Mabuse Wrapup

Before we move on to May's selection, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, I want to thank the club for the chance to host this month's film - and for an excuse to keep rewatching Mabuse The Gambler (and The Testament of Doctor Mabuse) for a month... That was a major motivation for choosing this film: I found it fascinating, full of things - stylistic, thematic, structural - that I thought were there but wasn't quite sure - but without some kind of external pressure, I'm not sure I would have put the time into it.

I'm certainly glad I did - the Mabuse films are as rewarding a batch of films as I've watched in a while, and they are films that lead me out from them as well. I hope I manage to continue working through Lang's filmography; I hope I get the chance to go backwards to watch films like Fantomas and other Feuillade (and others - maybe Joe May) series'. I hope I get some more posts out of these films - one of the things I most like about writing on the internet is that it doesn't quite have to be finished - you get to work through ideas in public, a bit, posting drafts and revisions and sketches, in ways you can't really do in other forums. The chance to keep coming back to the idea is a valuable one...

Anyway - I hope I haven't bored you all to death, and sorry for picking such a monster of a film. It could have been worse, I suppose - I could have been inspired to write about Berlin Alexanderplatz. I have to credit Eric Rentschler for this fascination with German film: I am taking a class with him (at the Harvard Extension School), and it has been very inspirational. And for Lang, it is hard to beat Tom Gunning's book...

And now - I'm looking forward to Glenn Heath's discussion of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.... Before I turn into Mabuse myself...