Director Fritz Lang seemed to have an incredible
knack for predicting the future, imagining modern cities ruled by technology in
Metropolis, the era of media-driven serial murderers in M, and both the rise of
fascism and the role terrorism would play in modern life in his masterful 1933
suspense film The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse. Lang began a series of Dr. Mabuse
movies in 1922 with his silent Dr. Mabuse
The Gambler. Mabuse was a
“Moriarity” type evil genius character whose criminal schemes go beyond the
lust for riches and veer into concepts of world domination and mind control.
Mabuse uses telepathy and projection to control people, and while it doesn’t
succumb to pure fantasy, there is an edge of the unreal to this film that makes
it succeed as both mystery and science fiction.
The character of Dr. Mabuse and his nefarious
abilities to bend people to his will and make them commit unspeakable acts is
the secret to what makes the movie so compelling. Locked in a mental
institution after the crimes he committed in the first movie, we come to
understand that Mabuse has created a network of evildoers to do his bidding
through the use of trickery and intimidation. Mabuse’s plot involves creating societal havoc - blowing up
chemical factories, poisoning water, destroying crops - so that he can bend the
populace to his will and rule the world. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out
that a German director in 1933 sharing his fears about a violent dictator might
be referencing the looming shadows of Hitler’s Third Reich, and everything that
happens in the movie lends credulity to this theory as Mabuse rejects profit in
exchange for sowing anarchy. In the midst of the growth of the Nazi party, the
movie’s theme rings frighteningly true. Mabuse convinces common thieves and
those he can blackmail to his side, convincing them that society must be
brought to its knees so he can impose his vision of totalitarian rule. To the
outside world Mabuse is a madman sitting in a padded cell endlessly scribbling
his plans for conquest on pieces of paper. To those inside his cadre of creeps,
he is an evil genius leading them to some unholy victory over the rest of
mankind.
How Lang achieves the heightened levels of fear
and paranoia we experience in this film are the secrets to his craft as one of
the great filmmakers of the 20th century. Lang belonged to a rare
class of directors who successfully made the leap from silent to sound film.
Many simply could not leave the purely visual medium and incorporate sound and
dialogue into their bag of tricks. Lang in fact used exactly those challenges
to make his films so successful. His use of sound is overwhelming. It feels
like a new medium to explore and that’s exactly what it was. The pounding of
machines, the wailing of sirens, the relatively new mechanized sounds of the
industrial revolution were the raw materials Lang forged into the glowing
outline of his story. The same for visual effects and lighting; Lang
beautifully predicts much of the lexicon and tradition of film-noir before it
exists. His shadows have a life of their own, and unknown worlds lurk just
beyond the saturated light of the frame. Few directors can move the viewer so
completely with just the suggestion of emotion.
Perhaps no aspect of The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse rings
truer than the chilling spectre of global terrorism that it raises. When we
learn the entirety of Mabuse’s fiendish plot, it is not a stretch to imagine
the same sentiments coming from Osama Bin Laden’s mouth. Mabuse’s nihilistic
desire to tear the flesh of civilization away from the bones of society is
remarkably on target and modern. Like Professor Moriarity in the Sherlock
Holmes series, Mabuse seems to come to an end in each film, yet his brand of
evil is not dependent on corporeal existence, he represents the evil in all
men’s souls, a malignance we must fight every day.
-
Paul
Epstein
No comments:
Post a Comment