During the 1920s, Germany was suffering from having a government that was perceived as weak and incompetent. The Weimar Republic faced numerous problems such as hyperinflation and strong opposition from the right and left wings. Such political instability echoed through all Germans’ paths of life. Thus, it is not uncommon to find elements in art works that reflected and were directly linked to the society’s mental uneasiness and worries of the time. Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse films are a clear example of such works. These films provide a face and a name to the invisible hand perceived to be responsible for all of society’s problems. In fact, Lang claimed that Dr. Mabuse represented “not simply some man from 192[2], but the man of 192[2];” converting the films into documents of their time.
The story line is rooted in worries about criminals who can blend perfectly into society. Lang was especially successful at discerning and delineating society’s intertwined web of common fears. Such fears were incubated and growing as the result of the country’s complex historic episodes. In fact, there are unsettling similarities between sequences of the film and later Nazi propaganda against Jews. Such similarities could indeed be the result of Lang’s direct influence in the creative department of the Nazis. However, it cannot be ignored that the means used by the Nazis to sway the population to engage in horrifying actions was through the magnification of the collective fears explored by Lang in his films. In fact, Lang was able to translate such latent fears into the character of Dr. Mabuse. For example, Dr. Mabuse is able to hypnotize people to do inexplicable things they would not do otherwise. He seems to embody a godlike figure with an uncanny ability to control people’s minds at his will. As if playing with people’s actions were not enough, he is also a master of disguise, which allows him to work his magic without being recognized by those around him. His precise understanding of disguise, such as costumes and the forgery of documents, allows him to steal and manipulate identities.
Throughout the film, a main anxiety explored is the manipulation of monetary systems and society’s struggle to cope with inflation. Thus, in Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler, Germans are finally given a name to blame for all of their monetary adversities. Dr. Mabuse plays with stockbrokers through the manipulation of information, as if they were marionettes. He is a master at reading people and understanding the appropriate time to release and withhold information from public knowledge to generate the desired reactions.
This manipulation of the flow of information can only be achieved by skillful maneuvering through the systems of modernity. By elaborating this particular theme, Lang portrayed German society’s state of breathlessness in catching up with the numerous technological advances of the time. There is a vast difference between Dr. Mabuse and the rest of the ordinary population in their understanding and internalization of technological systems. While most people tried to make some sense of the invasion of trains, cars, telephones, and the like, Dr. Mabuse comprehended their reliability and great potential for his plans.
For example, he knew that the railroad system, rather than being detached from the lives of its passengers, directly affects their destiny and future. Even though the railway is thought of as riding parallel to a “world of random encounters,” if the time is taken to thoroughly study the system, it is possible to adapt its “internal complexity” to individual needs. This is precisely what Dr. Mabuse is able to do by studying and understanding the schedules of trains. Consequently, schedules and time have a key role throughout the films. The scheming plans could not be carried out if the criminals were not in perfect synchronicity. Schedules become the spinal cord of Dr. Mabuse’s operations, necessary for every plan to function.
Departures from schedule are what Dr. Mabuse tries to control with the aid of telephones. Even though his body is in one place, his mental powers travel outwards over the telephone wires, affirming his will and presence in more than one place. Thus, Dr. Mabuse has assumed and embodied the qualities of telephones, which make “travel almost superfluous, partly [fulfilling] humankind’s dream of becoming omnipresent.” Nevertheless, he knows the high likelihood of telephone messages being intercepted by third parties, and thus in Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler, he prefers the passage of important information through encoded messages that travel from hand to hand. In fact, he passes messages by writing indications on currency bills and congratulation cards. It is interesting to notice that in the end of Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler, his operations are still at a high peak that seems unreachable by the inspector. However, that mountain starts to crumble in the second part of the film, as he increasingly relies on telephones.
Therefore, as the story of Dr. Mabuse develops through the two halves of the film, the complexity of the role of telephones builds up. As a medium of control and penetration into closed systems, the telephone goes from being the glue of Dr. Mabuse’s operations to become one of the principal causes of the fall of his empire. At first, he is the only one understanding the ability of telephones to reach sealed places, access to which would otherwise be impossible. In addition, they help him to completely master his plans. They become the mean to “be present and absent at the same time, by making [his] bod[y] invisible and [his] voic[e] infinitely transportable.”
However, after always being at least a step behind Dr. Mabuse, inspector von Wenk stumbles onto the usefulness of telephones. By simply scanning through a telephone directory, von Wenk finds the key to Dr. Mabuse’s fortress: his telephone number. He now has the power to contact and reach Dr. Mabuse whenever he desires. More importantly, Dr. Mabuse starts losing control when von Wenk and the Count begin using the telephone to communicate between themselves instead of through him. This is the reason why he demands the Count to cut communication with the outside world in order to get treatment for his mental disorder. Dr. Mabuse foresees great risks if the Count stays in contact with von Wenk because they could connect loose ends that might unveil his identity and the kidnapping of the Countess.
It is interesting that what ultimately causes the fall of Dr. Mabuse is not the government but women. It seems as if German society had returned to a childish state of mind in which a maternal figure was needed to comfort and save it. There is angst in men which results from the dramatic “transition from being a baby, dominated by instinctual need, to an adult individual who has to negotiate social reality.” These worries are mirrored in the conclusion of German films of this period such as Dr. Mabuse and Nosferatu. Women are the ultimate heroes. They sacrifice themselves, as only a mother would for her children, in order to save men from the horrors greater than life that they have encountered. The acting style and casting decisions of these films are in direct correlation with the protagonists’ sensation of helplessness as they face their adulthood. For instance, as Kracauer noticed, the flimsy and spineless male protagonists’ recurrent way to deal with problems is to throw themselves into bed and bury their heads in women’s laps in search of maternal protection. The adversities that life has put into their paths, similar to the German audiences’ of the time, were too overwhelming for them to cope with. Thus, they wished to go back to a time in which their mothers would have safeguarded them. In fact, Dr. Mabuse’s malicious plans are ultimately cracked by the heroic act of women. Carozza and the Countess are the only two characters that directly defy Dr. Mabuse and his plans. Motivated by love and the admiration of its purest kind, both women break the closed circles that were holding Dr. Mabuse’s operation together. Therefore, even if Dr. Mabuse is a master of disguise and the interlocked systems of modernity, he cannot factor into his frivolous and precise calculations the irrational reactions triggered by love and obsession.
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