Week Ten: M (1931)
Producer: Seymour Nebenzal
Writer: Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou
Cinematographer: Fritz Arno Wagner
Music: Edvard Grieg
Studio: UFA
Starring: Peter Lorre (Hans Beckert), Otto Wernicke (Inspector Karl Lohmann), Gustaf Grundgens (The Safecracker), Friedrich Gaub (Franz)
You Can Watch M for free on YouTube
You Can Watch M for free on YouTube
In October of 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, which introduced for the first time talking and singing sequences on the big screen. In spite of the predictions of many in Hollywood, The Jazz Singer wasn’t just a massive success but was also a point of no return for the movies: once audiences experienced sounds, they didn’t want to go back. Less than a year later, Warner’s released the first all-talking film, Lights of New York, and the silent era’s several year death began. With films like Sunrise and The Passion of Joan of Arc, film and visual storytelling had reached an apex but with the coming of sound, a whole new avenue of artistry and expression was introduced. Unfortunately, sound brought about just as many problems as it did opportunities. Early sound recording technology was incredibly limiting and awkward (Singin’ in the Rain does a great job of showing just how difficult it was to work with), forcing filmmakers into very static, controlled studio environments. Sound killed the fluid camera of Murnau, as the action couldn’t move away from a singular microphone and cameras had to be covered in bulky, immobile soundproof cases because they were noisy and their sound would be picked up by the microphones. Directors who only knew one way to make films all of a sudden had to learn a whole new set of rules, including directing dialogue for the first time. Perhaps even more importantly, Hollywood didn’t have an abundance of actors that could act with dialogue nor did they have writers experienced in writing it. The first couple years of the sound era saw a migration of stage actors, writers, and directors who came to Hollywood and got into pictures because of their experience with dialogue. This transitionary period took time and history does not look kindly on the first couple years of sound films, many of which are stilted, awkward, and appear to be nothing more than filmed versions of stage productions.
A few films and directors found ways around the new problems sound was causing, most notably Applause (1929), in which Robert Mamoulian utilized multiple microphones and recording channels so he could move the camera within a scene. Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) and Morocco (1930) showed how a visual director could still make sound work, however, it was one of the men who had mastered the visual art of silent films that best showed how sound could be used as a benefit to a film instead of a hindrance.
After making Metropolis in 1927, Fritz Lang made two more silent movies before embarking on his first sound venture, a crime film inspired by a number of serial killers who had been operating in Germany during the twenties. Though M (in German M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Morder or A City Searches for a Murderer) lacks the end-to-end score that we think of in film today and that was used in silent films prior, Lang manages to use sound to great effect throughout the film. There are ambient sounds, such as traffic noises, that are used throughout the film but notice how these sounds are used selectively, depending on the scene and whether the sound would add to or subtract from the scene. In general, if you listen closely to any movie you can see how subjective sound in films is. For example, a man walks down a busy crowded street full of car and crowd noises, suddenly he realizes he must make a phone call and steps into a phone booth, closing the door. All of a sudden, all that outside noise is completely deadened and we can only hear the phone conversation, which is the important part of the scene. Movies often choose which sounds they wish to reveal as well, continuing with the phone example, can we hear both sides of the conversation of the man in the phone booth? If we do hear both sides, does the camera cut to the other end of the conversation or do we just hear it as if through the phone? These are choices that must be made in movies and the reasons behind them often have to do with what the film is trying to do. If a phone conversation is important to exposition or plot development, it makes sense for the audience to hear both sides; on the other hand, a very comedic or dramatic effect can be created just revealing one side of a conversation and having the side we see react to what they are hearing. In M Lang experiments with selective sound use as well as using sound for storytelling purposes, such as the ticking of the clock early in the film which reminds both the audience and a character that a little girl has been missing for some time. Lang also does some sound tricks that don’t serve the story but are entertaining bits, such as the scene with the organ grinder.
Most importantly, the use of sound in no way limits the films visual elements and many of the performances, especially Lorre, are incredibly powerful both in their physical acting and dialogue delivery.
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| Sound in M is used both to create tension and as a gag. |
Most importantly, the use of sound in no way limits the films visual elements and many of the performances, especially Lorre, are incredibly powerful both in their physical acting and dialogue delivery.
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| In his first real film role, former stage actor takes full advantage of both sides of the medium: visual and sound. |
One thing that didn’t change with Lang during the transition to sound film is the director's ability to create arresting visuals on the screen. M is an even closer look to the film noir style that would explode in the forties, including in many of Lang’s own films during that period. Though M, a realistic crime drama, and Metropolis, a futuristic science-fiction fantasy, don’t seem to share much in the way of story or setting, Lang’s style is the same and many of his common motifs reappear, most prominently doors, and there is still a strong Expressionistic influence apparent.
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| Lang's love of doors, both conventional and unconventional... |
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| ...reappears often in his work (from Ministry of Fear, 1944... |
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| ..and The Woman in the Window, 1944) |
After You Watch the Movie (Spoilers Below)
The most obvious way that M uses sound is Beckert’s signature whistling of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” during the process of the locating and murdering of children. This is what is known as a leitmotif or recurring phrase of music that is attached to a certain character. Almost all modern action-adventure films do this, everything from Star Wars to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Marvel comics films. In M, only Beckert has one but many modern films have a different theme for several characters that is played during their sequence. In the Star Wars films alone, Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2 and C-3PO, Boba Fett, Yoda, Kylo Ren, Rey, Snoke, Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Darth Vadar, General Grievous, Jabba the Hutt, Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Maul, Jar-Jar Binks, Shmi Skywalker, Jyn Erso, L3-37, and the Emperor get their own musical themes. Beckert’s whistling serves both to reveal his intentions in a certain scene but also create a feeling of dread and suspense as the killer closes in on his victim.
Like many of Lang’s German films, M crosses over into horror on more than one occasion, not surprisingly considering that it is a movie about a murderer of children. Though censorship was looser in Germany than it was in Hollywood, even before the Production Code, Lang couldn’t and wouldn’t want to show a child being murdered, and so the build-up to the killing becomes even more important to create tension. Instead of showing the killing, Lang has the act happen off screen as another arresting image is shown. Even today, when pretty much anything can be shown on the screen, leaving what happens to the imagination of the audience can be more effective. What an audience can imagine is almost always more terrible than what a director can show on the screen because our imaginations are personalized to our own individual fears. This will become particularly important when it comes to horror films as censorship in the forties became stronger and more had to be left to suggestion.
M makes it clear that there is a difference between normal criminals and the criminally insane. The internal struggle of Beckert, his dual nature of normal man and serial killer are represented several times throughout the film through the use of mirrors and reflections.
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| Early in the film, we don't see Beckert's face... |
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| ...until his face is shown reflected in a mirror... |
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| ...representing the two sides of his nature... |
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| ...and the struggle within. |
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| Only when branded a murderer by society... |
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| ...does he see himself for what he is. |
Aside from the way that M unlocked the potential of sound in film, the film was also influential in a number of other ways. Like much of the German Expressionist movement, the visual style of M can be clearly seen in forties film noir, particularly in the use of shadow and camera angles.
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| Angles, lighting, and settings that could have come directly out of a forties film noir. |
One of the hallmarks of a film noir story is the way that the genre focuses in on crime and criminals just as much or more than it does on law enforcement and morally upright characters. M does just this by focusing a significant portion of the story on the workings of the Berlin underworld and featuring a criminal “protagonist” in the Safecracker. In M we get an in-depth look at the crime-solving techniques of the police investigators, the first of what is now known as a police procedural film, a genre that eventually stretched to not just full-blown film takes on the subject (such as 1948’s The Naked City) but also most significantly into television with shows such as Dragnet (1951-1959), Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999), and The Shield (2002-2008). M is also notable as the first film to realistically focus on a serial killer and his psychology, a subject that would eventually spawn hundreds of films including classics like Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven (1995), and Zodiac (2007).
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| Law enforcement has their methods... |
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| ...and the underworld has theirs. |
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| Both sides of the law hold meetings about catching the murderer... |
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| ...and institute their wide scaled plans. |
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| Beckert faces two sets of judges, one from each side of the law. |
M represented a huge step forward in the portrayal of psychopathic killers in film, attempting to portray the mental instability of the character and their internal struggle with themselves. M was one of Lang’s favorite of his own films, particularly due to the social critique present in the film, the view that society takes of the insane, and the responsibility of the government to rehabilitate them. The addition of dialogue to movies allowed filmmakers to become more socially conscious and put their own beliefs into the mouths of the characters on the screen.
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| Beckert's "lawyer" speaks for himself, and the filmmakers. |
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| "Watch over the children" visualized, a high angle shot simulating watching over from above. |
Though there would still be growing pains with talkies, M marked the turning point for the medium and soon other directors would begin harnessing the full potential of sound while also not being limited visually. Sound technology would steadily improve and soon we would be seeing not only dialogue used effectively but also sound effects and fully realized music scores that were crucial to their respective films.
See Also
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) dir. Fritz Lang
Lang's second silent film and last film made in Germany. Delves even deeper into the criminal underworld and the minds of those who inhabit it. Watch it on YouTube
Murder! (1930) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock's first successful sound film. See the director also finding ways to make sound important in the telling of the story. Watch it on YouTube
Trouble in Paradise (1932) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
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