Shoes

Personal Info

Known For

Directing

Gender

Male

Birthday

1890-12-05

Place of Birth

Vienna, Austria

Fritz Lang

Biography

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).

Known for

German Film Award

German Film Award

Contempt

Contempt

Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

Das Jahrhundert des Theaters

Das Jahrhundert des Theaters

"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.

Film Emigration from Nazi Germany

Film Emigration from Nazi Germany

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.

Les messages de Fritz Lang

Les messages de Fritz Lang

Paparazzi

Paparazzi

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.

Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

German TV Documentary for WDR about Fritz Lang

From Caligari to Hitler

From Caligari to Hitler

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.)

Sibyl

Sibyl

The director delves into the fragments of his own memory, blending images, words, and silences in a film essay that explores identity, memory, and the impossibility of coherent self-narration. A broken self-portrait, reconstructed from the image.

Encounter with Fritz Lang

Encounter with Fritz Lang

Interview with Fritz Lang on the roof of Villa Malaparte on Capri during the filming of the fictitious film "Odysseus" and the filming of "Contempt" by Jean-Luc Godard, in which Fritz Lang plays the role of an old film director. During the interview, excerpts from the Lang films "The Nibelungen", "The Tired Death" and "M" are shown.

The Film in the Film

The Film in the Film

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.

Bardot et Godard

Bardot et Godard

A documentary short following director Jean-Luc Godard on the set of Contempt.

Conversation with Fritz Lang

Conversation with Fritz Lang

American director William Friedkin interviewed Austrian director Fritz Lang on February 21st and 24th, 1975. Lang died August 2nd, 1976.

Hilde Warren and Death

Hilde Warren and Death

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.

Voyage to Metropolis

Voyage to Metropolis

A documentary about the making of the final version of "Metropolis" by restoring all material from different sources.