Destiny [Blu-ray]

Director: Fritz Lang

Overview

This musical, silent film tells of a young girl who bargains with death for the life of her lover. Lots of special effects as the movie moves from Bagdad to China. Released in English, the title was "Destiny."

Product Details

Release Date:	08/30/2016
UPC:	0738329207199
Original Release:	1921
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kino Classics
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:38:00
Sales rank:	30,136

Special Features

2K digital restoration supervised by Anke Wilkening on behalf of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung; Audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas; Restoration demonstration footage ; 2016 re-release trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bernhard Goetzke	El Mot
Lil Dagover	Zobeide
Walter Janssen	Liang
Hermann Vallentin	Actor
Paul Biensfeldt	Ahi
Wilhelm Diegelmann	Actor
Grete Berger	Actor
Hermann Picha	Schneider
Hans Sternberg	Actor
Rudolph Klein-Rogge	Girolamo
Eduard von Winterstein	Kalif
Georg John	Bettler
Paul Rehkopf	Kuester
Max Adalbert	Notar/Schatzmeister
Giuseppe Becce	Composer

Technical Credits

Fritz Lang

Thea von Harbou

Fritz Lang	Director,Screenwriter
Erich Pommer	Producer
Thea von Harbou	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Fritz Lang may have immersed himself in German culture with his Siegfried and Kriemhilde's Revenge, but he was never more Germanic anywhere than he was with Destiny. Inspired by a childhood dream, this grim yet entertaining story about life-and-death, and the struggle to overcome the latter, never quite escapes its origins, in terms of a somber tone and caste to its plot and characters -- indeed, it is as self-consciously German as Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (with which it has much in common) is self-consciously Swedish. It's easy to understand how other filmmakers, most especially Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as a producer (on The Thief of Bagdad), would have lifted much of Destiny's form and images, but little of its substance. The movie still holds up, but it is a little tougher to absorb than, say, Lang's Nibelungen films, lacking a conventional heroic presence or story-arc for audiences to grab onto. Indeed, in many ways, the work it most closely resembles thematically is Harold S. Buquet's On Borrowed Time (1939), which has a somewhat similar resolution.