S Expressive Use Of Cinemascope And Mise-En-Scène In Moonfleet

Jacin Lee

TA: Sonja Simonyi

Expressive Cultures: Film

9 May 2014

Final Paper: 10 pages

In this paper, I want to argue that Fritz Lang's effective use of Cinemascope and Mise-en-scène in Moonfleet, ultimately allowed him to better express his signature stylistic elements, despite the many restrictions he had to work with throughout the production process. These restrictions included but were not limited to: a new stylistic filming process; Cinemascope, and the frayed relationship Fritz Lang was speculated to share with MGM, the production company he worked with for Moonfleet.

Twenty years before the production of Moonfleet, Lang worked one other film with MGM: Fury. Fury was Lang’s American film debut, and unlike Moonfleet, garnered undisputed critical success. Unfortunately, as shown in Lotte H. Eisner’s book Fritz Lang, the author reveals how Lang unintentionally “slighted” Louis B. Mayer during the production of Fury, and “after that the company considered Lang unapproachable and arrogant” In an interview with Fritz Lang, he retells this story that occurred after Fury was finished, “When a reporter asked them (MGM) one day: “What kind of a picture are you previewing today? “Oh,” they said, “a lousy picture. Don’t watch it, it is by that German son of a bitch, Lang” . It is plausible to infer thus that the two parties did not separate on the best of terms. MGM did not extend their one year contract with Lang and the two parties were not to cross paths again until Moonfleet in 1955.

As the only costume film or period drama that Lang directed, Moonfleet can be compared with other “one-shot-gems” such as the very much underappreciated You and Me, “and the Indian films, works which help provide a more complex and varied picture ...

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...ered multiple times under the dictatorship of various producers he worked with, in Moonfleet, he was able to successfully express his signature stylistic elements, regardless of these restrictions. In terms of Cinemascope, he effectively used it as a tool, and with the restriction of the “happy ending,” there remained still enough Langian mystery clouding the end to prevent the certainty of Jeremy’s death

To conclude, it is Lang’s skill with mise en scène, as well as “uses of the Cinemascope” that is resulted in the “[immediate championing of Moonfleet] as a central film in the Lang canon [after its 1960 French release], prompting Jean-Luc Godard to place it on his list of best films of the year and to subsequently inspire feverish dedications by such key writers as Luc Moullet” , and Moonfleet should be recognized all the more as a success in Fritz Lang’s oeuvre.