Though this blog platform is usually reserved for writing about movies, Howard Rodman’s novel is totally filmic and he himself has served as President of the Writers Guild of American, so that is close enough. Moreover after spending a total of two years in Berlin in the past three years and going into my next six months here, this ode to Berlin is particularly pleasing to me.
This novel is a fictional account of Fritz Lang’s last year in Berlin, in 1933. Not a very good year. He is estranged from his wife — long time collaborator on his best films, M, Metropolis, Doctor Mabuse… Though they still share living quarters, she is having an affair with an American.
He is hurt within and is also suffering from a toothache adding to the interior pain in the life of this great German director, son of a Jewish mother who converted the Catholicism and raised him strictly as a Catholic.
Taking place in Weimar Berlin, we see the fashion, the glitz, the clubs, the cars, the interior decoration, and as alluded to before, the interior life of Fritz as he watches his friends and colleagues leaving Germany for U.S. and France, and in the case of Bertolt Brecht, his wife Helen Weigel and their son, for Hungary.
The kicker is midway in when Fritz Lcang invites his wife Thea to the UFA screening room where Harold Nebenthal and Edward Ulmer, just back from, and about to return to Hollywood, are together and discover that, because of new Jewish laws, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’s theatrical release at the UFA Palast has been replaced by Wounded Germany
This blog is quite expressionistic, beginning with my quoting off the flyleaf of the book cover here as Howard speaks best for himself.
Berlin, the last day of February, 1933. The Reichstag lies in smoldering ruins. A new world is about to spring from its ashes. For German filmmakers, there is a choice. To stay, work with the new order, a government which truly believes in the power of film; or to leave, without looking back.
Destiny Express is the story of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou. Together, they made some of the greatest films of all time. M, Metropolis, Doctor Mabuse. Married more than a decade, Lang and von Harbou are the most intimate of friends, the closest of enemies. Now, as day after day is torn from the calendar, they watch, as if paralyzed, as one by one. Bert Brecht, Max Ophuls, Billy Wilder take the next train out.
Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou in their Berlin apartment, in 1923 or 1924 (which is, when the script for Metropolis was prepared). The photograph is from a series about this famous couple. Public Domain.
At once exhaustively researched and wildly imagined, Destiny Express follows Lang, von Harbou, a host of real and fictional others — American cafe Surrealist Sam Harrison, novelist-turned-minister-of-culture Joseph Goebbels, Mercedes-racing champ Otto Merz, film star Rudolf Klein-Rogge, a pair of not-so-secret police — as their paths converge, intertwine, separate across the grid of Berlin, from the artificial daylight of the UFA soundstage to the artificial night of Berlin’s most exclusive clubs.
Both protagonists have separate personal agendas they are following and they try not to get into each other’s way. As we watch the action, the inner life we witness of Fritz Lang as he weighs his options, thinks about his wife — his love and yet his nemesis — thinks about leaving, wishes they could be together, plays the tough guy; and in the end goes his way as she goes hers; these are the keynotes of the novel.
Howard Rodman writes with a flair for visuals and for being able to show us the interior of the minds of creatives as if they were the outward reality. He is also able to reveal inward thoughts which run on separate tracks at the same time. This talent is what gives the novel a special edge. Add the expressionistic elongation of shadows, the sounds of heels clicking on the pavements, as in:
On Konigstrasse her heels struck the cobbles with a high, flinty click which came back to her in syncopation from the building frontage.
the silent river running through Berlin, cars, clubs, cafes, UFA Studios, Prussian apartments, paintings by Otto Dix…a dynamic Berlin, known in a nostalgic way, comes to life
Cars:
At once the blacktop rejoined Konigstrasse, and Lang slid the Lancea adeptly into the stream of traffic…
Howard reminded me he had not been in Berlin when he wrote this making it all the more extraordinary…
Shadows:
Midway between two lamps Thea cast shadows of equal length before and behind. The shadow in front of her elongated, became more vague, as she approached the next lamp. The echo seemed to come back fractionally later than she’d been anticipating, and she stopped, to see if there were another set of footsteps dogging her own, but there were not.
Thoughts running parallel to each other:
And finally, as Lang leaves Berlin on the train, “There were fewer tracks. The lines were branching out, each with its specific destination…Then there was just one set of tracks, the one the train was reeling out behnd it. The glow of the train’s rear lights, a dense crimson, did not penetrate to where the rails converged. by raising his eyes a bit, Lang could feel them coming together, as he left all behind.
Howard A. Rodman
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, novelist, and educator. He was President of Writers Guild of America West 2015–2017; is professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts; an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs; a member of the executive committee of the Writers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. His films include Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore, — official selection Cannes Film Festival in 2007 — and August with Josh Hartnett, Rip Torn, and David Bowie.
Son of Howard Rodman and Dorothy Rodman. Stepson of Norma Connolly. Brother of Adam Rodman. Howard A. Rodman has been married to Mary Beth Heffernan since June 25, 2017. He was previously married to Anne Friedberg (24 June 1990–9 October 2009) ( her death) with whom he had one child.
· President, Writers Guild of America West, 2015–2017.
· Named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the Republic of France, 2013.
· Inducted into FinalDraft’s Screenwriters Hall of Fame, 2018.
Writer (6 credits)
2008 August (written by)
2007 Savage Grace (screenplay)
2000 Takedown (screenplay)
2000 Joe Gould’s Secret (screenplay)
1997 The Hunger (TV Series) (screenplay — 1 episode — which he also directed!),
- The Swords (1997) … (screenplay)
1993–1995 Fallen Angels (TV Series) (teleplay — 3 episodes)
- The Professional Man (1995) … (teleplay)
- The Frightening Frammis (1993) … (teleplay)
- The Quiet Room (1993) … (teleplay)
As a writer, Howard has had plenty to live up to as his father’s bio, written by Howard himself attests:
Howard Rodman, Sr. was an American writer and story editor of such critically acclaimed series such as Naked City (1958) and Route 66 (1960). A Brooklyn native, the son of immigrant parents, Rodman began his career in the 1950s writing for such noted anthology series as Studio One, Alcoa Theater, and Goodyear Theater. He contributed to Have Gun — Will Travel (1957) and was an associate producer on Peyton Place (1964). In the subsequent decades he won a trio of Writer’s Guild awards for his scripts for Naked City: Today the Man Who Kills Ants Is Coming (1962), Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre: The Game with Glass Pieces (1964), and for the NBC/Universal Television drama, The Neon Ceiling (1971).
As a feature writer, he scripted the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward racing film, Winning (1969), and co-wrote three iconic feature films for director Don Siegel: Madigan (1968), Coogan’s Bluff (1968), and Charley Varrick (1973). Rodman also wrote the teleplay adaptation of Martin Caidin’s novel, ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’, essentially creating the television version of the character as well as supplying the format for the subsequent series. Dissatisfied with the final product he removed his name and substituted his pseudonym Henri Simoun, a frequent practice. Rodman was once quoted as saying, “The script isn’t finished until the name comes off”.
Rodman also created the David Janssen private eye series Harry O (1973). In 1976, he was presented with the Writers Guild’s Laurel Award for lifetime achievement in television. His final project was the made-for-TV movie Scandal Sheet (1985), starring Burt Lancaster. He died of complications following heart surgery in Los Angeles at age 65. He was survived by his second wife, actress Norma Connolly, and his children: Howard A. Rodman (a writer), Adam Rodman (a writer), Phillip Rodman, and Tiahna Skye.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Howard A. Rodman
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