Der Müde Tod

Fritz Lang’s Der Müde Tod (Destiny) is a film about death. It is a silent film from 1921. It has also been renamed: The Weary Death, Beyond the Wall, Between Two Worlds, and The Three Lights.

The film begins with an iris opening up beckoning us to enter. In the background is placid music. There are black trees against a white sky. This contrast of white and black exists throughout the frames of this film, creating a sort of absolution to it all. A silhouette of a man in a cape with a cane appears. He is presented as an older man – weathered by his life. A carriage of two young lovers stops to pick up the man in the cape stern and silent. His facial bone structure is rigid. They all arrive at “A little town lost in the past.” The haunting subtitle gives us a clue to the inevitable doom.

The town dignitaries are all getting drunk at the Inn. Jolly music plays in the background. In their self-indulgent pleasure they are ignorant to the events of their surroundings. Death goes to the gravedigger and asks about the land next to the cemetery. He leases the land for ninety-nine years. Death builds a great wall with neither gate nor door around his “garden.” The dignitaries discuss the strangeness of this new member of their community. They are startled when he appears outside his wall announces that he alone knows the way in. They slowly leave.

The couple is at the Inn. Death arrives and sits down at their table. The couple drinks from the loving cup and is startled when it turns into an hourglass. The woman leaves the table to go outside and play with the cats. When she returns her sweetheart and Death are gone. The dignitaries tell her the two left together. She leaves the Inn. The town bum at the end of the stairs points the way to where they went.

There is a long shot of her walking through the town. She walks through the landscape outside of town passing an owl on his perch. The music is now drumbeats. This creates suspense. Exhausted the woman arrives at the great wall. While there she sees ghostly figures pass before her and enter through the wall. One of them is her beloved. Meanwhile the druggist has been out picking herbs and finds her collapsed by the wall. He brings her to his home to rest.

The woman has sunken eyes from her exhaustion. She discovers a book. A close-up of the book is shown revealing the statement, “Love is strong as death.” She focuses on that statement. She takes one of the druggist’s potions. She now appears on the other side of Death’s great wall. She enters through a Gothic archway to enter further into his realm. The archway is illuminated while the sides, top, and bottom is pitch black. She walks up a staircase. Death confronts her saying, “I have not summoned you.” She pleads with him for her beloved. Death takes her to a room filed with different sized candles. He tells her that her beloved’s time had come. Death shows her burned out candles and states, “These are the lives that burn out when God wishes it.” Death makes a baby appear and then disappear in front of her eyes so she can comprehend his eternal power. Violin music plays in the background offering its sympathy. She pleads with Death continuously.

Death tells the woman if she can save one of the three lights then she can have her beloved back. He knows that she can not. He shows her the tales of the three lives that are doomed. They are set in Caliphate Baghdad, Renaissance Venice, and Mythical China. In between each of these tales, a candle is shown flickering and dying out. Each candle is burned down to about one inch of wax. After seeing all this she still pleads with Death. She now cowers on her knees pleading. Death tells her to bring him a replacement.

She returns to the druggist’s home at the same time she left. A clock tells us the time before and after. She pleads with the druggist for his life. The druggist throws her out. She pleads with the bum. He shouts, “Not a day, not one hour, not one breath.” She then goes to the Inn where there is a gathering of elderly people. She pleads for their lives as a replacement for her beloved. They run away from her. A fire starts in the Inn. She overhears that a baby is still in the building after all the other people have gotten out safely. She runs into the building with the intentions to use the baby as a replacement for her beloved. When Death confronts her she hands the baby out the window and allows herself to be consumed by the fire. She has come to the conclusion that her life is not worth living anymore without her beloved. Death leads her to her lover while her body burns inside the Inn. The lovers are reunited in their ghostly forms.

Fritz Lang delivers a visually dramatic film about subject matte known to us all. His use of lighting adds greatly to the story. One day we will all know death. The contrast of bright lights and darkness, the music, and his script all aid to the haunting imagery of death.