Happy Birthday, Fritz Lang! Born today in 1890 as Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang, this Austrian-German-American actor, screenwriter, film producer and filmmaker was one of the best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism.
He was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute (BFI).
Born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), Lang, during his birth month, was baptized on December 28, 1890. This took place at the Roman Catholic monastery Schottenkirche in Vienna.
Lang's parents were of Moravian descent and practicing Roman Catholics. Because of this, Lang frequently had Catholic-influenced themes in his films. Although an atheist, Lang held a belief that religion was important for teaching ethics.
Late in life, he described himself as "a born Catholic and very puritan”. Although an atheist, Lang held a belief that religion was important for teaching ethics.
After finishing school, Lang briefly attended the Technical University of Vienna, where he studied civil engineering and eventually switched to art.
In 1910, he left Vienna to see the world, traveling throughout Europe and Africa and later Asia and the Pacific area. In 1913, he studied painting in Paris, France.
At the outbreak of World War I, Lang returned to Vienna and volunteered for military service in the Austrian army and fought in Russia and Romania, where he was wounded three times.
While recovering from his injuries and shell shock in 1916, he wrote some scenarios and ideas for films.
In 1918, Lang was discharged from the army with the rank of lieutenant.
Afterwards, he did some acting in the Viennese theater circuit for a short time. This was before being hired as a writer at the German film production and distribution company of the silent era Decla Film.
Lang first entered the German film industry as a writer, penning a series of horror movies and thrillers beginning in 1917.
Three years later, he and German-born Polish film director Robert Wiene teamed on the script of the 1920 German silent black and white horror film 'Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari' ('The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari').
Although Lang exited in the pre-production stages to begin work on another project, his major contribution to the story -- a framing device ultimately revealing the story line to have been a dream -- went on to rank among the most imitated structural techniques in history.
Two years later, Lang co-wrote and directed the first film of which he is best known. This was the 1922 German silent black and white thriller/crime film ('Dr. Mabuse: Parts 1 and 2').
This silent film follows the devious schemes of criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge).
Using disguises and hypnosis, as well as an assortment of henchmen, Mabuse begins to amass a fortune, with gambling and murder factoring heavily into his plans.
Though the villain is careful to cover his tracks, the resourceful Chief-inspector Norbert von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke) remains determined to put Mabuse behind bars.
With a runtime of five hours, 'Dr. Mabuse' is told in two parts. These are Part I: Der große Spieler: Ein Bild der Zeit (The Great Gambler: A Picture of the Time) and Part II: Inferno: Ein Spiel von Menschen unserer Zeit (Inferno: A Game for the People of our Age).
'Dr Mabuse' was based on Luxembourgish novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and translator who wrote in German Norbert Jacques' 1920 pulp fiction novel of the same name.
Five years after the release of 'Dr. Mabuse', Lang co-wrote (uncredited) and directed the second film of which he is best known. This was the 1927 German expressionist sci-fi/drama film 'Metropolis'.
The film was written by Lang's second wife, being German screenwriter, novelist, film director, and actress Thea von Harbou, and the story on which it was based.
This influential German science-fiction film presents a highly stylized futuristic city where a beautiful and cultured utopia exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers.
When the privileged youth Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) discovers the grim scene under the city, he becomes intent on helping the workers.
He later befriends the rebellious teacher Maria (Brigitte Helm). However, this puts him at odds with his authoritative father, leading to greater conflict.
Upon release, H. G. Welles had described the film as "silly". Also, the film's alleged Communist message was also criticized.
The extensive running time of 'Metropolis' also came in for criticism, and the film was cut substantially after its German premiere, with a large portion of Lang's original footage removed.
Today 'Metropolis' is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, ranking 35th in Sight & Sound's 2012 critics' poll.
Four years after the release of 'Metropolis', Lang co-wrote and directed the third film of which he is best known. This was the 1931 German black and white thriller/crime film 'M'.
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt.
Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network.
With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
Now considered a timeless classic, 'M' was deemed by Lang to be his magnum opus. It is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time, and an indispensable influence on modern crime and thriller fiction.
Lang had already created an impressive body of work in the German cinema before coming to the United States in 1934.
Two years later, Lang signed first with MGM Studios. From the beginning Lang was struggling with restrictions in the United States.
Three years later, Lang became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.
He had made twenty-three features in his two-decade American career, working in a variety of genres at every major studio in Hollywood, and occasionally producing his films as an independent.
Lang's American films, however, were often compared unfavorably to his earlier works by contemporary critics.
However, the restrained Expressionism of these films is now seen as integral to the emergence and evolution of American genre cinema, film noir in particular.
In the later 1940s, Lang produced and directed the fourth film of which he is best known. This was the 1947 American black and white noir psychological thriller film 'Secret Beyond the Door'.
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, beautiful heiress Celia Lamphere (Joan Bennett) marries a man named Mark (Michael Redgrave) of whom she barely knows with hardly a second thought.
Celia later finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
Rebased by Universal Studios, 'Secret Beyond the Door' is a modern updating of the Bluebeard fairytales. American film critic and author Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film's murkiness a strength.
Six years later, Lang directed the fifth and final film of which he is best known. This was the 1953 American black and white noir/crime film 'The Big Heat'.
It was written by American screenwriter, producer and former crime reporter Sydney Boehm. He had based the script from a serial in the Saturday Evening Post.
It had been written by American novelist and television scriptwriter William P. McGivern. He later took serial and turned into the 1953 mystery suspense fiction novel of the same name.
In the mid-1950s, Lang's visual style had simplified. This was in part due to the constraints of the Hollywood studio system, his worldview became increasingly pessimistic, culminating in the cold, geometric style of his last two American films.
On February 8, 1960, Lang received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture industry. It is located at 1600 Vine Street.
Three years later, Lang appeared in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 French/Italian Technicolor drama/romance film 'Le Mépris' ('Contempt') as himself.
On August 2, 1976, Lang passed from a stroke in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California. He was 85. Lang was later interred in the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.
Many attempts have been made since the 1970s to restore 'Metropolis'.
In 1984, Italian composer, songwriter, and record producer Giorgio Moroder released a truncated version of 'Metropolis' with a soundtrack by rock artists including Freddie Mercury, Loverboy and Adam Ant.
In 2001, a new reconstruction of 'Metropolis' was shown at the 51st Berlin Film Festival in February of that same year.
In 2008, a damaged print of Lang's original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina.
After a long restoration process that required additional materials provided by a print from New Zealand, 'Metropolis' was ninety-five percent restored and shown on large screens in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously on February 12, 2010.
In 2011, 'The Big Heat' was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Among his credits, Lang is also known for directing 'Die Nibelungen' (1924), 'The Testament of Dr. Mabuse' (1933), 'Fury' (1936), 'You Only Live Once' (1937), 'Hangmen Also Die!' (1943), and 'The Woman in the Window' (1944).
Lang's films dealt with fate and people's inevitable working out of their destinies. They are considered masterpieces of visual composition and expressionistic suspense.
Although it took him some twenty-one years to fashion twenty-two Hollywood films, arguable at least half of them are nourish pieces of menace–tone poems of fear and fate that have stood the test of time.
A dark visionary whose meditations on human loneliness were punctuated by a stark visual style and an obsessive work ethic, Lang made a number of acclaimed silent and talkie films in Germany before fleeing the Nazis to become a noted practitioner of film noir in Hollywood.
While his career had ended without fanfare, Lang's American and later German works were championed by the critics of the Cahiers du cinéma. These included François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette ('Celine and Julie Go Boating', 'La Belle Noiseuse').
Despite living out the remainder of his life in relative quiet, Lang was later championed by a wide swath of filmmakers. This included William Friedkin ('The French Connection', 'The Exorcist') during the "New Hollwood" movement of the late 1970s.
A product of German Expressionist thought, Lang explored humanity at its lowest ebb, with a distinctively rich and bold visual sensibility which virtually defined film noir long before the term was even coined.
While the exact origins of film noir are impossible to pinpoint, no director worked within the genre more consistently or more brilliantly than Lang.
Bringing to the screen an obsessive and fatalistic world populated by a rogues' gallery of strange and twisted characters, Lang staked out a uniquely hostile corner of the cinematic universe; despair, isolation, helplessness -- all found refuge in the shadows of his work.
Lang had been active from 1919–1963.
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