Film Persona

  Fritz Lang's "The Big Heat" By the 1950s, film noir had become an incredibly popular film genre. Stories full of crime, violence, and discovering the darkness that exists in society and in yourself. Many believed that film noirs were directly influenced by the films of Fritz Lang. After all, Lang was dubbed the 'Master of Darkness' by the British Film Institute. Although Lang had dived into noir films with works like The Woman in the Window  and Scarlett Street , he had not conformed to the traditional aesthetic that noir films typically employed. His 1953 film, The Big Heat , was no different. Even so, many consider The Big Heat to be one of the most efficiently executed noir films of all time. The subject matter and plot construction is a blueprint form of what film noir is supposed to represent. Despite this, Lang took this well-known format and turned it on its head, both with his visually plainness and his seemingly victorious ending. The protagonist, Dave ...

  Fritz Lang's "Clash by Night" Based on the 1941 play of the same name, Clash by Night is a black drama set in an oppressive fishing town. It features Marilyn Monroe in her first credit featured before the title.  Here are some reviews for the film:  Variety: "Clifford Odets'  Clash by Night , presented on Broadway over a decade earlier, reaches the screen in a rather aimless drama of lust and passion.  Clash  captures much of the drabness of the seacoast fishing town, background of the pic, but only occasionally does the narrative's suggested intensity seep through...Barbara Stanwyck plays the returning itinerant with her customary defiance and sullenness. It is one of her better performances. Robert Ryan plays the other man with grim brutality while Marilyn Monroe is reduced to what is tantamount to a bit role." New York Times: "... lacks conviction and distinction despite its hard-working principals. ... Miss Stanwyck is professionally realistic...

  Fritz Lang's "House by the River" In this near-expressionist drama, Lang takes the darkness of his previous films and turns it up to 11. All levels of violence, corruption, and all around evil surround our protagnoist in House by the River . A mysterious writer commits homocide and entices his brother to help him cover up the act. As the film progessess, the truth slowly begins to come out, only for his brother to be at the center of the blame. The utter depravity of the protagonist makes this piece as black as they come.  To aid this blackness, Lang employs the use of light and shadow to create a oppressive atmostphere. Lang biographer says of the film, "Light splashes off surfaces, moonlight spills through frosted windows, the wind riffles the trees and curtains. Everything in the film is dark and shiny and foreboding. Scene after scene shows the director at the height of his ingenuity - working out the depths of his own despair. Lang's direction was never so...

  Fritz Lang's "Scarlet Street" Both Jean Renoir and Fritz Lang developed a screen version of the 1931 French novel La Chienne. However, rather than doing an exact remake of Renoir's film, Lang instead took a different approach. The social climate during these two films are probably the reason for their differing perspectives. However, it is also because Renoir and Lang both had different intentions with the source material. Lang's adaptation, called Scarlett Street, is basically the same plot. An amateur painter and cashier, Christopher Cross, falls in love with a woman with money issues, Kitty March. He buys her an apartment so she can keep afloat while he uses it for an art studio. Little does Cross know that Kitty and her boyfriend, Johnny, are taking advantage of him. Kitty continuously asks him for money so that she can give to Johnny. In order to accomplish this, Christopher steals money from the bank he works at. They also take his art and sell it to a hig...

  Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window" Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window is a film noir that depicts a professor of psychology in the middle of a morality play. Whether his decisions are justified or moral reprehensible is entirely up to the viewer.  The film stars Edward G. Robinson, a psychology professor, who meets a woman on the street and invites him to her place for drinks. While having drinks, a man (presumably her boyfriend) storms in and attacks the professor. The man almost kills him before the woman hands the professor a pair of scissors, killing the man. The woman says she only knows the man as a client and doesn't know his real name. The professor and the woman believe that if they call the police, there would be no way to justify the murder. So, they enact a plan to dispose of the body. Once they do, one of the professors friends, a district attorney has knowledge of the investigation and brings the professor along to investigate the crime. On t...

  Fritz Lang's "Hangmen Also Die!"  Hangmen Also Die! is an anti-Nazi propoganda film made by Fritz Lang during the second World War. It was written by John Wexley, based on a story by Berlot Brecht and Lang. It is loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague. During the time of the filming, the identity of the assassin(s) was unknown, however it was discovered after-the-fact that the culprits were Czech resistance fighters who parachuted from a British planes. Lang's direction and writing contribution, Brecht's script, and Hanns Eisler's score all displayed how German exiles influenced American culture during the war.  The film is set during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, and centers on a surgeon named Dr. Frantisek Svoboda, who assassinates Reinhard Heydrich, the "Hangman of Europe." Dr. Svoboda seeks refuge at a stranger, Mascha's, home with her family. Because the ass...

  Fritz Lang's "You Only Live Once" After the success of his first American film, Fury , Lang adapted a Gene Towne and Charles Graham Baker screenplay into a film, You Only Live Once. Like Fury, You Only Live Once is a dark film about the nature of anger and vengeance.  The film stars Henry Fonda as Eddie Taylor, who reformed ex-convict. He was sent to prison for theft, and is now released. He is trying to start a normal life with his gal, Jo, played by Sylvia Sidney. However, the two of them experience turmoil from others, who are disgusted by Eddie's ex-convict status. Eventually, Eddie loses his job. Around that time, Eddie is framed for a bank robbery he didn't commit. Wanting to go on the run, Jo convinces him to stand trial, thinking that surely the justice system will find his innocence. It does not, and Eddie is sentenced to prison, now facing a death sentence. Facing certain death, Eddie convinces Jo to leave a gun hidden somewhere. When he finds it, he b...

  Fritz Lang's "Fury" After escaping Germany in 1933 when the Nazis took power, Fritz Lang eventually found his way to Hollywood. In response to the mob mentality that had overtaken Germany at the time, Lang constructed a film that demonstrates, step by step, the emergence of group mind. Lang had adapted the story from a Norman Krasna story called Mob Rule , which in turn was based on actual events in which a mob lynched a man named Brooke Hart in San Jose, California. With Fury, Lang presents a condemning view of how ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance can ignite mass hysteria and override rational thought. The film stars a gas-station owner named Joe Wilson who is taken into custody on his way to meet his fiancé, Katherine. The police say he fits the description of a child kidnapper in the area, right down to the peanuts that he keeps in his pockets. While in custody, word around town begins to spread. Like a game of telephone, the gossip begins with, "I heard the ...

Fritz Lang's "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" In January of 1933, Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. On March 14th, he elected Joseph Goebbels Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. March 24th was the scheduled release of Fritz Lang's new film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse . After a screening of the film on March 23, Goebbels banned the film's release in Germany. What about Lang's new film made banning its release one of Goebbels's first orders of business as the new Minister of Propoganda?  The film is a sequel to Lang's 1922 film Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler . That film portrayed a contemporary look at the chaos surrounding German society after the Great War. Chaos and frivolity reigned as a mad scientist hypnotized people to perform criminal acts so that he may wield greater power. The film ended with Mabuse being captured by police while his criminal empire collapsed around him. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse finds Mabuse now in a mental ho...

  Fritz Lang's "M" In 1931, Fritz Lang released what he later called his 'magnum opus.' Titled simply M, the film depicts a society's frantic search for a serial killer. Targeting children exclusively, the group of Berliners in the story stop at nothing to catch this maniac. However, this hyper-focused effort gives rise to many puzzling and difficult questions. Namely, 'How does one build a society out of chaos?' or 'What is the proper way to maintain social order?' These questions become dizzying as we watch a society in a frantic state, simultaneously swept up in the panic ourselves.  The story structure is simple enough. A man has been killing children and the police haven't conjured any specific evidence to catch him. The city of Berlin goes into a complete paranoid state. This mania causes the police to start cracking down even harder, which in turn makes it far more difficult for criminals to do their business. Because of this, the cr...

  Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" Germany in the 1920s was a time of immense turmoil. The Industrial Age was in full force and its effects were deeply felt. Society at large was becoming increasingly aware of the negative affects of industrialization and began to express these anxieties in various ways. Technological innovations and mass production inadvertently led to a deeper separation of the classes. Laborers became overworked and unpaid. Because of these factors, individuals in society became more and more separated from each other. This led to workers' strikes, labor unions forming, and other means of trying to bridge the gap between laborers and owners of production. With Metropolis, Lang and his wife at the time, Thea von Harbour, created a scenario in which these issues were addressed. They envision a future in which industrialization reaches its designed potential. However, the inherent flaws of the system lead to a breaking point. They construct a city of the fut...