Destiny

Director: Fritz Lang

Overview

Fritz Lang was a stickler for realism in his American films; not so his German silents, which were fanciful to the point of being fairy tales. Der Müde Tod, Lang's first big critical success, is an allegorical tale of love, fidelity and death. The heroine (Lil Dagover), who in her dreams is confronted by Mr. Death, argues for the life of her beloved, but is unable to make the personal sacrifices that Death insists upon. Originally presented in three parts, Der Müde Tod was often boiled down to a single film for its non-German showings. Its English-language titles range from The Weary Death to Between Two Worlds to Beyond the Wall to Destiny.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/30/2016
UPC:	0738329207182
Original Release:	1921
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kino Classics
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:38:00
Sales rank:	53,824

Special Features

2K digital restoration supervised by Anke Wilkening on behalf of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung; Audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas; Restoration demonstration footage; 2016 re-release trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bernhard Goetzke	El Mot
Lil Dagover	Zobeide
Walter Janssen	Liang
Hermann Vallentin	Actor
Paul Biensfeldt	Ahi
Wilhelm Diegelmann	Actor
Grete Berger	Actor
Hermann Picha	Schneider
Hans Sternberg	Actor
Rudolph Klein-Rogge	Girolamo
Eduard von Winterstein	Kalif
Georg John	Bettler
Paul Rehkopf	Kuester
Max Adalbert	Notar/Schatzmeister
Giuseppe Becce	Composer

Technical Credits

Fritz Lang

Thea von Harbou

Fritz Lang	Director,Screenwriter
Erich Pommer	Producer
Thea von Harbou	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Destiny
1. Chapter 1 [7:10]
2. Chapter 2 [9:49]
3. Chapter 3 [7:16]
4. Chapter 4 [6:05]
5. Chapter 5 [14:35]
6. Chapter 6 [15:04]
7. Chapter 7 [22:13]
8. Chapter 8 [15:52]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Destiny
   Play
   Chapters
   Extras
      Restoration Demonstration Footage
      2016 Re-Release Trailer
   Setup
      Music By Cornelius Schwehr
      Audio Commentary By Tim Lucas
      English Captions: On
      English Captions: Off

Editorial Reviews

Fritz Lang may have immersed himself in German culture with his Siegfried and Kriemhilde's Revenge, but he was never more Germanic anywhere than he was with Destiny. Inspired by a childhood dream, this grim yet entertaining story about life-and-death, and the struggle to overcome the latter, never quite escapes its origins, in terms of a somber tone and caste to its plot and characters -- indeed, it is as self-consciously German as Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (with which it has much in common) is self-consciously Swedish. It's easy to understand how other filmmakers, most especially Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as a producer (on The Thief of Bagdad), would have lifted much of Destiny's form and images, but little of its substance. The movie still holds up, but it is a little tougher to absorb than, say, Lang's Nibelungen films, lacking a conventional heroic presence or story-arc for audiences to grab onto. Indeed, in many ways, the work it most closely resembles thematically is Harold S. Buquet's On Borrowed Time (1939), which has a somewhat similar resolution.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder