Lotte Eisner: Letter to Fritz Lang (November 20 [1937])
Lotte Eisner: Letter to Fritz Lang (November 20 [1937])
Ich dachte in meinen Freundschaften nicht an das, was ich davon profitieren könnte, ich half, wo ich konnte, und wenn ich merkte, daß der andere unfähig war, auf gleiche Weise zu geben, war ich nicht beleidigt, denn mir war die gemeinsame Sache wichtiger, und die gemeinsame Sache war der Film – vielleicht sollte ich lieber sagen, die gemeinsame Krankheit, denn eine ansteckendere und lang anhaltendere Seuche kenne ich nicht.
[When it came to my friendships I never thought about what I could gain from them. I helped where I could. And if I realised that he or she wasn't able to give back to me in the same way, I wasn't offended, because what we had in common was more important to me - and that was cinema. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say our common illness, because if there is a more contagious and protracted disease, I am not aware of it. (ed. trans.)]
Lotte Eisner über ihre Beziehung zu Fritz Lang
Lotte Eisner had made the acquaintance of the director Fritz Lang through her work at the Berlin-based Film-Kurier, for which she regularly wrote reviews for 1927. This made her one of the few women to engage with this young genre professionally in Germany. Over the years a friendship developed between Eisner and Lang which was further reinforced by their experience of exile. In April 1933 Eisner fled to Paris from the anti-Semitic ruling powers; Lang followed a few months later. In preparation for his first film produced in France, Liliom (1934), Eisner showed him the Paris flea markets and fairs and all the "colourful and picturesque spots" she knew.
Soon afterwards the director received a contract from MGM and went to Hollywood, however he continued to correspond with his friend who eked out a living for herself in Paris with odd jobs and soon also as a film critic for various newspapers - for example, she wrote for the newspaper of her Film-Kurier colleague Hans Feld who lived in exile in Prague, and the anti-fascist International Film Festival. She urged Lang to submit articles to these magazines, and also wrote short reviews of his latest films.
The correspondence with the director contains few private details. In most cases it is primarily about their shared passion of cinema. Lotte Eisner's monograph on Fritz Lang was published in 1976, the year of his death.
Further reading:
Eisner, Lotte H.: Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland. Memoiren. Geschrieben von Martje Grohmann. Mit einem Vorwort von Werner Herzog. Heidelberg: Wunderhorn 1984
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