Word: ares
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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The only director really dealing with human intelligence, Lang consructed for Mabuse deep sets whose fantastic decor reveals the imaginations of the characters. The Countess's extremely broad and deep rooms are filled with African masks and huge primitive statues which she wonderfully explains in the words, "My brother is...
The secondary characters who in 1922 had so much dignity have become functionaries who receive their orders by telephone. As Lang suggests by crosscutting Mabuse's and Lohmann's organizations at work, it hardly matters whom the call comes from. These men simply work for someone else. They are small...
Lang's world supports this cynical statement. His framing is so tight that it chops off the tops of people's heads. Instead of revealing the depth in which the characters move, the frame has become a trap, as we see in an early tracking shot that closes in on...
Everything in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse has become directly physical. Mabuse controls men by telephone, not by hypnosis. He kills them by shutting them in rooms to starve instead, as with the first Mabuse's Richard Fleury, of working on their sensibilities to drive them to suicide. The acts...
IN THIS WORLD, as indeed in all Lang's subsequent films, one has little liking for anyone, where-as in the first Mabuse all were sympathetic. The little men are good Germans; the big ones pigs or psychopaths. The only breaches in the net of control over their lives are...