LANG, FRITZ

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LANG, FRITZ (1890–1976), director; deemed the most ingenious filmmakerof the Weimar era. Born in Vienna, he studied architecture at the city's TechnischeHochschule. But an interest in art led him to the Kunstakademie and thento Munich's Kunstgewerbeschule. He ended his studies in 1911 and traveledextensively before settling in Paris in 1913 and working as a painter, fashiondesigner, and cabaret performer.The war forced Lang's return to Austria.* After enlisting, he was woundedat the front and thereafter acted for the troops during his convalescence. He alsobegan writing about motion pictures. An interest in scriptwriting and acting ledhim in 1918 to Berlin,* where he became an editor at Decla for Eric Pommer.He eventually took German citizenship and in 1922 married the writer Thea vonHarbou, who assisted him with several films.Lang wrote and directed his first film,* Halbblut (Half caste) in 1919, completingproduction in five days. About a dozen films followed before the appearancein 1922 of Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse, the gambler), hisfirst hit. His two-part Nibelungen appeared in 1924, and his well-known Metropoliswas made with a seven-million-mark budget in 1927. Fusing Expressionist,psychological, and realistic elements, he was among UFA's* leadingdirectors by the mid-1920s and a member of Berlin's cultural elite. Judging filman art form and an extension of the theater,* he resented the claim that movieswere simply commercial entertainment. Much of his early work was marked byshadows, moving light, and a use of imposing architecture. M, which appearedin 1931, was his first sound film and his final German triumph. Matching thesuccess of Metropolis, M confronts the melodrama of a psychopathic murdererof little girls unable to control his actions; based on a true story, it was Lang'sfavorite film. Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The last will of Dr. Mabuse),filmed in 1932, is an allegory on Nazi terrorism that the NSDAP banned.Goebbels invited Lang to head Germany's film industry in 1933 but Lang,who had visited Hollywood in 1924, forfeited status and wealth and, after workingbriefly in Paris and London, returned to California. He also left Thea vonHarbou, a committed Nazi. The decision was difficult chiefly because he viewedAmerica as a cultural wasteland—a country devoted to greed rather than artisticquality. Nevertheless, he was attracted by America's technical superiority. Hisfirst major American film, Fury, appeared in 1936. After signing a contract withParamount in 1940, he created his own company, Diana Productions, in 1945.