Coming Short of the Glory of God: Melancholy Pleasure in Fritz Lang's Seigfreid

     Romanticism gets a bad rap.  So often in our language of today “romantic” is seen as pejorative, or at least silly.  To romanticize a topic is to idealize it in a naive way.  While these thoughts are not without merit, there is usefulness to be found in the theory of the Romantic era.  Both Poe and Shelley speak of poetry as having an inherently pleasurable aspect.  In fact, Shelley is positing pleasure as the new great good, replacing empiricism and religion.  The validity of a work is found in its ability to produce pleasure.  That pleasure is also uniquely defined by Shelley.  He says it “strengthens the  affections, enlarges the imagination, [and] adds spirit to sense.”  In other words pleasure improves upon all of our capacities, our creative abilities.  It can make us better people and thereby, societies.  It becomes more intriguing upon discovering that the pleasure of sorrow is desirable above pure pleasure.  Poe chimes in by saying that melancholy is the “legitimate” tone of a poem.  Shelley identifies this as “sorrow, terror, anguish, despair”, emotions that come from falling short of the highest good.  This is indeed akin to the katharsis that Aristotle speaks of (and since Shelley adores the Greeks poets that makes sense) that is the great end of poetry.*  Therefore, one can judge the value of a piece by determining its melancholy, the perverse pleasure of sorrow that it endows on its audience. 
    Fritz Lang, though long associated with the German Expressionist movement, taps into much of this ideology with his film Siegfried (1924).  The film is devised in such a way as to appeal to the audience’s desire to witness failure.  The film begins with the hero finishing a sword.  The sword represents perfection.  The wise old blacksmith (caveman?)  upon seeing the sword and testing its hone deems it a work of perfection.  Having achieved this, Siegfried is ready to begin his quest. 
    The sword is used to kill the dragon.  The blood of the dragon will provide invulnerability to whoever bathes in it.  The perfect tool is the doorway to the perfect body.  Siegfried bathes in the blood but a leaf falls on his back and blocks the galvanizing fluid from a single spot.  The hero then falls short of that perfection and we sense foreboding.  That event presages Siegfried’s doom. 
    He uses his strength and apparent invulnerability to accomplish a variety of superhuman taskd.  He succeeds at defeating the Dwarf king and taking his riches.  He is made a king of 12 vassals.  He helps the King defeat Broomhilde and secure their marriage.  He marries the Kings sister and all is well.  These events are calculated to assuage or fears regarding Siegfried’s one weakness.  He makes it through all of these life threatening situations and remains in tact.  We start to believe that he will achieve that perfection and yet the knowledge of that fault remains. 
    As the event leading up to his assassination are revealed we feel the darkness sink in.  We know of Broomhilde’s plot.  We feel the terror of inevitability.  And yet, we continue with Siegfried and company.  We know that doom is coming and we accept that, and perversely, want that.  We desire the death of our hero at the same time as we are afraid to witness it.
    When the death ultimately comes, and so innocently at that, we are not surprised.  Though we watch through parted fingers, we are satisfied that the failure has come to fruition.  That melancholy pleasure derived from the failure of our hero is compounded with the suicide of Broomhilde.  She got her revenge and that achieves nothing for her.  She kills herself upon realizing that she has nothing left to live for.  We applaud her death.  Had she lived we would have been disappointed.
    This perverse pleasure in sorrow is a valid tool for understanding Fritz Lang’s Siegfried (1924).  By setting pleasure as the highest goal and defining that pleasure by its twisted mirror, we can give value to the failure of the characters in the film.  The failure of the protagonist is a powerful tool of reflexivity.  We see in that failure our own.  As Shelley states, “Neither the eye nor the mind can see itself, unless reflected upon that which it resembles.”  We can identify our own Achilles Heel (or in this case Lindon Leaf Back) as we watch Siegfried die from his weakness.  We can feel pleasure in our weakness, or perhaps, as Paul states “glory in [our] infirmities.”  For in that empathy for the other, that recognition of that which lies in ourselves, can we find pleasure, or joy, or glory, in that which we can change.  Surely we all fall short of that highest good, but in that reflection of art, we can begin to reach up again.

* Ironically, if Shelley is setting pleasure up as the great Good of society, and we derive pleasure from the falling short of the greatest good, then falling short of pleasure is what gives us the greatest pleasure.