In Lang's films, interiors are atmospheric geometry before they are a home for anyone. [Late] in Ministry of Fear, [Stephen Neale] and the girl come to an apartment which they realise is an unoccupied trap—but it is only as unowned as every other interior in the movie. The precious home in The Big Heat—though shaken by the bomb outside—is as neutral as an advertisement living room. Joan Bennett's rooms in Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street are dens from schoolboy dreams. Rancho Notorious is found in the cardboard Rockies. The hotel in The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a laboratory rat community, and Metropolis is a lonely child's model of the world.

This is a cinema in which we are always conscious of art direction, and thus of the fabricated and organised spectacle. Where does Lang trust nature or reality, save in the unavoidable...