild's Revenge.

If you haven't seen this movie and love adventure movies, see it. It is so exciting and magical that you'll remember it always when you see a bad adventure movie, something that is normal today.

I am not especially an aficionado of silent films though I have long loved Lang's 'Metropolis'. Being an opera lover, especially Wagner, it is to my shame that it has taken me decade to get around to watching Lang's masterpiece 'Siegfried'.

Even more than Richard Wagner's 4 Ring operas in 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' Lang's films tie in many of the ancient Nordic and Teutonic legends that contributed to Wagner's monumental creation.

Brunhild is a powerful Icelandic Queen, Siegfried the son of King Siegmund, all this quite different from the operas in that Siegmund was not a king in those. Also, Hagen, the evil deus ex machina is portrayed here as a Wotan like figure, with patched eye and horned helmet. Otherwise, the basic story is the same but more believable as drama than Wagner's highly fantastic story line.

This film is going to last a lifetime with me. And it is especially wonderful that the great musical score by Gottfried Huppertz has been included in the DVD release on Kino films. Its a haunting score and very much its own character. It doesn't try to imitate Wagnerianism but there are what Wagner called leitmotivs to represent the various characters and mood.

Even if you aren't a Wagner fan this film by Fritz Lang displays so many amazing innovations for 1924 that it puts the computerized f/x of our day quite in the shade in terms of novelty and human artistry.

I can't recommend 'Siegfried' highly enough. Haunting and beautiful, even in black and white. The Kino picture is quite clear and the acting superb.

I think this is an important film to see even for historical reasons, since after "Die Nibelungen" (1924) Lang would make "Metropolis" (1927), something for which he is best remembered. But more importantly, this is in my mind astonishingly gripping and the far more satisfying film (or two).

It's fascinating how different the two parts are. As they are, their respective brilliance shines brightly, individually, and in itself the film as one grand epic reinvents itself come the revenge story of the latter half. The first film is the fantastical one, precursor to what we have now as high fantasy adaptations, mainly "The Lord of the Rings". In this sense "Siegfried" is shockingly modern, and here Lang succeeds far better than in "Metropolis", where he didn't have a national epic upon which to project the visual aesthetics, instead his own sense of national identity projected into a perceived future or alternate present. This is surprisingly lucid, which itself is a testimony of its filmic brilliance.

The court at Worms is as rigidly symmetrical and foreboding as one can be, and the film is full of such visual information, rigid symmetry that I bet greatly inspired Eisentein's "Ivan Groznyi" films (1944, 1958). In fact, I would love to see these masterworks by the two directors together someday, since their similarities go beyond style and visual language, also converging in their handling of national folklore in highly theatrical terms.

The new restoration of the project, made by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, is available on Blu-ray in both Region A and B, courtesy of Kino and Masters of Cinema respectively. What a treasure! In fact, the more I think of it, I can't wait to revisit it again.

This lavish and memorable adaptation of the first part of the Nibelungen saga is worthwhile for a number of strengths. While Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou seem to have rather freely adapted the original material, they succeeded beyond doubt in bringing the main characters to life and in creating a distinctive and interesting atmosphere for the story. The cast, likewise, do a good job in portraying their characters. The visual effects are uneven, and a couple of times they do not work all that well, but at other times they work wonderfully.

This first part of Lang's epic primarily covers the "Siegfried" part of the saga. Siegfried is the kind of near-perfect hero who can become rather dull in a hurry if the actor and director overdo it, but here Paul Richter works well in the role, and Lang effectively brings out the sometimes tangled connections between Siegfried and the other characters. These relationships are really the most interesting aspect of this part of the story, and Lang does well in keeping them the main focus for most of the time. Gunther, Hagen, Kriemhild, and Brunhild each have an interesting connection with Siegfried, and by giving the other characters a well-developed personality, the movie also enhances Siegfried's own identity.

The story moves rather slowly much of the time, in order better to develop the atmosphere and characters. This actually enhances the action and adventure sequences, giving them (and the movie as a whole) more substance. The picture works very well and, aside from a very small number of its visual effects, has held up well over the years.

Upon completing his epic crime film "Dr Mabuse", Fritz Lang embarked on a quest to bring Germanic legend Das Niebelungenlied to the screen. So colossal was the undertaking that it required two films, of which "Siegfried" is the first.

Young heroic Siegfried kills a dragon and bathes in its blood, gaining immortality (save for a fatal weak spot). His quests make him into a powerful figure and allow him to court the beautiful princess Kriemhield. But her weakling brother only approves the lovers' union if Siegfried agrees to help him deceive the beautiful Valkyrie Brunhield into falling in love with him. When she eventually discovers this treachery, the humiliated amazon vows sets forth a cycle of revenge that will create tragedy on an epic scale.

There's no way to avoid comparisons: "Die Niebelungen" is the Lord of the Rings of its day, and easily one of the most staggering epics in the history of movies. The scale, extras and the pioneering dragon-slaying scene all make for enduring cinema. Fritz Lang's alluring visuals push it even further: his awesome depiction of the rigid codes of honor that are the undoing of his characters imbues the film with a mood and atmosphere whose influences are incalculable. "Die Niebelungen" can also be read as one chooses, tribute to German heroism or to the trappings and tragedy of "honor". Hitler for one was so impressed with the film that he used an alternate edit of the film as propaganda, playing to Wagner's Niebelungen opera (which Lang actually loathed!). To be fair, though the original score can not hope to reach the mythical heights of Wagner's opera, it is still a considerable achievement.

Though he would revisit the crime genre with the slick "Spies" and practically invent modern science-fiction with "Metropolis", none of Lang's silent films would reach this level of excellence. "Siegfried" of course can only fairly be judged when seen right before the second half of the saga: "Kriemhield's Revenge", in which formality makes way for chaos and petty jealousy and revenge turn to violence on a biblical scale.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the silent era or film as a whole should avidly seek this out. Kino on Video have a very decent double DVD edition. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Edit (October 2010): As I add these words, Eureka have released a stellar BluRay of this saga which is just mind-blowing (reviewed by dvdbeaver, for the curious). If you've never seen this film yet, lucky you. Go straight to HD!