Early Nothing
Manohla Dargis on film director Fritz Lang in The New York Times (online Jan. 21, 2011, printed Jan. 23)—
"Hollywood endings can be beautiful fibs, but in Lang’s movies the glossy smiles and fade-outs feel forced. You can almost feel him pulling at them, trying to bring them back into the dark where they belong. The miracle of his Hollywood era is that, even when the screenplays tried to force his work in one direction, he managed to take them into richer, more complex realms with a style that was alternately baroque and stripped down and peopled with characters whose cynicism was earned. Every so often, though, he did strike screenwriting gold, notably in 'The Big Heat,' his 1953 crime masterwork. 'Say, I like this, early nothing,' a mink-swaddled Gloria Grahame says of a hotel room. Everyone really is a critic."