JoeytheBrit A young couple encounter Death in a country tavern while on a journey, and he claims the man. The man's young wife tracks Death down and pleads with him to return her husband to her. He promises to do so if she can prevent any one of three imminent deaths, each represented by a burning candle that has nearly burned out.The subject of death is a ripe one for the cinema, and probably the most famous example of a living person attempting to bargain with death is Bergman's The Seventh Seal, but this silent movie from Fritz Lang is possibly more accessible to the casual viewer. Death here is something of a sympathetic character - and he is a character rather than just a representation - slavishly following the laws laid down by God, but wishing for a release from his responsibilities. He's played here by Bernhard Goetzke, a hollow-cheeked man with searing eyes who certainly looks the part.All of the principle characters play multiple roles, perhaps to emphasise the inevitability of death for us all and the futility of attempting to escape it (or maybe to cut down on costs - who knows?) The film looks great, with some striking images and impressive sets. It's true that the film does drag a little in the second act in which three short stories are played out, taking the action away from the main story and thus bringing that part of the film to a screeching halt.Der Mude Tod is one of those films that will no doubt entrance lovers of silent or early German cinema but which is unlikely to convert many to the genre. Fritz Lang's direction is crisp and imaginative and there's something almost intangible about it that suggests a young director at the outset of his career.

timmy_501 Fritz Lang's 1921 film Destiny] is reportedly based on a dream he had as a child. I can only assume that he must have immersed himself in old school narratives such as myths, folk tales, and Greek tragedy from an early age since this somewhat allegorical film immediately brings those traditions to mind. In fact, you can almost see where he picked up various parts of the plot. Fortunately, he put them together in a brilliantly unique way. This film manages to bring to mind the best traditional tales from various cultures and periods while maintaining a wonderfully fresh and inventive mood throughout.Like many of the greatest tales of yore, Destiny is about a pair of young lovers who are separated from each other suddenly. After this separation, the narrative resembles a sort of Orpheaic journey with one key reversal: in Destiny it is the female character who strives to rescue the endangered male. She is given three shots to save her beloved, each of which takes place in a different part of the world. This somewhat unusual structure allows Lang to experiment with different styles to match the traditions of each place she visits.Not only does Destiny do an excellent job with a universal (but uncomplicated) theme, it also has more than its share of memorable visuals. Although cinema's most famous personification of Death is Bergman's version from The Seventh Seal, it is surely Lang's version that most evokes the essence of the character. Indeed, I for one find this Death to be more memorable than Bergman's. Other memorable visuals include the towering wall built by Death, the candles used to represent lives, and the various spells conjured up by a Chinese magician, particularly an army of tiny men.I'm very grateful to everyone here who has recommended this film-it's truly a film like no other and an indisputable masterpiece.

whpratt1 Fritz Lang produced a great 1921 silent film about the power of death which faces every living person no matter whether you are a new born person or a very young person or older. In this story a young woman's lover is taken from her by death and she is able to confront death and claim that Love is Stronger than Death and she has to prove it to the person playing death, Bernhard Goetzke,(De Tod). Lil Dagover,(Junge Maedehen)is the young lady who is given three candles to try and gain her lover back to life and has to experience some very difficult tasks. Junge Maedehen saves a baby and then offers her life to De Tod and he tells her, "IF You Give Your Life, You will Gain Your Life" This film told me what I already know that if you love someone who death takes away they will never die so long as you always remember them in your heart and soul, even if you feel like you have a hole in your heart. Great Masterpiece by Fritz Lang way way back in 1921 Enjoy

wmorrow59 The biographical entry for Fritz Lang in the invaluable World Film Directors reference book offers a revealing quote. It seems that when he was a teenager he became gravely ill, and at the peak of his delirium experienced a vivid hallucination. As Lang later described it, "I saw myself face to face, not terrifying, but unmistakable, with Death . . . I don't know whether I should call the feeling I experienced at that moment one of fear. It was horror, but not panic. I recovered quickly, but the love of death, compounded of horror and affection . . . stayed with me and became a part of my films." Lang, who was Austrian, served in the Army during the First World War where he saw considerable combat and, of course, encountered death on a horrific scale. (He also lost the use of his right eye.) While still in the service he launched his career in the movies by submitting screenplays to producer Joe May, and soon afterward acted in two of May's films, playing the Angel of Death in "Hilde Warren und der Tod." Lang began directing in 1919 and was successful almost immediately but remained largely unknown outside Germany until his first genuinely personal project, "Der Müde Tod," burst upon the scene in 1921 and became an international sensation. Lang's timing was perfect, for in the troubled period following the war interest in spiritualism and the afterlife was intense. This film represented the director's most thorough exploration of the fever dream of his adolescence, for here Lang utilized elements gathered from the myth and folkloric traditions of various cultures to explore a question posed by the leading lady to the Grim Reaper himself: Is Love stronger than Death?In the opening scenes we're introduced to a happy young couple who intend to marry. On their travels they encounter a stranger, a gaunt and unsmiling figure in a black cloak who is heading for the same village that is their destination; the very sight of him darkens the atmosphere and kills their joyous mood. The stranger is Death himself, who seeks to purchase land owned by the village elders. The stranger informs the elders that he is weary-- from his exertions during the Great War? --and wishes to settle down. Once he buys land the stranger erects an estate surrounded by an impossibly high wall, a wall with no apparent door or entryway, and his next act is to claim the soul of the Young Man. The Young Woman searches the village and fails to find her fiancé, but when she takes poison she is able to pass through the wall and confront Death. He takes her to a room filled with candles representing the souls of humanity. When the Young Woman demands that Death restore her fiancé to life he agrees to do so only if she can defeat him, and he gives her three opportunities.The Young Woman's three chances to defeat Death unfold in the form of three tales set in disparate parts of the world in three different historical periods: Persia in the days of the Caliphate, Renaissance Venice, and Imperial China. Three incarnations of her Young Man are threatened with extinction, and three incarnations of the Young Woman have a chance to rescue him. These stories make up the bulk of the movie and each is longer and more elaborate than the one preceding. Eventually, when the Young Woman proves unable to beat Death she is given one final chance to win back her fiancé, but when she finds the price demanded of her too high to pay, the lovers are nonetheless reunited in the afterlife in a strangely gratifying finale.The historical adventures take place in highly stylized worlds, especially the Chinese segment, but even the film's Middle-European framing story features expressionistic structures that resemble stage sets, just as the (unnamed) young man and woman at the center of these events are meant to embody folkloric archetypes rather than dimensional characters. Lang's Persia, Venice and China suggest a child's notion of what these places might be like; the palaces have the look of enormous doll-houses. And of course the magical element is derived from fairy tales: the Chinese magician summons a miniature army of soldiers to amuse the Emperor, and is himself later turned into a cactus (one of the film's most memorable and disturbing images), while the Emperor is a fairy tale villain with grotesquely long claw-like fingernails. "Der Müde Tod" is, with Maurice Tourneur's 1918 classic "The Blue Bird," one of the cinema's first great flights of fantasy, suffused with imaginative effects and whimsical touches but undergirded with a deep sense of sadness.Like many silent films this one has been shown in a variety of editions over the years, but the restoration completed in 2000 that is now available on DVD from Image Entertainment appears to be the closest to Lang's original version. This edition recreates the color tints of 1921 and the type-faces of the original title cards, which attempted to capture the exotic calligraphic styles of the three foreign lands of the adventure stories. (My only criticism is that I found the "Persian" type rather difficult to read.) This disc also boasts a beautiful score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, music that enhances the visuals without drawing undue attention to itself. For those who can't attend a public screening of this rarely shown gem the Image DVD is about as good as silent movies get on the home screen; and Fritz Lang's "Der Müde Tod" is one of the most fascinating silent movies.