Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen
Die Nibelungen - Siegfried was made in 1924, and is perhaps the most involving silent film I've seen. I don't know Wagner's Ring cycle so had no preconceptions about the story. Lang's film depicts a Siegfried who has a lot in common with the Perceval of mediaeval Arthurian legend, naively pursuing goals which he does not fully understand. Mime, his blacksmith-tutor, predicts when Siegfried sets off from his home of Xanten that he will never reach his goal, the Burgundian capital of Worms, but he does so because he triumphs over challenges without knowing enough to be afraid of them. He slays a superbly-executed dinosaur-like dragon, drinks its blood out of curiosity, gains the power to understand birdsong and so is advised by a bird to bathe in the dragon's blood and so gain invincibility; he subsequently vanquishes the king of the Nibelungs and gains their treasure, again without understanding the forces with which he is dealing. He then subdues twelve kingdoms, rather as Britain supposedly built its empire, in a fit of absence of mind.
Reaching Worms, he finds the Burgundians ruled by the ineffective King Gunther and his adviser Hagen, a man rarely without his winged helmet. Siegfried asks for the hand of Gunther's sister Kriemhild but first agrees to go to Iceland to win its queen, Brunhild, for Gunther's wife. Brunhild and Hagen are the only characters to wear chainmail, rather than the late Roman-influenced costume followed by the Burgundian court; they are out of step with the court's ideals but are more effective because they are willing to lie to achieve their objectives and also admit to themselves and others that they have lied; at the core of the tragedy is the deception engineered by Siegfried to make Gunther appear strong enough to have won Brunhild's hand. At the end of the film Brunhild is dead through suicide; Siegfried is dead through betrayal, having made enemies through having neither guile nor humility; Hagen has secured control of his king once more, though Gunther is a broken man; and Kriemhild has discovered new strength in widowhood, a strength drawn not only from a desire for vengeance but also from her cause being God's. A court of young people have been let down by their elders - the manipulative Hagen, the withdrawn and excessively contemplative Queen Ute and perhaps also the warrior queen Brunhild, who unlike Gunther, Kriemhild or Siegfried is a full adult through having no parent to keep her in tutelage. There's a unity of vision in the film which is very successful, and I look forward to part two.
Reaching Worms, he finds the Burgundians ruled by the ineffective King Gunther and his adviser Hagen, a man rarely without his winged helmet. Siegfried asks for the hand of Gunther's sister Kriemhild but first agrees to go to Iceland to win its queen, Brunhild, for Gunther's wife. Brunhild and Hagen are the only characters to wear chainmail, rather than the late Roman-influenced costume followed by the Burgundian court; they are out of step with the court's ideals but are more effective because they are willing to lie to achieve their objectives and also admit to themselves and others that they have lied; at the core of the tragedy is the deception engineered by Siegfried to make Gunther appear strong enough to have won Brunhild's hand. At the end of the film Brunhild is dead through suicide; Siegfried is dead through betrayal, having made enemies through having neither guile nor humility; Hagen has secured control of his king once more, though Gunther is a broken man; and Kriemhild has discovered new strength in widowhood, a strength drawn not only from a desire for vengeance but also from her cause being God's. A court of young people have been let down by their elders - the manipulative Hagen, the withdrawn and excessively contemplative Queen Ute and perhaps also the warrior queen Brunhild, who unlike Gunther, Kriemhild or Siegfried is a full adult through having no parent to keep her in tutelage. There's a unity of vision in the film which is very successful, and I look forward to part two.