The Legacy of Fritz Lang
Àlex Martín
Escribà
Translation : Jean Burrell
Thirty years have gone by since the death of one of the film directors
who managed to enhance crime movies and put them in their foremost
position.
Fritz Lang, who was born in Austria in 1890, took the decision to
emigrate to the USA after the Nazis' rise to power, a decision that
brought him great recognition as a film-maker. His ideological position,
political ideals and way of understanding and reflecting cinema were
stunningly influential in turning him into one of most widely acclaimed
directors of the period.
Before he achieved fame in America the Austrian film-maker had already
directed a number of movies in his native land, among them Dr
Mabuse (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924) and in
particular M, the Vampire of Dusseldorf (1931), one of
his most celebrated works. It was during this period that Lang met
the writer Thea von Harbou, to whom he was married from 1922 to 1933,
the year he decided to quit Germany following the Nazi victory.
When the director moved to the USA he established himself as one
of the most active figures in film noir . The Austrian director's
contribution was decisive, particularly in introducing Expressionism,
an aspect that spread throughout the whole genre. This trend – which
distorted reality in order to achieve an appropriate expression of
the values that were being presented – is reflected in his first
two Hollywood films, Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937).
In both films, apart from Expressionism, there was another group
of innovative aspects which were to be a constant throughout the
plots of his films, among them a critical attitude to the established
system of justice and especially the fate of the individual seen
through the tragic unfolding of events, aspects that made his screenplays
full of ambiguities and reflections.
During this period the director put his mark on themes associated
with film noir : following the chronological order we should
mention Man Hunt (1941), which turns on Nazism, Hangmen
Also Die! (1943), a film dealing with the Gestapo and the Czech
resistance, and Ministry of Fear (1943), this latter film
connected with the theme of espionage.
Then came some of his best works, among them the trilogy with Joan
Bennett in the mid 1940s. The trilogy began with the masterwork The
Woman in the Window (1944), a film that confirmed the director's
interest in the crime genre. Subsequently Lang directed Scarlet
Street (1945), a movie that retained many features
in common with the previous one, not only in its plot but also using
Edward G. Robinson as the lead in both. The trilogy was rounded off
by Secret beyond the Door (1947), in which the director
this time investigated a more psychoanalytical plot line.
Then we come to Lang's final phase of film-making, which sustained
a brilliance and genius beyond the reach of all but a few directors.
Among his most acclaimed projects was The Big Heat (1953),
a film that mainly tackles police corruption. After that came While
the City Sleeps (1955) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956),
which turned out to be his last two towering works for crime cinema.
Then with his retirement we reach the end of one of the most significant
periods for film noir. For this reason, and to mark the 30
th anniversary of his death, we wish to suggest a reappraisal of a
man whose achievement was to leave crime films with the legacy of all
those elements that burn so brightly today because of his disappearance.
