Frau im Mond (1929)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 169 mins.
Alt: "Woman in the Moon"


Note: The following review discusses key elements of the film's conclusion.

Frau im Mond is not cinema's first dramatized depiction of man's journey to the moon (see: Georges Méliès), but at its time it was the best that had been done. We'll begin with the science, which, for 1929 standards, isn't as bastardized as it could be. For this science-fiction tale of the first manned-mission to the moon (the title is translated: "Woman in the Moon"), Lang and his screenwriting collaborator Thea von Harbou brought in two noted scientists — writer Willy Ley, who become an émigré and help shape public policy for the U.S. space program; and Hermann Oberth, a mentor to Werner von Braun and one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics. The move was crucial to lend the film a sense of authenticity. The two thinkers correctly predicted the sort of force that would be necessary for man to break through Earth's atmosphere and into orbit, the G-force that would affect humans inside a space craft, and the trajectory that would be required to make it to the moon, using the gravitational pull of the latter to "sling-shot" the rocket back toward Earth.

Of course, they got some things wrong as well, beginning most notably with the supposition that the moon would have a stable, oxygen-rich atmosphere and people could run around without any helmets or suits. (To be fair, the movies were still getting that wrong well into the 1950s.) There was also a small glitch in a key element of the film's plot: the moon is not some vast reservoir of gold deposits, but it is precisely that wealth that drives us into the heavens in the film.

The scientists should be commended, as should Lang, for their aspects of the film are perhaps the only reason it's interesting today. The plot is so bungled and trite in Frau im Mond that it is the science that drives the narrative, that makes the scenes interesting from moment to moment, up until its rather unexpected ending. When the plot turns away from the science, Frau im Mond is exposed for what it is really is: a minor Lang film with second-rate love story advised by first-rate thinkers.

The film is a hybrid of Lang's two favorite silent genres, the espionage thriller and the fantasy. A leading space scientist named Helius (Willy Fritsch) is in the process of developing man's first trip to the moon under the advice and counsel of his mentor, Professor Georg Manfeldt (Klaus Pohl). But Helius's research is stolen by thugs who demand to be taken to the moon, where caves of gold are thought to exist. A criminal mastermind working with the thugs plots the trip and forces the participation of professor, Helius, and Helius's partner, an engineer named Windigger, who brings his scientist fiancée, Friede, for whom Helius has unspoken love.

After building Metropolis and watching the city in the film reach the brink of destruction, perhaps the moon was the only place left for Lang to go. Much like the former, Frau im Mond is a study in the fateful overreaching of mankind and the disastrous consequences that lay ahead. It should not a surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with Lang's cynical worldview that this trip to the moon cannot be called a success. The passengers' inner demons begin to get the best of them: the professor goes a little crazy when the discovery of lunar riches is correct. Windigger's fear of dying begins to creep into his consciousness and makes him become progressively unraveled, and the criminal mastermind who has prodded the whole flight also suffers a meltdown and pierces a vital oxygen tank with a bullet. This leaves the rocket capable of returning all the survivors sans one, and the men draw straws to see who stays behind on the moon. Naturally, that role goes to our valiant hero, Helius. (Eat your heart out, Michael Bay.)

Lang films aren't known for their happy endings. When the young man and young woman are united in Der Müde Tod, it is only in death; and when the two classes seem to have found their perfect mediator in Metropolis, the film nonetheless ends on a spooky note, a feeling of cyclical class warfare still looming on the horizon. Frau im Mond possesses the same vital nationalism that seemed to fuel Die Nibelungen; Helius is the sacrificial Aryan hero within the context of the film, a cog in the machinery who does his part not only for his surviving comrades but Germany. (We can't have man's first mission to the moon be a failure, of course.) It shouldn't be surprising that, like the rest of Lang's films, Adolf Hitler was quite smitten with Frau im Mond; and it shouldn't be surprising that, like the rest of Lang's films, Frau im Mond presents a surface that is thematically undercut by a pessimistic subconsciousness.

By staying on the moon, Helius is essentially sentenced to death, although not, as we think, alone. Once the ship has taken off we suddenly realize that Friede has stayed behind for Helius, the two finally united in love and without that pesky partner/fiance making the situation awkward. The revelation of Friede technically makes the ending "happy" and "romantic" — the man and woman meant to be together finally can be. And yet it also undercuts the supposed nationalism. Helius' sacrifice is altruistic for the others and for his country, but Friede's sacrifice is purely selfish and done for the benefit of her and Helius. It is fleeting glory at the sake of a larger cost, destined to fail even if it is a temporary success — much like, we can see, the entire moon shot inside the film.

But the film as a whole fails to come together as powerfully as its final statement. At nearly three hours Frau im Mond is far too long, particularly as the first hour is a miniaturized spy film where the driving narrative force is discovering who has stolen secret documents. (They're always secret documents in a Lang silent thriller.) The journey into space comes too late and ends a bit too easily, making the film ultimately a minor work not only within Lang's oeuvre but also within the realms of silent cinema and science fiction. The science makes it a curious artifact, and the ending is perhaps the shrewdest of Lang's silent films, but Frau im Mond falls short.

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Spione (1928)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 178 mins.


The silent films of Fritz Lang can be divided rather clearly into two distinct categories — the espionage thriller and the dark fantasy. Lang is more famous for his fantasies certainly, films that explore the machinery of fate like Der Müde Tod ("Destiny"), Die Nibelungen and Metropolis. But just as he would leave the mark of his wicked sensibilities on the American noir in the 1940s and 1950s, there is no denying the importance and influence he left on the spy genre in the silent 1920s in films like Der Spinnen ("The Spiders"), Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, and Spione.

Spione (translated: "Spies") is often held up as the greatest of Lang's early espionage thrillers, both for its own dynamics as a film and its influence on others. At times it can be a roar, such as the montage-heavy opening sequence where Lang cuts across to capture all the events in a heist of secret international documents, or in the well-done chase sequences, particularly the smashing finale. But as much as Spione can be a roar, it occasionally suffers from being a bit of a confounding bore. As Lang directed it, and as it was originally shown, the film is near three hours in length at 16 frames per second, and it operates off of a complex and convoluted script that makes first-pass accessibility rather difficult. In many ways Spione is an attempt to perfect the formula he began with Spinnen and Mabuse — start off excitingly, dip down into a steady plot with moments of energy, and zap the audience with a high-impact ending — but its downs are a little too sluggish and its energy is never quite as heart-pounding as it could be.

Although it takes a while to establish what exactly is going on, the story, written by Lang and Thea von Harbou, reveals itself to be deceptively simplistic. Agent 326 (Willy Fritsch) is in pursuit of a Russian super-villain named Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge, done up to appear as much like Vladimir Lenin as possible) whose organization aims for world domination. Haghi dispatches his own secret agent, Sonya (Gerda Maurus), to throw off Agent 326, but the two fall in love and so the stitching has begun for complicated quilt of intrigue and threat. One of the film's strengths in this and a parallel subplot where it avoids the superficialities of love and lust and imbues a real sense of consequence for the characters as their relationships move forward. Although the characters themselves are drastically underwritten, particularly Haghi, who lacks the complexities of a villain like Mabuse, it is not difficult to see where a film like Spione fits into the Lang canon. He clearly wants to establish a balance between the pulpy occupational endeavors of a spy's life with the more artistic explorations of moral substance of a spy's personal life, but such a balance never seems reached and as one half relies on the other for support the whole film ends up on an uneven keel.

Today Spione lacks the inherent mystery of the espionage world because it led the way in establishing set-pieces that would become cliches in the genre. Its bearded villain, debonair agent, disappearing ink and bullet-proof devices and hidden microphones have all reappeared in spy film after spy film. Spione and Dr. Mabuse, were clearly influential pieces on Alfred Hitchcock, who in the following decade produced numerous spy thrillers in England, the pinnacle of which is undoubtedly The 39 Steps. That film and others like Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Secret Agent (1936) and Sabotage (1936) owe a lot to Spione, with their blends of romance and action. But Hitchcock at his best, as in The 39 Steps, could deduce the essential elements for the spy thriller and managed to boil them down and streamline the entire process into a film that is tighter and more pleasing. Lang's cut of Spione is almost twice as long as The 39 Steps but only half as thrilling; that's a deadly calculus, even for those who revere Lang.

Like many of Lang's films, this has been given a rather beautiful restoration (by the F.W. Murnau Foundation) and looks clean, crisp, and practically new. But just to make things difficult, there is a 90-minute version available (released theatrically in the United States in the late 1920s) that reportedly utilizes some trimming and tinkering and solves some of the pacing problems. For authenticity's sake, without a stamp of approval from a director, I wouldn't suggest viewing a film in any other form except as close to the original as possible. It's possible that the shorter, leaner version capitalizes on the higher points in the script to make a film that might be, for all I know, more functional in the midsections. But it isn't Spione as Lang intended. Although this version is not without its flaws, there's no better time than now to watch the film as it was intended. If nothing else it'll make you appreciate what Lang did the genre and how others, most notably Hitchcock, turned that into gold.

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Metropolis (1927)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 123 mins.


Determining what is the most famous silent film of all time is surely an incalculable task; yet it seems fairly anodyne to nominate Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I doubt I am alone in that belief. Although the films of Griffith perhaps taught us more about making and reading movies; and although the visage of Chaplin in his bowler perhaps will be recognizable centuries from now; and although there are dozens of silent films that better synthesize production and substance; few, if any, have left such an indelible mark in triplicate — style, entertainment, and legacy — and few represent the best and worst of the auteur. For Lang, who would continue to direct great films (some greater) long after Metropolis and into the sound era, nothing else he would do topped the mania. He was at once the apprentice — an inventor, wide-eyed and audacious; and the sorcerer — a cinematic sophist, a perfectionist, pugnacious to his core.

Considered as a self-contained object, Metropolis is a film of staggering scope and execution, the first great science fiction tale in the history of cinema. It has been difficult for any film that has followed to attempt a projection the future — whether dystopian or not — and not channel Lang in some way. And through a unique and perfect storm of happenstance, Metropolis has grown in stature in most off-screen cinematic circles. For the purists, Metropolis has always represented the apogee of tension between the visionary director and yearning coffers of the distributor. After its production practically bankrupted Germany's Ufa Studios (which was then rescued by U.S. studios Paramount and MGM), Metropolis was butchered from Lang's conception. Its original 153-minute running length was trimmed to closer to 90 minutes, after whole subplots and scenes were cut and the frames-per-second were upped from 20 to 24. The theory was: the shorter the film, the more times it could be shown during the day, thus earning more money for the studio that gave it literally almost everything it had. No hyperbole about it, it was a crime against art, particularly when the cut footage remained missing for more than eighty years. (A complete print, albeit in horrible condition, was discovered in Argentina in 2008.)

But there's always been enough of the film for Metropolis work — or at least work in the way a fever dream works. The film fell out of U.S. copyright protection comparatively early, in the 1950s, and in the ensuing years it circulated widely and easily. Like Murnau's Nosferatu, public domain has been both kind and cruel to Metropolis. In the 1980s, coinciding with MTV and the rise of home video, Giorgio Moroder married a pop/techno score to the film, which gave it second life among audiences averse to silent films, and brought it closer to mainstream U.S. culture (there was even a slight uptick in homages to the film, in both science fiction movies and music videos). Getting your hands on a copy has perhaps never been easier; it streams free and legally across the Internet, and numerous DVD copies have flooded the market. But until the missing pieces found in 2008 are cleaned and restored and reinserted into the film, there is one and only one version any serious movie lover should consider, and that's the 2001 restoration from the F.W. Murnau Foundation released by Kino. (That version, it should be noted, is protected under copyright now. You must seek it out and view it appropriately.)

It would be trite to say the difference is like night and day, so I'll say the difference is like air and cheesecloth. The world of film is a better place with the 2001 restoration available on DVD, not only because it is as clear as I've ever seen the film but because it has assembled all of the known pieces of film into one single print, in its original crisp black-and-white and with its original score. Elegantly designed black title cards summarize action and dialogue in the missing sections, using information in the notes taken by the German Censorship Board. The only problem — if you can call it that — is Kino's decision to play it at 24 frames-per-second, the speed at which it was originally shown. Twenty-four f.p.s. is historically accurate (again, one of the many decisions made by the distributor for the purposes of keeping the film as short as possible), but it is believed that Lang intended it to be shown at 20 f.p.s. From scene to scene it's barely noticeable, although it does tend to the exacerbate the already overwrought expressionistic acting. (And, if you're an auteurist, it can break your heart a little.)

The importance of Metropolis, and the source of its greatness, lies in its atmosphere. It doesn't merely establish such a thing; it creates it, the way a meteor creates a crater or the way dynamite blows away solid masses and leaves pebbles in its wake. Its class warfare story is represented by two diametrically opposed sets: a great city that juts skyward, with suspended expressways, deco skyscrapers, its own proxy Tower of Babel, and pleasure gardens where the bourgeois cavort; and a subterranean hell, where the proletariat toil amid heavy machinery and keep the city moving. The sets were reportedly inspired by Lang's observation of the Manhattan skyline, and they are strikingly beautiful in their blend of artificiality and potential realism. Those with different world views and political philosophies can read the world of Metropolis as whatever ratio suits yourself; within the film they are a projection of the future, but are extraordinarily haunting in their potential. The Expressionism and deco aspects of their design keep the edifice exteriors from ever being fully believable, but the lengths which Lang aspires to make them believable, or at least possible in the future, are unsettling. The mechanized devices — airplanes, trams, cars, etc. — move with impeccable timing and fluidity. Lang used mirrors to allow thousands and thousands of extras (more than 30,000, it's been reported) to appear in proportion to their surroundings in a single shot, a seamless and majestic creation from the special effects supervisor, Ernest Kunstmann, and camerawork from the great cinematographer Karl Freund. On a smaller scale, too, the sets are as detail-oriented and sedulously crafted, and have lent themselves as fully to iconography as the soaring city and the industrious underworld. Consider Lang's vision of a scientist's lab, decorated with wires and tubes and levers and dials, and you'll see in it practically every cinematic science lab since 1927. Or consider the famous ten-hour work clock in the depths of the city, where workers are in a constant fight to fix the hands to a proper position. (Something which, has been noted by numerous critics, makes no logical sense but nevertheless leaves its mark.)

Metropolis then is every bit of its name: large, burgeoning, functional, and daunting. On the set, Lang was reportedly a bit of a directorial tyrant who insisted on real things (real fire, real water that really flooded the studio) to bring the science fiction tale of a futuristic dystopia to life. Although such a managerial style seems to ironically undercut the anti-authoritarian message of the film, it's difficult to see how he could have accomplished his goal as successfully as he did without such tight control and such stringent demands. In the final product it's clear that such an approach worked well for Lang, a director whose films has always been about more about image than story and more about theme than plot. If one thing is for certain about Metropolis, it's that it needs a gigantic, complex, and dynamic story to live up to its gigantic, complex, and dynamic imagery; but it ultimately doesn't have one. Maybe more than any movie I've ever seen, Metropolis embodies every iota of the definition of a flawed masterpiece in that it's pure and perfect cinema that offers an absurd story. The protagonist, Freder (Gustav Froehlich), is the posh son of Metropolis' ruler, who veers away from his father and his social status when he becomes enraptured by Maria (Brigitte Helm), a woman of the workers. We see Metropolis through his eyes, both the exquisitely rich aspects and the poor aspects, as he ventures into the underworld and attempts to help Maria save the workers. But plans go awry when a mad scientist named Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) creates a robotic version of Maria to lead the revolution in the wrong direction.

The pieces of the story, co-written by Lang and wife Thea von Harbou, move forward in a march toward inevitable collapse with typical Langian fatalism. The resistance toward the inevitable is stronger in Metropolis than in many Lang films, which appropriately reflects the grand setting at stake. But the details of the story are inconsequential for Lang; Metropolis is an analysis of class warfare performed with a meat cleaver. It is pedantic and a bit naive (it is ultimately a laborious search for "the heart" that will join "the head and the hand"), but interestingly vague enough to be read both as template for latter-day Marxism and on-the-rise Nazism. Lang's films through the 1920s and early 1930s always delved into the roiled emotions and crippled industriousness of Weimar Germany, and as such earned high praise from the likes of Adolf Hitler and his sympathizers, although they were lined with such pessimistic destiny that it's amusing today to think anyone could have read them objectively and believed any on-screen success, whether fleeting or not, would ultimately defy the natural order and avoid ending in complete breakdown. This theme works in Metropolis, as it does in many of Lang's other films, despite the lack of nuance to the story.

It is a testament to the film's strength in style that I'm willing to forgive it of its narrative missteps, an aspect of criticism that I do not allow lightly. But it is also a sign of consistency that this aspect has been derided since its release but forgiven as the viewer comes under its allure. I've seen both the pre-restoration and restoration versions of the film, and can say that it takes something very special to be revered and obsessed over despite its damaged and gnarled state, covered scratches and erosion, with entire sections and characters missing, and played at a false and occasionally cartoonish f.p.s. Still, it is an intoxicating experience and it is difficult not to be swept away in the torrent of Lang's imagination. Essential is a word like all laudatory adjectives that finds itself overused in the hand of the critic. But Metropolis, for all its inherent profligacy, is among the few films to be genuinely worthy of that word.

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Die Nibelungen (1924)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 291 mins.
Alt: "Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" and "Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache"


The legacy of Die Nibelungen is a complicated one, ultimately apropos for its epic size, its mythic origins, and the accolades bestowed on it by fascists. It is one of the most ambitious silent films ever made — a two-part adaptation of a German myth running nearly five hours in length that was two years in the making by a veritable who's-who of Weimar film production. At its time it was the crown jewel from Ufa studios, which was intent on rivaling America as the cinematic powerhouse of the world. And it is for the most part a muscular film, particularly its astounding first half, even if its second half is often as arduous for the audience to endure as it is for the characters on the screen.

Director Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, his German-era screenwriting collaborator and wife, adapted the screenplay from a 13th-century Norse epic poem called "Nibelungenlied," the love story of a prince named Siegfried who wants to woo Kriemhild, the sister to a neighboring king, and her eventual vengeance of his murder. It is a tale of both fantasy and brutal reality. In the first part, as Siegfried is on his way to Worms to earn Kriemhild's heart, he slays a dragon and attains invulnerability after bathing in its blood (save one pesky spot), defeats evil dwarfs and attains riches, and finally helps the king win the love of the queen of Iceland so as he can win the love of Kriemhild. But the Icelandic queen's growing skepticism leads her to call for Siegfried's murder, and after discovering his weak spot, she orders the hit and draws the wrath of Kriemhild, who seeks to avenge his death.

To say this is not really to dispel too much of the film's plot, at least as far as it's understood that the story is abundantly familiar — Richard Wagner adapted the legend for a four-part opera between 1869 and 1874, which has since become one of opera's most famous stories. (It was prominently parodied by Chuck Jones in "What's Opera, Doc?") To watch Die Nibelungen correctly is to focus on the production itself, the thrill of the fights and the mysticism of the fantasy, to marvel at Lang's sublime craftsmanship when it is put on display. Perhaps more than any film Lang had made to this point (and soon to be surpassed by his next, Metropolis), Die Nibelungen is visually arresting. In all contemporary respects, the story takes a backseat to the nuts and bolts of cinema.

And yet ironically, it is the story that has made Die Nibelungen a component of world history. It carries some dubious historical baggage in the extent that it was beloved by German fascists; both Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, loved it for its projection of unabashed nationalism, for the courage and dominance of the German people, for the way the characters exhibit loyalty against reason. Die Nibelungen is dedicated "for the German people," and von Harbou — whose marriage with Lang ended when he fled Germany in the rise of Nazism and she, a national socialist, remained to work for the party — adjusted certain elements of the original myth in her screenplay to give the Nordic characters a superhuman quality, particularly in the second half, where a small band of men bravely fight the Huns although they are greatly outnumbered. Some, including Siegfried Kracauer in his book From Caligari to Hitler, consider Die Nibelungen to be "a key film in the nationalist uprising" primarily through its emphasis on the notion of Fate (a Langian leitmotif — twisted, it seems, beyond its auteur's original intent) and its narrowly tailored movement that sends all its abstract and mercurial elements — love, hatred, jealousy, betrayal, full-scale revenge, deadly loyalty — to a simmering culmination. As scholar Jan-Christopher Horak points out, it is no coincidence that Siegfried, the film's first half, was re-released in 1933 with a spoken prologue and a "Wagnerian soundtrack" only weeks after Ufa had fired all of its Jewish employees.

The history is so transfixing, I think, because what we know about Lang suggests this was not his intention, even if von Harbou's proto-fascism was. Given our understanding of Lang and von Harbou's world views, it's impossible not to regard the first half, Siegfried, as his and the second half, Kriemhilds Rache ("Kriemhild's Revenge"), as hers. Siegfried is far more mystical, with the inclusion of the dragon, the dwarfs, and multiple special effects; it more closely mirrors the dominant expressionism of its time, and tracks closer to the otherworldliness brought to life in Lang's Der Müde Tod in 1921. It is also the more austere of the two halves, more devoted to the careful set up of its tragedy. Kriemhilds Rache — in which Kriemhild moves to the far east, marries Atilla the Hun and plots her cold and implacable revenge against those who have done her wrong — is looser, messier, and with its principal interior sets, less interested in crafting a unique kingdom. From start to finish, Kriemhilds Rache is a hard slog, weighed down by the way it coils over and over on itself as it awaits the barbaric explosion at the end, which hardly proves satisfying after a two-and-a-half-hour wait.

It is the contention of some critics (including this one) that Lang's visual style, at least in Siegfried, largely undermines whatever fiery nationalism can be teased from van Harbou's script. More effective than any nationalist sensation is the overwhelming sense of fatalism that pervades Lang's oeuvre, this time brought to life on a gigantic and ancient scale. Lang's films always exhibit his geometric peculiarities, with symmetrical framing and painterly attention to the austere composition. For Siegfried, the camera works as a force of predestination: elements are so balanced that collapse seems inevitable. Scene to scene, there is an unmistakably palpable physicality, even if what could be touched never existed. Ufa, the studio, and Erich Pommer, the producer, gave Lang a gargantuan budget for 1924, and it shows. The dragon Siegfried slays, while somewhat silly in contemporary contexts, was nonetheless a feat of peerless puppetry, sixty feet long and controlled by no less than seventeen people. For all the theorizing that von Harbou and her nationalist cohorts saw Die Niebelungen as a torrential force in German uprising, Lang seems to capture an alternative sensation: suspension as an act of comfort, the awareness of anticipated implosion merely waiting out in the distance. If some historians believe Hitler, Goebbels, and others saw Die Nibelungen to presage the rise of the Übermensch, there's an equally compelling argument to be made that Lang presaged the downfall before it had even risen.

A final assessment is difficult because Siegfried and Kriemhilds Rache are two significantly unequal halves. Although they belong together, they were released two months apart and stand well separately, as long as the viewer enters with a working knowledge of the myth. Luckily, Siegfried is the first and better of the two (one of Lang's best silent films, actually), and not entirely dependent on Kriemhilds Rache to prove itself as a remarkable cinematic experience. But the total effect of Die Nibelungen is brought down by the unsatisfying qualities of Kriemhilds Rache, qualities that feel intentionally drawn to differentiate the two in style and theme but ultimately are inferior to Siegfried so that the contrast is perhaps too starkly drawn. As unfair as it is (or at least as much of a cheat as it is) to split the film in half when technically it is one large whole, it would be equally unfair to knock down the final grade of the film and do a disservice to its first part at the sake of its second. The film overall is recommended for its place in expressionism and the history of cinema, as well as being a crucial part of Lang's filmography. Siegfried is a must-see; but I excuse you from the Kriemhilds Rache if you're not interested.

Siegfried — ★★★★½
Kriemhilds Rache — ★★★

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Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 270 mins.
alt: "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler"


Those with the slightest exposure to Fritz Lang typically identify him through his three M's: Metropolis, M (naturally), and Mabuse. The last, to be precise, is Dr. Mabuse, the literary creation of novelist Norbert Jacques, whose thriller about the morally bankrupt criminal psychologist became a best-seller in Europe between the world wars. The timing and location of his appearance, in the pulsing boom of modernism on a continent already ravaged and unknowingly prepping itself for another leveling, is important, particularly in the connection to Lang. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a classically lovable villain — a brilliant con artist who delights with disguises and hypnosis for selfish gains.

Lang made three Mabuse films, beginning in 1922 with this silent epic, whose title translates to "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler." The second film, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933), is generally regarded as the best, but der Spieler is important; granted, that importance translates more into its contributions to German cinema and Lang's career, as well as its influences on other directors, than for its sheer entertainment. The story, adapted by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, is more than a detective chasing Mabuse, who stalks the already seedy underworld and steals forthrightly from those at gambling tables through his use of hypnosis. It is a venture into Langian territory as an exploration of an amoral society and its general lack of salvation (insanity, it seems, proves to be an unsettling refuge for characters). It is also a question in free will and self-control; Mabuse's preferred method is the cracking open of another's psyche and controlling that person from the inside — an imperfect mode of manipulation, of course, but horrifying in its success rate.

Though actually one film, Dr. Mabuse was originally exhibited in two parts and continues to presented as such. That break is imperative for the film's enjoyment, primarily because its greatest liability is its slowness and sparsity. Size is by no means a harbinger of headache; in the sense that Dr. Mabuse upholds its commitment to the aforementioned themes and Lang's direction sustains an interest in the characters and their surroundings, the film is a success. But the thrilling moments — even the quieter moments that nonetheless can amaze — are too far apart and the story is stretched too thin to fill the film's four-plus-hour running length. The first half, perhaps ineluctably, proves to be the better half if only because the introduction of Mabuse is accompanied by self-activating mystery. The second half is more a brass-tacks police procedural and upper-class critique, with more chases and more Mabuse (this time, typically unmasked), but it lacks the general psychological depth that is introduced in the first half. The unevenness of the story is countered well by the even-handed direction from Lang. Dr. Mabuse lacks the visual surprises of Der Müde Tod, but the first half is peppered with optical delights, including a mesmerizing camera technique for a moment when Mabuse is seducing a victim under hypnosis and the lens slightly zooms toward his face while the rest of the scene fades to black, his seemingly disembodied glowing white head floating in the middle of the frame.

For contemporary lasting power, Dr. Mabuse has influence on its side. In some circles, it is referred to as the first film noir, which is a cinematic term I am dutifully careful not to overuse (I suppose you can draw the lines of your dictionary wherever you'd like). It's evident that this sort of film clearly presages the film noir style and many of the police films that would come after it; but I would wager that its more important influence, or certainly it's more apt influence, would be its lasting effect on Alfred Hitchcock, who as a young British man earned a crash course in filmmaking in Weimar Germany where he drew title cards and observed F.W. Murnau. Hitchcock claimed Lang's previous film, Der Müde Tod, as among his favorites, and Dr. Mabuse contains numerous elements that would become fundamentals in the Hitchcockian aesthetic, including: police procedural elements, the wry humor underlying or undercutting more serious moments, and the quasi-espionage angle of Dr. Mabuse sneaking around to commit his psychological crimes. The ending, and this isn't giving it away, comes down to a shoot-out the likes of which would be mimicked by Hitchcock in his 1934 career-launching classic, The Man Who Knew Too Much. And though this first Mabuse film is perhaps too unwieldy to be an unqualified success, Lang, like those he influenced, would learn later to crystallize his own filmmaking techniques and thematic explorations into condensed packages of compelling drama.

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Der Müde Tod (1921)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / 114 mins.
Alt: "Destiny"


For all intents and purposes, Fritz Lang's career begins here, with 1921's Der Müde Tod, released in the U.K. as "Destiny." In the United States, it found itself with different English translations — "Between Two Worlds" and its literal translation, "The Weary Death" — but none has stuck quite as well as "Destiny." Looking back over Lang's entire career, it's not difficult to see why: whereas Lang's previous film, the adventure serial Die Spinnen, is breezy and fun, Der Müde Tod sets course for a career of fatalism and determinism, the impending doom (and potentially subsequent resignation) captured by the eventual understanding of the inescapable. The arch-rival of the protagonist in this film is the personification of Death, and although people have tried for thousands of years to cheat him, there has been headway only in prolonging the inevitable.

This is one of the earliest examples of great expressionistic German filmmaking, shy of masterpiece status (like many of the early ones) but enthralling nonetheless. F.W. Murnau cited it as an influence, particularly on The Last Laugh; no less than Alfred Hitchcock would count it among his all-time favorites, and Luis Buñuel noted its fantastical nature helped draw him into film. I've not heard any words on Ingmar Bergman's thoughts on it, but the influence seems too striking to be unavoidable, even if it's merely tangential.

The story of Der Müde Tod, co-written by Lang and Thea von Harbou, is the story of cycles, fantasy, and fable. While riding into a small town in what appears to be nineteenth-century Germany, a young woman (Lil Dagover) and a young man (Walter Janssen) encounter a mysterious man (Bernard Goetzke). His presence and purpose soon become quite evident when he, later revealed to be Death, abducts the young man into the afterlife — seen here as a large windowless, doorless stone wall that keeps the living out while the spirit of the dead pass through. The woman, determined to retrieve her fiance, manages to slip the bounds of the wall and is given a brief tour of the ephemeral backstage of life by Death. She beseeches him to let her have her love again, and he strikes a deal: she will have three chances, in different eras and locales, to save a man (always played by Janssen, with Goetzke lurching in the background) who is destined to die. If she can merely save one of these men, she will get her own fiance back.

Like the best silent cinema, the story is not simplistic for the sake of being purely simple. The moral and narrative stakes are always higher in silence — extreme cases of life and death, love and loss, etc. — which either can allow the story to synthesize quietly with the art or create a situation where the story overwhelms the technical elements. It is a testament to Lang's talent that this early in his career he was capable of doing the former and doing it well. Although he had been unable to direct The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari due to other obligations, he wisely hired that film's production team (Walter Röhrig, Walter Reimann, and Herrmann Warm) to help bring to life the fantasy world of Der Müde Tod (which is not nearly as surreal or geometric as Caligari's, and instead stays closer to embellished visions of ethnic nations) to life. The film features five primarily exotic locations: first, the world of nineteenth century Germany and the castle of Death; then, as the young woman attempts to save men in order to save her own fiance, she is transported to Persia, circa One Thousand and One Arabian Nights; the Renaissance courts of Italy; and a far eastern trip to ancient China.

The cumulative appeal is broad. Like the best of Lang's films, Der Müde Tod is a visual exploration of the space within the lens, which stands as a filmic metaphor for our own limits and boundaries in life. The acting is slightly overworked, but there is balance from Lang in maintaining our interest in both the characters and their story and the ornamentation of the sets and the haunting composition. The special effects hold up even ninety years later. They are used strategically and infrequently so as to dazzle: transformations, materializations, a flying carpet, a horse riding in the sky, a burning home, etc., all lend power and mystery to the design. The effects were trailblazing enough by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who delivered the greatest argument in favor of Der Müde Tod through his fear of it. He purchased the rights to its distribution in America so he could effectively keep it from the public and stash it in cinematic limbo while he and Raoul Walsh co-opted many of the special effects for The Thief of Bagdad, a rewarding movie in its own right but not as powerful as Lang's. It's difficult to be upset with Fairbanks, however; they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

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Die Spinnen (1919-1920)

d. Fritz Lang / Germany / Two parts, 124 mins.
Alt: "The Spiders"


The earliest surviving film from Fritz Lang (that we know of, at least) is his third, Die Spinnen, a two-part adventure serial released between 1919 and 1920 known commonly as The Spiders. It is a relatively simple film, bare-bones in its plot and very action oriented, and the influence from the already growing genre of the American western and from France's serial master Louis Feuillade are quite clear in the sense that "The Spiders" — a band of outlaws looking to reap treasure for themselves — are vaguely reminiscent of Feuillade's criminals in Les Vampires. Yet outside of the idea of Lang directing an uncharacteristically airy and chipper adventure serial, there's not much here to chew on.

The hero of the serial — which is divided into "The Golden Sea" and "The Diamond Ship" — is Kay Hoog (Carl de Vogt), a wealthy and cavalier sportsman. He acquires a bottle found at sea that proclaims the possibility of Inca treasure in first episode and a powerful diamond in the second, and must race with The Spiders, led by Lio Sha (Ressel Orla) to be the first to reach the objects of their desire. What Hoog and The Spiders are searching for, of course, essentially doesn't matter; Lang, the film's screenwriter as well, happily employs the full force of the "Macguffin" practically a decade before Hitchcock. The plot serves only as a way to get characters from one exotic locale, or one fabulously decorated interior, to another — to put characters on trains, on boats, on balloons, on rocks, and in caves; to introduce kidnapping, espionage, gun-fights, and horse races; and to evoke as greatly as possible a sense of extravagance. There's nothing wrong with these sorts of things, but they're underdeveloped and occasionally gratuitous. The sense of exoticism linked to theme hadn't yet been developed in Lang's storytelling.

It should be of interest to those who regularly muse what might have been that Lang turned down The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to make The Spiders, which was originally envisioned to be a four-part series. It wouldn't be fair to suggest it was a bad career move for Lang, as he's obviously earned his own place in the pantheon through films much better than The Spiders, which is messy and unfocused and not as tight as it could be. The first installment ("The Golden Sea") is the better of the two, but both have soft strengths: lavish sets designed by Hermann Warm and above-average camerawork from the great cinematographer Karl Freund in one of his earliest films. There aren't many Lang fingerprints here, but The Spiders functions as a moderate thriller in spite of its insubstantial script. I wouldn't recommend it for attention outside the outlaw-ish band of Lang completists.

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