Raymond Bellour - On Fritz Lang

8/18/2019 Raymond Bellour - On Fritz Lang

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On Fritz LangAuthor(s): Raymond BellourSource: SubStance, Vol. 3, No. 9, Film (Spring, 1974), pp. 25-34Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684509Accessed: 21-09-2015 14:49 UTC

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2/11

ON

FRITZ

LANG

Raymond

ellour

An

amazing

fate,

Fritz

Lang's,

and

fraught

with

paradox.

Like

Stroheim,

he was

one

of

the

foremost

directors,

yet

not an actor embellished

by

the

surprising

prestige

accorded

every

wretched

performance;

he was like

Sternberg, yet

without

a

woman

like Marlene at

his

side;

like

Murnau,

dying (forty

years

ago)

a death

wrapped

in

mystery;

in a

sense,

Fritz

Lang

was the

first

in

his

day,

solely

for

his

work

as

a

filmmaker,

to

have

become

cinematic

legend.

There is

Welles,

of

course,

again

an

actor,

whose

reputation (being

at

least

mythic)

rests

upon having provoked America. And there is Hitchcock. But the

myth

here is concealed

beneath

a

sociological

facility,

an

imag-

ery

which

hides

the essential

man. In a

sense

Lang

alone incar-

nates,

decisively yet

abstractly,

the

concept

of direction

or

mise-en-scene.

Nor

is his

life

foreign

to this idea:

his

op-

position

to

Goebbels,

his

flight

from

Germany

and his

disillu-

sioned return

after

twenty years

of

exile

in

America;

the

way

he

visibly poses,

from

the

filming

of

Siegfried,

as

scenarist

of

destiny

--

all

this

gives

Lang

a

quality

of violent

compac-

tion.

This

is

the

horizon which

protects

the

pure

and

rigorous

image

of cinema

par

excellence.

From Les trois Lumieres

in

1922,

each

of

Lang's

films

con-

firms his status

as a

great

artist

--

the

greatest,

with

Murnau,

of the German filmmakers. Twelve years later he is in Hollywood.

Enmeshed in the

gears

of the American

machine,

he

produces

twen-

ty-three

films:

a

little more than one

per year.

Even

though

he

often

turns down one

project

and

chooses

another,

he films

every

possible Hollywood subject:

psychological

and

social

drama,

detective

and adventure

stories,

war

films, Westerns;

he

does

everything

but

American

or

musical

comedy,

and he

touches

on that

in You

and

Me.

Lang

becomes a

Hollywood

director;

the

independent

author

of

Metropolis

reluctantly

shoots

a

remake of

La Bate

humaine.

He is a

great

director,

praised

for

his

excep-

tional

rigor

and keenness.

Nothing

more. The

grandeur

of

Hollywood amply

rewards

the

absence

of

critical distance.

SUB-STANCE

No

9,

1974

25


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3/11

26

Raymond

Bellour

But when

Lang

leaves America

in

1958,

his

reputation

has

al-

ready been forming in France. For Astruc, Rivette, Rohmer or

Douchet,

Lang

is no

longer just

like

other

filmmakers. Not

that

he

is the

greatest;

it's

quite

another matter:

Lang

embodies,

in a

sense,

the

very

possibility

of

cinema

--

what is

ambiguous-

ly

called direction

or

mise-en-scene.

In the

double set

of his

American

and German

works,

he

shows

a

particular

faithfulness,

rather

explicit,

and

more and more

strict.

The

paradox

of

Lang's

American

films,

set back to back as

they

are to their German

counterparts,

rests in this:

they

properly

show how

a

vision

of

things

takes

form;

what

one

might

call

ultimately,

if

vague-

ly,

a

vision of the world

which

Lang

showed

unequivocally

in

his

earliest

films. Thus

Lang acknowledges,

through

his own

singu-

lar method of comparison, a primacy of vision; it is not by

chance

from

Fury

on,

both in the

script

and the

picture,

Lang

implicitly

stages

the

vision

itself,

using

every

possible

tech-

nique,

especially

the

presence

of

the

inquisitor,

the

reporter,

and

the

photographer

--

the

man

who

sees

the

image

and

retains

its

appearance

in

the narrow

rectangle

of

his

movie

camera.

Every

filmmaker,

in

a

sense,

defines

the

essence

of

his

art;

but

is there a

single

one of

them for

whom,

as

for

Lang,

the

film

is the

ultimate

metaphor,

stark and

beyond

all

circuity?

When

a

Sternberg

film

opens

the

possibility

of

vision,

we

are

sent

back,

as soon as we look

for

a

reference

point,

to

Woman,

the

visible

subject

and

object;

with

Hitchcock,

we are sent be-

yond a moral system bound to appearances to a dizzying duplica-

tion

of a

symbolically

doubled

subject;

in

Eisenstein's

work,

to

a

theatrical and visual

potential

of

the

historical

dialec-

tic. But

what

can be

said

precisely

for

Lang:

vision

of vision?

This

has none of the ineffective

redoubling

which would

deplete

Lang's

art,

ensnaring

it in its own

myth;

on the

contrary,

the

horizon is

enlarged

at

every point,

corroborating

Lang's

reply

to the

question:

What is

the most

indispensable

quality

for

a

filmmaker?

He

must know

life.

By

this

we must

understand:

life

as a

place

where vision

is

experienced.

It remains to

dis-

cover what lies beneath

this

word,

vision ,

how

exactly Lang

endows it with

force;

and,

finally,

in what form it

shows or

shows through.This is what

explains

the

passion,

which some find

peculi-

ar,

of

certain

of

Lang's

admirers for his last three

films.

Made

in

Germany by

a man whom

the American

experience

made

mas-

ter

of

all the artifices

of fiction

(with

one theme

and

subjects

from

his

first

period),

Die

tausend

Augen

des Dr.

Mabuse,

Der

Tiger

von

Eschnapur,

and

Das

indische

Grabmal

offer

this

para-

dox:

they

are at

once

surprisingly disguised

and

misleadingly

frank.

Naive and

almost

puerile

on

the

surface,

they

are not

unlike the Hindu

doublet;

for beneath the

conventionality

and

gratuitousness

of the

serial,

the

last

Mabuse

reveals

a

particu-

larly urgent

gravity

of theme. These

extremely

theoretical

films

reject

the

reassuring

alibi of

Lang's

American

work while

transposing its basic facticity into a Germany where nothing

has

survived;

they

disavow the

certainty

of the

myths

which




4/11

On Fritz

Lang

27

subtend the German period and thus bring them to the level of

a

double

adventure,

individual and

collective,

of film and his-

torical conscience.

Lang's

destructive-reflective

irony

belies

utmost

integrity:

he makes

a

game

of

the

hackneyed

subjects

he is

offered,

as

if

through

a

derisory

faithfulness

to

himself,

but

in

his

third

Mabuse

he foils the ultimate

games

of vision

and

life,

precipitating

the

myth

into

a reflection which

guides

it

towards its ultimate

reality:

the

cinema

as

possible.

The

metaphor

for

this is evident

not

only

in the

symbolic

title

Die

tausend

Augen

( The

Thousand

Eyes ),

but in

the

dazzling

visual

multiplication

of

television

screens which Louxor

Mabuse,

rein-

carnated in

his

son,

places

in

the hotel

lounge

--

as

if to

im-

ply (it has often been noted) -- the director himself. As for

the two Indian films:

they

are

precarious, penetrated

by

blinding

moments;

they speak

only

of

a beautiful

and

just

stub-

bornness where

despair

blossoms;

where

the

mise-en-scene

and

even

its

idea

(as

Blanchot

said

of

writing)

seems,

in the

silence

which

encloses

it,

a dissociation

of its

components,

an

inabil-

ity

to lie which reaches the

tragic.

It

is therefore

not

surprising

that these

films

--

the last

of

perhaps

the

only

oeuvre

which covers

nearly

fifty

years

of

filmmaking

--

constitute

the

vital

matter

by

comparison

with the

myth.

For

in France

today,

where Fritz

Lang

is

becoming

legend

(far

from America which

was not

able

to

recognize

him,

and

his

native

Germany

which didn't

know how to rediscover

him),

those

who flock to the

CinemathBque

come more or less

consciously

to

admire

the

man

who

in

his

work saw

film

as

the ultimate

meta-

phor,

and

whom

Godard,

by

a

happy

decision,

has

precipitated

in

the double

game

of

Le

Mepris. Lang's

only trump

cards

are

the

statues colored

violently

with Greek

legend, just

as

in

Le

Tom-

beau hindou

his

trumps

are

the

gardens,

the

palaces,

and the

ac-

tors

placed

there like

huge

marionettes

around

whom

beauty

has

been

suddenly

born.

Despised by

the

producer

who

pays

him,

des-

pising

everything

which is not life or the

power

to tell

the

life

which

vision

masks,

Lang

--

alone,

disillusioned,

but

always

anxi-

ous

to retain truth within

and around

himself

--

does not

finish

shooting

The

Odyssey,

does not

finish

relating

the life which

is

already woven into the threads of his own fiction.

Lang plays,

then,

a

refined

and

skillful

game

with

his stor-

ies and with each element of his

material:

varied, assertive,

and

more

or less

disguised,

a

game

which it would be

fitting

to

formulate

visibly

through

his

forty

films. He

himself,

as one

might expect,

offers little

help.

In

the handsome

documentary

book

put

together

by

Alfred

Eibel1, Lang

contradicts

himself,

jokes,

limits his

discussion

to

questions

of ideas

and

story,

to

thematic,

political

and social

aspects

of

each of his

films,

or confines

himself,

with

seeming

irony,

to remarks

about

tech-

nique.

But the

testimony

of his

many

collaborators invites

us

to

ask,

if

indirectly,

the

question

of form

about

which

Lang

al-

ways claims ignorance. For all of them -- actors, scriptwriters,

cameramen,

set

designers

--

describe an

extraordinarily

attentive

man,

concerned with the smallest

gesture,

demanding

from each




5/11

28

Raymond

Bellour

frame of film a rigorous life which quite often defies the illu-

sory

banality

of

his

tale.

From

his book

(sparsely

written in im-

passioned episodes

which trace

Lang's steps

--

illuminating

him

and

making

him

more

accessible),

the

certainty

is born that

the

more

Lang

insists on the

apparent

meaning

of

his

films,

the

more

the

enigma

of

that

meaning

must be determined

through

a

systema-

tic

exploration

of

the form

through

which

multiple

correspondences

are

presented

and which alone

illuminates

the

irreducible

feeling

of

totality.

It is

surprising,

then,

that no

text has

yet

thrown

full

light2

on an author

so

intimately

bound to the essence

of

his

art

--

as

Claude

Ollier

has

done,

for

example,

in his

very

beautiful study (if only on a single film) of Josef von Stern-

berg3;

and,

considering

the

infinite

diversity

and

rigor

of

Lang's

films,

that

no one

has

sought

to

define

the

paradoxes

and

the

strange,

broken

unity

which

show

through

both

the entire

doc-

umentary

book devoted to

him

and

his

recent confession

which he

entitles

La nuit viennoise 4

in

memory

of his

birthplace;

a

statement so admirable

in

tone,

in

details,

ambiguities

and chal-

lenge.

I

intend here

only

to

bring

together

haphazardly

some

of

the

very

numerous elements

which,

when

described,

analyzed

in

detail,

and

arranged

according

to

the series of connections

which

they

demarcate,

would be

the

basis

for

a

systematic approach

to

the Langian universe. Notes, of a sort, for a cinemanalaysis .

1.

The

position

of

an author is defined

by

the relation-

ship

which

he maintains with

his characters. In the

film,

one

form

of

this

relationship

rests

on the

systems

of

vision which

the

pictures

reveal:

how the author

fragmentarily5

indicates

and

encloses the

viewpoint

of

his

characters within the

contin-

uity

of

his

own

viewpoint

constitutes the

viewpoint

of the film.

Minnelli,

for

example, generally

remains external to

what he

shows; Hitchcock,

inversely,

makes

the

clearly

defined

vision

of

his characters

a

part

of the

system

of his

own

vision.

In this

regard Lang

himself

shows

a

weighty

and decisive

ambiguity.

There

is one

strictly

univocal

manner of

framing

a charac-

ter's

vision: to enclose the

shot of the seen

object

between

two identical shots of the

seeing

subject.

Lang

seldom does

more

than indicate

the

possibility

of such

certitude,

and

then

only

to

challenge

it

immediately

and

to

plunge

it

into

an

equi-

vocality.

This occurs

with the three

looks

of

the assassin

in

While

the

City Sleeps.

--

At

the

time

of the first

murder,

he is framed

from the

waist

up,

in front of

the door:

one

feels that the

assassin

is

watching

something

in

particul'ar,

but cannot

say

what;

a

very

brief

close-up

of the door

latch

follows,

but the shot

which

comes

next is itself

divergent

in

terms of the

assassin's

gaze.

--

The assassin

enters

the studio of

Doroth6e

Kyne:

he

sees

her

in

a

mirror

smoothing

her

stocking

with

a

long

and

very gentle movement; the close-up which follows, showing the

assassin

in the middle

of the

room,

says

nothing

about

his

sup-

posed point

of view.




6/11

On Fritz

Lang

29

-- Later he leaves the house and moves towards a low win-

dow

which looks

into

the

bar;

he bends

down,

one

sees a

long

shot

of

the

barroom;

we are assured the

camera is outside the

room

by

the

deformation

of the

glass;

everything clearly

indi-

cates

that

the shot reflects

the

assassin's exact

view,

but

nothing

proves

it;

for

instead of

reframing

the

assassin,

Lang

passes

to

something

else.

In a

different manner

(using

three methods

of non-disclos-

ure)

Lang

allows

ambiguity

to hover

over

the

relationship

which

unites character and

director

in the vision.

An attitude

which

one

finds

again

and

again

in almost all

his

films,

and

which is

completely

manifest,

for

example,

in the

twice-repeated

leper

sequence of Le Tigre du Bengale and Le Tombeau hindou. And

which

Lang

deliberately plays

upon

in The

Blue

Gardenia,

where

Norah's

waking

gives

way

to deformations

in

the substance

of

the

frame,

again leaving

us faced

with two

possibilities:

either

Lang

is

showing

that

only

an

artifice can

precisely

situate

a

viewpoint

--

that vision

of

the

real

alone

cannot;

or

he is de-

liberately moving

to

a

symbolic

level,

making

an

assertion

of

this trick shot

which,

far

from

identifying

the author

with the

characters

even

for a

moment,

distances him

from

them even

more.

2. The author defines himself

by

his

point

of

view towards

the

objects

he unveils. This

point

of

view is

manifest

in the

first

place

by

the distance

at

which the camera is held.

The

distance of the camera from its objects varies; this variation

constitutes

a

first

level of

cinematographic

reality

(or

unreal-

ity)

and of all

analysis.

With

Lang

it seems

to be

either vivid

or

disguised

in

manner,

keeping

constant

(by

his

multiple

detours)

the

fascination

and

the

difficulty

one

experiences

in

watching

his

films.

From

a

thousand

possible

examples,

here is

an almost the-

oretical

one

from The

Blue Gardenia:

Lang

devotes three shots

to

evoke

his

three heroines in bed

in

their shared

apartment:

--

The camera

frames

a

comic-book

in

close-up,

then

draws

back,

revealing

Rose

sprawled

on

her

bed,

seen

in

the

light

from

the

night lamp

which she has

not

put

out.

-- With a wide still-shot, the camera frames Crystal who is

murmuring

her

lover's name in her

sleep.

--

The camera frames in

long-shot

the corner of the room

where

Norah's

bed is

placed,

and

advances with

a

travelling-shot

until she

is

isolated;

thus

only

Norah

is shown

closely

(for

she

is the main

character);

she

is

listening

to the

radio

beneath

her

sheets.

The

distance,

the

impression

of

distance,

also

depends

es-

sentially

upon

the

interplay

of forms

within the

picture.

Hence,

(a

constant with

Lang),

the

deepening

of the vision

through

an

unforseen

opening.

In Mrs.

Robby's

office in

the

shadowy

house

of

Le Secret

derriere la

Porte,

an

engraving

with

sharply

de-

fined and

fleeting

lines catches

one's

eyes,

as

if

multiplyingthe view. Similarly, in Le Testament du docteur Mabuse, when

Kent and

his friend Lilli sit down

in a

caf6

to

confide their

confusion

to each

other,

the camera frames in the

upper part

of




7/11

30

Raymond

Bellour

the shot a window which looks out on a long, white, almost unreal

avenue whose

dizzying

depths

are

made more

vividly

manifest when

a

passer-by

(only

his head

is

visible)

appears

and

crosses

the

frame.

I

shall note another such

shot

in

La

Mort

de

Siegfried,

drowned almost

totally

in

white;

young

newlyweds

are

conversing

charmingly

near

a

bench which

is

placed

against

a

background

of

foliage;

but above

the

trees,

five wide arches

caught

in

shadow

appear

to

tear

the

frame;

this

contrast

leaves a

feeling

of dis-

tance which unbalances

the vision

and

secretly

announces

the

fatal

outcome

of

the

plot.

Let

us

also note

the

interplay

of distance

which

hinges

not

on

the

distribution

of fixed masses

but

on movements within

the

frame. Thus, almost thematized -- so often do they lend support

to

the

story

--

are

the

opening

and

closing

doors.

They

constant-

ly

vary

spatial

relationships

as

they

reveal

more

or

less hidden

depths

--

according

to

the

light

and

the terrain. Such are the

doors which

one

encounters

in each of

Lang's

films,

most

parti-

cularly

in the

Chinese

quarter

in

Les

Araignees,

the

cemetery

in

Les

Trois

Lumieres,

in

Le

Tigre

du

Bengale

and

Le

Tombeau hindou--

everywhere,

with

a

violence

that

multiplies

when

Henri

Mercier,

going

down the

corridors as

the

doors

are

closing

ends

up

in the

tigers'

pit.

Similarly,

the

queen's

cloaks

in

La

Vengeance

de

Krimhilde

(cloaks

with wide

skirts)

billow and

fall

endlessly,

sometimes

radically modifying the distribution of forms in the shot: Krim-hilde

(addressing

the horde of Huns from the

top

of a

staircase)

with

her

cloak

--

black

and dull

on

the

inside,

brilliant

and

adorned

on

the

other

--

subjects

the

frame

to

a

strange

play

of

shadows and surfaces as

she raises

or

lowers her arms

against

her

body.

A

configuration

which

Lang

will

remember,

and

which

will

occur

again

(though

less

theatrically

and

more

closely

bound to

the narrative

adventure

of

the

picture)

in

Die

Spione,

where

the

beautiful

Sojia

unfurls

her immense black

and

silver

lam6

cape

around

Haighi

in

the

same

game

of

oppositions.

3. There

are

innumerable

formal and

thematic

references,

configurations

which come

into

play

from film to film and

organ-

ize

the

enigmatic

web

of

Langian

knotwork. Hence the

sign,

the

token, around which the narration is organized, the significant

object

Lang always

indicates

with

a

close-up

which

is

the first

easily

located

link

between the

chain of

shots

and the

thematic

chain. From the

seal affixed to

the fateful act in

Les

Trois

Lumibres

to

the

grease pencil

mark on Mercier's shirt

in

Le

Tombeau

hindou,

there is

a

lengthy inventory

of

maps, plans,

letters,

photographs

--

multiple

references which stake out

Lang's

forty

films. These establish

a

definable

series

through-

out the

script;

what

might

be called

a

series of

events

of the

script

which are

manifested in one or

several formal

series in

the

picture:

the

close-up

is

followed

almost

invariably

in

this situation

(for

example,

in the

talking

films and

especially

the American ones) by a movement of back-travelling starting

with

the

brusquely

introduced

object.

This

short,

precise

move-

ment,

which

reveals

the

object

in its

surroundings,

breaks

and




8/11

On Fritz

Lang

31

demarcates the sudden fascination of the close-up.

I shall

cite

only

three

examples

of

this,

all taken from

the

same

film,

Scarlet

Street.

The

sequence

begins

with

a

close-up

of a

flower;

the

movement

reveals

Christopher

lovingly

painting

the flower offered

by

Kitty.

Later,

a letter rests

on

a

table

among

other

objects:

the

movement

which reveals

Kitty's

studio for

the first time

accurately

defines

the

relationship

between the

young

woman

and

Christopher

--

one

immediately

under-

stands

it

is a

letter

from him. The

travelling

shot

which

brings

to

light

Johnny's

hat,

hidden

in

Kitty's

new

apartment,

states

with ironic

insistence

and without the aid

of

a

single

word,

the

respective

situations

of

the three characters

in this

harsh and cruel remake of Jean Renoir's La Chienne.

4. The

generally

intensified

partialization

of

space

which

disrupts

the

viewpoint

in order to lead it to its

more

rightful

place

which carries

to

an

extreme,

in

cinematographic

space,

a

dialectic

of

subject

and

object

finding

its

origin

in

the German

cultural tradition and its achievement

in

the fundamental

mater-

ialism of

industrial civilization.

If

the

object possesses

a

particular importance

in the

unfolding

of

the

action,

it seems

to

recapture

in the

intensity

of the film

something

of the

sym-

bolic life of

the

bewitched

objects

of

Hoffmann or

Arnim. The

subject

is often

a

vagrant

body, only

one

object

among

other

ob-

jects.

One finds a

particularly

striking

inversion

of this order

in

the

flight sequence

of

La Femme

sur la Lune,

between the

rocket

(which

seems to be the

only

actor)

and its

interpreters

(its

ac-

cessories)

and,

in

Human

Desire between Jeff Warren

and the loco-

motive,

when he

drives

it down

the

track

into the

depot.

This

subject-object

game,

when

divided,

provokes

the

eye,

making

an incredible

fissure

in

Fritz

Lang's

films

which is bal-

anced

with a

type

of

shot

that is

particularly frequent

and

mean-

ingful,

multiplying

the dialectic

of

continuity/discontinuity

proper

to

the

system

of the

Langian

vision: the

fragmented

body

of the

subject

and

object,

united

as

two

mechanisms

in

a

single

frame,

offers

a

perfect

example

of

partialization

of

space.

Thus,

in

Man

Hunt,

the hero's

hand

which

hesitates

again

and

again

on

the

trigger

of

the

rifle,

is

shot

in

extreme

close-up.

And

in

Les Espions are shown two forearms and the heavy, round handle

of

a

chest which

the

hands

want to

turn;

the muted

light

of the

black

leather

raincoat

answers the clearer

steel

one,

and

both

of

these

reply

to the whiteness

of

the

hands: from

the

beginning

of this

film

(this

is

the

first

shot)

Lang places

it beneath

the

sign

of

the

enigmatic

division of

space.

5.

Lang,

like

every

filmmaker

(but

more

precisely

and more

insidiously

than

others)

bases

the

possibility

of

his narrative

on

the

richness and

the

perversity

of

oppositions

in the

series

of

identical

configurations.

From film to film

one

can follow

the marks

of

a

perpetual

game

of similar

questions

and

different

replies;

one

can

evoke

their rigorous nature extracting the types of opposition which

are

simultaneously arranged

in the

picture,

the

sound,

the inter-

pretation

and the

narrative,

sufficient material

for an

unpre-




9/11

32

Raymond Bellour

cedented inventory whose very limits and meaning are difficult to

define.

But

this

game

is

the

logical

outcome of the

writing

and

the vision.

Here

are two

examples briefly

summarized

from

a

sing-

le

story,

While the

City

Sleeps.

--

Walter

Kyne,

Jr.,

and Edward

Mobley

are

conversing

in the

manager's

office. In a fixed

long

shot,

appearing

from left to

right,

are:

Kyne,

Jr.,

standing,

dressed

in

black;

higher,

a-

gainst

the

wall,

the

portrait

of his

father,

Walter

Kyne,

also

dressed in

black;

then,

through

the

window,

the

city,

with its

sharp

and

regular

gray

masses;

finally,

Mobley,

seated,

dressed

in

gray.

Each

of

the four

principal

elements

of

the shot is

placed

at a

different

distance

from

the

camera;

the colors

are

distributed two by two. Some moments later, after brief detail

shots of the

various

protagonists,

Lang

returns to the

same

long

shot,

from

a

slightly

different

angle.

But

the elements

have

changed.

From

left

to

right: Kyne,

Jr.,

Mobley,

the

portrait,

the

city.

The distances

have

changed.

Mobley gets

up;

the cam-

era follows his movement.

A

triple

opposition

is

at

work in two

shots

which are

formally

identical:

an

opposition

between

the

distribution

of

the

actors,between

tonality

and distance

(each

element sustains the two

others)

setting

up

the third

opposition

(immobility/movement),

effecting

the

forward movement

of the nar-

rative.

--

The bar where

the New

York

Sentinel

journalists

gather.

Again, a fixed long shot. We see Mobley sitting at the counterand the bartender

standing;

in the back of the room is a

barely

perceptible

staircase,

going

up

to

the left. We

wait;

Lang

pro-

longs

the silent

irritation

of the

shot,

until Mildred

appears

on

the

staircase,

with the intention

of

making

advances

to

Mobley.

Why

does

he hold such

a

simple

shot

for so

long?

Because

Lang,

some

sequences

earlier,

had

already

filmed

exactly

the

same

space,

in the same

manner;

because

he

had

already

lingered

there

in an almost casual

way,

and because

no

one

had then

appeared

at

the bottom

of

the stairs.

6.

Lang

thus

keeps

the

point

of

view

in

perpetual

hesita-

tion;

for

the

event,

whether

it

is foreshadowed

or has

already

occurred,

always

seems

linked

to

something

else whose

force

is

arresting even though one does not know how to delimit it but

which could

not

be

sustained

alone.

The

film

plays

subtly

on

an incessant

disequilibrium by

means

of this

dyssymetrical

ex-

pectancy.

This

flagrant

and

deliberately

abstract

waiting

in

a

shot

(a

visual

and

narrative

sign)

marks

all

of

Lang's

work.

Its

principle

is

simple.

It is

a matter

of

a

fixed

long

shot

with

three terms:

two

actions

which

separate

a dead time.

A

character

goes

out

of the

shooting angle;

the

camera remains

fac-

ing

the

set;

a

second

character

enters the

shooting angle

by

an-

other

entrance

(this

could be --

though

it

rarely

is -- the

same

character

who

returns,

and

by

the

same

entrance).

The

set,

at

this

moment,

is

always particularly

beautiful and

heavy

with

meaning and possibilities: the commissary office in the first

Mabuse,

the

corridor outside

the

doctor's office

in

the

second,

the staircase

landing

leading

to the

apartments

of the

two

young




10/11

On Fritz

Lang

33

women in While the City Sleeps, caverns beneath the castle in

Le

Tigre

du

Bengale

and

Le

Tombeau hindou.

The characters

are

bound

by

the

imminent

event:

this shot

almost

always

intervenes

in

the moments

of

greatest

dramatic

intensity.

Thus

in his

own

way Lang

breaks the ideal

hurried flow

of the

action,

wounding

his

story

and

distorting

time

apparently

for

the

benefit of a

visual

purity;

thereby

imparting

a

strangeness

to the action

(as

if

spreading

it

out)

and

likewise

to

the

vision which becomes

suddenly

too

heavy

and insistent. Then

he

recaptures

or almost

recaptures

what he

is

doing

for

a

single

vision,

in a

much brief-

er

and

tighter

shot,

when he

assembles

the

elements

in

such

a

way

that the

viewpoint

always

seems

badly

placed

--

either

too

close or too far away. Thus in La Mort de Siegfried: three

warriors

occupy

the

near

totality

of the screen's

surface;

they

are so

close that one

cannot see them

in their

entirety;

between

them

are some blank

spaces

and

a

bare

wall in the

background.

The

frame is

perfectly

flat;

one

would believe

the

soldiers

cut

out of

cardboard. When Krimhilde

passes

behind

them,

followed

by

her

women,

the

perspective

is

brutally

reborn

--

so

vividly

that one feels it

too

deeply,

and

it seems to be

another

illu-

sion.

7. For

Lang

plays

the most

perverse

of

games.

It

is

by

means of the

fissures

--

by

means of

the

gaps

which

he

sets

up

--

that he can

be understood. That

is

what

must be

deciphered,

and

at each of its levels. Thus Lang, more than anyone else, workswith counter-shots. Here

begins

the

quest

which reveals that at

the

other

extremity

of his

films, Lang

also

manifests this coun-

ter

game

--

this time of

the

counter-script.

As

he

strains the

shot

and

unbalances

it,

he loses

sight

of

his

narrative,

obscur-

ing

his

characters. And thus he works

(as

Luc

Moullet

has clear-

ly seen)

in

counter-genre;

even in

America,

he

simultaneously

es-

pouses

and

insidiously transgresses

the laws

of

the most

tradi-

tional art.

He

incorporates

the

principle

and

destroys

it. In-

deed,

what are

Frau

im

Mond,

Rancho

Notorious,

Moonfleet,

Beyond

a

Reasonable

Doubt,

Der

Tiger

von

Eschnapur

and

Das indische

Grab-

mal

to

the science-fiction

film,

the

Western,

the

adventure

film,

the

police story

and the exotic

film,

if

not

enterprises

of

vio-

lent perversion?

It

remains for us

to

understand

why Lang persists

in this

disjunction.

Persists

in

often

leaving

in

his films the mark of

a

subtle defeat which is revealed

by

the

impossibility

of

a

closed

system, actually

closed

upon

itself.

Lang's

films

are

so

dense that

they

seem

to have

cracked,

as

if

the

author

always

wanted

to

leave

a

tenuous

reality

visible and

evident,

and

to

show the

illusory

nature of the idea of a

harmony

through

an

entire

autonomy

of

representation.

From

shot to

shot,

from

one

end of

the film to

the

other,

a

writing

unfolds that is

strictly

defined, divided,

always

anxious to

maintain,

in each

constituent

operation,

the effort which

constitutes that

operation;

to mark

the permanent turning of creation upon itself with the density

of

its

material;

and to do this with all

the more

rigor,

as cin-

ema

conquers,

with

its

technical

mastery,

new

possibilities

of




11/11

34

Rayond

Bellour

expression. The camera possesses that magical ability which makes

it so

difficult for

us

to

follow

it:

to

be

an actor

full of

im-

portance,

mobile,

alive,

on

the

surface

of

life

to

which

it

al-

ways

weds

itself in order

to

capture

life.

Thus,

with

Lang,

in

a

sense,

the

film

always

seems

to

be in

the

process

of

creating

it-

self. One

feels

effort,

the

temptation

of the

possible,

the

dis-

tance

between

desire

and its

object,

something

like

the

typical

experience

of

a

book assured

of

its

strength,

but

always

a

little

defeated

and wearied

as

well. Hence the

fascination

and the

im-

pression

of

distancing

which his

films

--

so

beautiful

--

always

leave.

And the

feeling

that,

for

Lang,

the

mise-en-sc~ne

alone,

attains the

mythic.

from

e

Livre des

autres,

(L'herne,

1971)

with

permission

1.

Presence

du

Cinema,

1964.

2.

Let

us

mention, however,

the

all-too-brief

study

of

Lotte

Eisner

( Notes

sur

le

style

de

Fritz

Lang,

Revue

du

Cinema,

No.

5,

fevrier, 1947)

and the

pages

of

L'Ecran

demoniaque

by

the same

author

which

are

only,

let

us

hope,

the

preface

to

future more

general

study.

Two

other texts as well:

by

Gerard

Legrand

( Notes

pour

un

61oge

de Fritz

Lang,

Positif,

Nos.

50-51-52,

mars,

1963),

and

by

Michel

Mourlet

( Trajec-

toire

de

Fritz

Lang,

in

Sur

un

art

ignore,

La Table Ronde

1965).

And

above

all some

remarkable

criticism

by

Jacques

Rivette on

Invraisemblable

Verite

( La main,

Cahiers du

Cinema, No. 76, novembre, 1957), by Jean-Luc Godard on

Le

Retour

de Frank

James

(fiche Ufoleis, 1955),

and

by

Jean

Douchet on

Le

diabolique

Docteur

Mabuse

( L'6trange

obses-

sion,

Cahiers du

Cinema,

No.

122,

aoft

1961).

3.

Claude

Ollier,

Une aventure

de

la

lumihre,

Cahiers

du

Cinema,

No.

168,

juillet

1965.

4.

Cahiers

du

Cinema,

No.

169,

aout

1965.

5. With the

exception,

of

course,

of

Robert

Montgomery's

La

Dame du

Lac

(1947),

where the

camera

absolutely espouses

the

viewpoint

of the main

character.

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