Fritz Lang, le cercle du destin - Les films allemands

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.