Fritz Lang

Friedrich Anton Christian Lang (December 5, 1890 - August 2, 1976) was an Austrian film director, screenwriter and occasional film producer, one of the best known emigrés from Germany's school of expressionism to work in Hollywood. His most famous films are probably the groundbreaking Metropolis (the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release) and M, made before he moved to the United States.

Late work and death

During the 1950s, Lang found it harder to find congenial production conditions in Hollywood and his advancing age left him less inclined to grapple with American backers. The German producer, Artur Brauner, was expressing interest in remaking not only The Indian Tomb (a story that Lang had developed in the twenties that was ultimately taken from him by studio heads and directed instead by Joe May) but Lang's earlier Doctor Mabuse pictures. Fearing that Brauner would proceed with or without his assent, Lang abandoned his plans for retirement and returned to Germany in order to make his Indian Epic, which regarded as a masterpiece by a number of film scholars today. Following the production, Brauner was ready to proceed with his remake of Das Testament des Doctor Mabuse when Lang approached him with the idea of adding another original film to the series. The result was Die Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse, made in a hurry and with a relatively small budget. It can be viewed as the marriage between the director's early experiences with expressionist techniques in Germany as well as the spartan style already visible in his late American work. Lang was approaching blindness during the production, making it his final project.

Related Topics:
1950s - The Indian Tomb - Joe May - Doctor Mabuse - Die Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse

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Returning to the United States in retirement, he continued collecting research material and drafting screenplays, though he never made another film. While his career had ended without fanfare, his work went through a reappraisal in later years following Jean-Luc Godard's decision to cast him in his film Le Mépris in addition to considerable critical adulation in the US from the likes of Peter Bogdanovich.

Related Topics:
Jean-Luc Godard - Le Mépris - Peter Bogdanovich

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He died in 1976 and was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Related Topics:
1976 - Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery - Los Angeles

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