LANG, FRITZ

LANG, FRITZ (1890–1976), Austrian film director and screenwriter; son of a non-Jewish father and a Jewish mother (Pauline Schlesinger) who converted to Catholicism when Lang was 10 years old. Born in Vienna, Lang went to Berlin in 1919 and, after writing screenplays, turned to directing. His reputation was established in 1921 with the allegorical Der Muede Tod (known in English as "Destiny"), which paved the way in film technique by its use of dream effects and decorations. In 1922 he directed Dr. Mabuse, the first of a series of melodramas of that name about a powerful gang leader with fabulous powers of hypnosis. In 1924 he directed Die Nibelungen, in which an invincible hero is overcome by human weakness. His film Metropolis (1926), for which he wrote the screenplay, was about automaton-like labor in the year 2000. In 1931 he shot his most successful German film, M, which he also wrote. A year after his Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1932), Lang was approached by Joseph Goebbels with the proposition of putting him in charge of Nazi films. That same evening Lang, fearing that his Jewish origin would become known, fled to France and later to the U.S., where he went to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, and was reduced to screenwriting for some time. His reputation was reestablished with his two socially conscious films Fury (which he also wrote, 1936) and You Only Live Once (1937). He later turned to directing more popular films, including several westerns (e.g., Western Union (1940) and anti-Nazi films. One of his successful later films was The Woman in the Window (1944). Lang's films are characterized by a pervasively dark and hostile atmosphere, fraught with sinister characters and a cynical view of the world. In many cases, the titles of the films themselves already herald the sense of foreboding. Such films include Harakiri (1919); Ministry of Fear (1944); The Big Heat (1953); Human Desire (1954); Moonfleet (1955); and While the City Sleeps (1956). Lang's book, Saint Cinema: Writings on Film 1929–1970, which he co-authored with Herman Weinberg, was published in 1980.   -BIBLIOGRAPHY: P.M. Jensen, The Cinema of Fritz Lang (1969), includes "filmography." ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Grant (ed.), Fritz Lang: Interviews (2003). (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)