If you look ahead, you should always take a look back: Because only very few things are really new, almost everything has been there before, in music, art, in the cinema – just a little different. If, for example, the smart people from Silicon Valley find out something about artificial intelligence, they too rely on findings from yesterday.
One of the first films on this subject premiered in Berlin 100 years ago: The golem as he came into the world is an expressionist classic of the German silent film, it is about an artificial person made of clay who, according to an old Jewish legend, is supposed to avert disaster. He does that too, he is supposed to protect the Prague Jews from being driven out by the Christians. This homunculus was played by the director himself, Paul Wegener brought it to life under a centimeter-thick layer of theater paste on his face. The film was a worldwide success, the film museum has extensively restored it. Among other things, the original music by Hans Landsberger, which has been lost for 90 years, has been reconstructed. On Wednesday, August 4th, it will be performed in the courtyard of the city museum with live music.
The event is the prelude to the International Silent Film Festival of the Filmmuseum. This year these will take place a little earlier than usual and for the first time as an open-air event. Silent films from all over the world will be shown for three weeks, with live music for each performance. Among other things, the audience can look forward to an early feature film about a Bavarian legend: Ludwig the Second was created in 1929 in Bavaria and Babelsberg, the later Hollywood success director Wilhelm Dieterle not only directed, but also played the title role (August 5th).
Comedies will also be shown, for example by Alice Guy, the world’s first female film director (August 6th) or with the comedian duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (August 12th). Yasujiro Ozu’s 1932 film goes to Japan I was born but … (August 15), the Munich director Franz Osten traveled to the Taj Mahal: The tomb of a great love was filmed on location in India in 1926 at great expense (August 20th). A Munich educational film, on the other hand, can be seen on Tuesday, August 10th: Toni Attenberger warned in Dangers of the big city street (1924) against thieves and fraudsters, at the same time he taught the audience how to behave in traffic.
But back to Artificial Intelligences again: On Sunday, August 8th, at 4 p.m., Alexander Kluge will speak in the cinema of the Film Museum about the topicality of the Golem myth and to what extent its idea of creating artificial people extends into our present.
International Silent Film Festival, Wednesday, 4th to Sunday, 22nd August, inner courtyard of the Munich City Museum, every day except Monday, 9 p.m., Sankt-Jakobs-Platz 1, box office tickets, information: https://www.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/film