Liliom
By Christopher Hyde
April 12, 2004
Fritz Lang’s take on Ferenc Molnar’s play Liliom — the same material that served as the basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel — gets showcased in a new Kino DVD.
Most famous for his 1927 silent science fiction film Metropolis, director Lang’s body of work spanned some 45 years in both Europe and the United States. Covering varied ground that ranges from an early movie version of Wagner’s Die Nibelungen to later Hollywood film noirs and crime films, the filmmaker’s trademark vision often involves starcrossed characters enmeshed by their own fate. Certainly not one of celluloid’s great optimists, the vision of Lang comes clouded with the murk of human duplicity and desire — and while there is sometimes redemption, it is never easily earned or given. Violence, too, is never very far from the surface in the art of this brilliant craftsman, a lurking presence that might explode imminently in wrathful expressions of vengeance or wanton savagery.
Taken as a whole, the films left by Fritz Lang constitute one of the greatest careers in filmmaking in the entire 20th century. Few others have left us such an intriguing set of cinematic expressions that stand up so strongly even today, and with the advent of DVD many of the director’s movies are once again resurfacing to be viewed all over again. But along with his better-known masterworks, certain smaller films that have thus far garnered less notice are also coming to the fore — though I still anxiously await stateside films such as Moonfleet, Rancho Notorious and House by the River. But all that aside, one of Lang’s earlier European films has just recently been reissued in a digital form and it offers a fascinating look at the prewar style of one of film’s top directors of all time.
Liliom, a play from the early 1900s by Hungarian born Ferenc Molnar, had already been filmed once previously (by Frank Borzage) by the time Lang made his version in 1934. The story centers around a carnival barker who gives the work its name (played here by Charles Boyer), a rogue with an eye for the ladies who ingratiates himself with a youngster named Julie (the wonderful Madeline Ozeray) one night at the fairgrounds. Amongst the sawdust and creaky calliope, Liliom quits his job touting the merry-go-round and eventually ends up wed to the innocent and devoted girl. Their pairing remains troubled, however, and Liliom’s mistreatment of his wife and general good-for-nothingness tests her seemingly bottomless faith in her husband. Finding out that she is pregnant, Liliom agrees to take part in a robbery that quickly goes bad — and unable to face his wife or the police, Liliom then chooses suicide by stabbing himself in the heart with a knife.
Shortly thereafter, Liliom finds that the end of his earthly existence actually provides little immediate solace. Brought up before an afterlife magistrate in an ethereal court of heavenly justice, the unrepentant ne’er-do-well is sentenced to the fires of purgatory for a period of 16 years. He is also charged with a final brief return to earth after this time of fiery reflection, whereupon he will be given one last chance to perform a deed that might allow his poor behavior to be balanced out on the scales that measure such things. Liliom’s redemption ultimately hangs on the way in which this concluding encounter with his wife and daughter goes, his shaded soul caught betwixt the warring sides of his personality and subject to the cosmic whims of fate itself.
As visualized by Lang (as well as the luminous cinematography of the spectacularly talented Rudolf Mate and Louis Nee), this filmed take on Molnar’s play varies between scruffy realism and fantastic expressionism. The sense of lowlife naturalism that carries the carnival and home scenes serves only to underline the rarefied emotive power of the later celestial settings, and the main character’s complicated motivations are given shape by the director’s exquisite sense of timing and sharp eye for the qualities that entangle human personality. Lang simplifies the play somewhat here by reducing the parts of some of Molnar’s minor characters, but he also amplifies other aspects that help to give this vision depth and even humor. Especially notable in this sense is the arch manner in which he parallels the courts of earth and heaven, slyly commenting on class by intimating that its divisions may not end when one’s body is laid to rest.
Different in some ways from the typical Langian production, Liliom nevertheless touches upon many of the typical themes that are common in the director’s work. While the darker aspects of the filmmaker’s vision would become even more pronounced over the course of his career, this particular movie is not at all short on simple cynicism. This is perhaps not surprising for a man who had just been divorced in 1933 by his wife Thea von Harbou as she became a prominent Nazi supporter in his native country, but in fact there’s little pessimism invoked here that doesn’t exist in its original dramatic form. And surprisingly enough, the overall tone of the one bit of celluloid that Lang directed in France is quite striking in its evenhandedness and balance, allowing some notes of brightness and hope to shine through the less positive characteristics of the tale.
While Kino’s release of this lesser known film by one of the cinema’s true hall of famers is short on extras, this DVD release remains exceptional on the strength of the film alone. Though at times the transfer appears to be a bit soft, it still looks solid enough that the beauty of the black and white photography is stunningly apparent. The able performances by Boyer and Ozeray in the lead roles help to buoy the excellent material, and Lang’s steadfast and insightful direction makes this a winning piece of art by any standards. There are occasional anachronistic bits that will require some willing suspension of disbelief by today’s more sophisticated viewers (a case in point being the ludicrously bewinged officials who populate the judiciary of the afterlife), but those who can overlook the sort of innocent charms acceptable to an audience of the '30s will find an incisive bit of filmmaking that ranks with the director’s best. Memorable not only for its insight into the working methods of a man on the cusp of a transition from the European film industry to the Hollywood mainstream, Liliom is an estimable celluloid document whose resurfacing is a treasure to any true fan of historic cinema.
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