Fritz Lang Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Director , Screenwriter , Actor more
Birth name Friedich Christian Anton Lang
Nationalities German, American
Birth December 5, 1890 (Vienna – Austria)
Death August 2, 1976 (Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California – United States)
BIOGRAPHY
Fritz Lang was born into an upper-middle-class Viennese family. His father Anton Lang is a renowned architect. Studies in architecture and painting, and above all a long journey around the world, constituted his training until the war of 1914. At the beginning of the 1920s, he began his career as a director in silent cinema in Berlin. He then worked with producer Erich Pommer and met his first wife Thea von Harbou, who participated in the writing of all his German films until his departure from Berlin in 1933. His first notable film, Le Métis (1919) , unfortunately lost, already depicts his favorite themes: the femme fatale and destructive love.

Between 1920 and 1933, the films followed one after the other, constituting an important German filmography: Les Trois Lumieres , Le Docteur Mabuse (in two parts), M le Maudit (his first talking film), Les Nibelungen epic saga on the life of Siegfried, Metropolis ( 1926) expressionist drama about a futuristic society where man is enslaved represents a key film in his career, considered his major masterpiece. The Testament of Doctor Mabuse establishes an obvious parallel between the practices of Doctor Mabuse and his criminal network with Nazi actions. The censor intervenes and withdraws the film from the poster. Goebbels summons Lang and offers him to take charge of the new Nazi studio. Lang then decided to leave Germany for Paris, leaving behind his wife who joined the Nazi party shortly after.

He only stayed one year in Paris and made a single film, Liliom (1934), with Charles Boyer. After which he exiled himself to Hollywood, with a contract with producer D. Selznick for MGM. In 1935, he obtained American nationality and began a new career with Fury in 1936. His very varied filmography, mixing genres ranging from westerns ( The Pioneers of Western Union ) to film noir Settling of Scores ) through detective films ( The Unbelievable Truth ) and the costume adventure film ( Moonfleet Smugglers ). For Lang, cinema is a means of exploring the dark side of human nature. Throughout his work we find themes of cruelty, fear, horror and death.

In 1959, he returned to Germany, and directed his last three films ( The Bengal Tiger , The Hindu Tomb , and the last episode of Doctor Mabuse in 1960: The Diabolical Doctor Mabuse) inspired by the scenarios of the then deceased Thea Von Harbou. After which he returned to the United States. Subsequently, he made notable appearances in Le Mépris by Jean-Luc Godard, in 1963 where he played himself, in 75 years of Cinema Museum, by Roberto Guerra and Elia Herschon (1972) or The Exiles (1989) by Richard Kaplan (1989).

Unanimously recognized, he received numerous distinctions, particularly in France and the United States. He died in Beverly Hills on August 2, 1976.