Fritz Lang's adaptation of the 13th-century German saga is a superb
example of the craftsmanship at the
UFA studios. Paul Richter is Siegfried,
married to Margarete Schon: together
the two journey from Iceland to
Burgundy with Hanna Ralph, who is to
be the bride of Theodor Loos.
Adventures, magical and otherwise,
death and revenge all ensue.
The
stylised sets create a mysterious
beauty, especially the misty forest
(constructed in a Zeppelin hangar) and
the romantic castles. There is also a
wonderful dragon that the hero slays
early in Part I (Siegfried) and a
massively staged battle to end Part II
(Kriemhild's Revenge). The characters
are deliberately one-dimensional as
befits the epic mode.
Background: With this film, we enter the period of those epic films for which Lang
is to a large extent remembered today. The Nibelungen films, along with his
next project. Metropolis, were directly affected by Pommer and Lang's trip
to the States, a trip which taught them to think big. In Siegfried and Kriemhilds Rache , Lang creates four separate mythical worlds, all of huge proportions, which range from the geometric architecture of the court of the
Burgundians to the teaming, organic primitivism of the realm of King Etzel.
As seen in Lang's other films of this period, special effects play an important role. What most people pick out here is the sequence in which Siegfried
fights the huge fire-breathing dragon Fafnir. Lang had a massive model of
the monster built, which was operated by sixteen people, and managed to
produce a pretty realistic beast for the time and one which still looks
impressive today. The camerawork in the film was groundbreaking, as it
generally is in Lang's work, with Hoffmann and Rittau always managing to
keep up with the director's vivid imagination. And Lang wasn't unaware of
their importance for his films. As Eisner tells us in her programme notes to
Die Nibelungen, Lang claims that he was always impressed by the fact that
the cameramen would sometimes experiment for whole nights to work out a
specific trick. In Die Nibelungen, the superimposing of one image on
another is taken to a new level of sophistication, most famously in the
sequence where the dwarves that hold up the treasure of the Nibelungen are
slowly turned into stone from their feet upwards. Also, lighting is used to
great effect. Have a look, for example, at the magnificent sequence where
Brunhild waits for the Burgundians and we see the aurora borealis flickering across the screen. This was an innovative effect at the time, which Rittau achieved by shining spotlights onto a moving mirror.
5 STARS OUT OF 5
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