The Eye of Cinema (#3) – Fritz Lang

When Fritz Lang appears as the director of “The Odyssey” in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film “Le Mépris” (Contempt), it is far more than a mere cinephilic coincidence: a titan of cinema—who had shaped the medium for four decades—encounters a young innovator and admirer. To the latter, Lang represents the antithesis of a film industry in which producers pursue interests entirely distinct from those of the filmmakers themselves. Lang could speak from bitter personal experience on this subject, particularly during the period that constitutes the final installment of our three-part retrospective. From 1947 onward, he contended with various studios, fluctuating budgets, and, above all, an increasingly constrained level of control over his own work. This era was by no means a straightforward continuation of a grand career; on the contrary, Lang was forced to constantly devise new ways to keep making films at all. Simultaneously, the political climate of the McCarthy era placed him under pressure to justify his work. He viewed the prevailing, intense conservatism as confirmation of his fears: that moral censorship had evolved into political censorship. He responded to this in his films—crafting stories about the police and the media, and exploring how those who represent order and public trust in a society are often the first to succumb to the allure of power.

It would be a mistake to view these years of restriction as a decline. In films such as the stylized Western “Rancho Notorious”, the social-realist-inflected melodrama “Clash by Night”, the uncompromising crime thriller “The Big Heat”, the romantic adventure ballad “Moonfleet”, and the grim, cautionary tale “While the City Sleeps”, Lang succeeded in further refining his style and his artistry. While he was increasingly perceived in Hollywood as a difficult—or even obsolete—director, a younger generation of European cinephiles began to rediscover him. In 1959, he was celebrated at the Cinémathèque Française; figures like Rivette, Truffaut, and Godard recognized, even within his American genre films, the same director who had become a monumental figure in film history during the 1920s and early 1930s. During this period, Lang returned to Germany to direct his two “India” films—projects he had originally intended to make as early as 1921—and shortly thereafter revisited one of the most significant characters from his past in “The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse”. Following this, his career as a director came to an end. In 1976,, suffering from severe illness and near-total blindness, Fritz Lang passed away in Beverly Hills. Shortly before his death, he was asked what kind of films he would make if he were still able to do so. His reply: “With the world the way it is, I think they would be very critical, very aggressive.” His perspective on the world remained unsparing to the very end.
(Florian Widegger)