The Golem, how he came into the world
"Actor and director Paul Wegener released his 1920 silent film The Golem, How He Came into the World in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I. The film's innovative cinematography, lighting effects, modernist architectural design, and thrilling plot all led contemporaneous viewers and critics to pronounce that Germany had finally succeeded on the film front if not on the battlefield. The Golem, How He Came into the World, Wegener's third golem film, narrates how Rabbi Loew, here an a…
Read More ↓Title Statements
- Full title :The Golem, how he came into the world / Maya Barzilai.
Summary
"Actor and director Paul Wegener released his 1920 silent film The Golem, How He Came into the World in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in World War I. The film's innovative cinematography, lighting effects, modernist architectural design, and thrilling plot all led contemporaneous viewers and critics to pronounce that Germany had finally succeeded on the film front if not on the battlefield. The Golem, How He Came into the World, Wegener's third golem film, narrates how Rabbi Loew, here an astrologer and sorcerer as well as a spiritual leader, forms and animates an artificial clay anthropoid in order to save the Prague Jewish community from an edict of expulsion. Maya Barzilai situates the 1920 film in the historical and social context of post-World War I Germany, taking into consideration Wegener's violent and traumatic service on the Western front. She closely analyzes the film's expressive sculptural aesthetic, enhanced through poetic cinematography, arguing that Wegener's animation of cinema also served a postwar ethical purpose: revealing the human face of the golem and offering a redemptive escape from the the film's Christian-Jewish conflict through nature on the one hand and Zionism on the other"--
Read More ↓Edition Statements
- Publication Date:©2020
Publication Statements
- Publisher(s):Camden House
- Place of Publication:Rochester, NY
- Language:eng
- Publication Date:©2020
The Physical Object
- Description:78 pages : : illustrations (some color) ; : 19 cm.
Edition Identifiers
- ISBN:9781640140301, 1640140301
- oclc:on1173622805
- LC Classification:PN1997.G5742
- Dewey Decimal:791.43/72
Table of Contents
Introduction : the ethics of animation -- How Wegener came to the Golem -- Light and clay : a sculptural aesthetic -- Poelzig's "Golem city" -- Cinematic Jewishness -- The clay of war -- Combat at court -- The face of things -- Epilogue : the afterlives of the Golem, how he came into the world.
Read More ↓Subjects
Writers
More from this Series
No reviews yet. Be the first to rate this work.
Related Works
more →
Files & Downloads
-
The Golem, How He Came Into the World -- (.pdf)
PDF · 13.2 MB · updated
Rate & Review