Zahlen, bitte! The 1000 eyes of Dr. Mabuse: Surveillance state anticipated
As early as 1960, the film “The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse” raised the question of how to evade surveillance methods. The answer is not so simple.
(Image: Heise Medien)
65 years ago, the first film dealing with the consequences of surveillance was shown in cinemas in Germany. “The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse” is set in a posh Berlin hotel where all the rooms are monitored by television cameras.
In the basement of the hotel there is a large control room where the information from the surveillance system is summarized: The mysterious Mabuse is interested in spying on industrialists to destroy the economy and obtain nuclear material to dominate the world. To achieve this, he uses a facility built by the Gestapo to monitor foreign tourists. Director Fritz Lang's message is clear: surveillance is fascist.
The film delighted viewers more than critics
Although the film, produced by Artur Brauner's CCC-Filmkunst, failed with the critics, it was very successful in the cinemas. It reflected the post-war period in a Germany that was beginning to deal with its recent past (“Rosen für den Staatsanwalt”), with the fear of nuclear war and with the image of the city of Berlin, where many people worked directly or indirectly for secret services. A briefly shown double-decker bus gives the clue that it must be West Berlin. “The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse” was produced exactly one year before the Wall was built.
Director Fritz Lang had made his breakthrough as a director with the silent film “Dr. Mabuse the Gambler” in 1922 and produced “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse” in 1932, which dealt with contemporary questions about how people can be manipulated. In 1922, this was the discussion about psychoanalysis and hypnosis; in 1932/33, the off-screen voice in film and hearing as a primary experience (Acousmetre).
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In 1932, he edited statements by Nazi celebrities as radio waves from the criminal organization directly into the film, which was therefore banned by the National Socialists. Lang emigrated to the USA. When the film producer Artur Brauner was able to convince Lang, who had returned to Germany after the Second World War, to continue the Mabuse series by completing the production of two adventure films, new technology was needed.
Ubiquitous information gathering widely staged
As in the first films, Brauner acquired the Mabuse film rights from the Luxembourg author Norbert Jacques in 1953 but also bought the rights from the Polish-German author Jan Fethke. The latter had published the detective novel “Mr. Tot aĉetas mil okulojn” (Mr. Tot buys 1000 eyes) in 1931 under the pseudonym Jean Forge. Mr. Tot installs television cameras in a hotel to monitor the guests. In the post-war film about Dr. Mabuse composed in this way, the depiction of surveillance technology and the control room is given relatively broad scope to be able to draw “a scenario of perfect information gathering in modern society,” as one reviewer notes.
Not only is everyone in the hotel monitored via cameras by Mabuse's organization, but all the main characters also have a motive to monitor the others. Mabuse's organization wants to spy on industrial secrets, including those of a US billionaire who has become rich with nuclear technology. He has a woman on his tail, who in turn is being monitored by a detective investigating the murder of a journalist.
Finally, there is a clairvoyant who is convinced that Mabuse wants to kill him. In the end, the head of the Mabuse organization, a constantly changing identity who, inspired by “Mabuse's Testament,” wants to take over the world, is unmasked by a German shepherd.
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Fritz Lang's last film
The “1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse” is the last film Fritz Lang made. He then went back to the USA. Artur Brauner was unable to persuade him to make sequels, with which he wanted to create a counterweight to the wave of Edgar Wallace films. Nevertheless, further films were made under other directors.
“Fritz Lang's dystopian vision of a world in which everyone is observed and scrutinized for the purposes of another has long since become an everyday reality decades later, but in 'The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse' it is implemented somewhat naively, especially from today's perspective,” reads a film review on a German crime film specialist website.
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“How can you escape rampant surveillance?” is a question that has been around since 1960. There is a somewhat naïve answer to this, naturally under the title “The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse”: a small shoulder flap, called a Surveillance Spaulder, “gives its wearer a friendly pat every time its built-in sensors register a surveillance camera, according to Technology Review. Even if it's concealed.” This idea of anti-camera armour that responds to infrared sensing dates back to 2013, but unfortunately it has not caught on. The TR article also mentions the Stealth Wear Mode by artist Adam Harvey, which was also presented in 2013.
Gait recognition as a dystopian-precise recognition method
Concealing the face and body may sometimes help, but the technology has also evolved. Equipped with a thousand eyes, the next wave of surveillance technology, biometric gait recognition, rolled in in 2020.“The human gait is as specific as the face. However, less well-lit image material is needed to analyze it. In case of doubt, even the data from the accelerometer of the smartphone in your trouser pocket is sufficient.”
Dr. Mabuse, who disguised himself elaborately several times in the 1922 silent film, would have been quickly unmasked with this surveillance technology. This brings us to the here and now, because gait recognition is intended to help the surveillance agencies where facial recognition fails. This is why human rights organizations are calling for a ban on the technology. As early as 2020, they said, “Such surveillance technology cannot be dealt with by purely technical regulation.”
(dahe)
