Fritz Lang and the Origins of Film Noir: M and Scarlet Street

This course focuses on the origins of Film Noir through the films of Director Fritz Lang. Lang began his directing career in Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), a period of severe economic hardship and political instability. It is within German Expressionism, an artistic movement which emeged during this period, that the aesthetics of Film Noir found its first expression. Fritz Lang's German Film M (1931), one of the most important early talkies and a landmark of German Expressionism, explored the fear, violence, and alientation of the Weimar Republic and set the foundation for the aesthetics (the look) of Film Noir with its focus on the search for a child murderer. Lang moved to the United States when the Nazis come to power; we will also examine his American film, The Big Heat (1953), starring Glen Ford as a cop who takes on a crime syndicate.