Fritz Lang

[domino harvey]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

Yes - because at the time there was an epidemic of black men being lynched. The filmmaker himself was moved to make the film based on a specific lynching of a black man but he was not allowed to cast a black man in the role of innocent victim.

The film is odd because we are forced to see Henry Fonda in a part that should have gone to lets say Paul Robeson.

This is a far cry from other films “M” & “Ox”

You mean Spencer Tracy, unless Lang said it starred Fonda in an interview

[bottlesofsmoke]

I believe that the real life story that Fury was inspired by the lynching of two white men (Try and Get Me / The Sound of Fury is based on the same event) and that like most Hollywood movies at the time the story/treatment was written well before Lang, the director, got involved.

As to later claims by Lang that he wanted a black man as the main character, here is what his biographer Patrick McGilligan says about that:

The director’s most substantial claim to political sensitivity - that at some nascent stage he tried to turn Fury into a film about a black man accused of raping a white woman - is especially absurd, given both the historical record and the social environment. It was always Spencer Tracy, never a black actor; nor could it have been a black leading man at MGM or any other major Hollywood studio in 1935, when the film studios were still deeply beholden to the theater owners and segregationist exhibitors in the Deep South.

[senseabove]

Yeah, it should also be acknowledged that Lang was a notorious rewriter of his own history, and just about everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.

And I assumed schellenberg meant Dana Andrews—since they say they haven't seen Ox-Bow, I'm guessing they took Fonda to be playing the character under threat, rather than Andrews.

[schellenbergk]

Except that as the examples provided have shown, there were other films depicting white men under threat of mob justice, including one by the very same director, which you apparently think are disqualified from comparison due to entirely extratextual reasons?

Is there an earlier sympathetic depiction in the Code era of a black man threatened with lynching than 1949's Intruder in the Dust?

Once you see the racial theme in Fury, it’s hard to unsee it. I suppose you can consider it just another lynching film, but to me that misses everything interesting in Fury.

To a lesser extent, that’s also true of M. If your reading of the film is that it’s about a mob, well that’s certainly a valid reading but it’s a reading that overlooks everything that makes M great. IMO.

The question about intruder is interesting: I can’t think if any earlier examples. Maybe - this is a stretch - “Birth of a Nation”? When the Klan lynches the rapist? Of course that’s not sympathetic AT ALL.

[schellenbergk]

Yeah, it should also be acknowledged that Lang was a notorious rewriter of his own history, and just about everything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.

And I assumed schellenberg meant Dana Andrews—since they say they haven't seen Ox-Bow, I'm guessing they took Fonda to be playing the character under threat, rather than Andrews.

I said Henry Fonda - meant Spencer Tracy. Fury.

You’re correct that Lang isn’t always reliable, but FWIW I assumed Fury was about a black lynching when I first saw it; years before I read the interviews…

[Maltic]

Is it even a "criminals only" mob in M? For instance, there's the woman who talks about losing a child, arguing Lorre should be killed and so on.

[schellenbergk]

Is it even a "criminals only" mob in M? For instance, there's the woman who talks about losing a child, arguing Lorre should be killed and so on.

If I remember the trial was criminals-only. But it has been a few years.

[Orlac]

I saw the Moroder version when I was 10, and well, I've been a Bonnie Tyler fan ever since.

Just as well, as the only alternative on UK VHS in the 90s was Eureka's terrible "139min director's cut" - in other words a heavily cut print played in super-slow-motion with a soundtrack seemingly comprised of elevator music.

That 139-minute Metropolis was my first ever experience of silent film, and it was indeed a nightmare – I still remember the exact running time because I was counting every one of those minutes. I’m pretty sure the music and the slow frame-rate had me screaming out loud by the end.

I'm quite fortunate - my first silent was the Carl Davis scored Phantom of the Opera.

[Mr Sausage]

To a lesser extent, that’s also true of M. If your reading of the film is that it’s about a mob, well that’s certainly a valid reading but it’s a reading that overlooks everything that makes M great. IMO.

That’s no one’s reading of M! It’s a literal, indisputable plot point.

Your posts here are nothing more than ad hoc rationalizations meant to help you avoid admitting that this so-called surprising thing is in fact so unsurprising that the same director had even done it before—that Hollywood had done it before! Just stop already.

[schellenbergk]

To a lesser extent, that’s also true of M. If your reading of the film is that it’s about a mob, well that’s certainly a valid reading but it’s a reading that overlooks everything that makes M great. IMO.

That’s no one’s reading of M! It’s a literal, indisputable plot point.

Your posts here are nothing more than ad hoc rationalizations meant to help you avoid admitting that this so-called surprising thing is in fact so unsurprising that the same director had even done it before—that Hollywood had done it before! Just stop already.

Hmm - well that’s not what I see on the screen. The kangaroo court the criminals hold is VERY different. It mocks civil society by imposing “order” on their “trial” of the child molester.

Metropolis has a mob scene too FWIW. The unrestrained mob attacking Maria is closer in spirit to Fury than M is. In my opinion.

I note your ad hominem. Please be civil, or ignore my posts. You have obviously misunderstood them. I never referred to the mob in Fury as surprising.

[schellenbergk]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

Yes - because at the time there was an epidemic of black men being lynched. The filmmaker himself was moved to make the film based on a specific lynching of a black man but he was not allowed to cast a black man in the role of innocent victim.

The film is odd because we are forced to see Henry Fonda in a part that should have gone to lets say Paul Robeson.

This is a far cry from other films “M” & “Ox”

You mean Spencer Tracy, unless Lang said it starred Fonda in an interview

Correct. My bad. As noted above in 105.

But can we take a minute to imagine how great Robeson would have been in that part?

[Mr Sausage]

To a lesser extent, that’s also true of M. If your reading of the film is that it’s about a mob, well that’s certainly a valid reading but it’s a reading that overlooks everything that makes M great. IMO.

That’s no one’s reading of M! It’s a literal, indisputable plot point.

Your posts here are nothing more than ad hoc rationalizations meant to help you avoid admitting that this so-called surprising thing is in fact so unsurprising that the same director had even done it before—that Hollywood had done it before! Just stop already.

Hmm - well that’s not what I see on the screen. The kangaroo court the criminals hold is VERY different. It mocks civil society by imposing “order” on their “trial” of the child molester.

Metropolis has a mob scene too FWIW. The unrestrained mob attacking Maria is closer in spirit to Fury than M is. In my opinion.

I note your ad hominem. Please be civil, or ignore my posts. You have obviously misunderstood them. I never referred to the mob in Fury as surprising.

Characterizing someone's argument as an ad hoc rationalization meant to avoid admitting something is, by definition, not ad hominem. It is directly addressed to the argument. I suspect you aren't entirely sure what an ad hominem argument is.

I also suspect no one here really "gets" what you're saying. You don't seem to have any central point or argument. Just a lot of nit picking, rationalizing, and dismissals in order to prove...what, I don't know. But you're not going to be convincing anybody anytime soon. Maybe consider dropping it.

[schellenbergk]

I suspect you aren't entirely sure what an ad hominem argument is.

I'm sorry you feel I haven't made my points clearly.

That by the way is an example of an ad hominem.

[Mr Sausage]

I suspect you aren't entirely sure what an ad hominem argument is.

I'm sorry you feel I haven't made my points clearly.

That by the way is an example of an ad hominem.

No, it's not. And lucky for you, because if it were, your earlier claim that I didn't understand what you were saying would also be an ad hominem, and you would be a hypocrite.

You need to stop this now.

[Maltic]

Going back to the programme, it seems they hadn't had to wait for 900+ episodes before tackling a topic in cinema! McElhaney has long been one of my favourite film scholars (I sort of wish he, not Tom Gunning, had written the big Lang monograph), and the others were good, too. I used to listen to every IOT episode, but stopped at some point. I guess I became a bit frustrated with the format, and of course there's been a boom in podcast options over the past decade.

[colinr0380]

The mob justice film I often think of Fury in relation to is that much later 1950s Bette Davis free speech film Storm Center, although that particular film may just have personally resonated because I studied Library Management at University and it is one of the few "heroic librarian" films ever made!

This shows how enormously far behind on podcast backlog I am (so I do not know how good some of the modern episodes are) as I am currently listening through episodes from 2012 (I keep wanting to shout warnings from the future back into the past at them especially when they get onto political or financial crash topics! The current fears of that time all seem so quaint now) but I do like the BBC's "Arts & Ideas" podcast too that seems to be repackaging of a Radio 3 "Night Waves" broadcast. They rarely talk about films either but in my group of upcoming ten episodes from August 2012 there is a discussion of Sunset Song (the novel) and The Idiot (the novel), which can at least tangentially relate to cinema. And I do like the way that they, as with In Our Time, like to really narrow their focus down onto a specific subject.

[Maltic]

I remember picking favourites among the recurring guests and cursing when Bragg interrupted them: Patricia Fara (history of science), John D. Barrow (math-related topics), John Haldane and Angie Hobbs (philosophy), Robert Irwin (the Islamic world). This was when you would download an episode and listen to it on the iPod, btw. I'm sure the new episodes are as high quality as the old ones. There was just something about the format that made them seem rushed sometimes, so I guess I started binging The Great Courses instead, and then at some point, I figured out that I shouldn't attempt to learn everything

[domino harvey]

I like that Bragg interjects and interrupts— he’s not a passive host, and he often pushes back on his guests in a way that’s helpful for getting more information. Love Great Courses though, I agree (at least until your last line!), always prefer something from the Teaching Company to a podcast, though In Our Time at least has actual experts in the field of discussion, a realllll problem for a lot of so-called informative podcasts

[Maltic]

Bragg is cool, you couldn't ask for a better host.

[ford]

What is the point you are trying to defend here exactly? That it’s odd to have done a film depicting a white man being lynched?

Yes - because at the time there was an epidemic of black men being lynched. The filmmaker himself was moved to make the film based on a specific lynching of a black man but he was not allowed to cast a black man in the role of innocent victim.

The film is odd because we are forced to see Henry Fonda in a part that should have gone to lets say Paul Robeson.

This is a far cry from other films “M” & “Ox”

In the South lynching was long employed in dealing with agitators, white and black, who were charged with inciting Negro slaves to riot. The Ku Klux Klan, the White Cappers and Red Shirters applied the lynch law. It is, typically, an American institution, though Russia and southern Europe have practised it. So much then for an historical survey of lynching. Now, then, the next question which logically arises is: What are its causes?

[...]

First, it is maintained by some that race "prejudice" is the cause. But the falacy of this
contention is immediately apparent in view of the fact that out of 3,337 persons lynched
between 1882 and 1903, there were 1,192 white persons.

[...]

The reason does not lie in race prejudice, but in the class struggle. Blame your capitalist
system. Of course, this does not justify or expiate the crime; it simply explains it.

Now, even progressive heroes like Randolph can be wrong but notice how he, a black man in 1917, was eager to pour cold water on the idea that lynching was something only plaguing black people.

So I'd say two things are equally true:

A.) Hollywood at that time was terrified of addressing white racism.
B.) Our era is one in which we're so saturated in race discourse, particularly in the last 4-7 years, that we see it as primary where and when even victims of racism did not.

[colinr0380]

Bragg is cool, you couldn't ask for a better host.

So cool he got an episode of the Kombat Opera series dedicated to him! (NSFW)

[Maltic]

Astounding that he can keep doing IOT at 82 btw

[Stefan Andersson]

Two films written by Lang, Pest in Florenz and Hilde Warren und der Tod, on German bluray (Ostalgica) with English subtitles, Region A, B, C:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=360789
https://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=fassu ... vid=487750

Interview with Ostalgica:
https://www.stummfilm-magazin.de/featur ... r-tod.html

[Stefan Andersson]

For the record -- info about restoring Niebelungen:
https://www.theaterdo.de/fileadmin/user ... nopsis.pdf
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/sites/def ... enfwms.pdf
https://www.filmdienst.de/film/details/ ... st-fassung

[Stefan Andersson]

Das Wandernde Bild announced for German bluray release:
https://www.schnittberichte.com/news.php?ID=19906
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/filmtheat ... ernde-bild
https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/als-die-b ... 0013526001