Shown in February of 1921, this film has generally been overlooked in Lang’s canon, not least because for a long time it [...] was thought to have vanished [...]. On the evidence available today, KÄMPFENDE HERZEN turns out first-rate, showing the progress and development of Lang’s filmmaking. [...] Contemporary reviewers were “disconcerted by the plot”,” according to Lotte Eisner, “finding the relationships between characters unclear” and the idea of the look-alikes preposterous. [...] But it is the verisimilitude and gritty realism of KÄMPFENDE HERZEN that astonishes nowadays. [...] This is the first of his “tabloid” films, focussing on the streets and society of Berlin, and Lang was always more stimulated by urban life than by nature’s splendor. KÄMPFENDE HERZEN can be seen now as an obvious transition to DR. MABUSE. Here was a Lang equally at home in posh hotel rooms and sleazy dives. The layers of society were peeled away, the director wryly dissecting the contrast between private clubs of rich, top-hatted gamblers and Berlin’s teeming underworld. Here, for the first time, Lang began to show an appetite for dizzying montage: intercut close-ups of street signs, sidewalk activity, telephones ringing, people gulping food, wafted cigarette smoke, grimacing faces. [...] KÄMPFENDE HERZEN made for raucous enjoyment, and was a leap forward for the increasingly proficient director.
Patrick McGilligan, Fritz Lang. The Nature of the Beast, New York 1997
We are showing this film as part of a double programme. The first film is WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO?
