The Movies of Fritz Lang

            " (158) was Lang's response to the interviewer's question when the interviewer Power asked him in 1973, "How do you take your coffee?" (158). This response is characteristic of the dark underlying tone that is prevalent in many Lang's films. According to Professor Polan, many Lang's films share a recurring theme - destiny, a destiny which is typically random and uncaring. In a world that is inherently corrupt and inhospitable, it almost seems as if characters were destined to find themselves entrapped in unwanted and frequently doomed situations. While watching Lang's films, the contemporary viewers, who were living through the Great Depression, are naturally inclined to ask themselves: are our lives bounded by fate, which is dictated by our savage environment, or do we have the freedom and ability to make decisions that are not predetermined by any prior occurrences? Suppose we do have free will, how can we exercise it? In his film, The Woman in the Window, Lang responds to these questions by first acknowledging the existence of fate and its uncaring nature. He communicates this message to his audience by presenting a bleak view of the universe that is typically Langian - thematically, stylistically and narratively. Lang then leaves subtle clues at the end of this film which demonstrates that he may in fact be a proponent of free will. One of the messages that he may have wanted to convey to his audience is that free will, while achievable, comes at a cost.
             To further discuss the theme of destiny, the concept of fate needs to first be defined in a Langian context. While fate is generally thought of as an abstract power that controls the future of people, Tom Gunning believes that the notion of fate in Lang's films is based on a rigid cause-and-effect structure, grounded in modern everyday life. He renames this idea of fate as the "Destiny-machine", which can be described as a vast and elaborate system that society organized as a machine.