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M



cast :

Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Grundgens, Ellen Widmann

crew :

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Written by: Fritz Lang, Egon Jacobson
Produced by: Seymour Nebenzal
DOP: Fritz Arno Wagner
Editor: Paul Falkenberg
Music Score by: Edvard Grieg

release date :

1931

If you look back over cinema history, which murderous villains come to mind; Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in ‘Psycho’ (1960), Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ (1991) or Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in ‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007)? All are memorable in their own unique way. Whether it’s for dressing up as your mother, being famed for cannibalism, or for just sporting a dodgy haircut – each one will remain amongst cinema’s most memorable characters. However, all would not exist without Peter Lorre’s Hans Beckert in Fritz Lang’s eerie masterpiece ‘M’ (1931).


As a self-loathing child killer, Hans Beckert is wanted by both the authorities and the criminal underworld for committing a series of brutal crimes against children. After being hunted and eventually caught by a local criminal ring, Beckert is ‘tried’ for his crimes to which he inevitably breaks down and confesses to the murders – claiming it was the demons inside him. Although steeped with morals and lessons about society and its reaction to murder and justice – which are still relevant today, ‘M’ is also a huge aesthetic turning point in Lang’s work, in which silence and sound are merged together to create an atmosphere never seen or heard before on screen.


Lang, who is most famous for silent sci-fi classics such as ‘Metropolis’ (1927) and ‘Frau im Mond’ (Woman in the Moon – 1929), embraced the idea that on screen a character’s psychological state of mind could be represented through speech and sound. Labelled as a ‘Kammerspiel’ film (Chamber Drama), ‘M’ used this technique to open up its murderer emotionally to its audience – a state of mind not witnessed before with such endeavour. He also played with the idea that sound and silence could both be used to equal effect when inflicting a sense of unrest upon the audience. Constant silence shots are intertwined with an unforgettable soundtrack to present a new cinematic experience.


It is the mark of Lang’s genius that in experimenting with this new auditory technique, his trademark use of silence became more effective on screen. Although ‘M’ is known as Lang’s first ‘talkie’, it doesn’t rely totally on dialogue or sound to get its dramatic effect across. Like Beckert as he preys on his next victim, silence creeps into and out of scenes. These silent stoppages – known as an acoustic effect, become more powerful than any words or cries for help heard on screen. It is as if the audience is forced to look even harder at the image shown when all sound has been removed – forcing them ever more into an uneasy state of mind as they anticipate what will happen next. This is most evident in the opening scenes of ‘M’ where the abduction of a young child, Elsie Beckmann (Inge Landgut), is portrayed in the most horrific of ways.


It starts with a black screen. The sound of children singing a nursery rhyme about the bogeyman that is on the run can be heard. The screen fades in on the children stood in a circle outside a housing block surrounded by hanging washing. They are told to stop signing such a distasteful rhyme by an elderly woman to whom is told by another woman: ‘As long as you can hear them sing, you at least know they’re still safe.’ This is the tone that Lang sets up for the opening scenes of the film – that sound and noise equate to safety and tranquillity on screen. Further shots of a busy street with car horns reverberating, and the sounds of people hurriedly getting to and from work help convince the audience that life (for most people), is running smoothly.


In the events leading up to the actual abduction of Elise, Lang interrupts his presumed notions of safety with sharp jabs of silence. Still shots of an empty stairwell and a warehouse seem to swallow Elise’s mother’s cries for her daughter’s name. Also, Elise’s empty place at the kitchen table, where she should be sat having her lunch, is focussed on without sound – bringing the silence right to the forefront, and at the same time genuinely creating an uneasy sense of fear and unrest.


Interlaced between these shots, are noisy images of Elise walking home from school. The hustle and bustle of the street she walks down is again a misleading assumption of safety and clam presented to us by Lang. The image and sound of the ball which Elise is innocently playing with as she walks along later becomes an iconic symbol to her abduction. Nearing her home, she stops to bounce the ball up against a post which disturbingly displays a poster detailing the recent disappearances of children in the neighbourhood. As soon as the audience registers this information they are presented with a silhouette – a silhouette which eventually belongs to Hans Beckert. Looking down on her, the black shape admires Elsie’s ball before leading her away. It is at this point Lang turns the use of sound on its head – that similar to silence, sound can now signify a sense of fear.


After catching up with them at an amusement stand, where Beckert buys Elsie a balloon from a blind man, the audience still can’t quite put face to the figure. With his back to the screen, Beckert’s identity is only further uncovered through his haunting whistle rendition of ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ (performed by Lang himself, as no one else could get it so disturbingly off key). Now ‘M’s’ tagline of: ‘A child. A tune. A murder…’ is displayed perfectly on screen by Lang. It also provides psychological depth to Beckert’s character. His whistle now signifies his disturbed state of mind, and one which the audience will recognise with great discomfort for the remainder of the film.


Because of the loathsome nature of the crime’s ‘M’ dealt with, Lang only wanted to give hints as to what happens to each victim. Silence again plays a big part in this. It is clear that each child is undoubtedly killed, but what isn’t clear is how. With only the silent images of Elise’s ball rolling down a hill, followed by her balloon becoming entangled in electric telephone wires; it is the audience who has the responsibility of imagining show she died. The audience have to create their own horrific version of the crime which, just as Lang intended, increases the shock value, as well as making the audience an integral part of his creation.


As the city becomes aware that another child has gone missing, both the police and criminal underworld begin their respective searches. When Beckert is eventually tracked down and caught, it is due to the sound of Beckert’s now trademark whistle. The blind man, who Beckert bought the balloon from, recognises the off-key tune when he finds himself again in the murderer’s presence. The fact that it is a blind character – whose hearing is somewhat enhanced due to lack of sight, that plays an important part in uncovering a murderer, is yet another nod by Lang to the authority and significance a soundtrack, (or a ‘leitmotif’), has in moving pictures. This early introduction of a ‘leitmotif’, (a recurring musical theme) into films enabled directors and filmmakers alike, the ability to add an extra cinematic quality to their films.


Near the end of the film, when Beckert is hiding in a warehouse, Lang again employs the use of sound when building up to his eventual capture. On this occasion it is off-screen sound which is heard – creating a build-up of tension as to whether Beckert will be caught by his pursuers. As he hides amongst crates in a darkened room, the audience is presented with a terrified Beckert looking off-screen as the sound of doors being kicked open, followed by cries of ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ become louder and louder. In turn, a door is eventually flung open and Beckert is left cornered, illuminated by the corridor light. As another innovative turn from Lang, he’s created a new technique for building up to a climactic conclusion. Imitated by so many other films – most notably the swelling sound of the elevated train in ‘The Godfather’ (1972), when a young Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) contemplates shooting two men, it is just one of many traits Fritz Lang left behind in an illustrious career.


‘M’ is certainly a landmark film – not just in German cinema, but also world cinema. Ten years before Orson Welles unleashed ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) on the world, ‘M’ laid the foundations of how sound and dialogue was used on screen. Even Kara’s famously recurring zither music in ‘The Third Man’ (1949) wouldn’t have had the same effect it did without Beckert’s trademark whistle. Film noir is another aspect of film making which should also be thankful to Fritz Lang and ‘M’. Heavily influence by German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s and early 1930s, film noir borrowed the urban environments – with its disturbed characters, and the high-contrast lighting used to create its sinister moods and created some of American cinema’s finest films: ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941) and ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944).


The fact that ‘M’ dealt with such an unpleasant subject, and at the time of its release managed to cause up-raw amongst a society and nation on the verge of Nazism, it is a true testament to a film maker who embraced the power of cinema and who inevitably took it a few steps further.


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Country: Germany
Budget:
Length: 117mins


Filmography:
‘Double Indemnity’, 1944, Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures
‘The Maltese Falcon’, 1941, John Huston, Warner Bros. Pictures
‘The Third Man’, 1949, Carol Reed, London Film Productions
‘Citizen Kane’, 1941, Orson Welles, Mercury Productions
'The Godfather’, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola, Alfran Productions
‘Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon)', 1929, Fritz Lang, Fritz Lang-Film
‘Metropolis’, 1927, Fritz Lang, Universum Film (UFA)
‘No Country for Old Men’, 2007, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Paramount Vantage
‘Silence of the Lambs’, 1991, Jonathan Demme, Orion Pictures Corporation
‘Psycho’, 1960, Alfred Hitchcock, Shamley Productions


Pub/2008


More like this:
Metropolis, 1927, directed by Fritz Lang
Rear Window, 1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Mephisto, 1981, directed by Istavn Szabo