Professor David Peimer
The Great Director Fritz Lang: In Germany and Hollywood

Professor David Peimer - The Great Director Fritz Lang: In Germany and Hollywood

- So, hi everybody, and hope everybody’s well everywhere. And pardon me. Going to look at today at this remarkable, innovative, I think partly fantastical and really imaginative film director. Also, I would use the word, “pioneer” with him, pioneering ideas, as to ways of stretching film, the art of film, of content and how to use the camera, how to technically innovate as well. So Fritz Lang, and one, I think most importantly, has to remember the period that he is making, and his films and working. Primarily, the twenties during Weimar in Germany, it’s early thirties, up to the time of Hitler, of course, 1933. And then leaving Germany, going to Paris and then eventually to America, and spending the rest of his life primarily in America. And this remarkable visionary, and I use that word thoughtfully, about this guy and his approach to cinema. That being a time, the twenties being such a fertile time for film in Germany and worldwide. And it’s a time of celebration, of discovery, this new technology and so many, from the Charlie Chaplains to the Laurel and Hardys, the comedies to the Marx Brothers, to the German, to the British, to the American, so many different French filmmakers experimenting, trying, innovating. In a way, it was such a fertile period, those 10 years, really, of the twenties. And I think often underestimated how innovative and pioneering these people actually were with such a, right at the beginnings of such a technological advancement as film. So for me, it’s in that context that Fritz Lang is caught up in. And of course, the other huge context is Germany post First World War. Lost the wall and suffering from terrible inflation, Weimar, two revolutions, which are abortive and trying to have a democracy, but it’s very fragile, very weak. The enormous despair, poverty, and enormous wealth and that discrepancy, the so-called decadence, but I’m not sure that’s the best word, but the kind of cabaret in Berlin, is such a fertile period in the twenties.

And other parts of the world, but certainly in Germany, ‘cause that’s where we’re looking at the moment. And that these guys are caught up in that period before '33, of course, when the Nazis come to power. So for me, we can’t separate out that period with Fritz Lang and others. A little bit about his life first before I go into, I’m going to look primarily at three films. And we’re going to look at some of the clips of the films because we need to see them to remind ourselves of just what a pioneering innovator he was. Going to look at “Metropolis, "M,” and “Dr. Mabuse,” in particular. 'Cause those are the three really great films that he is remembered for, studied, revered, and admired globally so much for, all of which were made in the twenties, one in the very early thirties. So he’s born in Vienna and, his mother is Pauline Schlesinger. She was Jewish and converted to Catholicism when Fritz Lang was 10. So he has, there’s the Jewish lineage on the one side and the Catholic on the other. He travelled a lot in Europe, he travelled a bit in Asia, Japan in particular, he was enamoured with, a bit in North Africa. We don’t know the exact, some of the details, according to a new book, a fairly new book published about him, it seems some things he exaggerated, some not. But fundamentally, he was travelled. And I think what’s important about it is that he saw himself as, yes, German, but international, internationally connected with art movements, with what was going on, many things post First World War. He studied painting in Paris for a while.

Then in the First World War, which I think is absolutely formative, Fritz Lang, as obviously for many of the other poets and writers who were in the war. 'Cause he joins up with the Austrian army and he is sent to the Russian front and he fights in the Russian front. And he’s pretty severely wounded four times, badly wounded, a lot of time in convalescence. And that’s when he lost the sight in one eye. And we have a lot of images of him, of course, with the patch over his one eye. So he has seen firsthand all quiet on the Western, but in his case, on the eastern front, he has seen it firsthand the absolute grotesque, slaughtered horror, the brutality of that First World War, where life was worth less than an ant. And I think that is so formative for him, the Wilfred Owens, there’s so many of the poets and the writers and the filmmakers of this period. And of course, as we all know, a mere 20 years later, the next one starts. So it’s quite well documented how he, after the war, and he convalesced from his wounds, he went back to Vienna. And most scholars, most people have written that he was what we would call, of course, shell shock, PTSD, but in serious shell shock about the war, about Vienna, the shock that it had done to the culture, and of course, to Germany in particular, and the world. And I think this is what gives him what I suppose has become known as the darker vision. I mean, he was called in some tabloid journalism, the Master of Darkness, later, some scholars post-Second World War. So, and I think it comes from this period, really do. He gets a job as a writer for Eric Palmer’s production company in Berlin. Goes there, then he gets married for the first time in 1919 to a Jewish lady, Lisa Rosenthal. She died under, for want of a better phrase, mysterious circumstances of a gunshot wound. I don’t really know what happened, who, where, what, or anything.

And I’m not casting aspersions on Fritz Lang or anybody, it’s just unknown. Can’t prove it, anything. I don’t think it was him. 1920s, he starts a relationship with the actress and the writer, Thea von Harbou. And she’s really the main relationship of his life. And they write together, they’re involved together. She’s an actress and co-writer of the great films that he made, and it’s important 'cause many don’t acknowledge her role. They marry in 1922, get divorced in 1933, just fairly shortly after the Nazis come to power, which is important. If you can show the next slide, please. So this is a picture of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. And here they are in their flat in Berlin, '23, 1923 or 24, relaxed, comfortable. A bit of an arty feel for the times in Berlin, working on scripts together. Just wanted to give the sense of this togetherness of this couple, 'cause it’s really the two of them who wrote the great scripts that he did. We can go to the next slide, please. So these are the three films that I’m going to focus on. “Metropolis,” '27, “M,” 1931, and “Dr. Mabuse,” 1922. But I’m going to do it in this order because I want to show… “Metropolis,” for me, is the absolute central one, and then “M,” almost equally, and “Dr. Mabuse” is an influence which we’ll come to. These three films, I think, really stand out for me from Fritz Lang. And these are the ones that I think have influenced globally directors from Tarantino to Spielberg, to George Lucas, so many of our contemporary times. And going of course, way back to the fifties, sixties, seventies, I don’t want to listen them all. But so many filmmakers refer back to Fritz Lang and these three films in particular and what he was doing. Interesting that after the Nazis come to power, Goebbels calls Fritz Lang into his office. By this stage, he’s made these three and they’ve become hugely successful and popular in Germany.

He is regarded as top of the tree almost in German cinema, German expressionism, what became known as German expressionism in particular. Film noir as well, the light, the shade, which we’ll see in the clips. And so he is regarded as, if not the, one of the most important filmmakers in Germany when the Nazis come to power early 1933. What happens is, and this is apparently is based on the truth, is that Goebbels was already by now, of course, Minister of Propaganda, calls him in, and of course, he’s total control over the film industry in Germany, calls him into his office in 1933. And he offers him the job of being at the head of the German Cinema Institute, which effectively would’ve meant he would’ve run German film. He would’ve had power over budgets, power over scripts, casting actors, direct everything. And Goebbels said, “Although we didn’t like your films, "we can see,” and I’m paraphrasing of course, “that you’re a brilliant filmmaker "and we want you to make films,” that are obviously going to be propaganda and praising of the Nazi party in particular, and Hitler and so on. And it’s apparently a very serious offer and he spends quite a while talking. And Goebbels goes into detail of what he does like about some of these films, what he doesn’t like. He’s watched them carefully, giving feedback. Later in the thirties, his films are banned, but that’s a separate issue. The moment they’re trying to grab this guy, turn him to become one of them. And Fritz Lang talks about how he realised in that moment, the extent of what was to come, the extent of the extreme minute control, and of course the macro control, spending those few hours in this guy’s office. He saw what was to come and had an instinct, a glimpse, a sense, not necessarily the Holocaust and the war in detail, but the real darkness that was to descend on Germany and Europe.

And we don’t know more about what was said in that meeting. But what happened was that Goebbels wanted an answer fairly shortly after because he was buying time, Lang. Now he could have, like many others, he could have said, “Okay, great, fantastic. "Career’s made, amazing job, salary, everything, "I’ll run all German film.” He doesn’t, because he senses what they’re really about and what’s really going to happen. He goes home and he has some arguments with his wife, Thea. And he decides he’s going to flee. And he spends the next few, next couple of months, he buys time from Goebbels and he gets his money, as much of his money out as possible. Paris first, and then America, gets on the train and flees. In one interview with William Friedkin, the German interviewer, he claims it was that very night or the next day, but there’s mixed reports. 'Cause in his passport, there are a couple of coming in, coming and going in and out of Germany in this early 1933 period. But the truth is that the meeting did happen and he was offered et cetera. From what we know, a couple of months later, he’s out, Paris first, then later in America. But his wife stays and he divorces her in 1933. She becomes a fervent Nazi. She joins the party and she stays because she wants career advancement and I think from what we can gather, partly identifies with the ideology. So huge split, huge choice he makes. And he, let’s never forget, he’s at almost at the top of the tree of German cinema at this time. And who gets offered the job? Leni Riefenstahl, the great director that I mentioned, spoke about in a couple of weeks ago in a talk. She gets offered it and she of course grabs it with both hands and she becomes the leading light that he was offered.

I think it’s important because it does show a moral and ideological commitment to what he saw coming and he sensed. Not only artistic, massive artistic compromise, that he would basically just become a propaganda mouthpiece, but an internal, he could not do it, and leaves. And of course, not going to be easy, 'cause yes, he is going to have to speak English, get out, first Paris and so on. And German expressionism has become known, he was dubbed the Master of Darkness by the British Film Institute. And the BFI called him one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. And that’s quite recent, it was about 15, 16 years ago that they were looking at filmmakers of the last 100 or so years. These are his three most celebrated films, linking film noir techniques with German expressionism. 1929, he’s already in Hollywood. He makes “Woman in the Moon.” Sorry, 1929 he’s still in Germany and he made “Woman in the Moon,” which showed the use of a rocket for the first time. And it’s the rocket that we know only too well from NASA, in our times, where it was put the rocket on a launch pad, standing up against a tall building just before launch. And this is before rockets, before anything has been done in any practical sense. So science fiction comes before reality. He gets to Hollywood, of course, in the thirties, he makes “Fury,” he makes “The Woman in the Window,” “Scarlet Street,” and probably, the most well known is “The Big Heat.” He was known for combining popular entertainment, commercially successful, and certainly in Germany, together with what today we would call art cinema. But of course, those days it’s much more blurred boundaries, isn’t really this huge distinction. And what we call film noir, with its themes of intense psychological conflict, paranoia almost, and most importantly, moral ambiguity in character and theme.

That’s what he introduces to film. And I want to suggest that he’s one of the prime innovators, not only technically, but of the theme of moral ambiguity in characters and story. And this is a huge shift in filmmaking. In the film, “Dr. Mabuse,” 1922, so this is early on, this is 11 years before the Nazis get to power, Lang put phrases in that were used by some of the Nazis at the time. This was later banned by Goebbels and the others, et cetera, for different reasons. But he was aware in 1922 what these grotesque individuals were saying and speaking. And some of the phrases go into the character’s dialogue of Dr. Mabuse. I mean, it’s an extraordinary, one thinks about it now, 11 years before it happens, he’s already creating a character with some of this language. He’s always got an eye on where zeitgeist, where the feeling, the ideas of a generation are going to move towards. He’s got a sense of that, a real, and that for me is one of the marks of an artist, got an instinct for it. German expressionism after the war, as I mentioned, First World War, it’s with this poverty and the despair. There’s also, and this is very important, I think, there’s a romantic sense with German myths and German mythical beauty. And the Teutonic visions of the area and all that together with this despair and the horror after the First World War, and the sense of huge loss, is this sense of dreaming of a Teutonic future, and Lang is aware of it. And I think he captures it in the film noir. He sees the grotesque contradiction and paradox in that combination in the German psyche, for himself, German psyche.

I’m not going to debate whether it’s in other cultures as well. We’re just looking at Germany at the moment. There’s a kind of gothic horror together with a romantic idealisation, a dreamy world of hope and despair. When he goes to Hollywood, I want to suggest that he unravels, all the movies in Hollywood go from hope to despair. You only live once. All the other films, they go from lighter to the darker. Something grabs the character, the character can’t let go, and we’ll see this in “Dr. Mabuse.” Characters just can’t… Euripides is the great Greek playwright, ancient Greek playwright, said, “You make a decision "and you put on the harness of necessity.” So he’s putting on, the characters, they have no choice. The harness of necessity comes into the journey of these characters. When he was in Hollywood, he made a film with Brecht, interestingly. They felt they had a duty and they made a film about Heydrich. I mean, it’s a very, very average film. I’m not going to show a clip from it. But they felt they had to do something about the guy who even Hitler called, The Man with the Iron Heart. He made films with EG Robinson, Joan Bennett, kind of what we would call psycho thrillers today. But in those days, none of these phrases existed. And then “The Big Heat.” And what’s fascinating for me about the story of “The Big Heat,” which is pretty well known today with Gloria Graham, is that it begins as a crusade for justice, but it, for the main character, turns into crusade for revenge. And that’s the moral ambiguity I’m speaking about. That Fritz Lang sees in his characters in the psychological thriller how the characters turn on that journey where they can’t resist what is a seeking of justice crusade that turns into a crusade for revenge or crusade for vengeance, something of that nature. Okay, we’re just going to talk a little bit about “Metropolis,” and then we’re going to go straight in.

This is the next slide which is, this is a clip from “Dr. Mabuse,” 1922. We’ve got to remember, okay, we’ve seen many of these images now, and it looks fairly kitsch maybe today. But this is 1922, it’s 100 years ago. He is the innovator, the pioneer of this. Nobody’s done this before. It’s German expressionism, it’s film noir, all of it we can see. It’s “The Addams Family,” it’s the hands, it’s a seance image from the film. Obviously lots of makeup around the eyes, the hairs were made up like that, et cetera. The light and shade on the faces, the darkness behind, all of it playing with what became known as film noir in this style. Look at those eyes, look at where the faces are. Everything is staged, everything is choreographed by Lang. And all the fingers, some of the hands slightly up like that, some of the hands flat. All of this is choreographed to give that, again, that feeling of ambiguity, uncertainty, that moral shift, that the grounds are shifting and are not solid or necessarily stable. That, for me, lie the heart of so much of film noir. Okay, so just before I show a clip from “Metropolis,” just to remind us all, it’s a story of a great city, which is in two halves. There’s the pampered citizens on the surface, and the slaves who work in the depths of the city, in the, literally, in the bowels of the earth. And they’re ignorant of one another. The slaves are controlled like hands on a clock. And the machinery turns into almost an obscene devouring monster. And as Pauline Kael, the great American film critic scholar, talked about this film, “Metropolis,” as a torrent of images, and the terrible beauty and the power of those images, and how he juxtaposes. The story is told through images almost more than character. It’s obviously the beginnings of science fiction film. 'Cause I want to suggest that Lang initiated science fiction genre and the serial killer or the psychological thriller genre. That’s extraordinary, one film director in the twenties almost originating two genres that totally take for granted today. Used robots, the life of the city, corruption. It’s not realistic, it’s all imaginative sets. Now we do it of course with digital and other things.

But in these days, it wasn’t, it was all made with cardboard and cutout and it’s all models, sets were made. He was the first. It’s completely over the top, but it celebrates imagination over realism. And it’s over the top for us today, but it remains a fascinating and I think riveting visual feast. And finally, what does it take to smash the system of slavery? It takes a humanoid, and I’ll show the image of her becoming the humanoid, Maria, who’s programmed by this crazed mad scientist inventor. And he’s the first to use this mad scientist image, which we take for granted. It takes this humanoid to get the workers to smash the machines and rise up against the system. And what for me is the main theme in “Metropolis,” deeper than all the haves and the haves-not and the machinery, is the idea that without machines, we will die. But with machines, we risk becoming less than human. And it’s, again, it’s the moral ambiguity theme that Fritz Lang, for me, is so perceptive about. And of course, above the barbaric underworld, we will see in a moment, the workers are, we have the upper class who are sort of poncing and dancing about in an idyllic, manicured garden in a very patronising way of the upper class in Weimar, and the spectacle of the cityscape. Okay, so if we can show the first scene, which we’re going to show from “Metropolis,” which shows the cityscape and the shift change of the workers in the factory. No dialogue, it’s just sound and words. It’s a clock with only 10 hours, which is the workshop. This was one of the most extraordinary in-synced choreographed scenes, which Cecil B. DeMille took up later and many others. Synchronised walking, synchronised swimming, synchronised. Of course here, it’s the workers are slaves. And it’s the shift change. Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall,” so many people have subsequently used this exact image. And notice how we don’t need words, we don’t need, we get the meaning just through the juxtaposition of images. And here are of course the ruling elite. We see their faces, we see this beginning of this Arian Teutonic romantic myth. 1927 he’s playing with this all.

Six years before the Nazis come to power. The Eternal Gardens, obviously playing on the Garden of Eden and other religious motifs in the film. And then they dance and sing, and move around. On the one hand, it’s simplistic, the haves and the have-nots, but the way of showing them is so stylized and exaggerated, that it still holds. Okay, if we can hold that there, please. Thanks, Lauren. So we have, of course, the Garden of Eden that he’s being ironic about and satirising completely because it’s ridiculed. The plot has little logic. He sets up fairly simple worlds and then the rebel against it, et cetera, the humanoid. But what he is more interested in creating is a hallucinatory, almost subterranean or unconscious world. And that’s what feeds in. It’s his flow of images, a stream of what later became a stream of consciousness, and James Joyce and other novelists writing at the time. But it’s a stream of images juxtaposed and the story is told through the images, not relying on dialogue very much or words. It’s futuristic, this became the icon for the futuristic science fiction city of the future, from the James Bond to all so many movies was this kind of an image, which is extraordinary, a mad scientist and many others. So it’s also about the loner hero who discovers the inner workings of the future society, and of course sees the system is about complete control of the population and tries to set out the loner hero to destroy it, or at least subvert it. A classic motif going way back in theatre. But at the same time, it’s a world of demagogues, but shown in this other way, shown in the grotesque way, but shown in this Garden of Eden, idyllic sort of German romantic, Teutonic way. That’s fascinating. “Metropolis” used over 25,000 extras. So the budget was massive.

He’s at the top of the tree of German film. The next clip I’m going to show is the cityscape one, the classic one. We will see… It’s a world of skyscrapers, expressways in the sky. This extraordinary vision of a future city and of what we’ve already just seen, the subterranean world of the workers. If we can show it, please. And of course, he doesn’t have any of the digital tricks that we have today. So this is all done through sets and literally cardboard, making it in the studio, it’s all done very basic tools and technology. For me, it fills the imagination so strongly and it fills the unconscious. It goes in perhaps partly because it’s done in such a basic way. And it’s the image of course the horrific science-fiction future city. This film, “Metropolis,” creates it. Okay, I want to go into the next movie, which is “M.” We’re going to show some clips, 1931. And it’s about a, it’s a child serial killer, a guy, M, played by Peter Lorre. He was 26 years old and he was chosen by Fritz Lang because he has a baby face, in the jargon of today, the baby-faced assassin, but a baby face, cherub cheeks, If you’re walking down the street, the last person anybody would ever dream of would be a child killer or killer of any kind. He looks so innocent, so young, and so naive. And Fritz Lang talks about in the interview with Friedkin how he purposely chose Peter Lorre because of those looks, understanding exactly the camera and the human face. It created and shaped a genre, the psychological thriller, the serial killer thriller. All of these, Hitchcock and so many others who acknowledge Fritz Lang’s complete influence. Kubrick, I mean, we can go on and on. They all come back to Lang and his innovations. Why did he choose this, in 1931, about a child murderer?

Yes, on the one hand, there was a big newspaper article. There was a child murderer in Germany at the time, and children were being, et cetera, et cetera. But why choose this? Is it that there was something grotesque beneath the veneer of the society that he sensed? Something in the zeitgeist, some visceral feeling by his society? What’s in the film is that we see men in shadows, film noir, German expressionism, smoke-filled dens. They’re in dives, they’re in conspiratorial meetings. The faces of the men are cruel, cold, and hard. They’re caricatures. There’s a whistle that’s used by the Peter Lorre character, which sounds innocent and sweet, but in the image that Fritz Lang creates, takes on an eerie, terrifying resonance. He established himself, and of course this is coming after “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” which is important, what the characteristics later became known as film noir. And again, I’m going to come back to it with the themes of intense psychological conflict. Yes, paranoia, and also moral ambiguity. For me, it comes in this film. And that it’s made in the early thirties, two years before the Nazis take power. I think, I mean, I can’t tell, but speculate something that he senses that he talked about later in that interview with Goebbels. And I’m going to later show the great scene where he has this, Peter Lorre’s agonised and anguished pleading. “I can’t help who I am, I can’t stop doing what I do.” Okay, if we can show the first piece, please. Oh, sorry, this is the image from “Metropolis,” sorry, of Maria’s transformation to the humanoid. Just, we’ll just show it for a minute or so, that’s great. And this again, is so innovative and has been taken up. This is from “Metropolis.” Thanks. Here’s the mad scientist, “Metropolis.” And he’s creating these images. It’s all in the film studio, prefiguring the Frankensteins and all the others to come.

And she becomes transformed into a humanoid, to rise up against the rulers of the city. The image is so well known today, but we have to imagine being an audience watching this for the first time in the twenties. And how he became so hugely popular in Germany and globally. It’s the first time. Okay, thanks. Used again and again, but again, if we put ourselves back 100 years, imagine sitting in Berlin or wherever, in New York, anywhere, and watching it for the first time ever and being, I would imagine, pretty stunned. Okay, we can go on to the next one. This is the beginning of “M.” M stands for murder, of course. In that moment, the whole film is set up in two images and now what he’s doing with his face. The shadow, the light, film noir, German expressionism, classic icons. Seemingly innocent whistle, but not. There’s the little girl. The whistle again. Extraordinary tension, all set up by Eisenstein’s idea of the montage of images. Just juxtaposing the images to create that extraordinary dramatic tension with hardly any spoken words of the serial killer to come. Can show the next one, please, the next clip, which is also from “M.” That’s all it takes. Mass hysteria is setting in the city. And he’s the first of, the birth of the psychological thriller. The serial killer is ruining business 'cause people are not going out at night and buying. And the serial killer is ruining it for the criminals because people are not walking the streets so they can’t rob them. So M, obviously standing for the word, “murder.” But what’s fascinating is that both the criminals and the cops are after the guy because the criminals can’t make money because they can’t rob people in the streets, they’re all at home. So it’s difficult to even rob them at home. So the satire comes in and of course for the business, there’s no business at night anymore. People are too terrified to go out. Mass hysteria, mass paranoia, mass terror takes hold of the city. Is it a foreseeing of the mass hysteria to come in Germany, told through the story of this metaphor? Is that too much of a a scholarly speculation, artistically? It’s how the faces are used so much in the film.

And I think in the end, the abiding memory is of the shadow, the image, the faces, that balloon that gets caught up in the electric wire 'cause that child is no longer. All the little, he doesn’t show any actual killing in “M.” He never shows the Peter Lorre character killing a child. The physical graphics, you don’t need it. Just shows an empty plate, shows the balloon, shows the leftovers, the afterwards, the whistling. So much more powerful, I want to suggest, because it mobilises our imagination as the audience. What’s fascinating to me in “M” is that the characters have no virtues. Neither the cops who all walk in unison, neither the businessmen who just, they don’t care about anything, just want to make money obviously, because nobody’s buying anything anymore, they’re not going out. Nor the criminals because they can’t, as I said before. So nobody has virtue. And even the attractive, the few characters who are attractive, their vices aren’t even attractive. So it’s a seedy, it’s this low, it’s in these dives. There’s nothing romantic about it. It’s such a harsh vision, if you like, in “M.” We don’t have the champagne, the nightclubs, the decadence, the sex, and all that that we would associate with a lot of psycho thrillers today, none of that. We have bars, closeups of greasy sausages, a spilled beer can, rotten cheese, stale cigarette butts. All of this is shown instead. It’s a very different world that he’s showing. And there’s no suspense about the murderer. We know that the Peter Lorre character obviously, he’s the murderer, the baby-faced guy in the beginning. So it isn’t even suspense about who he is and catching him. So how is he creating such a suspenseful film? Extraordinary, through the contrast of images, light and shade, all these film noir and other expressionist techniques. Extraordinary achievement, in my opinion. And even the criminals are so upset that because they can’t find, they can’t do business.

And they even say how killing children violates their code as well. Now this was Fritz Lang’s first sound picture and he uses dialogue very sparingly. The camera, I want to suggest, for the first time, it’s the camera that prowls the streets and the dives and the joints. That’s what’s going on. In “Three Colours: Blue,” in Kieślowski’s brilliant film with Juliette Binoche, made a couple of decades ago, it’s the camera that is her mind when she’s swimming in the pool, it’s almost like the camera is the mind. And it’s taken from Fritz Lang. The camera is the one prowling and moving around. And that’s a whole shift, and innovation in filmmaking. This is the last scene in the film, which is the trial scene and the criminals. These are all criminals and he got real criminals together, they’re not actors, real criminals. And Peter Lorre is dragged in and admits his guilt and admits what he’s done and so on. And they have a tribunal of sorts where they decide what to do with him. Okay, if we can show it please, Lauren.

CLIP PLAYS

• There, could you hold it there, please, Lauren? Thanks, so that’s one of the great clips one of the classic clips, you know, the Peter Lorre final speech. Obviously, he speaks about what he’s been doing and why. It’s the feeling of, “I’m pursuing myself.” It’s almost Shakespearean, of Macbeth and so many others. It may look a little bit like over-the-top acting today, bit melodramatic and so on. But for the times, it’s obviously influenced by Freudian psych analysis, psychology in the twenties, et cetera. But it’s the unconscious again and the moral ambiguity that comes when the unconscious is revealed. And I think it goes through this and it goes through so many of his later films in Hollywood and elsewhere. And it’s the mark, for me, of great writers, of great film directors, and great novelists, playwrights, anybody. It’s that moral ambiguity in the human soul. And of course, I think he is instinctively seeing something coming. And I get a hint of this when he talks about in the interview, the meeting with Goebbels. Just not, I don’t want to be over melodramatic and exaggerating, but a hint of the Jekyll and Hyde character of so many. And let’s remember when “Jekyll and Hyde” was written and so many of those other, and “The Portrait of Dorian Grey,” and so many of those other pieces. I mean, it’s, for me, such a powerful ominous foreboding of what is to come. The last clip I want to show very briefly is from “Dr. Mabuse,” the first one that he did, where he does have a couple of phrases from the Nazis at the time that they were using. And this of course is two years after “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” So German expressionism film noir is all obviously the rave. Dr. Mabuse is a psychoanalyst and he is a wealthy person. It’s the shadow and the light, it’s the exotic. Is it, again, gloomy foretelling of what is to come? Is it more reflection of his time in the First World War, in the trenches on the Russian front, and being so wounded and all the rest of it? Is it the end of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, The Habsburg Empire? Is it that fault line in between the interregnum between massive change in Austria and Germany?

Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise and there’s demonic possession. For the first time, we really see demonic possession done visually in a filmic way. Huge success, the film was four hours, it was released in two sections. It shows a certain kind of addiction, adapted from the novel, and it was a shell-shock democracy in 1922. It’s the shell-shocked mind. And what was happening to all the soldiers who came back from the war, but also all the citizens and the families, the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents, the children who lost so many of their fathers, their brothers, uncles, whoever in that war, and the hyperinflation, et cetera. So if we can show the clip, please, this is from early in “Dr. Mabuse,” early in the film. This was 1922, you need to remember. Imagine watching it for the first time as well. African masks, foretelling some of Picasso’s work to come.

• What, for me, an extraordinary image of the world to come after 1922 and what happens. “The empire of crime,” image of the Jekyll and Hyde, image of the two, the unconscious coming in, no morality, no conscience, but an awareness of it. What happens if we lift that lid off? And what happens to individuals? It’s extraordinary sense of not only the unconscious and psychoanalysis, but “the empire of crime.” What a phrase to write in 1922, knowing what is to come. One of the great German critics, Siegfried Kracauer, he characterised the character of Dr. Mabuse as, “everywhere present but nowhere recognisable.” “Everywhere present but nowhere recognisable.” And we see this, again, it’s the Jekyll and Hyde. It’s the stories that we know, the two face, the three, the Janus face, the two-three face of this darkness and the light, symbolised in film noir and German expressionism. Ultimately, is Fritz Lang so part of his era that he does have an, I’m not saying it’s a conscience, necessarily, but at least an artistic instinct, and therefore an artistic aesthetic as to the world to come? the world that he’s come from and this interregnum between the two. And finding these stories and ways of telling these stories to try and say something to his society, of course, Germany at the time, and much broader, it’s a question mark. But it’s what the artist needs to be doing, at least posing this as thoughts, questions. Okay, let’s hold it there and thank you very much, we can of course do the questions.

Q&A and Comments:

So Edmund, hi. Yeah, I know, these are so many, this other form, exactly, and the others, so many. But I just chose in the end to try and look at three in terms of this, 'cause we’re looking at this period in Germany and I know and others dealing with just post-war antisemite, just after the war, the establishment of Israel. But this is trying to get an artistic, an artist understanding of this period. I guess I was focusing primarily on that at the moment. Okay, but great question.

Romaine, “Wonder how his prescience "was guided by morality and how much by survival.” Yes, and he would say, I think he’d probably be the first to say the moral ambiguity is so part of being human, all too human. Sometime moral, sometime survival, mixtures, exactly. It’s

Q: Barbara, “Did he know Riefenstahl?”

A: Oh, great question and I don’t know the answer, and I will find out, thank you.

Simon, “'Metropolis’ being shown in London,” ah, okay, “on Monday the 24th of June.” Brilliant, thank you. “The UK premier of a new version of the score.” That’s great, thanks Simon.

Rita, “The world-famous band Queen "used footage from ‘Metropolis,’” Yeah, “in their video ‘Radio Gaga’” That’s a fantastic connection, Rita, thank you ‘cause I love “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Obviously, the great classic song from Freddie Mercury and Queen.

Lawrence, “The architecture of the rebuilt "Westminster Underground Station "looks like the set of 'Metropolis.’ "Always found it impressive and exciting "with crowds of commuters, escalators going up and down.” Fantastic, Lawrence, I agree. And it’s the ability of the artist to see reality and then reimagine it artistically, exaggerating some things, underplaying other things, the eye of the camera or the written word.

Exactly, it’s never naturalism. It’s the unconscious, or the imagination, rather, playing with reality.

Q: Zoom, okay, “Could we compare the building "of Dubai to ‘Metropolis?’”

A: That’s a great connection. Certainly, yes, I think we could, conscious or not in the actual builders. But there are images also in “Metropolis” of these long, these huge vast corridors of power and empty doors and hallways. And Fritz Lang spoke about going to meet Goebbels and going through these long corridors and doors, and soldiers, two soldiers, one, and then the next and the next. This vastness of power expressed architecturally. And of course, Putin today with that massive table and all these other things. I mean, it’s ludicrous, but still happening.

Karen, “Canadian photographer "Eduard Bernstein portrays shift "of Chinese workers similarly.” Yes, that’s a fantastic connection, Karen, thank you. All influenced by Fritz Lang.

Rita, “The comparisons made "between Orwell’s ‘84 and 'Metropolis.’” Yep, that’s for sure. William, “Artificial intelligence.” I was just thinking about that and I was actually going to talk more about it today. But that’s for another time. I mean, I think the way AI is coming in, for what I’ve been reading anyway, without it, we will be so much worse off. But with it, how much of our humanity do we forego? It’s the same moral ambiguity of that Lang I think looked at 100 years ago. And I mean, fascinatingly with AI, I read this recent article that BT, British Telecom, as we all know, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world, reckon they will lay off 50,000 workers in the next decade or two. That’s, I mean, that’s just one massive company. But it will obviously give enormous benefits. So it’s again, it’s the ambiguity.

Q: Monica, “Who designed the sets?”

A: Well, Lang and he had a whole group of people working with them and et cetera. He was pretty much a dictator himself. Very dictatorial with his actors, with the camera, the camera people, and the set designers. He himself was not immune from being a director as dictator. That whistle in “M” is Fritz Lang’s whistle. It’s not Peter Lorre’s ‘cause he thought he’ll do it the best. He knows what he wants.

Margaret, “The clip from 'Metropolis’ reminded me,” yeah. Absolutely, I think that these movies were so well known, and it spread, and I’m, I would imagine that all absolutely felt it, knew it. And it gives us an insight into the zeitgeist of those times. And if we transfer it, one of the zeitgeists of the really good artists of today and what are they seeing and suggesting for our times that is maybe to come?

Julian, “One scene reminded me of the London Underground "without the train on the tracks, ‘Star Wars,’” yes. And I showed that time with the Leni Riefenstahl, a couple of clips from “Triumph of the Will” and “Star Wars” which he echoed, George Lucas is echoing Riefenstahl almost frame for frame.

Q: Ron, “Hi, hope you’re well. "Was Lang involved with the Bauhaus?”

A: Well, he would certainly have known. I mean it was such a fertile period, the twenties, and they would all have known what was happening all over. So how involved, I don’t know. But I am sure he would’ve known about the Bauhaus. Because of absolutely as you say, the set designs relate.

Sally, “The set of the workers’ city reminds me "of the Russian art,” yeah, exactly.

Julian, “Want to say the cityscape is like ‘Blade Runner.’” Yes, “Blade Runner” is so influenced by Fritz Lang. And even modern Japan, but Blade Runner and so many more. I mean, Hitchcock paid homage to him. So many of the later directors interviewed, when they’re really honest, go back to Lang.

James, hi. “The cityscapes in ‘Metropolis’ remind me "of ‘The Soul of the Soulless City.” That is fantastic connection, James, thank you. “It’s a 1920 painting.” Ah, God, it’s a long time ago, I thought, I have to re-look at it, but thank you. That’s a wonderful reminder. “It depicts a fictional part of the elevated railway "in Manhattan painted in a style influenced by cubism "and futurism, part of the same zeitgeist.” Fantastic, thanks for that. I’m going to look up your connection, your link there. Thank you, James.

Q: Betty, “What happened to his second wife?”

A: Well, she carried on living and she lived after the war in Germany, and that was it. She worked, she was a Nazi party member, nothing happened and she carried on. Thea, and is collaborating in these great films, yep. She found work. I mean, not a huge amount, but you know, enough.

Gail, hope you’re well, hope you’re okay there. “Sounds like he’s whistling.” I don’t know that, but yeah, great. It’s a lovely connection.

Ron again, great, thank you, Ron, “Did Lang and Billy Wilder, both Viennese,” that’s a wonderful question, I don’t know. That I’ve got to find out 'cause we have two brilliant filmmakers, Billy Wilder, brilliant, and Lang. I know that he of course was in Hollywood and he worked with Brecht, and he was part of the group of German emigres in Hollywood, California at the time. So I imagine they at least knew each other. Perhaps rivals, perhaps friends, perhaps a mixture. I’m sure they would’ve interacted at some points.

Julian, “Naming a film ’M’ seems "not so different from modern times. "There was the film, ‘V for Vendetta,’” absolutely.

Q: Anne, “Did Lang have any difficulty "with transition from silent to talking?”

A: That’s a great question, Anne, because in the interview with William Friedkin, he talks about in the beginning, he didn’t want to go to dialogue and sound. But of course, he recognised and he was quick always to recognise changes in technology and changes in society, and quick to grab stories and technology. But he made a point of that he was only going to use it very sparingly in the beginning. So that’s why it’s very minimally used. At the end of “M,” it’s the whole speech. But before that, it’s quite minimalist, the use of dialogue and speech. It’s there of course. And I think that’s part because he understood that film relies on the montage or the juxtaposition of visual imagery. Obviously, it’s a visual medium primarily and sound and the spoken word’s secondary, very much. So I think that he was absolutely aware and he took it slowly into what becomes, and we saw at the final speech at the end of “M” where dialogue, where the spoken word is much, much more. So I think he smartly moved between the two, silent to talking. Thanks, Julian.

Karen, “I bet Freud would say well I think, I mean they were all, let’s be honest, they were all hugely influenced by Freud. And obviously, the unconscious ideas of Freud, psychoanalysis, and those who understood Einstein hugely influenced by Freud, certainly, at the times, and they would’ve read and be talking about it. I mean, plus, they’re sitting in Prague, had read and understood and let’s remember they all spoke German like Freud wrote in German. So they didn’t even have to wait for translations.

Q: Rene, "Even though they fought against the Russians, "was ‘Metropolis’ also an indication "he had communist sympathies?”

A: That’s interesting, Rene. I don’t know, I don’t think he had socialist or communist sympathies. I don’t think he really spoke much about it. He was much more obsessed with the German psyche that what I said earlier, that sort of dark foreboding, ominous, like the Grimm’s story almost, you know, the witches are everywhere lurking, ready to strike and devour one. And the Teutonic, Arian, mythical nonsense ideal. I think he was more caught up in that German psyche and trying to understand it.

Margaret, “Dr. Mabuse was uncannily predictive.” I know 1922, it’s 100 years ago. “Empire of crime,” all these phrases, the image of the ghost whispering and then coming into him. This unforgettable image of how influences come into us from wherever. And of course, what happens when leaders have absolutely no moral compass or vague interest in that. Spooky, I agree, Margaret.

Zoom, “These movies are terrifying,” and they’re 100 years ago. Isn’t that extraordinary achievement for what’s the very early primitive beginnings of a new technology?

Ron, “Picasso’s use of the African mask came before.” Ah, okay. “Before, it was painted 1907,” thank you. So then Fritz Lang would’ve been influenced by Picasso if he’d seen them. He’d certainly talked about he was influenced by African masks, as I think many of them in Europe were, in theatre and in film and in literature and in painting. So the African influence of mask, I think, certainly what’s coming in hugely. And that’s what we see at the beginning of “Dr. Mabuse.” And it’s called “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.” So that’s interesting as well.

Rita, thank you. Barbara, thanks.

Simon… 1922… Well, it’s the voiceover, yeah. I got to check your question, actually. Very good point, thank you, Simon. Patricia, thanks.

Barbara, “Wonderful array of African primitive masks "in Dr. Mabuse’s office.” Yeah, same as in Freud, great. Lovely connection, Barbara.

Nina, “So many German filmmakers came to Hollywood, "took the art there to high level,” yep. “Film composers like the ones you mentioned, "Billy Wilder, others.” Yeah, I think definitely, they’re all on a path. I mean, let’s go back to Germany of the time. Such an advanced culture, even though it was disastrously, had lost the war, had initiated German nationalism and everything goes with it. So a massive rearrangement, to put it mildly, of society. To put it more bluntly, the fault lines of that society completely ripped apart by the war and after the war, and… All these remarkable artists trying to make sense of it. And then after 1933, some of them fleeing ‘cause they see what is to come, the Dr. Mabuses to come.

Barbara, “These films seem more powerful.” They do because they don’t need to show all the obvious graphic detail. You know, as I said, with “M,” we don’t see one of the child, one of the actual murders itself. We see an empty plate, a little plate. So obviously, it’s a little child’s plate. We see a balloon stuck in the electric wire. We see a mother crying from the stairs. We don’t actually see any of the children being killed by the serial killer, we don’t need to. Our imagination can be more powerful often. And I think that’s what all these guys understood, I really do.

Q: Barbara, “What’s the influence of New York on 'Metropolis?’”

A: Great question, I don’t know. But he would certainly have known images of the skyscrapers and he would’ve seen what for them, obviously, Manhattan, New York was the future of the cityscape.

Richard, “The shuffling in unison, "the underworld was a counterpoint to the goose step.” Yeah, well, he’s making this before the Nazis, but he would’ve seen the brown shirts marching and he would’ve even seen some of the goose step done in the First World War by the German soldiers. So I mean, that wasn’t invented by the Nazis. That was their party before. So it’s that, exactly, that film. That influence, rather.

Karen, “The best story about AI.” Oh, okay, is this book, “Exhalation.” Great, thanks for that. I’ll try and get hold of it.

Q: David, “Who is his cameraman?”

A: Great question and I’ll find out.

Paula, “So ‘Metropolis’ may be 70 years ago, "the slaves underground remain etched to this day,” I know. The ability, it’s just the sheer brilliance to create images that burn into our imagination. Unforgettable. And I think theatre that really works, what do we remember? We forget lines, we forget even some of the characters. But it’s the visual image that burns in because of course we live in such a visual age with a visual text primacy over the auditory or olfactory, all the different senses, it’s the visual. Even over touch, maybe. Burns in, Susan, thank you.

Q: Rhonda, “Does anyone know "if Canadian Stage did a production?”

A: Oh, I don’t know, okay, thanks, Rhonda. I hope you’re well in Toronto.

Anne, “At the end of ‘M,” I shivered. “The prosecutor’s verdict, 'snuff out the degenerates.’” Yep, foreshadowing, and he did take some of the phrases of the Nazis used in those very, very early days and put them into the film. So, yeah.

Okay, thank you very much, Lauren, really appreciate. Thank you everybody. Hope you’re well and have a great rest of the weekend.