Horrorfest 2011: The Golem

THE GOLEM is one of the many films I read about as a kid but never actually saw at the time, so I'm glad to have finally watched it. When I was little, I used to read books about monster movies, but before the age of the Internet, obscure flicks were harder to come by. The video store might have FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA and KING KONG if you were lucky, but you were out of luck if you wanted to affordably and easily get your hands on the likes of THE GOLEM.

THE GOLEM is the 4th silent film of Horrorfest 2011, the 3rd German film, and the 2nd to take place in Prague. This time it's the 16th century and Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) is observing the stars when he sees a constellation foretelling disastrous times ahead for his Jewish community. This tragedy comes to fruition when the Emperor (Otto Gebuhr) decrees that all the Jews are to be banished from the ghetto where they live. Loew decides to use black magic and invokes the demon Astaroth in a successful attempt to build an artificial man out of a clay, a "Golem," and bring him to life to serve the community and protect them from their enemies.

The Golem is played by Paul Wegener, who also directed the film. Apparently Wegener was particularly taken with the legend of the Golem and had attempted to film it two other times before this film. Both of those films are lost, however. As played by Wegener, the Golem is a towering barrel chested brute who lumbers around like a zombie but possesses super human strength. At first he's used for manual labor around the ghetto, where he's viewed in fear and awe by the community. Later he's presented to the Emperor as a curiosity and goes on to save a bunch of partying Christians, thus sparing the Jews from their impending expulsion. Unfortunately, still later, the Golem goes out of control and rampages through the city, wrecking havoc.

As an early horror film I'd say THE GOLEM is influential in two ways. First, it was shot by cinematographer Karl Freund, who went on to shoot other classic German expressionist films like METROPOLIS and eventually created the "official" look of horror by shooting the Bela Lugosi version of DRACULA. This, coupled with the fact that he directed Boris Karloff in THE MUMMY, make him almost single handedly responsible for the way horror films looked in the 30s and 40s.

Secondly, THE GOLEM is a clear inspiration for the James Whale/Boris Karloff version of FRANKENSTEIN, perhaps the most influential monster movie of all time. The makeup, the mannerisms, and even some of the scenes appear to have been a direct influence. Like Frankenstein's monster, the Golem is created in a flashy creation sequence involving lots of explosions, lightning, and emotional carrying on by the chief creator. Also, The Golem displays signs of humanity, despite his monstrous origins, and is a sympathetic character. Finally, both monsters have a climactic scene played opposite an innocent little girl.

As a film, THE GOLEM falls a little flat. Again, as always, I have to remind myself that this thing is over 80 years old and take it with a grain of salt. However, compared to others like FAUST, NOSFERATU, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, it is clear that Wegener, as a director, wasn't quite as inspired as some of his contemporaries. Most of the images seem flat and the characters are even more one dimensional than your usual silent era cast. The only really chilling scene is the appearance of the demon Astaroth, and while the design of the Golem himself is effective and the outdoor sets of the ghetto are appropriately expressionistic, most of the movie just seems a little too ordinary for what should be a weird, fantastic tale.

Of course you can't watch a German film about a Jewish community made in the 1920s without thinking about it in a socio-political context. Here, my own ignorance about the issues at hand might hinder any kind of useful discussion, but I will share my opinion just the same -- it seems clear the film's primary aim is to entertain and it doesn't smack of having any kind of agenda outside of that. Although the story is partially about anti-Semitism, the filmmaker's themselves don't seem to be willfully anti-Semitic (though Wegener did collaborate with the Nazis later on).

The portrayal of the Rabbi as an astrologer and practitioner of black magic seems to be more in the service of telling this particular story, which calls for a Golem to be created, and not so much an indictment of the religion or culture as a whole. In some ways, it seems miraculous a film about a (mostly) heroic Rabbi who stands up to a Christian Emperor would be made at all, but of course, that's viewing the film through my eyes and not through the eyes of its primary audience, who might have seen it differently.

One way to view the story is that a Rabbi rescues his people by creating a magical protector to stand up against their enemies. Another way to view it would be to say the Rabbi is in league with evil forces and creates a monster who he ultimately can't control. Both are legitimate interpretations that can actually co-exist with each other. Whether either interpretation is intended by the filmmakers to say anything in a larger context, I'm not sure.

Perhaps the movie's biggest crime is that it's simply too shallow to even really enter into these kinds of discussions -- it uses the relatively exotic backdrop of a Jewish community to tell a supernatural story, but isn't really interested at looking into any of the deeper implications of its own story. I'm not sure whether that's to the movie's credit or detriment. Although this film was influential and definitely has its moments, you don't get the sense that there's anything "bigger" going on here like you do when you watch a movie like FAUST or THE CREMATOR.