The Nibelungen, Part I: Siegfried’s Death

(Siegfrieds Tod)

Digital Restoration

  • Judith Rosenberg
    On Piano
featuring

Paul Richter, Margarethe Schön, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg August Koch,

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.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Fritz Lang
  • Thea von Harbou
Cinematographer
  • Carl Hoffmann
  • Günther Rittau
  • Walter Ruttman
Language
  • Silent
  • with German intertitles and English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 148 mins
Source
  • Murnau-Stiftung