Fritz Lang

[swo17]

Everyone's first silent film should be Sherlock Jr.

[Maltic]

On Danish TV when I was a kid, they would sometimes show Laurel and Hardy shorts and various Chaplin (I don't recall any Keaton).

I suppose Metropolis was indeed the first silent film I sought out myself, later on, when I had seen Dark City, Blade Runner, other stuff that referred to it in some way.

[dustybooks]

My first silent was Fred Niblo's The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks, rented from a combination video store, antique shop and mattress outlet in Oak Island, NC around 1991 by my dad, thinking it was the Disney TV show which I liked a lot. I remember quickly accepting the novelty and enjoying it well enough, but that's about it.

I did catch up with Metropolis in high school after reading about it a lot thanks to my interest in Hitchcock (and Madonna/David Fincher, I guess!?). It made a big impression from the sheer power of its imagery and continues to do so. I understand the criticisms and it's not close to being my favorite silent film (though it was for a long time) or my favorite Lang, but I do feel it's a genuine masterpiece and I'm always impressed when I revisit it.

[schellenbergk]

I prefer Die Nibelungen over Metropolis. I do enjoy Metropolis but I definitely put it behind most of his German output

I agree on Die Nibelungen - especially the first half ("Siegfried"). It's especially fascinating if you've seen Wagner's Ring cycle recently. I also admire the first "Dr. Mabuse" film(s).

But we part ways on Metropolis - I think it's near the top of his German films. (I winced at comments from people who saw the Moroder version when they were "kids" - I had already owned an 8mm copy for a decade by the time the disco version came out.) I've seen it countless times. A great film IMO - it really holds up to repeated viewings.

Some of the early German films I find hard to watch - for example "Destiny" and "The Spiders" and "Harakiri" are just not very good films IMO.

But I have to say - I'm not really a huge fan of Lang's output overall. The American films are very spotty in quality. "Fury" is well-done but based on a strange premise - the lynching of a white man. "The Big Heat" was very good - and the other American films have their moments (offhand "House By The River" is a very good).

The late German films are also not to my taste - I was disappointed in both "The 1000 Eyes" and the "Indian Epic" - the restoration of the latter was beautiful, but the film offered nothing for the brain. It was eye candy.

So all-in-all I have mixed feelings about Lang as a director. He made a few excellent films, several very good films, and several mediocre ones.

[Maltic]

But I have to say - I'm not really a huge fan of Lang's output overall. The American films are very spotty in quality. "Fury" is well-done but based on a strange premise - the lynching of a white man.

Maybe not so strange when the same director had made M a few years earlier.

You do see it in other films too, of course. Certain Westerns, fx.

Obviously, in the mid-1930s, he couldn't have made it with a black man in the Spencer role.

[FrauBlucher]

The Ox-Bow Incident

[schellenbergk]

But I have to say - I'm not really a huge fan of Lang's output overall. The American films are very spotty in quality. "Fury" is well-done but based on a strange premise - the lynching of a white man.

Maybe not so strange when the same director had made M a few years earlier.

You do see it in other films too, of course. Certain Westerns, fx.

Obviously, in the mid-1930s, he couldn't have made it with a black man in the Spencer role.

How could I have overlooked M? Fantastic film.

I understood why he couldn’t feature a black man in Fury, but that doesn’t make the film any less odd. I’m not sure I see the connection between Fury and M - could you explain a bit more?

[schellenbergk]

The Ox-Bow Incident

I don’t think Fritz Lang directed that.

[Maltic]

How could I have overlooked M? Fantastic film.

I understood why he couldn’t feature a black man in Fury, but that doesn’t make the film any less odd. I’m not sure I see the connection between Fury and M - could you explain a bit more?

Should be obvious, no? They both deal with mob justice

[schellenbergk]

How could I have overlooked M? Fantastic film.

I understood why he couldn’t feature a black man in Fury, but that doesn’t make the film any less odd. I’m not sure I see the connection between Fury and M - could you explain a bit more?

Should be obvious, no? They both deal with mob justice

Do they? "Fury" certainly does - but I think that's a weird way to describe "M". Is "M" really about "a mob" exacting justice? I don't agree with that assessment. It's better described as how the criminal gang and the police have a unified interest in catching the child molester - the similarities between the two groups.

[senseabove]

It is about a gang of civilians hunting and capturing a man, then arguing as a group about how to punish him—and quite literally imitating a court of law outside a court of law by appointing him a "defense lawyer"—potentially up to murdering him. I see your point about the similarities being a major point, but it's also an almost literal depiction of "mob justice."

And no, Lang didn't direct Ox-Bow, Wellman did, but it's another film where a white man is under threat of being lynched by a mob.

[FrauBlucher]

The Ox-Bow Incident

I don’t think Fritz Lang directed that.

I didn't suggest that . The example was a white man was hanged from this 1943 film.

[schellenbergk]

It is about a gang of civilians hunting and capturing a man, then arguing as a group about how to punish him—and quite literally imitating a court of law outside a court of law by appointing him a "defense lawyer"—potentially up to murdering him. I see your point about the similarities being a major point, but it's also an almost literal depiction of "mob justice."

And no, Lang didn't direct Ox-Bow, Wellman did, but it's another film where a white man is under threat of being lynched by a mob.

But the “court” is comprised entirely of the criminal mob, right?

Also – a major difference – in fury the lynching is of an innocent man.

I think it’s important to go back to what Lang intended. In fury unlike M, Lang explicitly was inspired to make the film by the lynching of a black man. According to interviews he gave later in life. (This begs the question of whether he is a reliable witness to his own career. But assume he’s telling the truth in this case.) That is not true of M.

I have never seen Oxbow Incident though I did read the book a half a century ago. How does it relate, besides the superficial plot point of having a lynch mob? Was it inspired by the lynching of a black man? My memory of it is fuzzy but I doubt it.

[swo17]

The entire film of Ox-bow Incident is about the culmination of and repercussions following an act of mob "justice"

[schellenbergk]

The entire film of Ox-bow Incident is about the culmination of and repercussions following an act of mob "justice"

Ok. So?

That’s not what Fritz Lang himself said “Fury” was about.

There’s an excellent volume of interviews with him. Check it out.

https://www.amazon.com/Fritz-Lang-Inter ... 1578065771

[DarkImbecile]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

[swo17]

You asked a question about the Wellman film, which I took to suggest that the lynching might be a minor plot point. I responded to that question. In hindsight I think I misunderstood you

[senseabove]

But the “court” is comprised entirely of the criminal mob, right?

Also – a major difference – in fury the lynching is of an innocent man.

I think it’s important to go back to what Lang intended. In fury unlike M, Lang explicitly was inspired to make the film by the lynching of a black man. According to interviews he gave later in life. (This begs the question of whether he is a reliable witness to his own career. But assume he’s telling the truth in this case.) That is not true of M.

I have never seen Oxbow Incident though I did read the book a half a century ago. How does it relate, besides the superficial plot point of having a lynch mob? Was it inspired by the lynching of a black man? My memory of it is fuzzy but I doubt it.

I don't see a huge difference in principle between a gang of criminals murdering a man we know is guilty but—importantly—they do not, a gang of cowboys lynching a man whose guilt or innocence is entirely unknown to all, and a gang of townies lynching a man we do know is innocent: there are different overtones to all three situations, of course, but all three films are pretty explicitly exploring the assumed authority of people who do not have the legal or moral authority to mete out justice in their society. If anything, M is being wry about the fact that the criminals are recreating the same structure that would undoubtedly convict them on other charges, which creates even more friction between the mob's kangaroo court and the official legal structures also pursuing the child-killer. I confess I'm at a loss as to how one story being directly inspired by a newspaper report of a black man being lynched invalidates comparisons to the others.

[schellenbergk]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

Yes - because at the time there was an epidemic of black men being lynched. The filmmaker himself was moved to make the film based on a specific lynching of a black man but he was not allowed to cast a black man in the role of innocent victim.

The film is odd because we are forced to see Henry Fonda in a part that should have gone to lets say Paul Robeson.

This is a far cry from other films “M” & “Ox”

[senseabove]

Except that as the examples provided have shown, there were other films depicting white men under threat of mob justice, including one by the very same director, which you apparently think are disqualified from comparison due to entirely extratextual reasons?

Is there an earlier sympathetic depiction in the Code era of a black man threatened with lynching than 1949's Intruder in the Dust?

[swo17]

Fonda starred in Ox. It was Spencer Tracy in Fury. Understandable though how you could confuse the two

[domino harvey]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

Yes - because at the time there was an epidemic of black men being lynched. The filmmaker himself was moved to make the film based on a specific lynching of a black man but he was not allowed to cast a black man in the role of innocent victim.

The film is odd because we are forced to see Henry Fonda in a part that should have gone to lets say Paul Robeson.

This is a far cry from other films “M” & “Ox”

You mean Spencer Tracy, unless Lang said it starred Fonda in an interview

[bottlesofsmoke]

I believe that the real life story that Fury was inspired by the lynching of two white men (Try and Get Me / The Sound of Fury is based on the same event) and that like most Hollywood movies at the time the story/treatment was written well before Lang, the director, got involved.

As to later claims by Lang that he wanted a black man as the main character, here is what his biographer Patrick McGilligan says about that:

The director’s most substantial claim to political sensitivity - that at some nascent stage he tried to turn Fury into a film about a black man accused of raping a white woman - is especially absurd, given both the historical record and the social environment. It was always Spencer Tracy, never a black actor; nor could it have been a black leading man at MGM or any other major Hollywood studio in 1935, when the film studios were still deeply beholden to the theater owners and segregationist exhibitors in the Deep South.

[senseabove]

Yeah, it should also be acknowledged that Lang was a notorious rewriter of his own history, and just about everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.

And I assumed schellenberg meant Dana Andrews—since they say they haven't seen Ox-Bow, I'm guessing they took Fonda to be playing the character under threat, rather than Andrews.

[schellenbergk]

Except that as the examples provided have shown, there were other films depicting white men under threat of mob justice, including one by the very same director, which you apparently think are disqualified from comparison due to entirely extratextual reasons?

Is there an earlier sympathetic depiction in the Code era of a black man threatened with lynching than 1949's Intruder in the Dust?

Once you see the racial theme in Fury, it’s hard to unsee it. I suppose you can consider it just another lynching film, but to me that misses everything interesting in Fury.

To a lesser extent, that’s also true of M. If your reading of the film is that it’s about a mob, well that’s certainly a valid reading but it’s a reading that overlooks everything that makes M great. IMO.

The question about intruder is interesting: I can’t think if any earlier examples. Maybe - this is a stretch - “Birth of a Nation”? When the Klan lynches the rapist? Of course that’s not sympathetic AT ALL.