Auteur List: Fritz Lang - Discussion and Defenses

[DarkImbecile]

Spoilers abound.

You weren't kidding. Can you imagine a critic for a major paper today running the equivalent of that third paragraph?

"This happens, then this happens, here's the major second act twist, then these complications ensue, but don't worry, the movie ends like this."

Uhh...thanks, Bosley?

[knives]

I get the feeling that was the norm at the time (Sight and Sound still does a variation of it) and honestly I would like to see elements of that return.

[matrixschmatrix]

If memory serves me, one of the reasons I prefer Scarlet Street to La Chienne is that the female lead seems more evil in the Lang film, and the dark ending fits better than the comical tone in Renoir's film.

I must say, I didn't think Joan Bennett seemed evil at all- I thought her probably the most sympathetic person in the movie. Her only real fault is that she's Johnny's punching bag and doormat, and thus allows herself to go with his horrible schemes, but there (as literally everywhere else in the movie) she's punished for it, brutally- and really, what does she do there that's so wrong? Lie to a would be lover?

SpoilerShow

The thing that sets Cross off, when she comes clean, is actually not a wholly fair version of her feelings for him- she seems at least to pity and kind of like having him around, just in a way that never comes close to unseating her devotion to Johnny. The crisis is brought on specifically because Cross is pushing against Johnny, the one thing she can't stand. Cross is clearly an unwell man- even before Lazy Legs, he clearly had fantasies of murdering his wife, and his soft meekness hides a cruel streak wrapped up in a total inability to see himself as others do. Thus, he's an incredibly easy mark- so easy it seems like he deserves it- and thus also, as Kalat points out in the commentary, he's haunted not by horror of what he's done, but by the fact that she STILL doesn't love him, and has been reunited with Johnny by his acts. He's an utterly self involved character, and as such a really interesting portrait- particularly in his sort of kinky submissive sexuality (which, in a sense, makes him of a kind with Lazy Legs herself!)

[DarkImbecile]

I get the feeling that was the norm at the time (Sight and Sound still does a variation of it) and honestly I would like to see elements of that return.

Color me intrigued. What appeals to you about more plot summary, less analysis in a review?

[knives]

Well, not less analysis so much as not allowing a fear of spoilers to get in the way of good analysis.

[Mr Sausage]

In this case you need to know your audience. A review for those who haven't seen the film ought not to spoil anything. An essay meant for those who've already seen it should obviously spoil away.

[Rayon Vert]

I won't be revisiting this one, but I'm posting my viewing notes because I'm curious to see if anyone here has, or will have, a contrary, i.e. positive appreciation of this film.

Cloak and Dagger. Lang takes time out from the noirs to get back to the Nazi thriller. Here Gary Cooper plays a nuclear physicist hired by the OSS to work on a spy mission in Europe and ends up working with the Italian partisans in what mostly becomes a romantic drama. This is close to being a real stinker, with a trite, conventional story executed with little flair and unconvincing performances from its actors. The production values also bring one to believe the budget on this one wasn’t too big.

[matrixschmatrix]

I like it, but I don't disagree that it's unremarkable- it's about as generic as Lang ever got on any kind of thriller, and doesn't even seem particularly animated by his feelings towards the Nazis.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The Ministry of Fear is a cracking novel but all I remember from the film is Milland's yelp of "cake" when presented with it at the end (this does not happen in the novel!)

[matrixschmatrix]

I think his other Renoir remake, Human Desire, is also pretty great for beginners as he sticks to the original's script quite well while adapting it to an American setting in just about the most naturalistic way possible. It doesn't hurt that there are a lot of ace character actors here at their best.

Huh, I was kind of taken aback by how unlike Renoir's movie it is, both in content and tone. I'm just going to spoilertag this whole thing:

SpoilerShow

Renoir's movie is just this terrible, senseless series of tragedy- each of them has an individual motivation, but ultimately, it's just this ugliness triggering further ugliness in a way that benefits no one, and in which ultimately the characters have very little agency. It's certainly not a noir- it's almost a precursor to the everything-is-connected genre, where the connecting point is sort of human frailty. (Forgive me if I'm misremembering it, but at least that's how it lives in my head.)

Lang's movie is very much situated in the noir mode- he cuts out any suggestion that Ford, like his counterpart in the Renoir, has a predisposition towards madness or murder, making him very much the Glenn Ford hero, a man who is caught in a moral crisis; and ultimately, he resolves the moral crisis, and preserves himself. As far as that goes, the normative ideas of right and wrong are maintained, and everything is fine. Where the movie is really interesting to me, if ultimately disappointing, is in how Grahame is this sort of human subversion of the femme fatale archetype.

First and foremost: I believe that, up until the very end of the movie, literally everything she says is true, except where we are shown specifically that she is lying- about the murder itself, when first describing it to Ford. About the sexual trauma she suffered at Owen's hands, though, and about genuinely (to the best of her ability) loving Ford, and about the degree to which she participated in the murder under duress, and about her reasons for marrying her husband, all of it, I believe every word. She's a trauma victim before the events of the movie begin, who was drawn to her (awful) husband out of a desire for stability, and she seems to be a really loving and supportive wife- when he stupidly loses his job, she doesn't recriminate, doesn't attack, but tries simply to go through the steps of how to deal with it- can he get it back, should she get a job, could they move. Her piece of shit husband, though, effectively prostitutes her out to get it back- which she fights- and then loses his mind with jealousy when his plan succeeds. She is further traumatized by being forced to witness a murder firsthand, and for the rest of the movie, I think she's in survival mode, just trying to find a way out from under the odious man she's trapped with. She has real feelings for Ford- though I don't think that it's love in the sense I would use it, I think she feels genuine loyalty to him and affection for him, and in the big femme fatale role scene, when she is confronted with the fact that Ford couldn't murder her husband as she had (understandably) wanted- she starts out as Lady Macbeth, but almost immediately dissolves into a much realler feeling of helpless frustration and fear. When Ford gives her back the letter her husband had used to blackmail her and keep her tied to him, we don't get a reaction from her, but it seems clear that her anger and frustration hasn't magically been resolved.

The final scene is where I got disappointed- Grahame confronts her husband, who has found her as she tried to run off from him, and resorts eventually to telling him that she really DID have an ongoing affair with Owen, something that the woman in the special feature seems to have assumed to be literally true, but which I thought was pretty clearly a story she was giving him specifically as the most hurtful thing she could imagine. He then attacks and murders her, which the movie intercuts with Ford speeding back into a comfortable, reintegrated domestic life, shown by the reignition of his homosocial lighting ritual with his buddy. Grahame's death means the movie loses some of the power it had, because it feels like in Hollywood terms it still considers her the femme fatale who has to be punished- had she simply walked away, or killed her husband fairly and in self defense in the course of the struggle, it would have felt really revolutionary. As it is, it's merely really good, and overall pretty likely to be the best Lang movie I hadn't seen before that I watch for this project.

[TMDaines]

Is the non-Lang Jesse James worth seeing before The Return of Frank James?

[knives]

Matrix, I take that ending to be the film's ultimate sadness and cruelty (though what I am about to say depends as much on your interpretation as anything else). Without dipping into nihilism the film presents a sort of shaggy dog story where all of the inevitable events from the start occur despite Grahame growing and developing a lot as a character. Ford is basically useless thinking he's a noir hero, but instead just being some jackass (in a certain way he's accomplishing the opposite here of what was talked about regarding his The Big Heat character wherein he's not a real noir hero because of how he isn't very capable of showing his good internally rather than just as an external mask). That basically just leaves the very memorable Crawford and Grahame dynamic which is fairly well doomed.

[domino harvey]

Is the non-Lang Jesse James worth seeing before The Return of Frank James?

I like it a lot, but if you've seen other Jesse James films or are familiar with the story, you'll probably be fine. You'll miss a few of Lang's more subversive underminings of the original in the sequel, though

[domino harvey]

Y'know, I may walk that back a bit: I wonder if the reason so many are underenthused with Lang's sequel is because they haven't seen the first film and thus miss Lang's willful disruption of the carry-over elements? I don't know, obviously, but just a thought

[zedz]

I get the feeling that was the norm at the time (Sight and Sound still does a variation of it) and honestly I would like to see elements of that return.

More accurately, Sight and Sound (following on from Monthly Film Bulletin as the journal of record for U.K. Film releases) includes full plot synopses. They're not part of the review and serve a completely different purpose, so you can't in good faith call them spoilers.

[Drucker]

Man Hunt starts promisingly and the first quarter or so of the film exhibit a lot of what I think Lang does well. Pidgeon and Sanders are rather formidable opponents, making their first scene effective and believable. The early scenes are also quite suspenseful, with Lang calling back to his first few sound films and being selective on when to use sound at all. Perhaps it was nothing brilliant but I enjoyed it and was engaged.

The film then sort of takes a side-track and becomes almost a domestic film. Pidgeon goes into hiding, and sort of learns how to engage with the lower classes and sort of falls in love? I'm really not quite sure what the point of this relationship does except for serve up the rationale for the final duel between the two people and then the little wartime epilogue, but it goes on for far too long and eventually had me growing impatient. Which is a shame because the film finishes out pretty strongly and suspenseful again.

Perhaps the Signal One extra on anti-Nazi films sheds light on it, but like Western Union's view on technological progress, there is a weird pro-war message that almost feels tacked on by the studio to show they were supporting wartime efforts. Not that Lang is some master director known for ambiguity mind you, but this film does have a bit of that where we never know the protagonist's true motivation, and even after the film's finale that's still questionable. I'm not sure what else to say about it but the epilogue rubbed me the wrong way. I certainly enjoyed this better than WU and Ministry of Fear. We'll see if that's true on the latter's re-watch.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Man Hunt starts promisingly and the first quarter or so of the film exhibit a lot of what I think Lang does well. Not that Lang is some master director known for ambiguity mind you, but this film does have a bit of that where we never know the protagonist's true motivation, and even after the film's finale that's still questionable.

From a somewhat fading memory of this film I would suggest that any inherent ambiguity is located in Sanders character and perhaps Sanders alone. Pidgeon seems to embody the very essence of the english 'gentleman' with an unassailable moral code which remains steadfast throughout. The notion of the 'game', in both senses of the hunt, has to be validated with the loading of the bullet into the breach which causes him to be accused of being an assassin. His philosophising of the stalking aspect outweighing the kill certainly strikes a chord with Sanders, who similarly cuts an aristocratic figure albeit one where all sympathies with such a view has been expunged by Nazi ideology relegating it to one of weakness, effeminacy and decadence.
It is the seductive nature of Pidgeon's views and even possibly Pidgeon himself that drives Sanders' obsessive quest with the confession letter to incriminate the British government. I would argue that the ambiguity in Sanders is the inner struggle he has with his innate aristocratic traits of fair play versus the brute creed of the Nazis.
Wouldn't a more conniving Nazi zealot have merely forged a signature and done away with Pidgeon?

I agree that the scenario with Joan Bennett, sporting a proto-Dick van Dyke cockney patois, is pretty clunky but nonetheless it does bolster the notion of what constitutes a 'real' gentleman. She is quite often prone to come out with this in her admiration of him and which certainly, again in a similar way to Sanders, underpins the attraction.

Having not read the book I am unsure of the implication of the title 'Rogue Male' which would suggest an indiscriminate near nihilistic rampage which is totally absent from the film. I don't know if Geoffrey Household the author has in mind a more gentile or buccaneering version of 'Rogue' or whether the film and Lang deliberately swerve towards a more polished hero.

[Rayon Vert]

A couple of rewatches.

Metropolis. Got to finally see the near-complete 2010 version. I guess I belong in that oft-described group of people who are impressed by the film’s visual accomplishments (design, special effects) but find the whole thing rather silly and only intermittently absorbing. The Maria actress is fun to watch, and the middle bits of the film around the transformation of the “machine-man” and the two Marias are the best. But the characters and themes are cartoonish and not that interesting, and the last frenzied, stylistically undigestable half-hour (with anything and everything thrown in, including borrowings from The Hunchback of Notre Dame) I actually find a chore to get through. In terms of Lang’s ambitious 20s fantasy epics, I enjoy much more the visually equally impressive Die Nibelungen, where I sometimes find myself moved by the emotions generated by the tragic narrative, whereas here I don’t feel anything. The MOC blu has a reprint of Bunuel’s review of the film on its release, and I find myself agreeing with his appreciation, which is akin to reviewing a contemporary blockbuster release that’s technically innovative and distinguished but somewhat of an empty spectacle.

The Woman in the Window. It strikes me at how often crucial storefront window scenes are featured in Lang’s work; at least 5 films come to mind including this one. This is a very fine film. It’s a simple and fairly sober noir with the emphasis on the psychological, but executed elegantly, with admirable performances from Robinson and Bennett, good and fun secondary actors (Massey) and quite effective suspenseful sequences throughout. The cast (which includes Duryea) and material (a painting figures significantly) prefigures the immediately following Scarlet Street, but I find that brilliant film tends to unfairly overshadow this one, which I perhaps enjoy even more. (I really don’t mind the conclusion, which seems to affect some people’s appreciation of it.) It will figure - probably high - in my list.

[domino harvey]

The Woman in the Window is my number two and unlikely to move from that spot. I think the ending is key for several reasons, but perhaps most compellingly for being the only time such a cheap resolution has ever fully worked-- though a certain George Sanders movie likewise amusingly painted itself into a corner and had to fall-back on a similar ending for Code-related reasons, but it's a bit more transparent there. Both films are able to indulge deeper in despair as a result, but Lang seems to relish the perversity of the whole endeavor with maximum energy and verve

[Rayon Vert]

I don't know if the film was ahead of its time - this is early noir-period but contemporaneous with Double Indemnity - but it does feel a bit transgressive to be rooting for characters so much who after all engage in criminal actions, despite their being basically well-intentioned (in contrast to Indemnity, say).

The ending resolves (or dissipates rather) the typically Langian theme of a character trapped by fate. Gunning says that it's not usually metaphysical Fate that's the problem in Lang but oppressive systems, but I don't know if that's true here. My God what an unlucky bastard is the Robinson character to step into this mess.

[hearthesilence]

I love Fury, I think it's literally the only Spencer Tracey performance I like- it's very high key, but I think it fits what the movie is going for, sort of along the lines of Mitchum's cartoonish but note perfect performance in Night of the Hunter.

Spencer Tracy is actually one of my favorite film stars, but Fury is absolutely a stand out for him. It's fitting he and Henry Fonda would be two of the first Hollywood stars to be used in Lang's films. Though the darker aspects of their characters are well within their range, it's their unique everyman charms that allow these performances to really get under your skin. Not surprisingly both films benefit greatly from this as they both show an unforgiving world corrupting the very moral individuals at the heart of their stories.

Speaking of The Big Heat, Glenn Ford's stiffness actually works in that context - I felt he was a bit of a liability in Human Desire. He's generally not one of my favorite actors, but The Big Heat is one of a very few with him in the lead that I do enjoy revisiting.

[hearthesilence]

Man Hunt starts promisingly and the first quarter or so of the film exhibit a lot of what I think Lang does well. Pidgeon and Sanders are rather formidable opponents, making their first scene effective and believable. The early scenes are also quite suspenseful, with Lang calling back to his first few sound films and being selective on when to use sound at all. Perhaps it was nothing brilliant but I enjoyed it and was engaged.

Man Hunt has actually grown on me quite a bit. I liked it enough when I first saw it about ten years ago, but like Foreign Correspondent and others that initially felt like "minor" works of major directors, I've grown to like them even more as I've become more familiar with the historical context in which they were made. I was already partial to Pidgeon and McDowall thanks to How Green Was My Valley, but I really like Joan Bennett in this film. I don't have a problem with her accent or how they had to obscure the fact that she's a prostitute, it all adds to the charm of an outcast who never expected to be seen as important in the grand scheme of things. The sentimentality in Man Hunt could have been fatally corny, but she and Pidgeon completely sell it.

Re: Scarlet Street and La Chienne, it's wonderful that we can have two masterworks by two different auteurs on the same material. I do prefer Renoir's by a slight margin, and even though some have argued that Lang proved to be a more fitting director for this material, it still feels like something closer to Renoir's heart - just more personal in general. I even prefer the ending in Renoir's film - there's nothing wrong with Lang's ending, but Renoir's feels like an exquisite example of his general take on life.

[knives]

Is Moontide not eligible?

[domino harvey]

Nope, not the credited director

[knives]

Ah, is that going to be a hard rule from here on out? For example would The Thing... be excluded from a Hawks list?