Die Nibelungen (1924)

 Fritz Lang's "Die Nibelungen"


Fritz Lang's 1924 film series Die Nibelungen is a fantasy epic that was split into two films are released separately. Part 1 dealt with the rise and fall of Siegfried while Part 2 focused on Kriemhild's revenge over her husband, Siegfried's death. The screenplay for the epic was written by Lang's wife, Thea von Harbou, who adapted the story from the German poem epic Nibelungenlied, which was written around 1200 AD. 

The story itself tells the legend of Siegfried, who defeated a dragon and bathed in its blood. In the story, bathing in the blood of a dragon grants you physical immunity. However, while he was bathing, a leaf landed on his back. Because of this, there is one spot on his back that isn't immune to damage. After defeating the dragon, Siegfried goes to King Gunther and asks for his sister, Kriemhild's hand in marriage. Gunther accepts on the condition that Siegfried helps him marry Brunhild, the Queen of Iceland. Siegfied accepts and uses his invisibility cloak to assist King Gunther in physical challenges to win over the Queen's hand. King Gunther wins the Queen and marries her while Siegfried marries Kriemhild. After deception and manipulation, Gunther has Siegfried killed. In an act of revenge against her brother and the man who enacted the killing, Hagen of Tronje, Kriemhild travels to the land of the Huns to marry King Etzel. She promises to marry him as long as he enacts her revenge. He does and allows her brothers and Hagen to come dine with them after Kriemhild bears their first child. During dinner, Hagen kills the child and all hell breaks loose. Hun warriors attack on King Gunther's men. During the chaos, Kriemhild's brothers are killed. She then goes back home to be with her dead Siegfried. 

The most notable element of the film is the breaking of oaths. The foundation of every relationship in the film is built on the oaths the characters make to each other. With these oaths, they build a solid and stable society. However, through greed, power, and self interest, oaths are constantly and continuously broken. Through the mounting broken oaths comes more and more disorder. We are shown societies and utopias being built, while the fallacy of human self interest causes them to topple.

The film is most notable for its set and production designs. This world building had never been seen before in cinema. Lang was able to create an actual fantastical world in which the viewer can believe that it exists beyond the constraints of the frame. The total recreation of a world separate from our own allows for an immersion into the fabricated environment. Not only are the environments varied and expressionist, but the massive scale of the environments creates a scope for the viewer of just how vast this world is. 

Great shot to show scale - the marrying of houses is the marrying of power, scaled by the monument of the palace.

Great use of symmetry in framing - symmetry reflects the marriage taking place. All is well and in order. 


After Siegfried's death, we see an expressionist image of a tree decaying and turning into a skull. 

After being described King Etzel's power, Kriemhild's image of him is that of sitting in golden majesty.

After the child's death, all chaos breaks loose. This is a direct contrast to the order and symmetry of the shot above at the wedding. During that time, everything was going smoothly and society was in order. Here, everything is in chaos and disorder.

Once this chaos ensues, there is a particular sequence that is emulated by Akira Kurosawa's 1985 masterpiece Ran. Much like the scene in Ran, it depicts the burning of the palace. Flaming arrows are shot into the palace with the King's men inside, causing the palace to be ingulfed in flames. The shot of the burning palace below is directly borrowed by Kurosawa in his film.

Shot from Die Nibelungen.

Shot from Ran. 

Lang's Die Nibelungen was a fantasy epic that has been lauded as the first of its kind. The sets constructed create a vast visual landscape for the viewer's mind to inhabit. The world is static, but the world the characters create for themselves in these environments are built on their words and promises to one another. As soon as we learn that all of the characters are secretly out for themselves, their abstract world begins to crumble beneath them.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rio Bravo (1959)

Image
  Howard Hawks' "Rio Bravo" To conclude the filmography of Howard Hawks, I watched his 1959 western film " Rio Bravo ." I've got to say that I was expecting a lot more out of this picture based on all the praise for the film. That is not to say that I didn't like it, it was a fine time at the cinema (I was not at the cinema, I was at home). I can't say that I should have expected more, as I'm not entirely that big of a fan of Howard Hawks. Even his best film (to me), " The Big Sleep " is arguably one of the weaker film noirs that I've seen. " Rio Bravo " is a film that apparently is a response to 1952's " High Noon ," which was an allegory about Hollywood's blacklisting and McCarthyism. Howard Hawks and John Wayne felt the film was anti-American and instead made " Rio Bravo " to broadcast an alternative perspective in which the hero of the story doesn't shy away from justice. I personally ha...
Read more

King Kong (1933)

Image
  Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack's "King Kong" There are many post-Depression American 'box office' films that I have seen in my film studies journey. Most of these post-Depression box office films don't typically sit right with me. The films I have in mind are the gangster and monster films that swept the nation in the early 1930s. These films typically were meant to placate an anxious American audience. However, the depth to their thematic intricacies leave something to be desired. Even without this depth, the 'entertainment' aspect of these films were not very entertaining to me. However, there is one film that utterly surprised me, 1933's adventure epic " King Kong ."   The story is well-known. A group of filmmakers travel to a remote island to take advantage of strange and interesting natural wildlife unknown to the outside world. There they meet an indigenous people, all terrified of a large, monstrous primate living on...
Read more

The Big Sleep (1946)

Image
  Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep" After watching Howard Hawks' 1946 film noir " The Big Sleep ," I have to say that it is not one of my favorite film noirs. That being said, it was definitely the best Howard Hawks film I've seen thus far. It did not have the typical dark ending that permeates the whole film with bleak darkness, which probably made it a lesser noir for me. In fact, it felt more like a 'studio noir,' if that makes sense. I'm not going to go into the entire plot of the film, especially because the entire plot is incredibly convoluted. In fact, this was a major strike against the film at the time of its release. Many reported that they could not keep up with what was happening. I've got to say that, for myself, this was the case as well. I found myself having to rewind to figure out what exactly I missed or who was who. However, upon reflection, the convoluted plot may only add to the feverish intoxication of the film.  Because...
Read more