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| M |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 110 |
| Public Rating: 10.00 (3 votes) |
Director: Fritz Lang |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Crime/Thriller/Film Noir |
Year: 1931 |
| Writer(s): Fritz Lang, Thea Von Harbou |
| Distributor: Criterion Collection |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Standing in a loose, open circle, children chant a song with grisly, if prescient, lyrics. A woman, struggling with the wash admonishes the children about the song. The children, however, seem unaware of the cause of the woman’s consternation: a child murderer is on the loose. A woman prepares a meal for her daughter, soon to arrive from elementary school. A shot of a bouncing ball, caught by a stranger, seen only in silhouette. Other children arrive at the tenement building, passing the woman on the stairs. A blind peddler sells the stranger a balloon. The stranger begins to whistle an eerily familiar song. A deliveryman leaves the daily newspaper with the woman. Her growing fear and panic becomes almost palpable. An empty dinner plate; the ball seen moments ago skitters across the grass; the balloon, no longer attached to its owner, drifts, catches, and tangles in the overhead wires.
After a successful career writing and directing silent films, several acknowledged as classics (e.g., Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, Metropolis, Spies), Fritz Lang co-wrote and directed M, a deft combination of cinematic techniques developed during the silent era and the emergent technology of sound recording and synchronization. Apart from the expressionistic visuals that looks backward toward Lang’s work in the 1920s and the use of sound, M is notable for its blend of psychological suspense, crime drama, and police procedural, centered on the pursuit and capture of a serial killer by two different groups or factions within contemporary German society, as well as the impact the impact the killer has across all strata of German society.
Lang discloses the killer's identity early in the film, introducing the audience to Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) at the sixteen-minute mark. Beckert is a lonely, isolated, pitiable figure driven by an inner, pathological compulsion to murder. As he stalks his next victim or grapples with his twisted desires, Beckert slides into whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (from the “Peer Gynt” suite by Edvard Grieg). The simple repetition of this tune throughout the film generates a sense foreboding in the audience, since the tune signals Beckert’s rapid loss of control over his inner demons. But there is also the trace of vanity in Beckert’s personality, evident in his letter writing to the press, where he describes his desire to be caught, but not yet.
From Beckert, Lang segues into exploring the society-wide effects of Beckert’s crimes and the inability of the police to catch him before he strikes again. Lang carefully explores the growing panic and hysteria that overwhelms Berlin in the wake of the murders. Rewards are posted for information leading to the capture of the serial killer, to no avail. The crime scene yields few clues worth pursuing. Nervous, anxious parents zealously guard their children, and any adult discovered talking to a child is immediately placed under suspicion (and the threat of physical violence). A pickpocket arrested on a tram is singled out for rough treatment by a rough, angry mob that mistakes him for the killer, signaling a rapidly deteriorating social contract.
After these snapshots or vignettes, Lang introduces the audience to the well meaning, if ineffectual policemen, led by Inspector Lohmann (Otto Wernicke). The police have little recourse than to work overtime, track every possible lead, and, in an effort to appear proactive, conduct raids in the criminal quarter of the city. It’s here that M diverges significantly from typical police procedurals, giving almost equal time to the crime gangs and their bosses who form the underside of German society. Apparently, the ongoing police raids and dragnets have led to a sharp drop-off in revenues for the gangs. With their financial interests in mind, the crime bosses come up with a novel idea: pursue and capture the serial killer themselves, thus restoring the status quo ante. Even then, Lang suggests a lesser motive for the change in criminal behavior: altruism (at least toward the intended victims). Lang slyly crosscuts between a late evening/early morning meeting of the crime bosses, as they formulate their plans to capture the serial killer, and a late meeting of the police, government bureaucrats, and psychiatrists, as they discuss the steps necessary to apprehend the killer (one bureaucrat casually mentions suspending civil liberties until they catch the killer), suggesting structural similarities not just in their motivations, but also in their patterns of behavior and interactions with one another.
M then alternates between police efforts to follow clues left at the crime scenes and the methodical pursuit of the leads and the far more ingenious efforts by the criminal gangs, in cooperation with the beggar’s guild. The beggars are strategically stationed to observe and track every movement in and out of buildings, public squares, and anywhere else where the killer might strike. The police, although ineffectual for most of the film, are also getting closer to discovering the killer’s identity and arresting him. In a film notable for visually striking set pieces, the pursuit of the killer, once he’s discovered and branded with a chalk impression of the letter “M” in a nighttime version of Berlin, is probably the most memorable, with Lang varying the use of sound (at several points, Lang drops the sound altogether, leaving the visuals alone to move the narrative forward, until a whistle or other sound underscores a new dramatic development). Lang uses a high-angle, omniscient point-of-view shot to suggest the inevitability and inexorability of the killer's capture by his pursuers.
M's last sequence, a kangaroo court complete with a sympathetic defense lawyer, allows the audience to reflect on the issue of personal responsibility and culpability, with Lang drawing a line between mental illness (and lesser culpability) and crime pursued for personal gain or profit. Lang obviously wants to elicit some sympathy for the killer, but he certainly doesn’t suggest that diminished capacity should lead to the killer’s freedom, only that mental illness acts as a bar against the death penalty, whether committed by the state or by the criminals themselves. Despite this show of sympathy for the character, Lang ends M with a wrenching scene of three, black-clad women, mourning for their lost children. Lang clearly recognizes the complexities and difficulties inherent in the abstract concept of justice, and he doesn't hesitate to show the emotional pain and human cost of violent crime and its aftermath. M's continuing relevance to the discussion of legal and mental health issues adds one more reason, among others, for using the word “masterpiece” to describe Fritz Lang’s first sound film.
© Mel Valentin, 6th March, 2005
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 Printable Version
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* Available subtitles: English
* Available Audio Tracks: German (Dolby Digital 2.1 Mono)
* Commentary by German film scholar Eric Rentschler and Anton Kaes, author of the BFI Film Classics volume on M
* New digital transfer with restored image and sound plus new subtitle translation
* Conversation with Fritz Lang, an interview film by William Friedkin
* Claude Chabrol's M le Maudet, a short film inspired by M
* Classroom tapes of M editor Paul Falkenberg discussing the film and its history
* Interview with Harold Nebenzal, the son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal
* A physical history of M
* Stills gallery, with behind-the-scenes photos, and production sketches by art director Emil Hasler
* Plus: a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Stanley Kauffmann, a 1963 interview with Lang, and the script for a missing scene
* Number of discs: 2
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