So, a little background first and this will help clarify things as well, because in one of those classic “Rock n Rollin’ with Fats Domino” vs. “Fats Domino Rock n Rollin’” situations, there’s been some confusion online over this movie and a different movie made by Paul Wegener. This film, released in 1920, is actually the final film in a trilogy of sorts in which writer-director-actor Paul Wegener played the titular Golem, a man shaped sculpture in clay that is brought to life through Jewish Mysticism. The first film in the trilogy was released in 1915 and called simply The Golem; we don’t know much about this movie other than that it took place in modern day (you know, at the time) because the film is lost, except for about four minutes of footage. Some people suspect that Wegener himself might have destroyed the film for reasons we’ll get into shortly; I don’t really buy that myself, but I’ll talk more about that in a minute. The second film in the Golem trilogy is The Golem & the Dancing Girl from 1917 and this is where things get even more interesting, because this one’s a little different. As with the first film in the trilogy, this film is considered lost; we don’t have any footage from this one, but we do have some photographs from the production and we know a little more about this one. It was a short film, for one, not a feature film and it was also a comedy in which Paul Wegener, once again both writing and directing, portrays, not the Golem, but actually himself, Paul Wegener. The premise of this film is that Wegener goes to a costume party in costume as the Golem and attempts to woo a dancing girl at the party, thus making this a sequel in which, Human Centipede 2 style, the original movie exists in the universe of the sequel as a movie. This is all pretty f-ing meta for 1917 and its comedic elements have led some film scholars to call this the first horror-comedy or horror spoof. So this series is pretty interesting and now we’ve gotten to the final film in the trilogy, The Golem from 1920, the only one still in existence. This film is interesting as well on a basic premise level. It was originally released under a longer title, The Golem: How He Came Into the World, and this gives a clue about the historical element of this film. Whereas the original 1915 film took place in contemporaneous times, this film takes place during the 1500s and details how the Golem from the original film was originally created, thus making this maybe the very first prequel ever put on film.
But on to the movie proper. As I said, we’re in Prague in the 1500s and a Jewish astronomer/magician/rabbi receives warning of a disaster that will soon befall his beloved Jewish community. He decides to create a Golem as a defense against whatever this disaster is and things go wrong, of course. This movie is really good all things considered; it doesn’t go as full German Expressionist as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which was also released in 1920, but it is visually striking in its use of sets and costumes and color tinting. The movie does have a very stereotypical depiction of its Jewish characters, but I think you also have to balance that with the fact that it does depict the Jews as a race that is routinely persecuted and, when the disaster comes in this movie, it is the arbitrary decision of the Emperor to confiscate all of the property of his Jewish citizens and kick them out of Prague with nothing, so I think Wegener is trying to make a movie sympathetic to the Jewish people; he’s just kind of held back by what I suspect are his own stereotypical ideas about them. If there’s another flaw to the movie, it is that the Rabbi’s plans aren’t ever really that clear; he makes a Golem, but it isn’t entirely clear how having a Golem around is going to stop a pogrom, so there’s a scene where the Rabbi just puts the Golem to work chopping wood and then sends him to get his groceries. Perhaps the movie is trying to something about God working in mysterious ways because the Golem is, ultimately, the key to causing the Emperor to reverse his ruling, but it’s through what seems like a pure chance encounter, not something that the Rabbi could have planned. But the Jewish faith is depicted quite sincerely here and the movie even ends with the Jews, saved from disaster, worshiping God.
But I do want to talk about Wegener for a minute because I honestly feel like he’s kind of a forgotten auteur. It’s unfortunate that his most successful film work was a trilogy that is now two-thirds lost, but I think the case to be made is still obvious. He wrote, directed and starred as the Golem in this trilogy which, even with most of it lost, is incredibly ambitious and layered. It obviously wants to even cross genre lines from horror to comedy in ways that were genuinely groundbreaking. I don’t think Wegener destroyed the original Golem film; a lot of the people who make this case argue that this 1920 version of The Golem is essentially a remake, not a sequel (or prequel). They pin a lot of this on the fact that one of the few things we can see in the footage left from the original Golem is that it featured a violent climax on a tower and this movie as well features a violent climax on a tower. My thought on that is that Wegener was probably deliberately mirroring the earlier movie for artistic reasons, not that he was ripping himself off. I’ve gone pretty deep on the Wegener as grand cinematic artist for a guy who’s seen exactly one movie by the guy, but he’s really such a central figure to this movie that he can’t help but impress. His performance as The Golem really is the best thing in this movie. He’s strikingly large and his stiff-legged, awkward body language is influential in the genre going forward. But it’s his broad face that carries the real emotional weight of the film. He’s sometimes completely impassive or even empty, really looking like he’s a being with no real mind or soul, but then as the film progresses, we see him transfigured by rage and he’s genuinely scary. And this isn’t all broad silent-film style melodrama; his best moment in the movie is a close-up of his face as a young woman gives him a flower and his reaction to the beautiful moment is a beautiful mixture of wordless emotion.
I should also say that the transfer on the Kino Lorber blu-ray disc is, I think, the best transfer I’ve ever seen of a silent film. The sharpness of the image and the level of detail is really magnificent for a film that’s a century old now. During the close-ups, you can see the pores on Wegeners’ face and the individual hairs in the Rabbi’s beard. The Kino Lorber disc really is pretty amazing all around; it also has the American edit of the film, which clocks in at around an hour; it’s in substantially worse shape than the full version, but it is interesting because in what strikes me as kind of a real feat of editing, it trims fifteen minutes out of the movie without, near as I could tell, actually cutting any full scenes, only trimming within scenes. The movie has a commentary track, of course, but also THREE scores you can pair with the main film; the American version, by the way, has its own unique score, making for a grand total of FOUR new scores created just for this blu-ray. It’s an all around excellent presentation for an excellent film. I could nitpick things here if I wanted to as far as the plotting goes, but it’s a really good film overall and as an introduction to a forgotten auteur in Wegener, it’s definitely worth a watch. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – forgotten auteur Wegener is writer, director and actor in this striking silent horror film; the Kino Lorber blu-ray boasts a visually stunning transfer. 3 ½ stars.