Archived: Tired death

Tired death

Der müde Todd, feature film, fantasy, drama, Germany, 1921

DIRECTED BY: Fritz Lang

CAST: Lil Dagover (girl), Walter Janssen (boy), Bernhard Goetzke (death), Hans Sternberg (mayor)

SCRIPT: Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou

PHOTOGRAPHY: Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner

EDITING: Fritz Lang

CONTENT:

A young loving couple rides a carriage through the province. Along the way, they encounter a pedestrian and tie him up, unaware that it is Death. When they arrive in a small place, the young couple stays in an inn there, and Death goes to the city office where he buys a small plot next to the cemetery, and builds an unusually high wall around it. Then Death and the young couple meet at the inn, where the young man suddenly disappears. The girl in great sorrow goes in front of the giant wall built by Death, and there she sees several human shadows passing through the wall into the land of the dead. The last of the ghosts is her young man. The girl finds a passage through the wall and confronts Death. Ask her to return her darling to her. Death takes her to a dark room where many large candles burn at different stages of combustion, and explains to her that each candle signifies one human life. The girl is convinced that love is stronger than death and can save her boyfriend, and Death then tells her three stories similar to hers, set in different spaces and times – in the ninth century Baghdad, seventeenth century Venice and ancient China…

Tired Death received weak reviews in Germany for its premiere, but abroad, especially in France, it was Fritz Lang's first major success, a film that would pave his way among the greats of world cinema of the silent and later sound period. Lang co-wrote the screenplay with his soon-to-be permanent collaborator and wife Theo von Harbou (the same year his film was made, his first wife died), and is largely based on the ancient Indian story of Savitra and Satyavan from the Mahabharata, although in six verses, romantic seductions in the other direction; also, an important impetus for Lang was the death of his beloved mother. The film affirms unconditional love as the supreme principle of existence, and does so in an extremely touching way, ranking among the most beautiful love stories ever filmed. Particularly impressive is the frame part of the narrative (in three core stories the influence of Italian pseudo-historical spectacles and Griffich's Intolerance is obvious, which also influenced the overall structure of the film), in which fascinating scenographic solutions typical of German expressionism come to full expression. the opposition between a huge wall and small figures of people, but also the morbidly-gentle atmosphere of a room with candles). Tired Death was not only Lang's groundbreaking achievement on the international stage, but also a film that decisively influenced the future classic Luis Buñuel ("Something in this film said something deep inside me; it illuminated my life and my vision of the world."), And he also impressed Alfred Hitchcock. Also, the flying carpet scene delighted silent actor Douglas Fairbanks so much that he immediately bought the rights to the film and replicated it in his 1924 Hollywood hit The Baghdad Thief, and Bernhard Goetzke's acting performance as Death influenced that of Bengt Ekerot in the same roles in Bergman’s famous Seventh Seal.

B / W, 114 ′

Portraits: German films by Fritz Lang

We start October with a selection of the 10 most important German films by Fritz Lang! From October 1 to 6, we will show a number of Lang's masterpieces: the omnibus Tired Death (1921), the crime novel Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922, in 2 parts), the Nibelungen legend (1924, in 2 parts), the dystopia Metropolis (1927), the Spy Spies (1928), the sci-fi Woman on the Moon (1929), the sound debut M (1931) and the last film before exile, Testament of Dr. Mabues (1933). An introductory speech on Lang's importance as one of the most influential directors of all time who influenced Luis Bunuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, etc., will be given by our dear guest, filmologist, prof. dr. sc. Nikica GIlić.

The ticket is 20 kuna, for members 10 kuna.

Tickets can be purchased at the box office, which opens one hour before the first screening of the day and closes after the start of the last screening of the day …