SUBJECTS

Amusement parks -- Drama, Future life -- Drama, Heaven -- Drama, Suicide -- Drama

Liliom

featuring

Charles Boyer, Madeleine Ozeray, Pedro Alcover, Antonin Artaud,

Lang’s wonderfully inventive Liliom, which has a musical lightness akin to René Clair’s films, fell into almost complete obscurity soon after its release. Made in France, the first stop on Lang’s self-imposed exile from Germany, this tragicomedy is based on Ferenc Molnar’s fantastical play about earth, heaven, and purgatory. Charles Boyer stars in one of his best roles, and Antonin Artaud appears as the knife grinder/guardian angel. Lang deftly satirizes French bureaucracy (on earth and at heaven’s gates) in this struggle of the individual against an unjust, omnipotent fate. Jean Cocteau credited the film as an influence on Orphée.

Susan Oxtoby
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Robert Liebman
  • Bernard Zimmer
Based On
  • the play by Ferenc Molnar

Cinematographer
  • Rudolph Maté
  • Louis Nee
Language
  • French
  • with English e-titling
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 120 mins
Source
  • BFI
Permission
  • 20th Century Fox/Criterion
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Liliom documents  

Liliom (program note), Pacific Film Archive, Pierre Sauvage, 2001

Liliom (program note), National Film Theatre (London, England), 2000

C.A.L. - U.A.M. presents the films of Fritz Lang (review), 1969

Liliom (program note), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philip Chamberlin, 1969

The films of Fritz Lang (program note), Pacific Film Archive

The art of Fritz Lang (program note), Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The films of Fritz Lang (program note), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philip Chamberlin

The films of Fritz Lang (brochure), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philip Chamberlin

Liliom (program note), National Film Theatre (London, England)

Lost Liliom this Monday (review)

Displaying 10 of 13 publicly available documents.


View all Liliom documentation on CineFiles.