Spectacle History Folklore
Weimar's big shows: spectacle, history, folklore
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Madame DuBarry aka Passion 1919 All ages Pola Negri plays the royal mistress who changed French history in her boudoir with her befuddled King Louis XV (Emil Jannings). A turning point in Ernst Lubitsch’s career and in the German film industry, Passion was the first German film to be exported to the United States where, amidst great controversy, it created a taste for German spectacle, stars, and technical wonders. Wed 17 Sept 6.00pm (with What’s Opera Doc?) / Cinema B |
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Die Müde Tod (Destiny aka Between Two Worlds) 1921 All ages When her sweetheart disappears behind a wall protected by an unearthly stranger, a frightened girl has a three-part dream set in Venice, Islam, and China. Fritz Lang’s first internationally acclaimed film is a Romantic parable of love and death fashioned in the monumental expressionist style. Wed 17 Sept 4.00pm / Cinema A |
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Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Siegfried) 1923 All ages Fritz Lang’s Siegfried is a flamboyant spectacle that shows the possibilities of resurrecting Nordic myths in the expressionist style. Released in two parts, the set piece of Part 1 is Siegfried’s monumental fight against a fire-breathing dragon. The film also sees Siegfried free himself from the Nibelungen, tangle with Brunhilde, and marry at Worms Cathedral. Sat 20 Sept 1.00pm / Cinema A |
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Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache (Kriemhilde’s Revenge) 1923 All ages The saga continues, in a new key. Attila the Hun forms an alliance with Siegfried’s widow and acts as a divine hammer against the offending Burgundian clan. Will the Burgundians give up Siegfried’s murderer or uphold their pledge to protect one of their own? Amidst barren landscapes, the corpses mount. Sun 21 Sept 3.00pm / Cinema A |
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Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks) 1924 All ages A starving poet is asked to write about the fantastical waxworks he finds in a fairground and imagines three tales of cruelty lurking behind the wax likeness of Harum-al-Rashid, Jack the Ripper and Ivan the Terrible. Thu 25 Sept 12 noon / Cinema A |
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Faust: Eine Deutsche Volkssage (Faust: A German Folk-Tale) 1926 PG Emil Jannings is the mischievous, leering Mephistopheles, who is thrilled to corrupt and seduce. In Lotte Eisner’s words, “No other director, not even Fritz Lang, ever succeeded in conjuring up the supernatural as masterfully as this”. When Mephistopheles covers a town with plague, or takes Faust for a celestial ride, the results are breathtaking even by Universum-Film standards. A landmark in black and white cinematography. Sun 9 Nov 1.00pm / Cinema A |
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The Man Who Laughs 1928 All ages Conrad Veidt plays the tortured Gwynplaine whose face has been disfigured and fixed in the rictus of a grotesque grin for the pleasure of the English court. Paul Leni makes the most of the sadism and pathos in Victor Hugo’s original story, plunging Gwynplaine into a world of carnivals, decadent aristocrats and a selfless blind orphan. Sat 27 Sept 1.00pm / Cinema A |
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Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939 All ages Charles Laughton never achieved Lon Chaney’s fame as Quasimodo, but RKO Radio Pictures and William Dieterle – a German émigré who had been active in expressionist cinema – provided him with a production that surpassed the original, tailoring both the German kolossal and the German horror film to the requirements of an action-packed, bitter-sweet Hollywood blockbuster. Sat 27 Sept 3.00pm / Cinema A |
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What’s Opera Doc? 1957 All ages Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd sing! Wagnerian opera and German expression finally get what’s coming to them. Wed 17 Sept 6.00pm (with Madame DuBarry) / Cinema B |
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Faust 1960 All Ages The legendary Gustaf Gründgens recreates Mephistopheles, the role he made famous in Germany during the 1930s. Gorski’s film documents the highly successful 1957 stage revival of Goethe’s play, Faust now recast as a nuclear physicist working on the atom bomb. Gründgens later became the source for István Szabó’s Mephisto. Wed 1 Oct 6.00pm / Cinema B |
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Mephisto 1981 Ages 15+ The story of an actor (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who rises to stardom in Nazi Germany playing Faust for the high command officers. Fashioned after the life of Gustav Grundgens, who played the black-gloved underworld chief in Fritz Lang’s M, Mephisto is based on the banned novel by Grundgens’ brother-in-law Klaus Mann and was Szabo's first international success. Fri 10 Oct 8.00pm / Cinema A |
