Fritz Lang's birthday
On December 5, 1890, in Vienna, in a family of immigrants from Moravia, Anton Lang and his wife Paula (nee Schlesinger), a second son was born, named Friedrich Christian Anton, who later became famous under the name Fritz Lang. The father of the future film director, Anton Lang, a staunch Catholic, worked as an architect and manager of a construction company. Fritz's mother, who was born into a Jewish family, converted to Catholicism before the children were born. Despite the fact that Fritz Lang grew up in a Catholic family, all his adult life he adhered to atheistic beliefs, although he did not deny the important role of religious education in instilling ethical principles in young people.
After graduating from high school, 18-year-old Fritz Lang began searching for a vocation. First, he entered the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Vienna. But, without studying for a year, he dropped out of university and began studying painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. But he did not stay here for long either: in 1910 he moved to Munich, where he continued studying painting. In 1911, he gave up everything and went to travel all over the world: Europe, Africa, the Pacific Ocean... Eventually, in 1913, he settled in Paris, where he continued painting.
It is difficult to say how long the search for the young Lang would have lasted, but in 1914 the First World War broke out. Fritz Lang returned to Austria and volunteered for the army. He took part in military operations on the territory of the Russian Empire and Romania, was wounded four times, lost his right eye. Spending time in hospitals, he began to try his hand at writing scripts. In 1918, he was demobilized with the rank of lieutenant.
In August 1918, 27-year-old Fritz Lang, who did not have any profession, tried his hand as an actor on the stage of the Vienna Theater. He did not achieve much success, but fate brought him together with Erich Pommer himself, the head of the then famous German film company Decla Film. Pommer took Lang to his film company as a screenwriter. Having settled professionally, Fritz Lang in 1919 married Lisa Rosenthal, who died two years later under extremely mysterious circumstances. The cause of death was a gunshot wound inflicted from a weapon used during the recently ended war.
Fritz Lang did not limit himself to the functions of a screenwriter, and already on April 3, 1919, Erich Pommer's Decla Film company released the film "Halbblut (The Halfbreed)", written and directed by Fritz Lang, on the screens of Berlin cinemas. This film was the first in Lang's creative biography as a director. In total, Fritz Lang shot 42 films on his own (including 15 silent ones, of which 2 films are lost) and two films in collaboration with Archie Mayo.
In 1933, after Hitler came to power in Germany, Fritz Lang, whose mother was Jewish, was forced to flee the country. First to France, and then to the USA. Fritz Lang has made 23 films in Hollywood, mostly in the noir and thriller genres. By the mid-50s of the last century, Lang became disillusioned with Hollywood and tried to continue his directorial activity in Europe. However, 3 films shot in the late 50s in Europe did not have much success, and in 1960 Lang stopped his cinematic activities.
Fritz Lang died in 1976 from a stroke. Three Fritz Lang films were included in the Golden Thousand. Moreover, the film "M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder" according to FilmGourmand is recognized as the best film of world cinema in 1931, and the film "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" is the best film of 1933. The film "Fury" barely topped the list of the best films of 1936, second only to the film "My Man Godfrey" by Gregory La Cava. Thanks to these indicators, Fritz Lang is included in the list of the 100 greatest directors of world cinema compiled by FilmGourmand.
In honor of the 131st anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Master, I want to remind fans of his work of the frames from his best films included in the Golden Thousand.
