Dir. Fritz Lang
There are aspects of film, nay, storytelling, that transcend time because they tap into something distinctly human. Love, war, and sex are the most prominent I find. That last one is a little more tricky due to censorship in more conservative times, but is reflected in romance, and in other inventive ways - Hitchcock's visual joke involving a train tunnel in North By Northwest comes to mind. There is another that dates back not only to literature with Poe, but further back to a time when verbal communication was king - ghost stories, or more broadly, the supernatural.
In Das Testament des Dr.Mabuse, Fritz Lang uses the techniques he'd learned from his silent film days to explore this theme. The film is a sequel to his silent film Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922) OR Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, where criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is eventually driven insane by the ghosts of his victims, and incarcerated in an insane asylum. The sequel continues the story with the premise that the insane Mabuse is writing of criminal events in his cell, events which seem to be occurring in the real-world. We see, throughout the film, a group of criminals visit an imposing room, where they are summoned by Dr. Mabuse. The room is almost featureless, with a curtain at one end, and a door at the other. Behind the curtain, Mabuse command his lackeys and receives updates on his work. He's never seen, only heard. Yet it's implied that he can see the lackeys he speaks to, as he knows if they are there but are simply not speaking, or can tell when they aren't being upfront.
Later in the film, one of these criminals, Kent (Gustav Diesel) and his love Lilli (Wera Liessem) are captured and locked in the room. Mabuse informs them that they will die. Kent shoots through the curtain. The two approach, pull back the curtain, and reveal a desk, a loudspeaker, and a cardboard cutout silhouette of a sitting man, now riddled with bullet holes. You can see it above, and the visual is striking. What this does is confirm that Mabuse, and his entire criminal empire, has been accomplished by proxy, by his spirit.
Earlier in the film, the Mabuse locked in the asylum was found dead. Following this event we saw the superbly experimental and visual scene, where Mabuse's spirit takes control of Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi Sr.), and details his plan of a criminal empire across the world. I mean look at this image of Mabuse's spirit! The effect is creepy to this day, and for an early sound film of the 30's, supremely effective.
Anyway, so we the audience 'know', and I use that word carefully, that Baum has been taken over by the spirit of Dr.Mabuse. How?Nnever explained. But why would we want it to be? The delight of the story is that the villain and centerpiece of the film, the supernatural Mabuse, is just that, supernatural. Why does this spirit fixate on crime? Why did he remain in his asylum for so long before breaking free of the old and insane mind? Why does he want a criminal empire? Answering any of these questions isn't really desired, the pleasure is in the execution. Like a magic trick, we want to wonder 'How did they do that?'. When the answer is given, we are left disappointed, as the mystery was our enjoyment. As Michael Caine says in The Prestige (2006), a film dealing with this theme, "You want to be fooled". When the curtain is pulled back, secrets revealed, disappointment follows. Now isn't that interesting? When the curtain is pulled back.
Isn't that exactly what we have in that room? Kent and Lilli pull the curtain back and see the answer to the 'mystery' of who was behind the curtain. We know it's Mabuse of course, but we still want to know how exactly he was operating the crimes in the room. And what does Lang do? Gives us more questions! The curtain reveals the loudspeaker, which explains how the audio was being piped in. But that's about it! The cutout is an enigmatic touch that acts as a visual reference for the absent Mabuse. The very fact that it is there tells us that Mabuse has a sense of humour, knowing that Kent would likely look behind the curtain. It also visually shows us that Mabuse can't be killed, or at least, nor as simply as a bullet to the chest. This spirit, this criminal consciousness resided in that area of the room, yet wasn't present.
With the curtains pulled back, the trick has been on the criminals. They thought that Mabuse was playing by their rules, but he's not. Mabuse is supernatural, beyond the physical, and has used the curtains, the speaker, the cutout, as a courtesy, and as a joke. We don't know whether it was his bodyless form that spoke behind the curtains, or if he did in actuality use the speaker as channeling device, but nonetheless the effect is given, Dr.Mabuse is beyond being a common criminal, he truly is a super-criminal in many senses of the word.
The influence of this scene, and Mabuse himself, is present in the cinematic portrayal of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, arch-villain of James Bond, who, particularity in the early-Connery films, was always presented with face hidden, and silhouetted, with only his white cat as a maker of his true identity. See the image below from Thunderball (1965), where Blofeld (Anthony Dawson, voiced by Eric Pohlmann) sits high above his criminal lackeys, blinds obscuring him. Seem familiar?
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