October 10, 2020

Fritz Lang (Part 1 of 10)

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Books, Cinema of Germany, Translations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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[From Luc Moullet’s Fritz Lang (1963/70, Seghers). See Table of Contents]

We must undertake a project, accomplish a more commendable task without fail, by voluntarily letting go of the various means of expression that rely on technical virtuosity and which, by that fact, will always reek of artifice.

Fritz Lang (1926)

Born in 1890 in Vienna, Fritz Lang entered the film world in 1916. Having studied architecture, studied and practiced painting and other related arts—caricature, interior decoration, etching etc.—having amassed a vast knowledge of the world through faraway journeys and diverse experiences, the most painful of which was the war, Fritz Lang approached cinema via the intermediary of theatre at a point where he had already attained a certain maturity as a man.

That explains why, in his first directorial efforts (1919-1921) and even in his first scripts (1916-1919), we find themes, guiding principles and figures of style that we notice even in his most recent films, the only difference being a deepening intensified by the years.

Fritz Lang’s body of work is therefore one and indivisible. It’s founded on a certain conception of the world whose rudiments are distinctly discernible even in the first scripts he wrote. Rather than studying the films in chronological order as common sense demands, we must first study this conception of the world, this Idea existing prior to the creations it brought forth. The only possible order then is the one that traces different evolutionary forms of the Idea, which respect chronology only loosely.

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July 31, 2008

Flashback #25

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Germany, Flashback | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang
German

“There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.”

 

Metropolis

When cinema was in its infancy during the teens and the twenties, many pioneers sought to provide it a definite shape and even assemble various tools and benchmarks for the decades of filmmakers to come. This led to the formation of various cinematic and narrative techniques, characteristic to their country of origin, which were later used by tens of directors from that country. One such trait, expressionism, was extensively used by the filmmakers of Germany such as F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. The latter’s magnum opus, Metropolis (1927), is a grand marriage of the expressionist method and unimaginably high ambitions for its time.

Joh Fredersen is a huge industrialist and the owner of the high-tech city of Metropolis. The workers of Metropolis are overworked and are exploited in exchange for small amounts of wages. This pains Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), the son of Fredersen who seeks to get justice for the workers from his father. The workers are on the verge of a revolution, but are held back by the hopes given by Maria (Brigitte Helm). Knowing this, Fredersen plans to use the evil genius of the city, Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), and build a humanoid that resembles Maria in order to disorient the workers. However, Rotwang has his own plans and decides to double-cross Fredersen , in the process endangering everyone’s life.

To get an idea of the film’s influence on cinema it is enough to consider that it was the pioneer of the Sci-Fi genre – the one that Hollywood has never grown tired of. Its ideas of science and future have tricked down to every science fiction film made after it – both great and disastrous. Right from the struggle to create a whole new world (Minority Report, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow etc.) to the debate of humanity versus artificiality (Blade Runner, A. I. etc.), the impact of the film is omnipresent in the genre. The film’s special effects, needless to mention, were groundbreaking for their time (The Tower of Babel sequence retains its potency to amaze).

Going hand in hand with expressionism, the film is full of black and white characters and only aids the film’s heightened take on fantasy. Its consistent message of compassion for the working class may be a tad tasteless for viewers of today who do not expect any propaganda from the medium. However, this was, perhaps, required for Lang to drive home the point of the film which would otherwise have been deemed meaningless. Faith in the face of apocalypse becomes a joint theme, along with importance of humanity over science, which is supported well by biblical references.

Special mention must be made for the 2002 restoration of the epic which happens to coincide with its 75th anniversary of release. With over 25 percent of the film’s footage lost, the techies at the F. W. Murnau Foundation have done a staggering job of gathering the remaining material, removing the blemishes from each and every frame and providing intertitles summarizing the missing sections. The conventional score by Gottfried Huppertz for the version majestically supports the grandeur of the film.

Metropolis invariably takes the second place when the works of Fritz Lang are discussed and is overpowered by the dynamism and adrenaline of M (1931), immensely influential by itself and unbound by time. When watched today, Metropolis may look very amateurish in the execution of its themes and dated in its techniques, but placing oneself in its age and assessing its influence on future of the medium and the massiveness of its strides, it is ineluctable to call it a classic.