BA_Harrison Der Golem begins with a Jewish astrologer predicting disaster in the stars; rushing to the rabbi, he tells of their people's impending misfortune. Sure enough, the emperor of the land has decreed that the Jews must leave the city, for despising Christian ceremonies, endangering the lives of their fellow men, and practising black magic. As if to prove the emperor right, the rabbi uses dark powers to bring a clay golem to life, the creature ultimately threatening their oppressors and going on a rampage (like a Jewish Frankenstein's monster). Meanwhile, a gap toothed knight with a huge feather in his cap is seducing the rabbi's pretty daughter Miriam, which won't end well for the silly chap.Whatever you do, don't watch the version of this film with added dialogue and sound effects, rock music on the soundtrack, and colour tinted scenes: it's an abomination. Instead, head on over to YouTube and see the film as intended - black and white with an orchestral soundtrack. It's a long, drawn out movie (the version I saw was over 100 minutes), hard going at times due to its slow pace, but still a must for fans of classic horror, the impressive set design (I love the claustrophobic town and that shell-like spiral staircase), superb expressionist lighting and sheer invention making it a visual treat throughout.

jadavix "Der Golem" is surely one of the best German expressionist silent movies. It may be second only to "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari"; I enjoyed it as much as Murnau's "Faust", and, truth be told, more than "Nosferatu".You probably already know the story: it's a well-known Jewish folk tale about a rabbi who constructs a stone creature (a golem) to protect his fellows from an anti-Semitic government in medieval Prague. The creature impresses the gentiles, but then it turns on its master.These movies aren't really about plot, nor characters. They're about mood, setting, and mise-en-scene. The golem itself is an indelible image; surprisingly it was played by the writer-director himself, who must have been a massive person. You can see the influence on James Whale's classic "Frankenstein". The settings are also sumptuous and fitting.My mind did wander, but not as much as when I watched Swedish silent "Korkarlen", also a horror film based on local myth. I appreciated that the story was easy to follow and interesting.

IMDBcinephile I have watched this 2 times; I got the Eureka DVD a few months ago. I decided to reinstate my thoughts about it today, as I did know it was a pretty good movie at first viewing, but I wanted to study what made it so goodThe story is relayed in 5 chapters; all of those can consist of intermissions.The first chapter is where Rabbi Low is reading books on how to emanate the Golem; they also tried to go to the revered Rabbi so that he can represent the Jewish Community, so all ready there is a Jewish Tone to the work. He looks through books of necromancers.The Second Chapter: He tries to call it without any caveat. He does interact with it now, although foreboding in the beginning, he is subservient to his master and obeys him at every lead. Even doing errands it can be deadly.Third Chapter: They go to the emperors place, and the Golem saves him from his temple being eroded; he was there to accompany him while they stare into another place which looks like Metropolis (1927) in the scene where Maria is preaching the construction of the Babel. One of the female character also bribed the guards.Fourth Chapter: The Golem becomes deceitful and disobeying; one of the counterproductive results to happen to itFifth Chapter: Golem opens the Gate.Albeit nobody is in a foray but rest assured, trouble was already going to be imminent; he protects them temporarily and then it all breaks loose - sort of James Whale's tantamount with Karloff's Frankenstein - a lonely, innocuous creature in a bad state, and always in trouble even though he's a delicate soul."Der Golem" was directed by Paul Weigner, who also plays the Golem. It does take time for him to be active, so throughout the first 33 minutes the foreground is taken by one of the scenes with a cat on a roof and the stars which already show The Golem, but this is the construction of him it centres on.The painted backgrounds must have been laborious work and it pays off; this is not as expressionistic as "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" but it has the paradigm of expressionism filtered through the clinical feel to the house and the painstakingly subjective feel that you have to embrace in the village of expressionism - it's small but welcoming and distorted. Ornate and exquisite; the face of the Golem is so emotive that when he smells the flower, he genuinely seems curious about it, when he picks up the little Girl, we wonder whether or not he was going to kill her or embrace her; its deliberate dithering still makes you wonder and we never get to know anywayIn the bit where he turns on his master in an unprecedented and unexpected way, the face tells us, not the words. Abaroth's book is the liveliness of Golem; the amulet powers the Golem, so it's pretty easy to dismantle him, but it's so hard to tame him. He is, by definition in horror, the indestructible and this movie gives you the sorcery element with the green tint for the house and even little niceties like red for the fire, which should represent it, but fails, and yet it still constitutes to that sense of fantastical worlds. Golem is to be kept a secret; when I seen that, I was like "No way - you can't hide that thing - it will not conform" and of course, it didn't. But the way it grinds you into believing this, always throws it in your other direction, as he veers from unsympathetic to really sympathetic.The romance element in the movie is sort of superficial but overall not bad.It's a great, great, great film and it's definitely one of the best movies ever made.

gavin6942 In 16th-century Prague, a Jewish rabbi (Albert Steinrück) creates a giant creature from clay, called the Golem, and using sorcery, brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution. Called "one of the most ambitious productions of the silent era" by Mike Mayo, the film is a blend of religion, astrology and black magic -- mixing Judaism with a conjuring of the demon Astaroth.The film also has an interesting presentation of anti-Semitism, where the emperor accuses the Jews of killing Christ, among other things, and orders them to evacuate the ghetto. How did Germany in 1920 feel about the Jews? We now know how they felt a decade later, but was this hatred always there or invented by Hitler? If it existed, how did it translate to this film's reception by the German people?Paul Wegener's face is a wealth of visions -- he manages to use his eyes in such a way that present the golem as simultaneously stoic and intensely emotional.Others have pointed out that Karl Freund's camera is remarkably still for a man who would go on to be known for the most innovative camera techniques in film history (I dare say he is the greatest cinematographer who ever lived). Mayo says there is an "inventive use of extreme camera angles", but I did not notice. The lack of movement does not hinder the film, however.Lee Price praises the film, saying the only fault of the film is "the inconsistency of the acting", though I did not find it distracting at all (even if the frightened faces of the extras are a bit extreme). Price calls the architecture of the film as influential (or more so) than the German Expressionism of "Caligari". He is not alone in this view: Ivan Butler makes a point to mention the "strange twisted buildings and crooked streets filled with steeple-hatted inhabitants", and Siegfried Kracauer singles out the "maze of crooked streets and stooped houses" devised by Professor Hans Poelzig.If you are to see or own this film, I recommend the Kino DVD. Not only is the film cleaned up nicely, with a wonderful score and English title cards, but the supplements are beyond what one would expect from such an old film -- featurettes comparing this movie to "Faust" and the later "Le Golem". I enjoyed them.