FRITZ LANG

Germany, 2016, 104 minutes, Colour.
Heino Ferch, Thomas Thieme, Samuel Finzi, Johanna Gastdorf, Lisa Friederich.
Directed by Gordian Maugg.

Fritz Lang is considered one of the 20th century’s foremost film directors. His films in Germany include Metropolis and M. His films in the United States ranged over many genres, especially dark thrillers and some westerns. He died in 1976 in Hollywood, aged 85.

Lang’s life was also interesting. A Jewish mother who converted to Catholicism. Pioneer in writing and directing films during the 1920s, some silent classics. Goebbels approved of him and in 1933 offered him a leading role in the German film industry. Lang decided to leave Germany and moved to the United States. His wife and collaborator, Thea von Harbou, divorced him and remained in Germany, writing for the Nazi regime. It is said that he was very difficult to work with.

While the title of this film is Fritz Lang, it is a fiction, based on facts but doing speculative interpretations of his character and of his filmmaking.

One of the significant features of the film is that it is filmed in black and white, framed in the traditional box form of the silent era so that the filmmakers are able to incorporate a great deal of actual footage of Berlin and Düsseldorf around 1930, providing an authentic background to the action. This enables them to incorporate footage from some of Lang’s films, especially Metropolis and Woman on the Moon. By the end of the film, it is also in able to incorporate footage from Lang’s first sound film, M, which is the particular subject of this film.

Lang had focused on issues of German mythology as well as on futuristic interpretations of humans and machines. He was wary of silent films but realised he had to move with the times. He was intrigued by some newspaper headlines of a serial killer in the city of Düsseldorf. This film explores his fascination with the crimes and the criminal, going to Düsseldorf, making contact with the police chief and getting permission to go to the crime scenes and eventually interview the killer who has confessed to his wife and is apprehended. (He was executed soon after the release of Lang’s film, M.)

Lang seems to have a morbid interest in the crime and the criminal, going to locations, walking the streets, imagining the state of mind of the killer, the vicious attacks on women, the screenplay seeming to suggest that psychologically he sometimes identifies with the killer. The audience has seen him in relationship to his wife, his sexual activity, flashbacks to his first wife, Lisa, who nursed him after injuries in World War I but who killed herself after discovering his relationship with writer Thea von Harbou. In a film within a film, this episode is dramatised by different actors. Lang was not a particularly nice man at all.

Lang was a genius in his area, reminding the audience that a genius does not necessarily have to be a nice or a good person.

By the end of the film, Lang and Thea von Harbou have prepared a screenplay to meet producers demands, there are glimpses of the filming of it, actors, sets, action. Peter Lorre was the star of the film and, at the end, there are very significant, even graphic, sequences from the original Incorporated here.

An intriguing film in terms of its content, the portrait of an artist, his genius and flaws, personal relationships and obsessions, and his strengths as a filmmaker. And, in its black and white photography, incorporating of documentary footage and films, it is also intriguing in its visual style.

1. Fritz Lang and his reputation, his career, as a director, as a person? This film as a speculation?

2. Audience knowledge of Fritz Lang? His origins in Vienna, his Jewish mother, Catholic conversion, admiration of Goebbels? His work as a writer, work as a director, in the silent era, Metropolis, M, the invitation from Goebbels, his divorce, going to the United States, his strong career in the 1940s and 1950s? The return to Germany? The 1960s?

3. The film providing an outline of his life? World War I, his marriage to Lisa, his betrayal with Thea von Harbou, the killing herself? His marrying von Harbou? The dramatisation of Lisa, in the hospital, the betrayal, her death? The central speculations in this film, his dissatisfaction in the silent era, the encounter with the prostitute? The focus on the murderer in Dusseldorf, his visit, interrogations, the making of the film?

4. The ratio for the photography, as in the silent era, black and white, the incorporation of contemporary footage from Berlin, creating the atmosphere, authenticity? The film clips, especially Metropolis and M? The impact of this intercutting?

5. Lang in the 1920s, his reputation, the success of Metropolis? The screening of Woman on the Moon? The challenge at the end of the silent era, seeing him scoffing at other directors, his difficulties in moving to sound, the producer, the deadline? His seeing the headlines about Düsseldorf?

6. The information about the city, the location photography, the footage from the past? The serial killer, the papers, the news? The inspector, his name, his role in the investigation, the interviews? The visualising of the deaths, graphic, the hammer, the blood, the drinking of the blood? The different cases, Lang following, a kind of stalking? Lang and the police, permissions, the examination of the scenes, on the hill in the countryside, his imagining the murders, identifying with the killer?

7. Peter Kurtin, his wife denouncing him, the setting up to trap him, the arrests, the interviews, the inspector and the conversation, afternoon tea and a cake? Kurtin and his describing what he did, his feelings, prison, accepting the responsibility? Lang visiting him in the questions? The prison official and the hostility to Lang?

8. The intercutting of the drama about Lang’s earlier life, Lisa, imagining her at the crime scene, the affair, Lisa, the bath, the couple, her death?

9. Thea von Harbou as a character, the background, relationship with Lang, marrying him, the success of her writing, her suspicions at the time of M, following him, confrontation, writing the script?

10. The scenes of filming, and the studios, the sets? The sequences from the film with Peter Lorre, intercutting them and their effect?

11. The release of the film and the execution of the killer?

12. Further information about the film, his career, going to America…?