In an interview to
William Friedkin in 1976(this), Lang admitted to the interviewer that films
like Dr.Mabuse: The Gambler, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis and Spione had tired him out by the end of
the ‘20s and that what he really wanted to do was a ‘personal film about one or
two characters.’ Of course, he tried it with M, but M is nothing if
not about the problematic notion of a mob-mentality and the very idea of a
shared belief. Perhaps, Lang got the sort of independence (a filmmaker
euphemism for ‘just let me be, sucker!’) he sought when he finally got around
to making films for/in Hollywood – even if a lot of his 30s English features
are marked for their admonishment of the mob and of a resolute belief that a
person can only ever take right decisions in private, and never while
influenced by a collective(this idea is manifest in Fury but also in You Live
Only Once; mob-paranoia is also something that can be thought of as a
direct yield of Lang’s political preference). As such, crowds/mobs in Lang are
always looked with a distinct suspicion – they are capable, as is shown in a
number of films, of incidents of great violence, absolute thoughtlessness and
misguided sentiment. As a precursor to these, they are also easily misled (the
‘Sandor Weltemann’ sequence in Dr. Mabuse
Part II – Inferno: A Game for the People of our Age, where Mabuse
en-disguise hypnotises a whole auditorium of people that outside of the film
screen, includes us) and influenced (bad-girl Maria in Metropolis) or just plain irrational (M). For all his distrust, therefore, of the mob, however, Lang
could shoot crowds bloody well – better perhaps than most, notable contenders include
Lean, Niblo, Gance, Monty Python, K.Asif. He knew a thing or two about how to
let massive hordes of people populate his geometrical compositions/austere
frames, but his real skill lay in actually providing them with a real
personality as opposed to just impressive, but shallow presence. This, I
believe, was an ability that rose out of a genuine intrigue for human
sentiment/impulse as opposed to an ultimately empty fascination for
scale/magnitude. As such, Lang could insert close-ups, long-lens shots and
‘faces’ where others would satisfy themselves with wide-shots filled pictorically with dots of varying intent and sizes.
Below, some Lang crowds:
