Doctor Mabuse

Fritz Lang's first masterpiece, a four & a half hour double-feature with hardly a moment wasted, has been restored to stunning effect. (WARNING: In the KINO DVD edition, you MUST lower the contrast & brightness levels to reveal the full grey scale.) On one level, this is simply a far-fetched, but smashingly entertaining detective drama about Mabuse, a criminal mastermind who shows up in more disguises than Alec Guinness in KIND HEARTS & CORONETS to counterfeit, manipulate the stock exchange, kill personal rivals, run the drug racket and generally lord it over the pursuing police force of the modern city. If Part One offers a more devastating look at the perilous world that was Weimar Germany, there's still plenty of action & schemes left for Part Two. In MABUSE, Lang manages, more than he would in METROPOLIS, to hold all the expressionist elements (design, acting, story construction) in perfect balance. The dynamism for an early '20s pic, (before the era of easy camera movement) is simply phenomenal. And where else will you find an inter-title as glorious as: 'Eat some cocaine, you weakling!'

...from director Fritz Lang, adapted by Thea von Harbou from the book by Norbert Jacques. Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) runs a criminal empire with tentacles in many areas: he manipulates events to predict the stock market, causing panics that he can profit from; he runs clandestine gambling casinos, and uses his powers of hypnosis and mind-control to cheat and win; and he oversees a highly lucrative counterfeiting operation. He operates under a variety of disguises and personas, with only a small inner circle even aware of his existence. His machinations eventually come to the notice of state prosecutor von Wenk (Bernhard Goetzke) who sets about to bring the arch-fiend to justice.

This four and a half hour colossus is split into two parts, and while it is long, it doesn't overstay its welcome. The first 20 minutes, detailing Mabuse's intricate method of causing mayhem at the stock exchange, is extremely well done. Klein-Rogge is magnificent in the title role, transformed into multiple characterizations as the elusive Mabuse obscures his movements through masquerades. Director Lang also employs a number of novel cinematic tricks to convey Mabuse's power, such as his hypnotic suggestions appearing as glowing words that torment his targets. While the film is clearly an indictment on Weimar-era German dissipation and decadence, the character of Mabuse is a bit thornier: Lang claims that he's meant to represent the type of amoral thirst for power that was given rise in the period, and which would lead to Hitler's ascension; others have pointed out the anti-Semitic nature of Mabuse. Whatever the case, Lang's film is a masterpiece of early cinematic crime fiction, and one whose inspiration continues to this day.

Highlights:

• Dr. Mabuse. He's a prototype for so many villains in film history, and as master manipulator who preys on people's fears and exercises mind control over them, is evil in an insidious way. He also bullies his minions and disposes of people after they're no longer useful to him, a true loner with no empathy for humanity. Rudolf Klein-Rogge's look and performance are mesmerizing, no pun intended.

• Fantastic sets with lots of Expressionist touches and art, particularly at the Count's house. Director Fritz Lang combines these with big architectural spaces and excellent mise en scène.

• The sequence at the beginning, with a highly coordinated robbery of a trade agreement from a train, looks straight out of a modern action movie. This transitions to Mabuse manipulating the stock market as he stands over agitated traders, both of which are memorable scenes.

• Lots of other little touches. The noxious gas in the taxi, released at the pull of a lever. The "Chinese glasses", whose reflections are used to confuse and befuddle. The eerie group of blind men helping to count counterfeit money. The tunnel escape. All cool stuff.

• The countess (Gertrude Welcker). Looking for something more out of life, and in her languid eyes you can just see the sentiment behind lines like "I need in life a strong breath of extraordinary thrills and adventures; but, I fear such things have become extinct."

• "Take some cocaine, you wimp!" I chuckled over this line, and coming as it did late in the movie (see below lowlight), imagined it being a directive aimed at flagging audience members.

• Captures the zeitgeist of the times - the chaos of the early Weimar Republic, its economic hardships, and those who antagonized and inflamed people to control them. Mabuse references Nietzsche's will to power, and clearly sees himself as an Übermensch, ideas that also appealed to the emerging Nazi party. "I feel like a state within a state with which I have always been at war!" he bellows, seeming to channel the frustrations of the nationalists.

Lowlights:

• Far, far too long. Probably about two hours too long for the story. The average film length in 1922 was roughly 70 minutes, and at 270 minutes - four and a half hours - this film is nearly four times that. When you combine that with a pace that is often slow and methodical - about average for the period - whew, you're in for a haul, regardless of whether you break your viewing up or damn the consequences and strap yourself in (preferably with a lot of strong black coffee).

• Verbose intertitles. Perhaps a microcosm of the film's bigger issue, the younger Lang didn't seem to understand the value of concision.

I love Lang and what he was going for here, but would recommend the second film in the trilogy, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) over this one. Tellingly, that one clocks in at just over two hours. It also has a more engaging detective and love story. I feel bad dinging the review score a bit given how pioneering the film was and all of its positives, but I have to be true to my enjoyment level too.

1922 – Germany was in political turmoil and spiralling into a hyperinflation crisis. Meanwhile in cinema the German Expressionist movement was coming of age with the release of FW Murnau's Nosferatu and this, the first in Fritz Lang's series of epics Dr Mabuse, der Spieler. While perhaps not as classically expressionist as Murnau or Robert Wiene, Fritz Lang arguably put his finger on the mood of times better than any other. With Mabuse, his unique style develops to convey a picture of the chaos of the era.

The opening sequences of Dr Mabuse are evidence of screenwriter Thea von Harbou's growing strength as a storyteller and Lang's economy of expression. The first shot – a close-up of Mabuse's hand, holding cards showing his various disguises – presents and defines the title character. A frantic, rapidly cut action scene then hooks the viewer, whilst introducing us to Mabuse's network of minions. After that, we see Mabuse's elaborate scam at the stock market. In one particularly striking image, the crowd of traders panic and jostle, whilst Mabuse stands calmly on a pedestal above them – a perfect metaphor for his position of power amidst social chaos.

At one point in his youth Lang trained as an architect, and this fact is central to his style as a director. There are hints of this in his earliest films, but in Mabuse the architectural touch is fully matured. Throughout, the set design and décor is almost more important than the actors. Whereas other expressionists would evoke mood most frequently through use of light and shadow, Lang does it primarily through use of space. He composes shots in straight lines and geometric patterns, occasionally seeming to form eyes or faces. Often characters are dwarfed by the sheer cavernous size of the rooms they are in. Also look at how many scenes take place on a stage or lecture hall, and how Lang contrasts opposing shots of speaker (or performer) and audience – a metaphor for master and masses. He even has Mabuse sitting at his desk facing the camera, as if to make the real-life viewers his audience – a touch Lang used a fair bit throughout his work.

A frequent complaint about Dr Mabuse is its gargantuan length and I have to admit it does drag in places. Lang's following silent features, although also very long were extremely tight in structure and worked like a classical symphony in the way different parts complemented each other. Dr Mabuse is not quite up to that standard yet. While some of the individual acts are well-balanced little dramas in themselves, as a whole it is a little uneven. Mabuse also suffers from wordy title cards and a lack of convincing action sequences – again, problems that Lang would have solved by the time of Metropolis. It's worth remembering though that on its original release parts one and two were shown on consecutive nights, and it's much easier to digest this way. I wouldn't recommend any first-time viewer try to tackle the whole thing in one sitting.

Holding the whole thing together is a mesmerising performance from Rudolph Klein-Rogge in the title role. While acting in Hollywood was becoming increasingly naturalistic at this time, Germany was a little way behind and performances still tended to be a bit too theatrical and exaggerated. Lang however softens the impact of melodramatic acting by never letting the characters get too realistic in the first place. Cinema was like a comic-book for Lang, in his urban thrillers as much as in his exotic adventures, and this approach saves Dr Mabuse from becoming too strained and ridiculous.

Although it's not as polished as any of his later silents, Dr Mabuse was perhaps Lang's most influential film. The idea of revealing the identity and methods of the villain to the audience was no doubt a forerunner of Hitchcock's mode of building suspense. A young Sergei Eisenstein was given the task of cutting a shortened version of Mabuse for the Russian public, and the way Lang imbues each shot with meaning may have contributed to the concept of intellectual montage. This is not to mention the impact of the Mabuse character on generations of cinematic villains to come. Dr Mabuse, der Spieler is a far from perfect film, and can be tough to watch although it's not as dull as some would claim, and it's certainly a key film in several strands of cinematic development.

This is the movie that features one of fist arch-criminals, Dr. Mabuse. A manipulative character, who by hypnosis manipulates people and set them up against each other and steal their money, by letting him play card games against him, while he lets his opponents deliberately loose, even when they have the better cards. He manipulates for more money and the love from respectable woman but also most definitely purely for his own pleasure. It doesn't need to be explained why Dr. Mabuse is evil, he just simply IS. That is what makes a great and memorable movie villain.

Definitely true that the second halve of the movie is better than the first. In the second halve the movie really starts to take pace and form. Does it make the first part obsolete? I think not. It perfectly shows how manipulative Dr. Mabuse and the characters also get strongly developed in it. But yes, it's definitely true that the movie is a long sit. Almost 4 hours is of course a long time (and there even is a longer version). It does not ever make the movie bad or boring but it does make it a bit tiresome at times. The movie also isn't easy to follow but that often is the curse of early narrative full-length movies from the '10's and '20's of the previous century.

For 60% of the movie, the movie concentrates on card games. Some of the sequence involving the games are made to look more exciting and and tense than in any James Bond movie ever had been the case.

The movie uses some good early cinematic ticks and also some interesting storytelling techniques such as some interesting fast flashbacks, to help to remind to the viewer of what happened earlier in the story.

The movie also shows some early film-noir tendencies and other thriller and mystery elements. Not just with its story, psychological thriller elements or style of film-making but also with its characters. The main villain Dr. Mabuse is of course the best example of this. He plays an early full-blooded big movie villain, who is also being accompanied by a couple of typical crook-like looking henchmen. All elements that later would become defining for the genre. The movie is about good versus evil, in good early cinematic form.

Some of the tricks make sure that the movie is filled with a couple of memorable and effective sequences, mainly regarding the manipulative hypnosis sequences, by Dr. Mabuse. It makes the movie highly imaginative and original, though it all obviously is not as revolutionary as the other Fritz Lang classics; "Metropolis" and "M".

Of course by todays standards the acting in the movie is definitely over-the-top. Fritz Lang never casted actors just because of their acting skills but also because of their powerful looks. It all helps to make the early acting in Lang movies still fascinating and powerful to watch. Bernhard Goetzke as the state attorney von Welk is a great 'main-hero' for the movie. Of course Rudolf Klein-Rogge is also great as Dr. Mabuse and so is Alfred Abel, though I liked him in "Metropolis" even better.

Definitely worth seeing, if you can handle its long running time.

9/10

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