Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Born: December 5, 1890
Died: August 2, 1976
in Vienna, Austria
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-German film director, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States.

Lang's most famous films are the groundbreaking science-fiction film Metropolis (1927) - the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release - and the influential thriller film M (1931), made before he moved to the United States. Lang's work had a significant influence on the film noir genre and in Hollywood, he made some classics himself, such as Scarlet Street (1945) and The Big Heat (1953).

Movies for Fritz Lang...

A Life for Movies: Lotte Eisner
Title: A Life for Movies: Lotte Eisner
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 1, 2020
Type: Movie
Born in Berlin in 1896, Lotte Eisner became famous for her passionate involvement in the world of both German and French cinema. In 1936, together with Henri Langlois, she founded the Cinémathèque Française with the goal of saving from destruction films, costumes, sets, posters, and other treasures of the 7th Art. A Jew exiled in Paris, she became a pillar of the capital's cultural scene, where she promoted German cinema.
bee
From Caligari to Hitler
Title: From Caligari to Hitler
Character: Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
Released: May 28, 2015
Type: Movie
Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1919, when the Republic of Weimar is born, to 1933, when the Nazis come into power. (Followed by Hitler's Hollywood, 2017.)
bee
Voyage to 'Metropolis'
Title: Voyage to 'Metropolis'
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: February 12, 2010
Type: Movie
A documentary about the making of the final version of "Metropolis" by restoring all material from different sources.
bee
Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
Title: Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: January 1, 2009
Type: Movie
Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.
bee
Fritz Lang, le cercle du destin - Les films allemands
Title: Fritz Lang, le cercle du destin - Les films allemands
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: April 28, 2004
Type: Movie
bee
Title: Das Jahrhundert des Theaters
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: April 6, 2002
Type: TV
"The Century of the Theater" - From the "birth of the director" to the "heroes of modernity" - an overview of the world of theater - illuminates the interaction with the history of the past hundred years is also shown.
bee
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
Title: A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
Character: Self
Released: May 21, 1995
Type: Movie
Martin Scorsese celebrates American movies from the silent classics to the Hollywood of the seventies.
bee
Fritz Lang
Title: Fritz Lang
Released: February 1, 1990
Type: Movie
German TV Documentary for WDR about Fritz Lang
bee
The Exiles
Title: The Exiles
Character: Self
Released: September 24, 1989
Type: Movie
A chronicle of the rescue of oppressed intellectuals and artists from Europe before the outbreak of World War II. It studies the cultural and intellectual impact of this emigre population on American life.
bee
Title: Film Emigration from Nazi Germany
Character: Self
Released: November 11, 1975
Type: TV
Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
bee
Conversation with Fritz Lang
Title: Conversation with Fritz Lang
Character: Self
Released: February 24, 1975
Type: Movie
American director William Friedkin interviewed Austrian director Fritz Lang on February 21st and 24th, 1975. Lang died August 2nd, 1976.
bee
For Example Fritz Lang
Title: For Example Fritz Lang
Released: March 23, 1968
Type: Movie
A interview with Fritz Lang where he talks about his career in Germany and troubles with the Nazis.
bee
The Dinosaur and the Baby
Title: The Dinosaur and the Baby
Character: Himself
Released: March 15, 1967
Type: Movie
An hour-long discussion between Fritz Lang and Jean-Luc Godard in which they discuss a variety of art forms, the role of the cinema, their collaboration together, and much more. (Filmed in 1964 but released for TV in 1967.)
bee
Paparazzi
Title: Paparazzi
Character: Himself
Released: September 22, 1964
Type: Movie
Paparazzi explores the relationship between Brigitte Bardot and groups of invasive photographers attempting to photograph her while she works on the set of Jean-Luc Godard's film Le Mépris (Contempt). Through video footage of Bardot, interviews with the paparazzi, and still photos of Bardot from magazine covers and elsewhere, director Rozier investigates some of the ramifications of international movie stardom, specifically the loss of privacy to the paparazzi. The film explains the shooting of the film on the island of Capri, and the photographers' valiant, even foolishly dangerous, attempts to get a photograph of Bardot.
bee
Bardot et Godard
Title: Bardot et Godard
Character: Himself
Released: April 30, 1964
Type: Movie
A documentary short following director Jean-Luc Godard on the set of Contempt.
bee
Encounter with Fritz Lang
Title: Encounter with Fritz Lang
Character: Interviewee
Released: February 5, 1964
Type: Movie
Interview with Fritz Lang on the roof of Villa Malaparte on Capri during the filming of the fictitious film "Odysseus" and the filming of "Le mépris" by Jean-Luc Godard, in which Fritz Lang plays the role of an old film director called Lang. During the interview, excerpts from the long films "The Nibelungen", "The Tired Death" and "M" are shown.
bee
Contempt
Title: Contempt
Character: Fritz Lang
Released: October 29, 1963
Type: Movie
A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
bee
Title: Deutscher Filmpreis
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1951
Type: TV
bee
The Film in the Film
Title: The Film in the Film
Character: Himself
Released: June 26, 1924
Type: Movie
The only surviving excerpt of a documentary on film production in Weimar Germany, featuring the different personalities of several famous directors of the era at work on the set including Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene, and E.A. Dupont.
bee
Master of Love
Title: Master of Love
Released: September 24, 1919
Type: Movie
A man's devotion for a woman brings about his ruin.
bee
Hilde Warren and Death
Title: Hilde Warren and Death
Released: August 31, 1917
Type: Movie
Hilde Warren, a famous actress, is impregnated by a convicted murderer and becomes plagued by visions of Death. Upon discovering her child is the image of its criminal father, Hilde must decide whether to allow it to live, or to kill it and risk the embrace of Death himself.