The Golem's Birth

This film (drama)Also known asDer Golem，is aGermanyProducerwomen sex，At1920Released in year 。The dialogue language isSilent film，Current Douban rating7.9(For reference only)。

Representative Work of German Expressionism 　　A 　　The Talmud, a Jewish legal text from the 4th century AD, mentions Rava's creation of a golem. Rava's full name is Rabbi Abba ben Rav Hamma, and he created a "man" that cannot speak. He presented this "man" to Rav Zera, who, noticing its lack of response to questions, declared, "You must have been created by one of my colleagues. Return to dust." (Sanhedrin 65b) In a religious sense, only a person created by God is a complete person and can speak, while Rava's creation is not a true human. According to Jewish tradition, the rabbis and sages of that time could create golems of either humans or animals, which was not regarded as something extraordinary. 　　B 　　The legend of the golem gradually evolved, and in the 17th century, Rabbi Loew of Prague created a golem to protect the Jews living in the Jewish quarter from anti-Semitic violence. To avoid trouble, the scholar in the story always consciously returned the golem to lifeless clay after it completed its mission. One day, Rabbi forgot to turn the golem back into clay, and when everyone else in the city had gone to worship, the golem became angry and destroyed the entire city. This story structure continued to appear in literary works up to the 19th and 20th centuries, most famously in Gustav Meyrink's "Der Golem," which was widely read in 1915. It is worth exploring that such novels coincided with the era of the Industrial Revolution, reflecting people's fears regarding the ethical challenges posed by technology. 　　C 　　The classic silent film "Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam" (The Golem: How He Came Into the World), directed by Carl Boese and Paul Wegener in 1920, is adapted from Gustav Meyrink's novel. This film encapsulates the characteristics of German Expressionist art and significantly influenced directors like Fritz Lang. It features meticulously designed lighting effects using hand-held lamps, oil lamps, torches, and more, to express the psychological states of the characters and create the atmospheric environment of the film. This expressive use of lighting ultimately became a major characteristic of all forms of German cinema and provided experiences for the stylistic portrayal of horror films. 　　D 　　The legend of the golem is also one of the sources for Mary Shelley's famous science fiction novel "Frankenstein." However, the golem in the legend is clumsy and reckless, unaware of the extent of its power, or its foolishness and ignorance. In contrast, the creature created by Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's narrative, while reckless, is capable of learning, highly human, and understands emotions such as pain, sympathy, compassion, love, and remorse, even more mature than the young Frankenstein himself. The Enlightenment of the 18th century evolved from advocating rationalism to later suppressing human emotions, transforming rationalism into something cold and rigid. Consequently, a romanticism movement arose in Germany in opposition to the Enlightenment, sweeping across Europe and America in the early 19th century, with Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein" born in this context. However, in popular literature, the anti-rational and anti-science tendencies often appear somewhat excessive, simplifying the image of science and scientists. This portrayal of "scientific monsters" thrived in the silent film era of German Expressionism and continued in many poor Hollywood sci-fi films (characterized by increasingly poor sequels). 　　E 　　A leading direction in contemporary philosophy of science is the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which investigates specific scientific research processes, examining each link including funding and paper publication, to research how scientific knowledge is constructed and emphasize the role of social factors in the process. SSK's representative figures, Collins and Pinch, published an accessible pamphlet in 1993 titled "Golem," translated as "Golem: What Scientists Should Know." Collins candidly stated that his book aimed to use "golem" to explain "science," asserting, "We are trying to prove it is not an evil creature; it is just a little daft. Do not blame golem science for its shortcomings; it is humanity that errs. If golem tries to do its own thing, it should not be blamed. But we cannot expect too much. Despite being powerful, the golem is a creation of our culture (art) or our craft." SSK is often criticized for having an anti-science tendency, but it clearly differs from the anti-science stances of the Romantic period. It depicts a rich and nuanced image of science; its so-called "anti-science" merely aims to remove the heavy veils imposed on science and reveal its true face, not a simple rejection or denigration of science in the 19th century.