Fritz Lang was a towering giant of silent cinema, legendary for his ambitious, epic scope and the imagination and grandeur of his visual storytelling. Kino has been releasing glorious new editions of his silent films as restored by The Murnau Institute in Germany for the past couple of decades and presents all of them in this boxed set that also includes the Blu-ray debuts of three early films (1919's Harakiri, 1920's The Wandering Shadow, and 1921's Four Around the Woman, all previously available only on DVD), as well as the home video debut of The Plague of Florence (1919), an early film scripted (but not directed) by Lang that is loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death." The set also features Lang's major films: The Spiders (1919), an exotic, globetrotting pulp thriller and Lang's first big popular success; his first masterpiece Destiny (1921), a fantasy parable produced in the shadow of World War I; the underworld conspiracy epic Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922), featuring a modern criminal mastermind and his sci-fi gadgets; and Die Nibelungen (1924), a sweeping, visually magnificent, two-film fantasy epic based on German myth. Both Metropolis (1927), one of the most famous films of the silent era and a landmark sci-fi classic, and Spies (1928), Lang's highly entertaining return to his pulp adventure roots, are restored to their complete (or nearly complete) original form. And his final silent film, Woman in the Moon (1929), is a spaceflight movie rooted in actual science. The copious extras spread across the discs include audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas on Destiny, an interview with film scholar Paula Felix-Didier on Metropolis, and several retrospective featurettes and documentaries. An excellent instant collection by one of the essential filmmakers, featuring some of the greatest silent films ever made, this is highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Fritz Lang: The Silent Films
Kino Lorber, 12 discs, 1,894 min., in German w/English subtitles, not rated, Blu-ray: $149.95 Volume 33, Issue 2
Fritz Lang: The Silent Films
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