Midwest Film Journal - There Were No Gods Left (Page 2)

There Were No Gods Left

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Midwest Film Journal

A collection of 38 posts

Fritz on Fridays: The Wandering Image

Fritz on Fridays: The Wandering Image

The Wandering Image is not a great film. It is an important one, though.

Fritz on Fridays: Western Union

Fritz on Fridays: Western Union

The issues they encounter on the way to Utah are typical, with one little unique and highly critical addition: Confederate soldiers wearing redface with the purpose of inciting conflict against Western Union because their telegraph will help the Union.

Fritz on Fridays: American Guerrilla in the Philippines

Fritz on Fridays: American Guerrilla in the Philippines

Don’t lie: You didn’t know Fritz Lang directed a film set in the Philippines during World War II.

Fritz on Fridays: Hangmen Also Die!

Fritz on Fridays: Hangmen Also Die!

Fritz Lang and Bertolt Brecht were a match designed by the gods of cinema even if the apocalyptic circumstances uniting them were nothing short of godless.

Fritz on Fridays: You Only Live Once

Fritz on Fridays: You Only Live Once

If you were to put all of Fritz Lang’s films together and make a new one from the aggregate, that film would very closely resemble 1937’s You Only Live Once.

Fritz on Fridays: The Spiders — The Diamond Ship

Fritz on Fridays: The Spiders — The Diamond Ship

The second of Fritz Lang’s two Spiders films, released in 1920 but considered a lost film until the 1970s, might be the most reprobate picture of his nearly six-decade career.

Fritz on Fridays: The Woman in the Window (1944)

Fritz on Fridays: The Woman in the Window (1944)

The Woman in the Window might be the most important film the director made after leaving the German industry.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: The Zone of Interest

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: The Zone of Interest

I’m not convinced that The Zone of Interest, the first film in a decade from provocateur Jonathan Glazer, is a film about the banality of evil per se. It’s more of a horrific record of of the banality — and that distinction matters.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: One Life (2023)

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF)

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: One Life (2023)

The Academy Award-winning costume designer behind Black Panther, Ruth Carter once noted she didn’t just start making superhero films. She’s been making them for decades, with a filmography that includes Malcolm X, Amistad and Selma. Carter’s right. There are two different kinds of superhero films: the corporate

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: All of Us Strangers

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: All of Us Strangers

Andrew Scott’s performance alone is worth the investment of time and money even as the film doesn’t quite work as a whole.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Ferrari (2023)

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF)

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Ferrari (2023)

An altogether infertile American studio film, Michael Mann’s Ferrari neglects the creativity and bravura in the racing that any good racing movie should have and substitutes stereotypical housewife and mistress roles for the film’s two women.

Fritz on Fridays: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

Fritz on Fridays: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

At the absolute maximum, there are but a handful of filmmakers in the history of the seventh art who have left a greater mark on the medium than Fritz Lang. I’m even hesitant to identify a single filmmaker with a definitive case for being more influential over the course

Fritz on Fridays: <i>The Big Heat</i> (1953)

Fritz on Fridays: <i>The Big Heat</i> (1953)

Beginning today, on the first Friday of every month, this column by critic Joshua Polanski will feature a short review or essay on a film directed by Fritz Lang (1890-1976), the great Austrian “Master of Darkness.” Occasionally (but not too occasionally), Fritz on Fridays will also feature interviews and conversations