The stone rider
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The stone rider |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1923 |
| length | approx. 86 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fritz Wendhausen |
| script | Fritz Wendhausen based on an idea by Thea von Harbou |
| production | Erich Pommer for Decla-Bioscop AG (Berlin) |
| music | Giuseppe Becce |
| camera |
Carl Hoffmann Günther Rittau |
| occupation | |
| |
The Stone Rider is a German silent film made in 1922 - ballad by Fritz Wendhausen with Rudolf Klein-Rogge in the leading role.
action
The story begins with a framework: Somewhere in Europe in the Middle Ages . On a mild spring day, a wedding is celebrated in a mountain village with an exuberant festival. An old man, a ballad singer, points to a weathered stone sculpture that resembles a rider. Then he reminds those present that celebrating a wedding in this area could once have dramatic consequences. Because there was “the right of the first night” . The old man begins to tell the story of the Lord of the Mountains. This sovereign lord of the castle resided with his followers on his mighty fortress and commanded the peasants of the village and the common people in the valley with an iron hand.
When a wedding was to be held in the village, the lord of the castle rode up majestically, grabbed the bride and insisted on his right to spend the first night with her. The bridegroom, however, was not ready to admit this right to his liege lord and wanted to pounce on him. However, while trying to stab the noble despot, he accidentally met his bride and killed her. This led to a chain reaction, because now the sister of the dead, the shepherdess, who in the form of the lord of the castle foresaw the evil in person and for this reason did not attend the festivities, wanted bloody revenge on the cause of all misfortunes. At her beloved sister's deathbed, she made a sacred vow. The young hunter, who was secretly in love with the shepherdess, tried to keep her from her sinister plan. But the shepherdess stubbornly pursued her intention and made her way to the castle, a dark, asymmetrical and vault-like building with winding corridors and stairs. There she wanted to complete her murderous act.
When she saw the lord of the castle in front of her, the dagger already in her hand, hunched over and with tears of pain in her eyes, her feelings turned for the better. Over time, blind hatred turned into love, and the couple planned their own wedding. Meanwhile, driven by jealousy, the huntsman had called on the villagers to storm the castle with him in order to get rid of the despot once and for all and bring him to justice. Meanwhile, the lord and shepherdess were married high up above. When one of his vassals touched his bride immorally, the lord's blood boiled up and he threw all of his followers out of the hall. The peasant mob was meanwhile to overcome the moat and the drawbridge and stormed into the interior of the fortress. The lord of the castle fell into their hands shortly afterwards and was taken to a hut, the village's personal prisoner. Unaware of the shepherdess's change of heart, she was celebrated by the village folk for her supposedly clever plan to lull the despot into safety and lull him.
In colorful costume, the supposed heroine of the working people celebrated the overthrow of the tyrant with her colleagues. The next day the lord of the castle should expect his “just judgment”. It was thought that he would be murdered without further ado. The shepherdess, however, secretly sneaked away from the celebrations, went to the hut and freed her loved one, the lord of the castle. Then both rode away quickly. But the hunter had become suspicious and followed her. At a point in the way he stood up to the two of them. Given the choice, the shepherdess decided to stay with the lord of the castle. “Better to be damned with him than alone!” The hunter was thunderous. The dissimilar pair rode away, the hunter was pushed and fell into the abyss. During the escape to the fortress, a thunderstorm suddenly set in. The fleeing people were struck by lightning, which petrified the lord and the shepherdess.
Production notes
The film, shot on the open-air site in Neubabelsberg from May to August 1922 , was censored on January 16, 1923 and was shown for the first time on January 23, 1923 in the Kurfürstendamm premiere theater in Berlin. The five-stroke had a length of 1978 meters.
Heinrich Heuser designed the buildings and costumes, while Karl Vollbrecht implemented the sets according to Heuser's specifications. Erich Kettelhut took over the equipment .
The stony rider is determined by both film expressionism and cinematic naturalism, which was thoroughly commented on. Lotte H. Eisner remarked in her work The Demonian Canvas: “ Never again will the unity between décor, play and costume effect be achieved in one of the Expressionist films that was to be found in CALIGARI by Krauss and Veidt. This is perhaps particularly noticeable in Fritz Wendhausen's film DER STEINERNE REITER (1923); here the expressionistic décor created by Werndorff [sic!] stands in abstruse contradiction to the naturalistic physical demeanor of the actors ” . A few pages later, she added again: “ Perhaps, given the GOLEM, one understands the mistakes of a film like THE STEINER REITER by Fritz Wendhausen. The sometimes attractive expressionist décor is not in harmony with the naturalistic posture of the actors, and the director did not understand how to blur the so strongly felt incongruence with the effects of light. "
Reviews
The contemporary press and later critics reacted rather inconsistently to the film, but the tendency was rather negative. Below is a small selection:
“ A genuinely German saga in an unadulterated folk guise ... You can describe the style as 'folk impressionism' (...) Always and everywhere, genuinely German folklore comes to light. The whole film is, so to speak, welded out of the German people's soul. "
“ The stone rider” is based on a local legend. We know how local legends come about. Somewhere there is a rock of a strange shape. Imagination makes a figure out of it, out of the figure a story. These figures are very seldom original, even more rarely productive. They arise from a game of imagination. (...) Very rarely are these legends really popular. They mostly stem from the gossip of chroniclers or tourist guides. You go for the curious, not for the human ... Your garb is mostly medieval. But the middle ages is a broad and vague term. That is why the structure is vague and, if it is designed, incredible. "
“ This lighting from below or from the side, which brings out certain luminous lines, bands or larger surfaces, underscores them excessively and lets them abruptly collide with the dark, becomes characteristic of expressionist film. In Fritz Wendhausen's STEINERNEM REITER, for example, such strips of light transform decorative details into glittering arabesques. "
" Based on an idea by Thea von Harbou, F. Wendhausen filmed the old ballad and folk tale" Der Steinerne Reiter "(1923). The expressionist decorations and buildings completely smashed the romantic ballad mood, so that this film was downright a failure. "
Individual evidence
Web links
- The stone tab in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The stony rider at filmportal.de