User Reviews

This is a very mediocre film about an endlessly fascinating man. The various film clips shown here are not identified so no one unfamiliar with Lang's work could even guess what they are from. The film is frankly a complete mess. The talking head interview with Claude Chabrol is extremely interesting, if badly shot. I had no idea Chabrol was so keen on Lang. Nor did I realize the full extent to which Lang was a cinematic hero to the French. So one does learn things from this film. The Germans interviewed in the film seem rather dour. Everything is shot badly, edited badly, Lang would have been so embarrassed. Volker Schloendorff says some interesting things. But all these people are so far from the camera. Really, how can anybody be so enthusiastic about a master of the cinema and then make a documentary about him which shows no cinematic skills whatever? Nevertheless, for those of us who really care about Fritz Lang and his work, it is useful, and we should be grateful that these people made the effort.

I must admit that I found this obscure French documentary especially interesting. Fritz Lang is my favorite director but that belief is based almost exclusively on his English language films since I have only seen a handful of the German silents discussed here.

The opinions on these films and Lang himself are presented by a number of personalities ranging from early noir pioneer Curt Siodmak to the French auteur Claude Chabrol. The documentary opens with a grabber: the first shots (and sounds) from Lang's last film made in Germany until after the war, "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" All of the scenes from the earlier films seemed to be sourced from great prints and just enough is shown from each to want to make a fan seek them out.

While the prospects of a French documentary about a German silent director will not appear to be exciting to the average viewer this is a must see for those that enjoy the genre.

I noticed that the captioning on this DVD is very spotty. Some of it is captioned (everything in French and German), some isn't--and sometimes it's frustrating since some of the film really needed captioning (such as when Curt Siodmak spoke English with his heavy German accent). Too bad.

As for the film, I really appreciated the other reviews, as they really hit it on the head. The film is about a very, very fascinating man in the history of film but it's done in such a lackluster manner that the viewer will no doubt feel frustrated. Too often the film clips are not identified nor is their significance discussed--and the film would be complete confusion for anyone not strongly familiar with the director's work. Fortunatel, at least, the clips are of good quality--even though they are all quite old.

The film begins as a biography but really loses track here--and skips some very important aspects of his career (as well as discussing too little of his personal life). For the most part, the film consists of other directors discussing what they like about Lang's German language films as well as which films influenced them. There are also a few archival videos of Lang himself talking about a few of his films. All of this is interesting to fans of Lang's work--but frustrating for someone wishing to learn more about Lang. It worked for me--mostly because I've seen most of his films--but how many people are in this category?

One thing I did find fascinating about the film, however, is that the consensus of the interviewees that Lang himself was not the most reliable source. In other words, he tended to embellish or change his own history as the years passed. Likewise, he was described by some as dictatorial and unfeeling. And, a few wondered out loud what part he had in his first wife's death! Wow...juicy stuff, huh? So is it worth seeing? Yes...as even a second-rate Lang retrospective is worth seeing since he was such a great director. However, perhaps there's something longer, more expertly compiled and more complete you could see instead.

This film is one of the best 54-minute biographies of Fritz Lang. It pulls no punches and covers the positives and negatives of his movie career.

The format is a sound bite. One point or part of his life will be discussed by five people. Then the next part of his life will be discussed by the same five people. It would have been more coherent if one person at a time covered his life.

Even though it is not evident from the packaging this film has English captions that you will want to activate. One third is in English one third in German and one third in French. As they cover the different films in each era they also speak that language.

My favorite part is when they tell of Fritz embellishing the story of his meeting with Goebbels in 1933 and why he left Nazi Germany.

The film is also filled with snippets of his various films.

To get more in-depth you should read "Fritz Lang" by Lotte H. Eisner.