"Fury" is one of the great movies of the 1930s -- Fritz Lang's best American film and the best performance in Spencer Tracy's career. The movie can very easily be divided into two parts, before and after the Tracy character, who is innocent, is lynched by an angry mob. The first part of the film exposes the weakness of mob mentality or group mentality, indicting civilization and society. These parts of the movie feel like Lang's statement on the things he had seen happening in Germany before he fled from the Nazis. What's scary is that he's saying essentially that the same kind of thing could happen in America, very easily. But the second part of the film is even more interesting, because it flips the equation and shows how the individual person in the society can also become corrupted by his contact with the mob, the dehumanizing aspects of revenge.
One of the most transgressive or daring things that Lang does is to rip the sentiment out of the movie very early. Audiences of the 1930s were used to movies about crime or suspense where the hero has some kind of sentimental personal habit or association, with a kid or a dog, that ensures the whole affair doesn't become too dark or impersonal. In this movie Tracy's character has the cute habit of carrying peanuts everywhere with him, and he adopts a scruffy looking dog that he names "Rainbow." In an ordinary movie, no matter what happened to Tracy these sentimental or romantic traits would be an anchor for the audience through the entire thing -- but Lang has the peanut thing become the primary evidence against him in this "crime", and the cute dog is blown up by dynamite. It seems silly in a way, but it's an effective way to really tell the audience that this film takes place in a world where justice itself is suspect.
Spencer Tracy really blew me away in this one the first time I saw it, I had no idea that he could be so scary. When he appears at his brothers' house, he's the angel of death shrouded in ash and shadows. Sylvia Sidney is really remarkable in this movie too, in a role that really requires a lot of restraint. I love the way Lang photographed her in these extreme close-ups, especially in the lynching scene.
This is a fascinating dark film that could never become outdated, so it's the definition of a "classic." It's the only film I've seen by Lang in America that matches the brilliance of "M" and its transgressive contemplation of justice and morality as socially negotiable qualities.
One of the most transgressive or daring things that Lang does is to rip the sentiment out of the movie very early. Audiences of the 1930s were used to movies about crime or suspense where the hero has some kind of sentimental personal habit or association, with a kid or a dog, that ensures the whole affair doesn't become too dark or impersonal. In this movie Tracy's character has the cute habit of carrying peanuts everywhere with him, and he adopts a scruffy looking dog that he names "Rainbow." In an ordinary movie, no matter what happened to Tracy these sentimental or romantic traits would be an anchor for the audience through the entire thing -- but Lang has the peanut thing become the primary evidence against him in this "crime", and the cute dog is blown up by dynamite. It seems silly in a way, but it's an effective way to really tell the audience that this film takes place in a world where justice itself is suspect.
Spencer Tracy really blew me away in this one the first time I saw it, I had no idea that he could be so scary. When he appears at his brothers' house, he's the angel of death shrouded in ash and shadows. Sylvia Sidney is really remarkable in this movie too, in a role that really requires a lot of restraint. I love the way Lang photographed her in these extreme close-ups, especially in the lynching scene.
This is a fascinating dark film that could never become outdated, so it's the definition of a "classic." It's the only film I've seen by Lang in America that matches the brilliance of "M" and its transgressive contemplation of justice and morality as socially negotiable qualities.