Synopsis
A biography of one of the cinema's most celebrated and dangerous directors, from one of the greatest cinema biographers working today. McGilligan reveals the truth behind the murky rumors and contradictions surrounding Lang: Was he a closet Nazi in Germany and, later, a closet Communist in America? Was he a sensitive and compassionate director (as well as lover) of famous and beautiful actresses, or was he a sadomasochistic beast whose vicious behavior on the set was mirrored by a sordid love life crowded with prostitutes and mistresses? This, the first definitive biography of Lang, sorts out the legends that surround a legendary man.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-06-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 548 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 35.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
The name of Fritz Lang - the visionary director of Metropolis, M, Fury, The Big Heat, and thirty other unforgettable motion pictures - is hallowed the world over. But what lurks behind his greatest legends, and his genius as a filmmaker? Was he a closet Nazi in Germany, and later, a virtual Communist in America? Did he really refuse an offer from Hitler to become the Third Reich's "Fuhrer of film" before he fled to the United States in the early 1930s, or was this oft-repeated anecdote the embroidered invention of an ingenious storyteller? Was Lang a sensitive and compassionate artist, as well as a lover of famous women (among them his Berlin compatriot Marlene Dietrich)? Or was he a sado-masochistic beast whose torturous on-set behavior was mirrored, off the job, in a sordid love life crowded with prostitutes and mistresses? Did Fritz Lang, preoccupied with murder in his work, in fact kill his own first wife - who died mysteriously in his presence after catching him in the arms of the Nazi-leaning screenwriter who became his second wife? Patrick McGilligan spent four years in Europe and America, interviewing Lang's dying contemporaries, researching government and film archives, and investigating the life story of Fritz Lang. His definitive biography - the only such book on Lang, who encouraged publicity but discouraged the truth - reconstructs the fascinating, flawed human being behind the monster with the monocle.
Industry Reviews
"McGilligan justifies his subtitle by disclosing the nature of the beast....Fritz Lang is set before us, with bestial nature and fulminant genius, his life lapped in the cultural and political history that made him what he was and that he, in turn, helped to epitomize."
New York Times Book Review - Stanley Kauffmann (07/20/1997)
"McGilligan is not a great stylist, but he has a great story to tell, and he tells it with verve, originality, and insight."
Solomon-Godeau
"This book may well be not only the definitive biography of Lang for the foreseeable future, but a longstanding model for film biographies in general."
Mehlman
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