Fritz Lang: Moral Integrity and Bad Girls

Fritz Lang at Home

In Jacques Rivette: The Night Watchman, a film by Claire Denis, Rivette speaks of meeting Fritz Lang. "He spoke only of morals," he describes. Below are excerpts from a 1959 Cahiers du cinéma interview that Rivette and Jean Domarchi conducted with Lang:

Lang: M and Fury are, I believe, the films I prefer. There are others as well, which I made in America, Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, While the City Sleeps. These are all films based on a social critique. Naturally I prefer that, because I believe that critique is something fundamental for a director.

Rivette and Domarchi: What exactly do you mean by social critique, that of the system or that of civilization?

Lang: One can't really differentiate. It is the critique of our "environment," of our laws or our conventions. I will admit to a project. I must make a film where I put all my heart. It is a film which shows modern man as he is: he has forgotten the true meaning of life, he works only for things, for money, not to enrich his soul, but to gain material advantages. And because he has forgotten the meaning of life, he is already dead. He is afraid of love, he simply wants to go to bed, make love, but he doesn't want any responsibilities. He only wants to satisfy his desire. I think it is important to make this film now. While the City Sleeps shows the hard competition of four men inside a newspaper office at the beginning. My personality refuses the personal satisfaction of being a man. Because each of us, these days, is looking for position, power, money, but never anything inside. You see, it is very difficult to say, “I like this or that.” When one begins a film, maybe one doesn't even know exactly what one is doing. There are always people to explain what I want to do, and I say to them, “You know more than I.” When I undertake a work, I try to translate emotion.


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Rivette and Domarchi: You told us earlier that the director's goal was to critique. Couldn't that be the definition of mise-en-scene?

Lang: All art, I believe, should critique something. It isn't enough to say it's good, it's enticing, it's marvelous. In any case, what can one say of a woman who is good? She's a good mother, a good wife. But what can one recount about a bad woman? One can speak for hours about her, she is interesting [Laughs]. Yes or no? You say about one that she is good, but the other. ... The question is, “Why is she bad?”, “Is she really bad?”, “What right has she?”, “What were the circumstances?”, “Weren't men responsible?” One could talk all night. And we could talk all night with her. [Laughs]



• Lang's favorites Scarlet Street and The Woman in the Window play today at Film Forum in New York as part of the FRITZ LANG IN HOLLYWOOD series.

Here I was born and here I died

Kim Novak at home in Big Sur

Kim Novak:

I’ve always admired trees. I just worship them. Think what trees have witnessed, what history, such as living through the Civil War, yet they still survive. I’ve always felt that part of why they survive is because they don’t try to intercede, to advise ‘No, that’s the wrong way,’ or to try and wipe out an army. They stood and observed.



When I read that part of the Hitchcock script where Madeleine and Scottie are among the redwoods, she touches the tree rings and says, “Here I was born and here I died. It was only a moment. You took no notice,’ I got goose-bumps. When it came to shoot that scene, I had goose-bumps.

That scene in Vertigo I felt more than any other, except the one in which Judy says to Jimmy’s character that if she lets him change her, will he love her? And she says she’ll do it, she doesn’t care any more about herself. That scene was so important to me. I was so naked there, so willing to be anything he wanted, just to be loved.







Bunny Yaeger


Dorothy Iannone

Kubrick's Kitchen

Stanley Kubrick apparently devised most of his worlds, from Dr. Stranglelove through Eyes Wide Shut, in this kitchen:

E.D.'s Kitchen

perfectly wrapped

"Babe Paley had only one flaw: she was perfect. Other than that, she was perfect " -Truman Capote


The following story may sum up the socialite even better than Capote's famous aphorism:
In 1974, Babe was diagnosed with lung cancer. She planned her own funeral, right down to the food and wine selections that would be served at the funeral luncheon. She carefully allocated her jewelry collection and personal belongings to friends and family, wrapped them in colorful paper, and created a complete file system with directions as to how they would be distributed after her death.

A Paley Perfect Table Setting