Destiny (1921)
Fritz Lang's "Destiny"
Fritz Lang, an innovater of the German Expressionist movement, was a director widely known throughout his career for his dark subject matter. He was even dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. This is partially due to the dark nature of German films after the first World War. However, Lang would continue to demonstrate his flare for darker material all throughout his career. The film that kickstarted Lang's journey into darkness was 1921's Destiny.
Destiny tells the story of a woman trying to save her husband from Death. Death takes on a physical incarnation, represented by a man dressed in black. Land created this representation based on a fever dream he experienced as a child. He recalled a dark stranger in a wide-brimmed hat, illuminated by moonlight. As Land recollects, "the horror of the dream experience combined with a kind of mystical ecstacy which gave me, boy though I still was, the complete understanding of the ecstacy which made martyrs and saints embrace death. But the love of death, compounded of horror and affection stayed with me and became part of my films."
In the film, a young woman's fiance is taken by Death into the afterlife. The woman follows Death into this realm, guarded by an enclosed wall across from the town cemetary. The dark corridors and candle-filled rooms of Death's institution is the first fantastical expressionist locale in the film. The visual medium of film had not reached its full potential, and the expressionist movement was attempting to radically expand the notion of physical visual environments. Lang's depection of Death's lair creates a stark contrast from the normal quiet village in the beginning. Rather, we are transported to a visual abstraction. These visual abstractions represent a primary artistic stroke for the Expressionist movement, allowing for a more creative use of the visual space in film. Lang enables a reality-bending visual environment to physicalize abstract ideas. For example, after ascending a lit staircase surrounded by darkness, the woman enters a room full of enlongated candlees. Death explains the candles are human lives, and the flames are in constant danger of being blown out, representing the end of a life. Death even levatates a burning flame in the air before turning it into a baby, an effect used by Lang editing the two frames together, with overlapping frames in between to give the 'transition' of the flame morphing into a baby, rather than happening simultaneously. These abstract concepts ot mortality are made real by the physical representation on screen.
The woman and Death come to an agreement: If the woman can save one candlel flame out of three from extinguishing, he will give her back her fiance. This is because the woman believes the power of her love can save her fiance's life. As we enter the first flame, the film takes us to "The City of the Faithful" during the holy moth of Ramadan. A princess and the Caliph's sister, Zobeide, has a secret lover in the mosque. The lover is exposed as an infidel and through a series of assorted hiding and chasing, is eventually killed. Death comes for him and the first candle is extinguished.
The second flame takes us to the Carnival festival in Venice. Monna, a noblewoman, is visited by her lover, a middle class merchant. Monna's fiance, Girolamo, enacts a plan to execute the lover and succeeds. Death comes for him and the second candle flame is extinguished.
Throughout the first two locales, it is important to note how Lang infuses the sequences with human traditions. The knowledge that Death will come to collect his soul at the end of the segments makes the actions of the human characters become meaningless. The scenes are all saturated with religion, class, nationality, identity, and rules - all of which are the reasons for conflict. This conflict creates the impending doom we the viewer know is coming. The viewer is able to see the scenes with this knowledge of doom which makes the silly traditions and rules all too absurd.
The third locale is that of a farm in the Chinese Empire. A master magician, A Hi, receives a letter from the Emporer requesting him to perform magic tricks at his birthday celebration. Should A Hi refuse or bore the Emperor, he will be beheaded. Using a jade wand, he flies a carpet to the Emporer's palace with his two assitants. After performing for the Emperor, A Hi is ordered to hand over his female assistant and make her submit to him. His female assistant, Tiao Tsien, steals A Hi's wand and breaks it, which turns him into a cactus. The Emperor orders Death, who is disguised as the Emperor's archer, to kill Tiao Tsien and her lover. She then uses the wand to turn the Emperor's guards into pigs. She also spawns an elephant, turns her lover into a tiger, and herself into a God. Even still, she cannot stop Death from taking her lover, as he shoots an arrow into the tiger's heart. He takes him and the last candle burns out.
This third candle flame scenario takes the fantastical elements of the film up to an insane degree. With these fantastical elements, it seems as though the film itself is trying to defy death along with the characters. The possibility of what can visually happen allows the characters to escape death for longer. It is almost as if Lang himself is desperate to defeat death through his art. This becomes of greater contextual significance in that Lang made the film on the heels of his mother's death. With his art, Lang appears to be reconciling with his grief. Like the woman, Lang tries to make sense of the sudden departure of a loved one. He even breaks visual and story congruency to try and assist the characters towards an ending that he knows will never come.
It is also interesting to note how Lang takes advantage of time and space in the film medium. He goes from varying locations, time periods, and even realms. To Lang, the visual expressionist space has no boundary. Images are superimposed and cut together to create distinct visual disruptions in objects and space. Much like the candle light turning into a baby from before, glasses of beer change into hour glasses, A Hi's magic tricks, flying through the air on a magic carpet, and other visual spectacles create boundless possibilities for abstract ideas through the use of film as a visual language.
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