M

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­rion Col­lec­tion Spine #30: Fritz Lang’s M.

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Fritz Lang always blows my mind. The pre­cise craft­man­ship in all of his films, the exactly cor­rect fram­ing for a shot, the inspired, slight, under­stated cam­era move­ments, the chiaroscuro and beauty of the black and white would be worth watch­ing in a film with­out any­thing resem­bling a plot. But Lang is not merely good at one or two aspects of film­mak­ing. He is good at mak­ing films, com­plete worlds unto them­selves. M is a world of sus­pi­cion, where neigh­bors are encour­aged in para­noia and tale-​bearing, where the innocu­ous becomes sin­is­ter, and a bud­ding fas­cist gov­ern­ment con­trols the pub­lic through its efforts to find and stop a face­less enemy. It was made in 1931, antic­i­pat­ing the Third Reich by a few years. That’s just the macro level. On the micro level, the psy­cho­log­i­cal por­trait of a child-​killer is imme­di­ately abhor­rent and under­stand­able, and the steps into Hans Beckert’s [played won­der­fully by Peter Lorre] mind are so well-​written, por­trayed, apt and sur­pris­ingly potent that the film, which is largely run-​of-​the-​mill police pro­ce­dural for the most part, cul­mi­nates in an unex­pected explo­sion of emo­tion that a viewer is left with some­thing approx­i­mat­ing a thousand-​yard stare.

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If we have to pick one word for this film to be about, it is likely repres­sion. The rea­son Beck­ert acts as he does, even though he knows he is mad and should not, is because he has no option in his soci­ety but to repress his rep­re­hen­si­ble desires. Even a ver­bal expres­sion of his desire to have sex with lit­tle girls and then mur­der them is so out­side the norm that it would likely cost him his life or at least a few teeth. Stuck as he was, forced to inter­nal­ize and cocoon him­self from the every­day of every­one else, it is unsur­pris­ing that he would essen­tially dis­ap­pear, so innocu­ous that no clues appear apart from his habit of whistling Peer Gynt as he seeks new prey. Sim­i­larly, his writ­ing of a let­ter to the police, and then the papers attests to his desire, no mat­ter how now mal­formed, to have com­mu­ni­ca­tion with soci­ety at large. This is all pos­si­ble to learn with­out actu­ally see­ing his face, or hear­ing him speak. Sound was a rel­a­tively new fea­ture in film at this time, and its ambi­ent use by Lang, its appro­pri­ate and height­en­ing omis­sions, and its laconic dia­logue make the final solil­o­quy by Beck­ert all the more effective.

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The fact that even the crim­i­nals, soci­etal edge-​cases them­selves, want to destroy Beck­ert with no qualms is telling to his extreme deviance. Yet, when he explains the moti­va­tions and guilt that drive and tor­ment him, heads nod even among the kan­ga­roo court. These are peo­ple who know what it is to sin, though for the most part they can con­trol it. The coda is so terse that it was either meant to be that way or some of the miss­ing footage belongs at the end of the film, but no mat­ter the rea­son, it attests simul­ta­ne­ously to the para­dox­i­cal eth­i­cal and rea­son­ing sat­is­fac­tion of the rule of law and the pas­sion­ate, emo­tional dis­sat­is­fac­tion of jus­tice not being served. The tale of ser­ial killer becomes anal­o­gous to the life of every per­son, only taken to an extreme; and the char­ac­ter sketch of a dou­bly fear-​driven soci­ety adds another facet to Lang’s idea that vice and vicious­ness are all too eas­ily encour­aged with any person.

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