Jacin LeeTA: Sonja SimonyiExpressive Cultures: Film9 May 2014Final article: 10 pagesIn this article, I want to argue that the effective use of Cinemascope and Mise-En-Scène by Fritz Lang -en-scène in Moonfleet, ultimately allowed him to better express his distinctive stylistic elements, despite the numerous restrictions he had to work with throughout the production process. These restrictions included but were not limited to: a new stylistic recovery process; Cinemascope, and the frayed relationship Fritz Lang supposedly shared with MGM, the production company he worked with on Moonfleet. Twenty years before the production of Moonfleet, Lang had worked on another film with MGM: Fury. Fury was Lang's American film debut and, unlike Moonfleet, achieved undisputed critical success. Unfortunately, as shown in the book Fritz Lang by Lotte H. Eisner, the author reveals how Lang unintentionally "disdained" Louis B. Mayer during the production of Fury, and "after which the company considered Lang unapproachable and arrogant" In an interview with Fritz Lang, retells this story that happened after Fury was finished, “When a reporter asked them (MGM) one day, “What kind of movie are you premiering today? “Oh,” they said, “a disgusting picture. Don't look at it, it's from that German son of a bitch Lang." It is therefore plausible to deduce that the two parties did not separate in the best way. MGM did not extend Lang's one-year contract, and the two parties would not cross paths again until Moonfleet in 1955. As the only period film or period drama directed by Lang, Moonfleet can be compared to other "gems one-shot" such as the much underrated You and Me, “and Indian films, works that contribute to providing a more complex and varied picture... middle of paper... several times under the dictatorship of various producers with whom he worked , in Moonfleet, was able to successfully express his distinctive stylistic elements, regardless of these restrictions. In terms of Cinemascope, he effectively used it as a tool, and with the "happy ending" limitation, there was still enough Langian mystery clouding the ending to prevent the certainty of Jeremy's death. To conclude, it is Lang's skill with mise en scène, as well as “uses of Cinemascope” that led to “[Moonfleet's immediate support] as a central film in the Lang canon [following its French release in 1960] , prompting Jean-Luc Godard to include it in his list of the year's best films and to subsequently inspire feverish dedications from key writers such as Luc Moullet", and Moonfleet should be all the more recognized as a success in Fritz Lang's oeuvre.