Destiny

Short and Sweet

Romantic mood and resignation characterize this novella-like film, in which Death has grown weary of his role and almost longs to be “defeated” by a young girl. Equally impressive is the entire “main plot”: the scene set in the romantically winding German town with its partly quirky characters, and the scene in the majestically dark hall of life lights.

Action

In a framing story, a young girl demands the return of her beloved’s life, which Death has taken from her. Death takes her to a hall where the life lights of people burn, flicker, and extinguish when their time has come. Three candles are already burning low. Death promises the girl that he will return her beloved if she can keep even one of the three candles from going out.

In three visionary inserted episodes, Death allows her to experience the fate of her love: in oriental Baghdad as Harun al-Rashid’s sister, where she fails to save her foreign knight from the vengeance of the righteous; as Monna Fiametta in the fantastical atmosphere of the Venetian Carnival during the Renaissance, desperately trying to save her beloved from his murderers; and as an assistant to a Chinese court magician, witnessing her friend falling into the hands of the imperial tyrant’s pursuers.

Weary of his eternal victories, Death gives the girl another chance, demanding another life in exchange for her beloved’s. The girl tries to persuade the old, sick, and suffering to give her “just one day, just one hour” of their lives, but no one is willing to part with even their miserable existence. Only when she sacrifices herself by saving a child from the flames of a burning house is she united with her beloved in death, in accordance with the saying “Love is stronger than death.” The director owes significant effects to the sets, which he brought to life through skillful lighting effects and incorporated into his design.

Fritz Lang’s expressionist film is technically advanced for its time, featuring spectacular special effects, multiple exposures, and tricks. The film also achieved great success abroad, marking a definitive breakthrough for the thirty-year-old director.

About the Film

The director owes significant effects to the sets, which he brought to life through skillful lighting effects and incorporated into his design. Fritz Lang’s expressionist film is technically advanced for its time, featuring spectacular special effects, multiple exposures, and tricks. The film also achieved great success abroad, marking a definitive breakthrough for the thirty-year-old director.

Music

The music for organ, marimba, and percussion (alternatively: piano, marimba, and percussion) was commissioned by the festival “Silent Film Live – 100 Years of Cinema” in 1995 in Leipzig, paying homage to the great tradition of silent film music from the 1920s in Germany.

It represents a contemporary combination of film music techniques from the silent film era, involving both compilation (the use of existing works deemed suitable or adapted) and composition (the creation of new music tailored to specific needs).

Central themes are based on compositions by P. Tchaikovsky and M. Mussorgsky, rooted in the late bourgeois artistic perspective of the film.

However, the new compositions also evoke the spirit of contemporary silent film music from the early 20th century. The music aims to sound as it might have in a cinema in 1921, bringing the film’s qualities to life musically, infusing the silent performance with acoustic vitality.

Like in the silent film era, the music is peppered with thematic references (for example, the musical motif “Vöglein” by Edvard Grieg when a chirping bird appears on screen), many of which come from the famous collection “Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists” from 1924. Since a large portion of these musical quotes may not be easily decoded by cinema-goers in the year 2000 (thus losing a significant part of their impact), I decided to place more contemporary musical references in selected spots. These references still resonate today, alongside their original parameters of rhythm, melody, tempo, timbre, and volume, adding a particular wit through the audience’s own associative connections—this aligns with the historical film music technique of “film running.”

The program has so far been highly successful, having been performed 29 times in churches across Germany as well as in cinemas, film museums, and more both domestically and internationally, with additional events planned.

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Fritz Lang was born on December 5, 1890, in Vienna and died on August 2, 1976, in Los Angeles.

He initially studied architecture and painting, and after World War I, he began writing screenplays that were filmed by Joe May and Otto Rippert. Lang made his directorial debut in 1919 with the film Halbblut, followed by numerous films, many of which have become classics in film history.

In the 1920s, Lang was one of the leading German directors. He emigrated in 1933 when Goebbels offered him a position as a sort of “Reich Film Intendant,” moving through France and England to the USA, where he began a second career.

Ornamental style and architectural structure characterize his early German films: massive buildings, sophisticated lighting effects, and looming shadows often dominate the scenes, portraying humanity primarily as victims of fateful entanglements. Captured by the camera in a labyrinth of strict lines, characters are confronted with the monumental nature of vast decorations or are lost among faceless masses.

Like few other filmmakers, Lang sensed the impending problems of his time as early as the 1920s. His tendency to depict these issues intuitively rather than critically led to misunderstandings among some critics—even today—who believe he identified with these currents, especially since his wife and long-time screenwriter Thea von Harbou quickly adapted to the new circumstances after 1933.

In Hollywood, Lang primarily directed “action films,” and his attempt to regain a foothold in German cinema in the late 1950s failed.

Selected Filmography:

1919: Halbblut
1921: Der müde Tod
1922: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler
1924: Die Nibelungen: Siegfrieds Tod; Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache
1927: Metropolis
1928: Spione
1929: Frau im Mond
1931: M
1936: You Only Live Once
1942: Hangmen Also Die
1944: The Woman in the Window
1953: The Big Heat
1958: Der Tiger von Eschnapur; Das indische Grabmal