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March 2000, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
Leo Enticknap <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 28 Mar 2000 20:17:31 +0000
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Donald Larsson suggests that:

>Kriemhild is more ingenious than some of her predecessors

Definitely - marrying Atilla the Hun scores points for originality as a way
of getting even with someone...

>For that matter, look at all those passages in the Old Testament when
>God commands a warrior to smite all enemies, down to the child in its
>mother's womb.  I doubt that an absolute standard of "heroism" can
>apply to all texts and all cultures.

It can't, which is why it's easier to define an 'evil hero' in terms of the
technicalities of a film narrative in relation to certain moral criteria,
rather than as an absolute standard.  Kriemhild is the 'hero' in this case
because she is the central character in the narrative, most of which
priotitises her perspective.  But she does things which would make  many
viewers feel uneasy to put it mildly, and it is the viewers who have to
deal with that contradiction (and with similar contradictions in a great
deal of Lang films).  Brunnhilde is a hell of a lot more evil (that frown -
yikes!), but she is not the hero.

L
------------------------------------
Leo Enticknap
Technical Manager
City Screen Cinemas (York) Ltd..
Coney St., York YO1 9QL.
United Kingdom
Telephone: 01904 612940 (work); 01904 673207 (home); 0410 417383 (mobile)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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