The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

I have finally figured out my true problem with the German Expressionist movies - it takes me years to figure out what is going on. Once I figure that out, I have no problem and enjoy them. This holds true for the final German Expressionist movie we watched, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Although it took me less time to get to the point and direction of this movie, I had a hard time being interested in it until that came somewhere in the middle.

Fritz Lang, director of this movie, was basically what kept me attempting to figure out the movie. With such a popular name, I knew something was there to be seen and something with quality, and although it took me a little while, I eventually got it. Lang seems to be like Hitchcock in the fact that they are big utilizers of the auteur theory. As we discussed in class, Lang's auteur focus seems to be on how the law was so un-effective and dysfunctional. This seemed to be his main motif in his use of the auteur theory and you can easily see this through the The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

This movie was definitely the best German Expressionist movie we watched because I think that Lang does a better job than Wiene and Marnau in using the resources available during that time. Although they were limited, and maybe resources Lang used weren't accessible by the other two, but Lang seemed to put more into the movie and the result showed it. Even to the point of taking resources out of the picture, Lang seemed to do like some future (then) directors would do - put many storylines together into one story to add to the total effect. With this, Lang gets the better film.

I did like a few things from the movie. As I mentioned, the multi-storyline effect is always really cool. It was neat to see a German Expressionist sound movie since we had watched two silent ones. As well, Lang was understandable through his film. Even though you had to search for it, as you need to in many movies, I could see where he was coming from or trying to get across, or at least what I thought and got out of it. I also thought the acting wasn't half bad, especially considering those times when very few options were probably available.

To end the German Expressionist unit of Film Studies, I think Fritz Lang is a great example of a great expressionist who took it to the full level. He did so through The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and I'm sure he did the same in many other movies.

-Kevin