Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

Siegfried leaves the smithy, kills a dragon, bathes in its blood and becomes invulnerable except for one spot where a falling leaf shielded his back. To marry Kriemhild he then helps King Gunther deceive Brunhild. That help is what kills him. Fritz Lang directed and wrote it with Thea von Harbou, from the medieval poem the Nibelungenlied. Erich Pommer produced at Decla-Bioscop with UFA distributing. Carl Hoffmann and Günther Rittau shot it and Gottfried Huppertz wrote the score. It comes in two parts: Siegfried premiered on 14 February 1924 and Kriemhild's Revenge on 26 April 1924. The second follows Kriemhild's revenge after Hagen murders her husband, ending in catastrophe at the court of the Huns. The critical line shifted over time. In 1924 a German reviewer praised its ancient, deepest popular sentiment; in 1928 Variety called it commercially unsuccessful. Lotte Eisner in 1947 pointed to the complexity of its characterisation. Leonard Maltin gave it four stars and called it an epic masterpiece. The uncomfortable part of its history is this: it was among Adolf Hitler's favourite films. Joseph Goebbels dismissed it at first and later called it the pinnacle of German achievement. Who it is for: anyone curious about silent cinema at epic scale and Lang's visual architecture. Who it is not for: anyone wanting to separate the film from its political afterlife. Its imagery was later claimed by a regime, and that knowledge sits beside you while you watch.