A Film Canon

The first of Wegener's Golem films extrapolates a spectacular expressionist aesthetic from esoteric Judaism - and, more specifically, from a liturgical-astrological darkness that draws a common denominator between starlight and cloud, moonlight and incense smoke, and the wondrous connotations of cinema itself, as evinced both in the screen-like flatness of sky and altar, as well as the moment at which a rabbi magically projects the history of the patriarchs onto a wall before an incredulous, gentile court. This produces an ambivalent characterisation of the Jews as both as purveyors of black magic (whose sinister overtones are encapsulated more in the spectacular creation of the Golem, than the death spree that he finally embarks upon) and as victims of persecution - a duality epitomised by the Golem's own uneasy status as Jewish saviour, with the possible message that Judaism is only tolerable insofar as it is relegated to a comfortable, exotic historical distance (although such tropes as the forced evacuation of the ghetto uncannily anticipate later German history). That said, the film's discursive elements are ultimately subordinated to its stylistic vision, particularly evident in the nature of the ghetto itself, which, apparently carved out of a single, cavernous block of rock, translates Caligari's distorted village into a more naturalistic register, as well as nicely contextualising its choice of a clay-fashioned saviour.