The Nibelungen, Part I: Siegfried’s Death

Lang’s two-part superproduction of the thirteenth-century Nordic saga that also inspired Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung is a triumph of studio-created artifice in the silent era. Sets, lighting, costumes, camerawork, and special effects all contribute to the monumental re-creation of a world at the dawn of time, when fire-breathing dragons roam the earth and the Nibelungen, a race of dwarfs, bestow magical powers onto the warrior Siegfried (Paul Richter). Part I takes the story through Siegfried’s marriage to the beautiful Kriemhild (Margarethe Schön) and his death at the hands of Hagen.