Fritz Lang's final silent film is an excellent if flawed one. It seems with this particular film, of which I viewed the new DVD edition from Kino video, Lang forces his objectives on a film that somewhat is not meant for him.
I can forgive the fact that there is an atmosphere on the moon and gold and that there seems to be something as flimsy as a screen door on this rocket. What bothers me with this particular subject matter is that Lang ignores the necessities. He is so interested in depicting space travel as accurately as possible, that simple questions such as what do they eat, is there a toilet on board, are not answered at all.
The ending, which is dramatically satisfying, fails to answer a simple question. How the hell do Helius and Friede expect to live for the rocket to come back??? Lang's mechanic attitude is very evident as he recycles his previous plots for this film that required a more imaginative plot. The Professor, Windegger, and of course, Turner, are so useless one has to wonder how dumb Helius is in bringing the first two along. Further, the idea of gold being on the moon was a cheap idea, but how did Turner expect to get back to earth if he left everyone behind for one little bag of gold???? He wasn't a scientist.
I could go on with the plot holes, but I must say I did actually like the film. The images were stunning. I think this may have had the most effective lighting of all of Lang's silents. The score that Kino added by Jon Mirsalis was terrific. But the blast-off scene was the best and seeing the struggle versus G-Forces was very effective.
Fritz Lang was a great director who sometimes sacrificed his story and characters for his own cynical view of human beings. In this case, it doesn't work like it does in Metropolis and Die Nibelungen. More imagination and detail to the human element of the plot is the missing ingredient.
I can forgive the fact that there is an atmosphere on the moon and gold and that there seems to be something as flimsy as a screen door on this rocket. What bothers me with this particular subject matter is that Lang ignores the necessities. He is so interested in depicting space travel as accurately as possible, that simple questions such as what do they eat, is there a toilet on board, are not answered at all.
The ending, which is dramatically satisfying, fails to answer a simple question. How the hell do Helius and Friede expect to live for the rocket to come back??? Lang's mechanic attitude is very evident as he recycles his previous plots for this film that required a more imaginative plot. The Professor, Windegger, and of course, Turner, are so useless one has to wonder how dumb Helius is in bringing the first two along. Further, the idea of gold being on the moon was a cheap idea, but how did Turner expect to get back to earth if he left everyone behind for one little bag of gold???? He wasn't a scientist.
I could go on with the plot holes, but I must say I did actually like the film. The images were stunning. I think this may have had the most effective lighting of all of Lang's silents. The score that Kino added by Jon Mirsalis was terrific. But the blast-off scene was the best and seeing the struggle versus G-Forces was very effective.
Fritz Lang was a great director who sometimes sacrificed his story and characters for his own cynical view of human beings. In this case, it doesn't work like it does in Metropolis and Die Nibelungen. More imagination and detail to the human element of the plot is the missing ingredient.