Recently I read about a 100th anniversary release of the 1920 German fantasy film,
The Golem. I've been reading about this movie all my adult life without ever having seen it. Proving I'm still stuck in the last century, it wasn't until I read about this new reissue that it occurred to me
The Golem might be on YouTube. And so it was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB4h_cyB0dsThis exceptional restoration from original negatives was created a couple of years ago by the F.W. Murnau Institute in Germany. It's worth reading the introductory titles (turn on Closed Captions for English) to learn about the lengths to which they went in their attempt to recreate the original 1920 release. Their effort paid off. The print is clear and clean, complete with the original color tinting.
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is usually cited as the masterpiece of Expressionist production design, but in my opinion
The Golem blows it away. Carl Boese's direction matches the designs perfectly, using compositions and camera angles that emphasize twisty vertical architecture reminiscent of Philippe Druillet's environments. The numerous special effects are a bit cheesy by today's standards but quite sophisticated for 1920.
I knew almost nothing about the movie despite my film history classes, so I read up on it. There were actually
three Golem movies. This one, the third, is the only one that has survived. Its full title is
The Golem: How He Came Into the World. It's a prequel to the lost first film. While it's usually billed as a horror story, the fantasy elements are stronger than the horror bits. Only near the end does
The Golem wander into monster movie territory. Clearly the movie influenced Whale's
Frankenstein.
What I'd read about
The Golem gave me the impression that it concerned a rabbi who brings a stone figure to life to protect his people from a pogrom. That isn't quite accurate. The story, set in vague feudal times, opens with the local emperor ordering the Jews to leave their Ghetto, a fortress-like walled walled city. Rabbi Loew, the mystic who oversees the city, sculpts a clay warrior, the Golem, which he brings to life in order to protect his people. But in fact the animated Golem never fights on behalf of the Jews. He starts his new "life" as Rabbi Loew's servant. The rabbi shows the creature off at a party at the Emperor's castle. The Golem saves the partygoers when the roof collapses. In gratitude the Emperor cancels the pogrom. Real trouble doesn't start until later when a realignment of the stars drives the Golem bonkers.
If there's a weak spot in
The Golem it's the acting. Almost everyone indulges in over-the-top melodrama. The crowd "horrified reaction" shots are silly. When the heroine gets the hots for the Emperor's son her bosom-clutching and heavy breathing are laughable. On the other hand co-director Paul Wegener does a respectable job as the Golem, especially in two scenes in which the creature shows a gentler side. The film held my attention throughout despite the excess ham.
This restoration's weak point is its soundtrack. It's another of those electronic bleep-bloop things that often seem to be foisted upon silent fantasy and s-f films. Five minutes in I killed the track and watched the movie in blessed silence. The film's original score was believed lost. However a copy resurfaced in 2018. A reconstructed version premiered in 2020. I wish the Murnau folks would marry that score to their restored feature.
The anniversary reissue has been rescored by members of the Flaming Lips, Los Lobos, and Threshing Floor. You may watch it for free at
Reboot Rescored:https://rebooting.com/golem/From their website:
"Just in time for Halloween, and aligned with the 100th anniversary of the theatrical release, we?ve created a groundbreaking new score for the classic horror film The Golem: How He Came Into the World.
The film has been broken down into eight parts and along with new music from renowned artists, each episode features commentary from scholars, composers and film historians discussing the significance of the film with a deep dive into the Jewish history, occultism, cinematography, and more. The commentary is interesting in places, but mostly boring. The new score is
dreadful. I sampled several of the eight episodes because I couldn't stand listening to any one of them for long. The music jumps between ambient electronica, not much different from the bleep-bloop score, and driving rock heavy on distorted guitars. The one consistent trait is that the music never relates to what's on the screen. Just one example is an early scene introducing the rabbi's lovely daughter and his assistant. The boy is smitten with her but she doesn't notice and he's too shy to speak. It's a light scene played with a touch of poignancy. The soundtrack however is a creepy moan mixed from distant feedback, synthesizer growls, echoing clanks, and barely-heard ghostly voices. It's the stuff horror movies are made of. What's more, almost identical music is used during dramatic character interactions, scenes of magic, love scenes, and a collapsing castle.
I don't want Max Steiner-like scores where there's a note for every footstep. But just like editing, music has a major influence on the a film's emotional impact. In this score all the scenes mush together, draining away the emotional charge that comes from changes in tempo and rising / falling energy levels.
Finally, the anniversary re-release print is much worse than the Murnau Institute print. Most scenes are blurry and overexposed, like your average Public Domain DVD, and there is no scene tinting. Watch this one if you're curious, but for a full experience watch the Murnau version and turn down the bleeps.
