A movie beyond its time - The testament of Dr.Mabuse

If you are watching a movie that was made 81 years back, you are doing big injustice to the original creator when you think that there is nothing path breaking or original in the movie. Especially when the movie has inspired some of the best film makers, whose many films have had the reproduction of the ideas in one form or other from of the original movie! Before people start to abuse me, let me make one thing clear. The reference I made here is that those fine directors have not copied the films but had an impact from the film to shape some characters in their films.

The Movie in subject is ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’. It is a 1933 movie directed by Fritz Lang. Thanks to an idiot called Hitler; the movie was banned before its release as it was believed to have had anti-establishment scenes/portrayals. The basic motive for the main character to devise his grand plan in the film was the belief that the country /world have become full of evil acts and people have become bad. So it has to be destroyed. Sounds like Gotham and League of shadows. Doesn't it? Let’s get back to what Hitler did.  Adolf Hitler, through his Minister of Propaganda – Joseph Goebbels banned the film as it would decrease the faith in state among his subjects. Actually Third Reich believed that Fritz Lang has portrayed Hitler and Third Reich as Dr.Mabuse and his gang. Opening slides of the movie has all the details regarding what happened to the film and how much of the film were damaged and how it was reproduced.

The film opens in a room where the loyal henchmen of the hypnotizing, highly intelligent and insane Dr.Mabuse find an intrusion. The Director has portrayed the henchmen to be very intelligent as against a bunch of idiots.Suspense is such a powerful tool to attract the audience’s attention and hats off to the director to have pulled you into the movie in just about 5 minutes. These henchmen leave the room without disturbing Mr.Hoffmeister in the room even though they notice him. What happens next is a battle of intelligence and I am pleasantly surprised to see how the director conveniently placed some shots which will keep the audience guessing in opposite direction of the subsequent events that are going to happen.

BGM is of no use when it interferes into a picture than to aid it. So, less music, if possible no music, sometimes helps the visual to portray eloquently the things which it intends to do.Lack of music in some places has immensely helped the director to build the tension.  A frame where the guy living in fear of getting killed has been portrayed to such an extent you can easily relate the tension he is going through. A Fincher esque scene is essentially portrayed here. 

Films are more of visuals telling a story. There are unwanted explanations through dialogues in many movies (even in movies great filmmakers make) when you can trust the audience to understand what is happening. Meanwhile dialogue is a great tool to cut short the portions where you do not want the focus to drift. Fritz Lang has used dialogues and lack of it amazingly. He explains through a professor in dialogues as to what happened to Dr.Mabuse and conveniently leaves it to the audience to understand in another situation where the killer sets his target into a trap.

Motion pictures produced lately portray villains as someone who is beyond a human being – an idea. An idea that is carried out and executed by messengers who have bought it. Doesn't it feel good to watch an old movie which has carried out such a portrayal without having to bring in lot of jargon and definitions? Fritz Lang does this exactly. We must thank Hitler for helping Fritz Lang to develop these characters. So who do we have as villain in this movie? An extremely intelligent (that is how Fritz Lang wants us to believe) and insane (thin line between them. correct?) Dr. Mabuse who could not fight his battle himself and his obsession to establish ‘the empire of crime’ makes him loose sanity , was put in an asylum (sounds familiar again?) to be treated by a Doctor. Dr.Mabuse then uses a medium to conveys the execution plan of his grand vision to establish the empire of crime. I must say that Fritz Lang gives the obvious clue to the suspense and hence makes it less than a perfect movie. I choose conveniently not to criticize him due to the sheer number of positives in the film.

We must discuss couple of important characters in the movie. The Inspector, who is trying to find out who made an attempt to kill Hoffmeister (who eventually became insane and was put into the asylum where Dr.Mabuse lived his final years and died), is portrayed as someone who is dull and boring but intelligent. He is another medium that the director used to showcase his intelligence in the final few scenes of the film.  I must say a number of portrayals of detectives or police in the films that were made much later had strong inspiration from this character, not copies though.

Movies are reflections of the time it was made.   Fritz Lang has registered the effects of great depression in a simple and clean manner. We often find situations messing up a character’s life for bad and we have Tom who killed couple of people because of the situation and is living with the guilt throughout his life. Interestingly we find Tom as someone who bought the grand idea of ‘the empire of crime’ and works for them for a living. Philosophically,given a choice between values and survival, survival often wins because Hunger is the best destroyer of Values (so called). I heard from my friend that these elements are present in the works of Nietzsche. I also happen to learn that some of the best dialogues of Joker (in ‘The Dark Knight’) were based on the works of Nietzsche.

The character of Tom gets enriched by evoking his guilt when his new girlfriend does good deeds to him. Naturally Tom’s conscience and guilt is evoked more often than not through the scenarios he has to encounter with the gang and his girlfriend. At some point, he decides to let her girlfriend go because he feels that she might ditch him if she gets to know how bad Tom is.   

Rest of the movie is more a novelist portrayal of how Tom becomes a good guy and helps Inspector to find out who is executing the idea of ‘Dr.Mabuse’-‘the empire of crime’. The movie nears the end and the director has to wind up things without delving much into portrayals and ideas. He uses the conventional way and describes what happens to the gang and whether good survives or it doesn't. The film is simply stunning and it is augmented further by the thought that it was made 8 decades back. A must watch for anyone who despises the conventional hero villain story and simply loves the movies for the portrayal of characters.

P.S: As something irrelevant to this post, if you want to find theories researching inspiration vs copy, you can find it here http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/10/mark-twain-helen-keller-plagiarism-originality/ . The link is not intended to hurt any professor who is against plagiarism.