'I like this, early nothing.'

New York is hosting a season of Fritz Lang movies. The NYTimes' Manohla Dargis has a terrific essay on the Austrian director's Hollywood years:

Survival, it turns out, was the great story of his tenure in Hollywood, a not unfamiliar tale. Working against the odds as he moved from studio to studio, sometimes under contract, sometimes independently and rarely with the same technicians, he did more than survive, he also thrived. In Germany he would have 100 days to shoot a movie; in America he had closer to a month. He often had a say in the editing, though he was also barred from editing rooms. He said he had control over his sets and costumes, but he didn't always have the final say when it came to all scenes in his movies, whether through producer-dictated changes or the happy, sappy endings that feel like the lies they are.

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.

Meanwhile in London the BFI is hosting a Howard Hawks season. The Big Sleep last week; Rio Bravo and The Thing From Another World in the coming fortnight. All you need is the trans-Atlantic airfare.