Professor David Peimer
Fritz Lang: Metropolis

Professor David Peimer - Fritz Lang Metropolis

- So welcome, everybody. Lovely to have David back with us. And so David, over to you.

• Okay. So I’m going to focus on the life of Fritz Lang, this remarkable filmmaker, and three of his films, “Dr. Mabuse,” and forgive my pronunciation, if I’m not getting quite, I’m using my own personal, obviously my accent, not trying to pretend German or anything, “Dr. Mabuse,” “Metropolis” and “M.” So I’m going to focus on those three films in particular. And I think the one that is underrated a lot is “Dr. Mabuse,” because I think that captures so much, and “M” to a degree as well. In fact, almost speaks to us more today, I think, than “Metropolis.” And I only say that because “Metropolis” has been so in studied in depth research, spoken about, used and influenced by, you know, by many filmmakers and artists around the world over the century. And I’m going to suggest that as I try, I’m going to look a little bit differently this time than usual. We want to interweave his life, his work and history of his time and his obsessions.

Because I think when we look at his life, we can’t help but have a sense of this extraordinary historical changes, obviously in political events, in cultural events, in technological advancement, so many areas of life that period that he covers and I think how these films try to reflect that and understand his time in particular. And he talks about that as I’m going to show in an interview with Fritz Lang. I’m going to show a little bit of an interview with him from an interview made in 1968 for German TV. And then I’m going to show a few clips from “Dr. Mabuse” “Metropolis” and “M,” the three films we’ll look at. And the main idea that I thought, and, you know, this, this takes me quite a few years to my own lost South African play called “Armed Response” which was trying to look at crime, but understanding crime not only, you know, it’s, you know, John steals from Mike across the road, you know. It’s not only the obvious, but crime in a deeper sense and in historical sense, in the nature of a notion of human nature.

What is crime? What is punishment? Crime on a societal level. I mean, the obvious links to today’s era, and I’m not only talking about Afghanistan, but you know, our own era, our own times is obvious. I’m not going to hop on that. But the notion of crime, you know, what was crime 50 years ago, you know, just over 100 years ago, just criminal for women to want the vote or, you know, Alan Turing suffered because he was homosexual, although probably saved 14, 15 million lives through cracking the Enigma with his team, but being homosexual, et cetera, crime. So what was crime? What is crime? The seamlessly shifting notions of crime? And then on a global scale, when a state becomes criminal, what does that mean, actually? and what does it mean for the actors and the citizens of that state who are caught up in an overarching criminal enterprise, you know, called the state dominant, you know, beliefs or values?

When now, is criminal. What does it mean when King Leopold is responsible for 11 million slaughtered people in the Congo in order to get rubber and other things from the plantations he sent back to Belgium? What is and so on and so on? So on a grand historical level, what does it mean state, when the state is itself criminal? What does it mean when we have gangsters and mafia’s and the Godfather in the movies, which we all love, you know? Are they glorifying it? Aren’t they? Romanticising, et cetera? On an individual level, and how the individual story perhaps reflects the larger social fabric. And I think for me, Fritz Lang main obsession is this question, crime and the role that, a changing role, the fast changing roles of crime in his own era, and how he tries to reflect it, I believe, in his different films. Obviously it’s not the only I theme, but you know, many of the others have been spoken, written about a lot, you know, madness and mass industrialization with “Metropolis,” et cetera. So I want to focus on this aspect a little bit more because I think it’s something very contemporary and his testament to his remarkable ability as a screenwriter and film director that he understands, he’s searching for the nuances of who or what is the meaning of criminal, criminality, crime, and in our contemporary phrase, crimes against humanity, you know, all these phrases which use that word, and I think very, very prescient for today’s times as well.

Okay. This is a picture of Fritz Lang. You know, he lived 1890 to 1976. Now, this covers an extraordinary period, as we all know in European and global history, because he’s born in Vienna and he lives in Vienna, and then Germany and Berlin. And he only leaves just after the Nazis come to power in 1933 and I’ll come back to that story. So the very formative years of childhood, boyhood, is Leopoldstadt, which, you know, I’ve spoken about before, you know, The suburb or the area of Vienna, where many of the Jews, you know, immigrated from Eastern Europe to live in. And then, that generation or the second generation had made good to become middle class or upper middle class in Leopoldstadt. And in Vienna, the golden period of Viennese society and what Vienna represented in a European and global context in terms of extraordinary experiences, you know, not only the Freud’s and the Einsteins, but many of the Jews, emancipated Jews, and what they achieved and the role of Vienna, of course, in history. So he covers that, and then he’s part of Berlin and Germany, you know, from 1933, the early part of the Nazi era. He sees that coming. What happens?

And then at 33, he goes to America. So all of these aspects, and then after America, finally, you know, comes back to Germany, but actually lives in Beverly Hills in LA. So his life encompasses so much of remarkable historical change. And I think he’s a writer who, a filmmaker and a writer, because we cannot ignore that he works so hard on the screenwriting aspect as well, who fundamentally was trying to really understand and reflect something of this era and these remarkable changes that he lived through. And of course, in medicine and technology and warfare, you know. And the picture I’m trying to show is that his obsessions included trying to have a grasp or some insight into these master changes. The reason for wearing an eye patch is because he also fought in the first World War. He was called up and he volunteered for the Austrian Army and, you know, fought it. And then he was on the Russian front and had a terrible injury in the eye and lost most of the eyesight in the eye and other injuries. So, you know, this guy really lived, which I’ll come to in a moment.

Here’s another picture of Fritz Lang, just to show you some more, you know, wonderful sense of humour. Very charismatic guy, charismatic and engaging and bordering what some might call today arrogance and self-belief. You know, I like to think of the self-belief side of it, but you know, I’m sure he came across as arrogant a hell of a lot ‘cause he made it in German film quite young. He made it in German film in the 20s and was almost, you know, one of the kings as a German director. This is a picture of Fritz Lang on, as you look at the picture, on the left, that’s Lang, and on the right, that’s working with his cinematographer on the set of “Metropolis,” just to give you an idea in the context of the set in a way. Then here, this is Fritz Lang working on the script with his first wife, sorry, with his second wife, Thea. Whilst he was in Germany, they co-wrote their scripts. And very, very much he acknowledges fully, it was a co-writing endeavour, you know. That they were both worked really hard on the scripts. And this just gives an idea of living in their apartment together, Berlin, working on a script and so on. And very much an equal partnership completely.

Then I want to just show you here, you know, these are some of the classic images. I’m not going to go into these, primarily about the other films, you know, of film noir. but what I want to focus on is less film noir, because I think that has had so much writing about it, so much has been spoken, written, expressed. I’d rather focus on this idea of crime and his obsessions in the films. The film noir aspect for me will be secondary today. Can’t cover everything. But film noir in essence is, you show an image of reality. You’re not trying to show reality. So you’re trying to show a kind of, darker, shadow image of reality. So it’s exaggerated and heightened for visual effect and hopefully, emotional impact. But look at the painterly quality of that image of the woman, you know. And also, let’s remember, Fritz Lang studied art in Paris, you know. The eyes playing with a kind of, Mona Lisa, Cleopatra, you know, multiple ambiguities in the eyes, the perfect position of the head and the face. Exact position, you know, of the slight veil. One finger only with the ring, you know. He’s constructing, he’s choreographing visual images in the early part of the century when film technique and camera is exploding with creativity. You know, nowadays we might take it for granted, but he’s a pioneer in his time because he’s trying to see it as moving paintings as artistic experiment.

When it was often scoffed and dismissed, you know, that film was a kind of, you know, sort of poor cousin of real art, of painting, sculpture, you know, great literature, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So bringing German expressionism together with trying to be popular entertainment, and I think that’s what he pulls together in the so-called film noir genre, because he’s very concerned to be popular and speak to huge audiences regardless of class status, education, and have the influence of German expressionism. And I think expressionism is more of the influence what then later becomes known as, by the critics, as film noir. And this is taking from art and heightening, exaggerating for visual impact to give birth to emotional importance for the audience. And then on the bottom right, of course, and the classic use of eyeshadow on the eyebrows and under the eye, which is absolutely classic in film noir and German expressionism in film. And then of course, you know, where the light is on the face to make the eyes so much more exaggerated and prominent is the angle of the camera and the excessive use, perhaps excessive use for us today of eyeliner and eyeshadow. And the jaw, the position, and of course the background, darker and shadowy always.

So just to give you an idea of how you could play with many different things. And then a classic image, which today for us might seem very melodramatic of film noir from one of his more minor films really. I wanted to show you this just to give a sense of, you know, that idea of black and white, the grey and the shadow all the time. The shadow in terms of Jung and psychoanalysis, of course, although they might not have read much of Jung at the time, but it was very much part of the overall zeitgeist in Vienna and Europe. And the shadow effect, you know, the other character in the corner. So where the emotional inner life of character is physicalized through image shadow in relation to building. So you don’t only get an ima inner emotional life like so much acting today. You get it staged with shadowed body contorted, body images and the background of light and dark. And the same way with the woman’s body, of course, it’s exaggerated, as I said, probably meta dramatic for us today, you know, and the guy’s face. But it’s staged, it’s choreographed, you know, to heighten a dramatic effect of German expressionism of the era. And to put this into film, he’s amongst the first.

And to take film so much further, we’ve got to go back to the beginning of film, you know. It’s a brand new medium. It’s open for anything. And Fritz Lang talks about it in that 1968 interview where he says it was much easier in his day compared to, well, he’s talking about the late 60s to today, because you’ve got to fit everything in, you know, with what’s happened before, everything’s got to justify the buck. But here, they were all experimenting, you know. This hadn’t been done, you know. They picked up cameras, they did this, they did that, they were trying. They were kind of muddling and finding their own way through. And that spirit of inventiveness and experiment and take a risk was very much part of their ethos as artists and filmmakers, okay. And then much later working in Hollywood, this is from a crime thriller, a minor film called “Fury” with Spencer Tracy. But again, look at how he’s positioned the character, of course, the angle of the act, but it’s slightly more than in usual, you know, criminal, crime-thriller movies. Look at the shadowy background, Half of Tracy’s face, light, dark, you know. The handsome Napoleon image sort of, but it’s on the other side, you know. And how he’s playing the shadow always, you know, and where the eye goes between the shadow and the face.

So there’s a dramaturgy of tension created by light, by shadow and light, and the manipulation of that with face character and the background. So in the visual itself creates a tension for the audience. And in the same with the other image. Look at the two, you know. It’s got a stage influence completely, you know, between the two. And the choreographed images of the hand, the legs, everything you know, is so precise in that way. And then the last, the one or two others are just general film noir and his approach. This is much later, you know, film of his remaking of “Dr. Mabuse.” You can see on the top right, which is a much more contemporary image as you can see of the so-called mad doctor, you know, and the child slayer the killer. And sorry, not “dr. Mabuse.” This is from “M” remade. And then on the bottom left of your image, you know, her legs are so choreographed, staged, and the sexuality and the eroticism and the, the seductiveness that is luring for an audience. But at the same time, her arm is up, you know. So push, pull. Come to me but be aware. Femme Fatale, isn’t it?

You know, all of these things are being played with consciously by Fritz Lang in image. Again, the tension is in the image itself, not only in the story and the conflict between characters. So it’s almost like a double dramatic tension. And then finally, I think this is pretty obvious, the influence of the westerns and others, you know. It’s just a fun image for me, you know, the costume, the look, everything, the influences, you know. And then there’s the, you know, the glass at the bottom. But again, always the shadow and the lights, always that slightly disturbing background, not quite sure what’s real and what’s illusion. It fits in for me with his ideas on crime, what’s real, what’s illusion in the same way. Okay. And this is now an image from “Metropolis,” and, you know, from the original 1927 film where, you know, the idea is, in this sequence, he’s making a human being out of a robot. And the human being emerges but in the figure of a robot, you know, flipping what’s become the sort of conventional stereotype of, you know, turning humans into robots. This is flipped the other way around. Again, this is in 27, 1927. It’s a beginning of technology. All these things that are, you know, these ideas happening which, you know, we take so much for granted now. He’s very much at the forefront of a pioneering creative spirit.

Okay. And then here I want to show these images of “Metropolis,” which is Manhattan skyline in 1912. This is The Tower of Babel. This is in the main character’s headquarters in the film, “Metropolis.” Then you’re right, Bruegel’s painting of The Tower Babel, the obvious influences of all of these in his film. But you know, when he is making it and his vision to project fine to the future by taking what is already there and creating this, you know, the amazing film of “Metropolis.” But it comes from what’s already happening in his own eras. Again, what I’m trying to get at is, the filmmaker is very aware of cultural, technological, architectural, historical social shifts happening in his time in his society all the time. Okay. This is here finally of the images. This was actually a poster for the New Zealand premiere of “Metropolis” in the late 20s on the left. And then this was the contemporary digitalized remake of “Metropolis” in much more recent times for us. So we get a contrast of same meaning, same idea, but very different images speaking to different generations to attract audiences. I mean, you just look at that, you know. There’s “Star Wars,” there’s Spielberg. It’s so much. And they’re all acknowledged he is the main influence. Okay, going back to a bit about his life, Mr. Lang.

So the Mabuse theme is a story of the master criminal who becomes not necessarily just a madman, but you know, what is the mind of the master criminal. And it’s almost become like, and Kubrick acknowledges the influence. “Dr. Strangelove,” you know, in that fantastic film, I love Kubrick, in that fantastic film of Kubrick’s. You know, he’s often asked, he asked, Fritz Lang, you know, were you romantic? Were you cynical? And I think, you know, my sense of him is that, he is ultimately a romantic because he’s looking for justice and truth. But I think he understands for me that romanticism is the last refuge of the cynic. And I think he’s a romantic, fascinated by the cruelty, the horror, the murder, and the fear of his times. “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse” was a silent film based on the pulp novel by Norbert Jacques. And it follows the devious scheme of a criminal mastermind, so-called mad scientist. I prefer the devious scheme of a criminal mastermind. The criminal mastermind uses disguises and hypnosis and henchman, and you know, this charismatic figure.

And yes, it’s prefiguring something of Hitler and demagogues and dictators to come, but it’s also seeing the criminal mastermind in this guide as a performer and that, for me is the key. How the political leader of today is a performer, an entertainer. And I think Fritz Lang, consciously or unconsciously, taps onto this. He susses it early, the need for charismatic performance in the dictatorial or authoritarian leader of today. And, you know, the Dr. Mabuse character for me is very much that. It’s about a gambler. He’s a gambler, but he relishes in gambling and taking chance with people’s lives, his own money, et cetera. Life is a gamble, you know, and the fun of that. And it doesn’t matter if he gambles people’s lives, Doesn’t matter. You can kill as many as you want, destroy, make as much money, do whatever. And he saw that as a leitmotif. He saw that as a motif for the character of his time. The risk taker gambler, what’s there to lose? After the first World War, after the horror of the first World War, the slaughter, the collapse of empires, the collapse of so-called, you know, European, Western civilization. The horror of technology to slaughter so many, you know. So what was left? The opportunist, the gambler, the risk taker.

And he talks about that as he thought would be a kind of archetype character to represent his era, Dr. Mabuse. He placed some words from Nazism in the film, and the film was banned by Goebbels. And then Goebbels later, I’ll come to the story, offers him a leading place in Nazi controlled film industry. So what is his vision of the world, Fritz Lang? Who is Dr. Mabuse. He’s a gambler. He’s in representative of the time, a figure of his era. His vision of the world, I think is less Alexander Fleming and Einstein, I think it’s more later to come, you know, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, you know. And I’m certainly not equating any of these by the way. I’m just trying to give iconic images to show a criminal other side of the 20th century history. And of course, the amazing technological, medical and other advances and advances of human rights and democracy in so many other things. But where he reminds us in the shadow of film noir is the shadow underbelly, you know, the barbaric of human life. And yet, the fascination of the criminal mastermind who may become the extreme horror of a Hitler, Mussolini, and many others, you know, of our own times, or, you know, on a whole different level, you know, the romanticization of the Lucky Lucianos, the Al Capones and so on, which I fall into as much, you know, “The Godfather” Brando, the movie but to look more closely.

As he said, “Who is Mabuse?” I’m quoting Fritz Lang. “It grew out of its time. Germany, after the First World War was a place where every type of excess was encountered. And my film reflected the hysteria, the alchesim, the despair and vices of the time. 'Dr. Mabuse’ was a veiled commentary on Nazis. The later film, origin of a ‘Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse’ came from a newspaper article describing an experimental US army bullet that may leave no mark. And I wanted to later make a film brutal to reflect that.” So he’s constantly looking at what’s going on in society. For “Metropolis,” the expression, as I mentioned, the British Film Institute at the time called him the Master of darkness, the futuristic “Metropolis,” 1927, “M,” 1931. So he is born in Vienna. His father was Catholic, his mother Jewish. Came from a wealthy Jewish family. She converted to Roman Catholicism. And Fritz Lang was brought up catholic, studies civil engineering. 1913 goes to Paris, studies art. As I said, in the war, he in 1916, he fights in the Austrian Army and is quite severely injured with his eye in particular, on the Russian front. After the wars, he writes for a Berlin based production company.

And in 1919 in Berlin, he marries Lisa Rosenthal, a Jewish lady. And two years later, in 1921, she dies very mysteriously of a single gunshot wound. It’s never proven who shot her, what happened, how or why? Then he starts his expressionist films. He becomes part of the expressionist movement. His next wife, Thea, as I said, co-writes the movies. “Dr. Mabuse” co-written in 1922. And the original title is “Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler.” 1931, he directs “M,” the talking picture, masterpiece story of a child murderer who’s hunted and brought to rough justice by the criminal underworld of Berlin because they don’t want a child murderer. It’s bad for business. They’re criminals and they want to make profit, business. Have a child murderer and the police hunting the whole of Berlin for that, it disturbs the criminal, you know. The organised crime in the jargon. So in the wonderful satirical fast for me, they don’t want a child murder in midst. So they are the ones who bring, you know, who bring the character to justice. They are the judges. The criminal leaders of Berlin bring him to justice, declare him guilty, and execute him. Criminal law is enacted by the criminal leaders. No child murder. We deal with crime to make money, business, you know. Steal rob, kill, but not children.

The Nazis banned it but not because of child murder, that’s fine. The Nazis banned it because they saw it as a comment of an anti-authoritarian comment, you know, their own gangster self. And Goebbels makes a note of it. He didn’t care about child murder. It was the other aspect. Fascinating. Then his wife started to become a Nazi, or certainly very sympathetic. The the film, as I said, is banned by Goebbels in 1933, and his wife is becoming more and more of a Nazi. Dangerous. He’s half Jewish, let’s remember, Fritz Lang. But by this time, he is at the top of the tree of German film directors. Goebbels calls him in, in 1933 and says that he and Hitler have decided that Fritz Lang is the best German film director, and they want him to head up a whole big section of German film industry to make Nazi propaganda films. And he describes the whole thing of going to meet Goebbels in the office and yeah, et cetera, et cetera. And that night, and this is true, that night he went home, he packed a few things. Told the people, his friends and whoever, didn’t trust anyone, that he was going to Paris to just, you know, watch a few films and brush up for a week or two and would be back. That very night, he couldn’t get money out because by the time he left Goebbels office, the bank were closed.

So then, he packs his car. He drove to Paris that very night. He never went back to Germany until much later in the 60s and the late 50s. From there, he eventually made his way to America. And in that interview with Goebbels he saw, and also of course, being half Jew under the Nuremberg laws, what on earth were they really doing, offering this to him? So, you know, this guy has such an extraordinary touch on human history of these characters, you know, these massive, you know, gangsters, you know, the greatest criminals of human history, Goebbels and the others, together with criminals in the underworld of Berlin, together with, you know, child killers, et cetera. Crime, crime. What rarely is crime? And what are we ultimately, and Hannah Arendt talks about this, what are we ultimately, if the state itself is ruled by criminals and the law has the appearance of law and justice, but it’s actually criminal according to any vague ethical scale?

So he goes to America, his Hollywood career. He makes 23 films in a 20 year American career. ‘Cause of course, everyone in Hollywood knows him because of the, the great films of “Metropolis,” “M” and The Diary, sorry. and the “Dr. Mabuse” and other lesser known films. Bunuel, Hitchcock, Godard, Kubrick, Spielberg, George Lucas, so many filmmakers, Scorsese, so many of them of today and of the last 40, 50 years, all acknowledged the massive influence. They call him the master who influenced them all, the original pioneer and creator. Okay, I want to show a short piece. Now, this is from the interview with Fritz Lang here, done for German TV. Okay. What’s amazing to me, he’s so precise and articulate, you know, with every word, every phrase, you know, the mark is real searing intelligence and insights. Okay. I want to show, so we get a sense of “Dr. Mabuse,” the gambler, you know, the moneymaker that German word, Rafik, Rafka rather. And, you know, he’s so trying to look for a, as he calls it, a prototype of his era, of his times. And I think this kind of character speaks to us today. I don’t think we need to look far to see many of these kind of characters, not only in political leadership, but the so-called celebrities and leaders of many kinds from film to art to business, to, you know.

It’s an archetype of our times and ancient times, let’s be honest, Dostoevsky many others. Okay. What I want to show is, this is a clip from “Metropolis” and it’s part of the trailer, just to give you an idea or to perhaps refresh 'cause I’m sure many people know it so well, to refresh some of the ideas of the remarkable imagery that he originates in “Metropolis” that were not there before, you know. Of course, there’s an influence of Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein,” some of the others. But, you know, he’s starting it. I just want to hold this image for the moment because just perhaps to refresh our memory, you know, the film is basically about a dictatorial, a wealthy leader and industrialist of the city, and between that the father and the son. And he lives up on the, you know, some of these skyscrapers are 1,000 stories high. Some of them are 50, 100, 500 stories high. You see, you know, the train lines, the aeroplanes earlier on. And he rules the city together with the other powerful elite of industrialists and political and military leaders. And then, the son grows a cold dislike of the father and has a relationship with a young woman who takes him to the underbelly of the city where there are the millions of worker bees, you know, who are forced into these sort of camp like militaristic structures, anonymous automatons who have to work the machinery, work in the underground factories so as to enable the riches and the glories of the city above to exist.

And relationship between the son who tries to, together with the girlfriend tries to stimulate something of a revolt or rebellion against the father and the rulers. But this is being made in the 20s. So what he’s seeing perhaps together with Chaplain’s modern times, but you know, what he’s seeing is so ahead of its time with so many obvious metaphorical links. This is the main character who also, is a scientist wanting to make a human out of a robot. Okay. So, you know, he’s flipping it to make a human out of a robot in order of course, if he can, then that’s another way of controlling humans. There are many biblical references in the film, the Tower of Babel, many, many others. And you know, the obvious thing about the masses or automatons, machines, the workers and so on, you know, which have been discussed endlessly in terms of, of the movie “Metropolis.”

But we have to remember, he originates so many of these images and he’s working together with his cinematographer to create this in, you know, in these early, I think wildly creative times of filmmaking. Interestingly, the reception at the time is very mixed and it gets very mixed response in Germany. Then the New York Times wrote about “Metropolis” in the late 20s, “Technical marvel with feet of clay.” H.G. Wells in 1927, and of course, Fritz Lang is very influenced by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, one of his heroes. But H.G. Wells says, “It’s ridiculously foolish, it’s cliche, full of platitudes a muddlement about mechanical progress. Automation does not necessarily create drudgery. Why cannot it not also relieve it? I wonder who would buy the machines that these workers are making, if not the workers.” That’s H.G. Wells. Fascinating. Then of course you see, you know, echoes of, of Mary Shelley’s, “Frankenstein.” And the wonderful Czech playwright Karel Capek, you know, who wrote also in the 20s to early 30s of RUR, you know. Some wonderful plays, prefiguring robots, artificial intelligence, all these things to come. The New York Herald Tribune called it weird and fascinating.

The New Yorker called it unconvincing, overlong. The plot is full of Teutonic heaviness, absurd amount of philosophising soldiers. But there’s a German critic, Siegfried Kracauer, who I think has a very interesting insight. He says, “The Americans,” this is all around the late 20s, early 30s, “the Americans relish the technical excellence. The English, being English, remain aloof. The French, being French, were stirred by a film, which seemed to them a blend of Wagner’s passion and CRIP’s Armament manufacturing, an alarming sign of the vitality of Germany to come.” An interesting twist, trying to put it into a global and historical context by a critic of the times. Lang later, also wondered if it wasn’t too much of a fairytale and himself. If it wasn’t a fairytale, you know, did it romanticise, didn’t it? Did it really achieve what he wanted to, you know? You hear a lot of questions. And he actually spoke much more about the “Dr. Mabuse” film. But Conan Greenland, a very interesting American critic, he says that, “Fritz Lang was inspired by his first sight of the Manhattan skyscrapers. Metropolis is a dark dream of the city of the 21st century, where the idle rich live in penthouses and play in rooftop pleasure gardens, while faceless workers toil in the machine caverns far, far below.”

So it’s at such a varied response from H.G. Wells heavily critical to others seeing the machine, you know. But what for me, it does what art should do, Provoke, stimulate, argument, debate, many interpretations, not just one that everybody claps their hands, you know, goes home has a coffee, he forgets about it. The British Film Institute called “Metropolis,” the 35th greatest film of all time, okay. And it showed the ascendancy of the machine not as liberating man, but subjugating man. Okay. You know, spoken quite a bit about his life. He also had a very good education, you know, at the school in Vienna studying Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, you know, many thinkers, Nietzsche, he mentions later. So this thing, as I know Trudy and others have mentioned, you know, and Patrick, this extraordinary time of this kind of, golden era of Viennese culture. But he also sees the darker side, these monumental buildings, huge churches, steeples, stairwells, you know, the smallness of a kind of Kafkaesque man compared to the enormity of this culture capital of the world together with some of the other great cities of the time, culture and business capital.

Where is the crime even in that golden era of Vienna? Where’s the underbelly? What’s the shadow always that is looking for? Time of unprecedented, unprecedented scientific change, revolution, technological, and so on. He said his parents went twice a month to see a play and then discussed it over dinners with friends. It was always an event. Now that’s important, the location of culture in a family life. His father as an architect who set up a very successful construction business, but to go to the theatre twice a month to talk education, culture, and yet he’s a very successful businessman, it’s all part of this kind of, Renaissance’s period, if you like, of this era in Vienna that I’m sure many people know much better than I do. But at the school where he’s at, is antisemitism rising more and more? Class, for example, in class of the students at the school Group A and Group B. Group A are the Catholics, the superior, Group B, the inferior, the Jews, sorry, the Protestants first and then the Jews after. So, you know, and that, was there pressure on his mother to convert to Catholicism for the marriage?

You know, it’s all up for debate. We can’t prove it. His mother set up a salon, you know, the father’s engaging and really hardworking, business, et cetera. This is the mix of culture, industry, business, art of this era, which, in the flash of an eye, in a couple of years is gone. It’s gone afterwards in Vienna. So he’s a man of identity from Vienna to Berlin, his childhood. And then, you know, this insane meeting with Goebbels, becoming this most famous German filmmaker in the 20s, you know, going to America, making films coming across back then, you know. He traverses a kind of, a cultural world, a history of his own times, certainly of the West. And I think always looking to see what is really sane and sanity and crime. And how it’s the emergence of popular crime becomes so-called norm when it becomes the laws of the state. For the programmes of “Dr. Mabuse: The gambler.” He and one of his friends wrote, this is in the programme, “Man,” the first premier, “Mankind swept about and trampled down in the wake of war and revolution takes revenge for years of anguish by indulging in lusts, or actively surrendering to crime.”

So swept up in war revolution, he’s talking about after the First World War, before the Second, takes revenge for his anguish by indulging in lusts and surrendering to crime, whether actively or passively. That’s, I think, this programme notes of Fritz Lang’s in this film, for me, encapsulates so much of his vision. Then lastly, I just want to mention a little bit about “M” and show you a clip from the movie “M.” The original title was “Murder Amongst Us.” and it’s basically about a child murderer who’s caught, but he’s tried by the criminals rather than the cops because he’s causing trouble. The cops looking all over because he’s, you know, child murderer killing little girls in particular. It’s bad for business. So they find the guy, the killer, they create a kangaroo court with the criminals, try him and sentence him to death. So they can go back to restore, you know, organised crime business kind of thing. And what I want to say is here, you know, Hannah Arendt a had a fascinating insight. She said “With Eichman,” I’m quoting her, “Eichman dimly realised that it was not an order only that he obeyed but a law which had turned all German citizens into criminals.

They were criminals under any kind of ethical or international law. But what were they at home in Germany? Were they criminals? Did they see themselves as criminals? What is a crime if the rule of crime is limitless?” And I think it’s a fantastic insight of Hannah Arendt. What is crime if the rule of crime itself is limitless? When the state is itself criminal and limitless. Thomas Mann in “Death in Venice” talks about the lawless hopes when passion and crime combine in order to weaken the social fabric of a relatively non-criminal state. “Dr. Strangelove,” Kubrick talks about it, Jacqueline Hyde, et cetera. Goethe’s Mephisto, “Everything that’s created is capable and worthy of destruction,” Goethe. So all of this for me, and then finally, you know, in one of these other films, “The Big Heat,” there’s the character, and you have the main character who no longer is the charismatic, sort of exaggerated film noir image as we’ve seen here. But he’s reasonable calm, you know, very contemporary kind of businessman, you know, who, who makes big profits, you know, but is recognised by society, pillar of society, you know, social recognition, all a very reasonable adored man of the world as a contemporary image of the criminal pursued by a policeman. And he’s offended by the even, the use of the word murder in his home in “The Big Heat.” And the cop who’s hunting him, he’s called in by his boss. And the boss says, “Listen Dave,” and this is the quote from the movie, “You can’t set yourself against the world and think you’re going to get away with it. It’s only in fairy tales that if you fight the world, you’ll get away with it.”

He’s using irony in order to stimulate more emotion in us the audience. Because ultimately in Hannah Arendt’s phrase, “The ultimate meaning of crime is to establish a limitless rule of crime in a state and make that the law and justice.” And that’s her insight coming out of, you know, obviously the war. And the lawless don’t need to have glitter in film and neon lights. They just have to ooze privilege and comfort. Okay. So if I may, I just want to show a brief clip from, if I can, from “M.” I just have to get the exact position. This is Fritz Lang talking in the same wonderful interview. And then I’m going to come onto the clip. And here, so this is where the child killer is caught by the organised crime. Just to fill you in, you know, the serial killer of children wants to go to the police. He wants to have a proper court of, you know, go into a court and be tried in a court of law not be tried by, you know, the criminal gangster bosses of the city. The wonderful fo and satire, you know, the joke that is set up in the movie, you know, again, the role of crime is constant to be played with 360 degrees. Okay. And here, he doesn’t plead for his defence. Rather, he reveals what compels him towards being a criminal. Fascinating distinction for me with this kind of stereotype crime films of today, and so many decades before. And also actually what Goebbels hated about it.

Okay. This is what Goebbels hated about it and why he banned it and actually told Fritz Lang at the end, just to mention this briefly as a finish now, because he doesn’t defend himself, he shows self-awareness of his own horrific anguish and bewilderment that he’s compelled to kill. But he’s such inner torment about it, doesn’t plead not guilty, and trying to show the murderers of the Nazi period completely showing none of that. But Fritz Lang, I think seeing inside what he saw anyway, how the vision of crime and passion would go together in the entire, you know, not only Germany but in other countries and many equally extreme or fascist type of dictatorships in the world before and after. So, thank you so much, everybody. I hope this gives it a little taste of the three films and this guy’s remarkable life, an incredible influence of his films. That some of these things really, I think speak to us today and as films hold up. Thanks, everybody. And I can take questions if you want.

• David, that is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much.

• Thank you so much, Wendy. Should I do some questions, okay?

• Yeah. If you’ve got time.

• Yeah, right?

Q&A and Comments:

Yep. From Alice, yeah, I’m going to do Beat Generation part two on Tuesday, I think it is next week, which will be the birth of rock and roll, Elvis and Chuck Berry and others. Okay. Thank you.

David Edmond. Right, yeah, I know Edmond, the other films. But you know, just got to concentrate on a few. Uses caricature, absolutely. Gang bosses, leaders, father figures, industrialists, political leaders, all of that. Crime on a state, personal, family, yeah, on all these levels we mentioned.

Ruth Romaine, “Romance is the first and largely failed refuge of the cynic.” Okay. Lovely way of putting it. Cynicism romantic, define artists. Yeah, that’s a wonderful debate which we could have.

Yeah, I don’t know if you knew Koda. Interesting point. I’ll check that.

Carol, “When he describes Berlin he could be describing.”

Yeah. Well, I think it’s part of how, well, I want you to find what themes from his films perhaps speak to us today? So I was looking more at that than the technique of film noir and many others. And in that interview, I mean it’s amazing interview. It’s 27 minutes, but he never finds the wrong word. He finds the right word with precision every time. And his sense of staging, drama, moving, it’s perfect.

Q: “Is Fritz Lang’s mother’s name, Schlesinger?”

A: I’ll check that. I don’t think so, but I’ll check.

Q: Maria, “Who financed his films?”

A: Well in the early days in the 20s, it was German industrialist, financiers, film producers, you know. There was money that he found from various sources. I think there was some American money as well, 'cause we got to see it again in that context of this explosion of technology of aircraft, submarines, you know, ships, cars, film going with it. So investors and people, you know, all these things on you. A bit like maybe, you know, some of the digital technology today can go in many directions, which will take over, which won’t. So I think there was money from quite a few sources.

Yes, speaking films, you know, like the one I just showed. Maria,

Alice. The music 'cause of the influence of silent movie. And “Metropolis” is silent.

So absolutely music is central. And there’s another whole discussion about the music, you know, and the combination of some, you know, classical orchestral and some modernist influencers.

Yeah, “Metropolis” is science fiction, making a human out of a robot now. I know, and you can’t help but laugh once gripped in attention, but it’s a fast, it’s satire, you know, a human out of a robot. It’s a wonderful idea of, you know, the inversion.

The star of David. Yes, absolutely. Out of the robot comes a human. And it’s a wonderful point you’re making, Drar, pardon me. And I think it’s fascinating because he has so many images in his films, which will take another lecture, you know, biblical references, religious references. This guy is so well educated and so well read, which is why I mentioned the school that he went to is one of the best in Vienna and others, you know. There’s such a wide ranging, I would say almost Renaissance’s mind, informing him. And yes, you do see a version of a star of David there with the robot.

Q: Monica, “What/where was the staging of 'Metropolis?’”

A: It was mostly set in a studio. It cost about 20 million euros in today’s money, which was a hell of a lot then at a cost of thousands. And you had these fantastical sets built. I mean they’re small but they’re built. So you know, a camera can film and you can show like a massive skyscraper but actually, it’s almost like a Lego set or toy set. But you know, you get the image of that and little aeroplanes and all that. So you use minutia to create the illusion of bigness. And the same with the science, you know, the experiments. But he was the first to do all of this. Now it’s become almost filmic cliche, you know. It’s visual cliche to do this, but he was the first to put it all together. And he honestly acknowledges that he worked equally with his cinematographer, you know, who had the visual and you know, how they pulled it together. And when he said in this time it was just the two of them. Nowadays you’ve got huge special effects departments, you know, of the studios.

Wagner, yes, he was influenced by Wagner and Strauss in the film, sorry, in the music. And I think yes, the ring cycle and the North mythology. And I think he’s trying to subvert it all the time, Barbara. Great point.

Myra, “Maybe seeming to revitalise.” Yeah, I don’t know. It’s unclear.

Q: Did he kill his first wife?

A: It’s never been proven. I can’t find final proof of what actually happened.

• [Wendy] So brilliant, Josh. I’m going to send you this.

• Robin,

Q: “Did he take his wife with him?”

A: No, because the second wife Thea, the first wife was the Jewish one who was killed in 1921, and his second wife, Thea, was a Nazi sympathiser. And although they wrote the play, the movies equally, co-wrote them, because she became a Nazi basically he left on his own. And let’s never forget his mother was Jewish. So under the Nuremberg laws, you know, he’d be killed. The actor played the child killer, gosh, I’ll check it and get back to you. Sorry, famous actor. Just skipped my mind.

Okay, Dennis Ross. Great, wonderful. Mavis, thanks. Sharon, thank you.

Phil, “Peter Lore.” That’s it. Peter Lore. Thanks, Phil. Okay. Thanks so much, Linda. H.H, Paula, Margaret. Wikipedia. Okay, Schlesinger. Great. Appreciate. Thanks, Margaret.

Roberta, Beat Generation is next week. Yep. Peter Lore. Thanks, Alice. Dennis Ross, wonderful.

Q: Did he divorce?

A: Yes, great point, Patricia. He divorced his second wife before he left Germany. As she became more and more of a Nazi sympathiser moving to activist, he divorced her. But that didn’t make any difference to Goebbel’s offering, you know, the biggest job of all to be virtually the head of film production in Nazi Germany.

Okay. Thank you so much, everybody, and that’s a taster of Mr. Fritz Lang. And hope everybody’s well and have a great rest of the weekend. Stay safe and smiling.