M (1931)

 Fritz Lang's "M"

In 1931, Fritz Lang released what he later called his 'magnum opus.' Titled simply M, the film depicts a society's frantic search for a serial killer. Targeting children exclusively, the group of Berliners in the story stop at nothing to catch this maniac. However, this hyper-focused effort gives rise to many puzzling and difficult questions. Namely, 'How does one build a society out of chaos?' or 'What is the proper way to maintain social order?' These questions become dizzying as we watch a society in a frantic state, simultaneously swept up in the panic ourselves. 

The story structure is simple enough. A man has been killing children and the police haven't conjured any specific evidence to catch him. The city of Berlin goes into a complete paranoid state. This mania causes the police to start cracking down even harder, which in turn makes it far more difficult for criminals to do their business. Because of this, the criminals take it into their own hands to find this killer using a network of beggars to monitor the city streets. After discovering the killer, they track him down and force him to face a kangaroo court. At this faux court, the killer pleads his case, saying that he commits these crimes because of impulsions that he has no control over.  He attributes behavior to mental illness, much to the distrust of the mob. The crowd feels that turning him over the police will only end in him breaking free from a mental institution to continue his killing spree. However, the mob running the court cannot reach their verdict as police arrive on the scene and apprehend the killer. Before we can learn the official verdict by the state, the movie ends with one of the children's mother saying it doesn't matter what the ruling is because it will not bring their children back.

Lang depicts a society infused with fear and paranoia. He also depicts a society wrapped up in fascination, eager to snatch up a newspaper and hear all the morbid details. Lang uses sound bridges to indicate how quickly information is travelling. He does this using citizens reading the news of the murders while the sound from the next scene continues with a separate group reading the details as well. This audio jump displays the rapidness with which information is being dispensed. This rapid accumulation of shared information only creates more paranoia and distrust. Citizens begin to suspect their neighbors and turn on each other. The mass hysteria and constant fear shadowing the city forces everyone to develop over-the-top methods of settling the chaos. Society starts to become more and more irrational, wanting swift gratification from the justice system to bring an end to their fears. 

There are various ways Lang uses sight and sound to envelope the audience in this fear and paranoia. There are many visual empty spaces frequently occurring in the opening sequences of the film. As a young child named Elise plays with her friends and goes to school, she is not hindered by the visual spaces surrounding her, as she is free to move about. However, after her disappearance, those empty spaces become less and less frequent; alternatively, they are replaced with crowds and enclosed spaces, especially as we continue further into the film. Shadow plays an important role as well. One impactful instance of shadow use is when Elsie is playing with her ball. As she bounces the ball off a news post about the murderer, his shadowy silhouette hovers over the print. Framing the murderer, named Beckert, in shadow creates an eerie, other-worldly apparition of danger. Beckert is a shadow that will plague the city of Berlin and the minds of the viewer for the rest of the film.

To add to this fear, certain shots contain characters being trapped in the frame by something. Characters being visually trapped creates a sense of claustrophobia, making the viewer all the more anxious, along with the characters. It also presents the idea that we are trapped by our society, our compulsions, and our fates. In the below shot, no person is trapped in the framing of the spiral staircase, but the visual enclosing of its form creates a sort of anxiety in the viewer. This is especially important in this scene, as it involved Elsie's mother becoming concerned about her daughter's disappearance. 

As the public begin to grow increasingly terrified, the police start cracking down. They even begin to cross the line by infiltrating a bar and arresting everyone. In the below shot, we see Berlin citizens being visually trapped in the frame by police.

After a police state begins to take affect, a group of criminals take it upon themselves to find the murderer. When they break into an office building to capture him, one of them gets left behind. Below, we are shown him trapped visually in the frame by the hole in the ceiling, left confined for the police to arrest him.

In the below shot, we see the murderer, Beckert, pretending to look through shop windows as he spies on a little girl. The images of the knives in the storefront create a reflection, enclosing Beckert in it. He violently twitches, as if he is trying to control himself. With this, he becomes trapped by his own compulsions.

There are also instances where Lang visually limits what we can see. One of the best examples of this technique is when little Elsie goes missing. Rather than show us the gruesome details of her murder, Lang removes the visual violence from the piece altogether. By only suggesting violence, Lang forces the viewer to use their own imagination to create it in their head. This propels the viewer to imagine heinous things, forcing the viewer to conform even more to the city's growing fascination with morbid details. Even without explicit violence, Lang does present ominous visual images that enstill the dread of Elsie's demise. 

Lang not only utilizes visual expression in this piece, but uses sound as well. M was Fritz Lang's first sound film, and he revolutionized what sound could do in film. Talking films at the time had a great problem recording audio with images, as many cameras needed a large audio box which prevented certain camerawork. This problem would not be fixed until around 1932. Because of this, directors had to come up with unique ways to intertwine sound with their images. Most directors kept it very simple, using very little sound except for narrative dialogue. M, however, had a dense, complex soundtrack. Over 2/3 of the film was shot in silence - Lang only added sound in post production. For many scenes, he used a small microphone attached to a plank above the action to record dialogue. 

Lang also used four innovative sound techniques at the time which are completely commonplace now. 

Lang used offscreen sound, in which the sound being heard is contextually taking place in a location separate from the scene. An example of this is when Elsie is crossing the street and we suddenly hear a car horn right before she jumps out of the way of the car coming into frame. Because the car is not visually in the frame, the sound of the car horn has a startling effect. This, along with other offscreen sounds, adds to the constant unease of the film. 

Lang also uses sound bridges. Sound bridges typically happen when we hear sounds from the next scene before we see them. The purpose is to thematically link the scenes together. A great example of this occurs when the police and the criminal underworld both have congruent meetings. Lang jump cuts from one meeting to the other, often using sound bridges to combine the two, creating an effect that blurs the lines between police and criminal. Lang also uses sound bridges in other scenes to dizzying effects, often creating a continued anxiety within the viewer. 

Voiceover is another use of sound employed by Lang. Voiceover expedites the use of exposition. The best example of this is when the police investigator is going over the steps police have taken to try and catch the killer. While he is talking, we are shown images of police raids, fingerprint examinations, and mapping out areas, amongst various other things. The voiceover effect provides the viewer with contextual information congruent to the images they are seeing.

Lang also uses silence to terrific effect. Silence occurs in the film to either unnerve or point attention to another sound breaking the silence. The scene in which we are shown the empty spaces after Elsie's disappearance is also accompanied by complete silence. The point of this silence is to unnerve the viewer and instill dread. A different use of silence comes when the city's beggars are closing in on Beckert. Silence fills the streets, until a shrill whistle breaks the silence. The use of silence here amplifies the noise breaking it, creating a focus on that particular sound.

Many of the events in the film portray real world issues plaguing Berlin in 1931. The city had numerous serial killers wreaking havoc, which created a lot of fear and paranoia. There was also a criminal underworld who took it upon themselves to establish social order. They viewed their crimes as harmless, as they did not actually physically harm anyone. In turn, this gave them a self-image of respectability. There was also widespread debate about the morality of capital punishment, which still remains a global issue today. Do we have the right to murder someone if it maintains law and order? Adding to this debate were questions about new scientific findings on the nature of psychiatry. Many psychiatrists argued that a lot of crime was caused by damaged minds, which could be cured. With these social questions, it became increasingly difficult to establish firm answers about how to control the crime and chaos of a society. Many believed it was impossible, for the Weimar Republic itself was born of crime - after the November Revolution of 1918. Many felt that because of this, the Weimar Republic could not properly maintain social order. With the murders, crime, fear, paranoia, and overall social disorder, it was becoming increasingly necessary for a police state to maintain order. In the film, that's exactly what begins to happen, as the police begin to take more and more liberties - as they mandate curfews, enforce documentation of state papers, impede on people's freedoms, and use unlawful tactics to maintain social order.

Due to the myriad of filmmaking techniques employed by Lang in M, the viewer is forced to join in the hysteria. The unease and paranoia of the first half of the film elicits the desire by the viewer to catch the murderer - at whatever cost. The more we zero in on Beckhert, the more we experience tunnel-vision, along with the film. The painstaking work, manipulation, and secrecy employed to catch Beckhert makes you feel swept up in the mob mentality.  

When Beckhert is finally caught, do we begin to falter from our previous perspective. Lang presents Beckhert fully to the audience as we watch him plea for understanding. The shots of him are longer than the shots of the assorted criminals presiding over the kangaroo court. With this technique, we the audience begin to become more associated with Beckhert's humanity as less associated with the indistinct mob of people. Despite his declarations of mental illness, the mob doesn't care and is willing to execute him. The viewer begins to sway between the stance of Beckhert and the mob. Values and morality start to become all the more messy. Lang leaves it up to the viewer to uncover the mess. Beckhert is the murderer, but doesn't executing him also make you the murderer? Weren't you the one all swept up in the mob mentality that you wanted him dead too?  Are you the real M from the film's title?

Throughout the decades, many film critics have lauded M as a masterpiece of its time. Roger Ebert felt that M was a condemning depiction of Lang's society, as he notes that all the characters appear grotesque in the film, both in visual appearance as well as behavior. He felt that "Lang hated the people around him, hated Nazism, and hated Germany for permitting it." Graham Greene said the film was like "looking through the eye piece of a microscope, through which the tangled mind is exposed, laid flat on the side: nobility and perversity, hatred of itself and despair jumping at you from the jelly." After all, there are many paradoxes of thought and feeling through the film. Our opinions on morality and justice are constantly vacillating. You may feel as vindicated as the criminals taking matters into their own hands, but also feel their reasoning to be dastardly. You want the police to crack down on things, but when they begin to, you feel uneasy over them crossing the line. Should we be feeling empathetic or vengeful towards Beckhert? What must one do to establish order? How far will you go? What are you willing to give up for your safety and the safety of your children? Are you being rational or just feeding into a fearful vengeful mob? The confusing sway of morality and order create a dizzying effect for the viewer, and in 1931 Berlin, this feeling is all too real.