In the United States, Lang went to work for MGM studios. Between working for MGM, other studios, and working for himself, Lang made twenty-one feature films over the next twenty-one years. Many critics don’t feel there is any comparison between these films and the quality of his earlier work. Others feel that the work he produced during this time played an integral role in the development of American cinema. His style became much simpler and the attitude of his work grew more negative, as seen in While the City Sleeps (1956) and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1957).

            His last film, Die Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse (1960), was made in Germany. Lang had intended to go into retirement, but Artur Braumer was remaking one of his early films in Germany and Lang wanted to have a hand in it.  Afterwards, the pair went to work on Das Testament des Doktor Mabuse (1933) and produced Die Tausend Augend des Dr. Mabuse with a tiny budget and little time. This last film married the spartan style that Lang had adopted in America to his earlier expressionist roots. Lang retired to the United States. He made one appearance in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt (1963).

He died in 1976, but his work continues to influence new filmmakers. With the recurring themes of paranoia, moral conflict, and fate, his films established the framework for film noir.

See Also

Gunning, Tom. The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity. BFI Publishers (2000).
Huyssen, Andreas. “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” New German Critique 24: 25 (Autumn 1981-Winter 1982): 221-237.
Jenkins, Stephen. Fritz Lang, the image and the look. BFI Publishers (1981).
Kieth, Barry. Fritz Lang: Interviews. University of Mississippi Press (2003).
McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature Of The Beast. St. Martin's Press (1997).
Werner, Gosta. “Fritz Lang and Goebbels: Myths and Facts.” Film Quarterly43: 3 (Spring 1990): 24-27.
Winkler, Martin M. “Fritz Lang’s Mediaevalism: From Die Nibelungen to the American West.” Mosaic 36 (2003).