It
was one of the first films to be “ripped from the headlines.” Although, the
great auteur sometimes denied it, his classic M was transparently inspired by the case of Peter Kürten, “The Vampire
of Düsseldorf,” premiering in theaters two months before his execution. Gordian
Maugg offers up some wild speculation as to why the case so fascinated the
filmmaker in the fictionalized Fritz Lang (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.
It
would be the film that forever changed Peter Lorre’s life. It was also highly
significant for Lang as his first sound film. While the Kürten case started out
as grist for the new screenplay Lang has been unable to start, Maugg and
co-screenwriter Alexander Häusser suggest other reasons the case hit so close
to home for the filmmaker. Perhaps most obviously, Anna Cohn, a witness who
last saw her murdered friend presumably in the company of the killer, happens
to be a dead-ringer for his late first wife Lisa. The Düsseldorf police chief
also happens to be an old acquaintance.
Maugg
flashes forwards and backwards, showing us scenes from Lang’s WWI service, his convalescence,
during which time, he meets and falls in love with his future first wife, his
affair with eventual second wife and great co-writer Thea von Harbou, and his
current position as the monocled-king of Weimar high society. Yet, the Kürten
murders bring out his dark side. Suddenly, he too is stalking witnesses and
revisiting crime scenes. Indeed, Lang might just understand Kürten too
uncomfortably well.
It
is devilishly difficult to portray Fritz Lang on-screen when the director roguishly
played himself with so much dash and verve in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt. That subversively witty
persona is the Lang we will always want to see, which puts Heino Ferch’s
brooding, traumatized Lang at an enormous disadvantage. To be fair, he does
some good work reinterpreting the director as a real-life film noir character,
but the “real,” reinvented Lang is way more fun. Frankly, Jack Palance’s
character in Contempt, the crass
Jeremy Prokosch, would probably be the only one who would enjoy seeing Lang
depicted in such an unflattering manner.
Frankly,
Harbou does not get much better treatment from Johanna Gastdorf (cold-blooded
and highly calculating). However, Samuel Finzi would do Peter Lorre proud as
the profoundly damaged, Dostoyevskyan Kürten. Lisa Friederich also deserves
credit for valiantly laboring to humanize the film as the acutely human Lisa
Lang and Anna Cohn.
