Oh! You pretty things!

M (aka Murderers are among us)

Returning to old, very old, practically ancient films, often has a historical value; We are interested to see first stop-motion effects in “The lost world” or “King Kong” and we are surprised at how much is achieved with such technology, but such effects don’t cause the effect that they did then – the effect that was the purpose of making it, actually; These films aren’t thrilling, they don’t hold our breath; But with time, they gained another purpose; These films have to be seen with mind on when they were made.

But this often isn’t the case when it comes to cinematography that is, after all, greater than those old monster spectacles. Take, for instance, Fritz Lang: his films aged very well, and if time changed our perspective on them, it is the realization that such good, deep and intensive films, won’t be made very often in future. Which is the reason more to go back to those 30ies classics.

Back then, cinematography was much more spread over the western world. USA, Russia, Germany and France, were early cinematography centers, and neither of those could’ve been called a leader, not in a way Hollywood can be called nowadays. Some other countries had rich film production as well, including Italy and Scandinavian lands. They all equally influenced ways of film storytelling and formed what is today accepted as conventional film narration.

WWII changed this situation greatly; Not only that development of cinematography was on hold for good two decades, but many of early European film masterminds found shelter in USA where they were swiftly accepted by USA film establishment where they helped forming what Hollywood is known to be today.

One of those immigrants was Fritz Lang, already an established director, member of so called German Expressionism - together with Murnau (“Nosferatu”) and Dreyer (“The passion of Joan of Arc”) - early film school known for favouring dark, eerie, intensive atmosphere of streets populated by shady, dark characters, putting put in best use black/white photography, with big contrasting areas separated by sharp edges. All this can be seen in his early masterwork “M”, also known as “Murderers are among us”.

Fritz Lang was often accused to have elements of Nazi propaganda in his early films. On example of “M” it can be seen how much those accusations were forced, how much they were result of too ambiguous reading of said films. In fact, during the production of “M” in 1931, Lang was approached by Goebbels who was, as well as Hitler, fascinated by Lang’s early masterwork “Metropolis” and who offered him to became an official Nazi filmmaker like Leni Riefenstahl would be some years later, that is to produce Nazi propaganda films. Being partly Jewish (probably unknown to Goebbels), Lang rather decided to leave Germany and flee to America where he would continue his career with equal success. However, his wife Thea von Harbou, established scriptwriter, decided to rather stay and work in Germany.

“M”, Lang’s first sound film tells a story based on the case of Peter Kurten, mass killer of the time. Film tells a story of Berlin under the terror of serial killer of children, successfully managing to catch the atmosphere and paranoia, with spanning through all layers of society – from beggars and criminals, to lower and middle class, with no distinctive main character, except the killer, of course. Atmosphere is hard to describe, it has to be seen; Film is a world of shabby street corners, walls and menacing shadows passing over them. It is definitely a Berlin that is not a safe place to live. Stylized visuals go with sketchy characters and situation, and not without humor, citizens are shown turning on each other, seeing a murdered in passers-by as well as friends. Futile attempts of police are told parallel with the decision of criminal circles to try to put murders to the end themselves, as constant police raids affect their business. Film intentionally disorients the viewer in the way that it switches to various points of views of numerous film characters together with technique of revealing facts that change viewer’s perspective to events he’s just seen; These techniques, nowadays conventional, are some of the deciding influences of German expressionism.

Film starts with a poster of a hand with big letter M drawn on a palm. This picture carves in our mind until the half of the film, where we recognize it as probably the central symbol of the film. Namely, a blind beggar recognizes a murderer by a melody he is whistling all through the film. The younger beggar follows him as he walks with some kid, and, watching at him from behind the pile of boxes, he draws in a letter M on his palm with a chalk. Next, pretending to casually pass by a murderer, he leaves a chalk sign on the back of the coat. This letter M, now on murderer’s back marking him to outside observers, symbolizes what is marking him inside, and what is making him commit murders again and again. It’s a mark that he can’t shake off, and he can even pass unrecognized beside people on the street, wearing a letter M on the back of his coat, yet he is still different. In that way, both alternative titles of the film, “M” as well as intended original title “Murderers are among us” represent the same thing: ever-growing paranoia and fear of the one who is different, dangerous, mixed with the mass and perhaps closer to us than we might imagine. We may even go further and ask ourselves, whose is the hand at the beginning of the film that puts this sign on one of us.

Plus, symbolism on the side, it’s really a great, distinctive imagery, one of those things that stay as a part of global culture, a film’s legacy.

Another thing that marks this film is the performance of Peter Lorre, back then unknown comedian, whose talent was spotted by Lang, as capable of delivering a puzzling performance, as the comical, childlike, naïve meet in this actor with weird, creepy, hidden danger. Working at day on film set and at night at night club as comedy performer, Lorry gave performance of his life, particularly at the finish of the film, where he is faced with raging makeshift court made by criminals who caught him, and to which in his striking monologue he begs for his life, explains the ill nature of his craving for murder, and accuses the “court” of not having a monopoly on justice – being that the court is consisting of criminals as well, the killer questions the weight of the crime done by mental illness, over the weight of the crime done by decision. Lang does a good job of not morally sentencing the murderer, but not defending him either, emphasizing the fact that in such case, there is probably no definite solution or definite justice.

Lorry, a Jew and, ironically, one of Hitler’s favourite actors, moved to USA together with lang. In a following long career of a well-known supporting actor, he was typecast as a creepy, yet darkly humorous person, usually a negative character and he became a rather familiar face of noir film, playing memorable, supporting roles such as Joel Cairo from “Maltese Falcon”, black market trader Ugarte from “Casablanca” and one of the pair of murderer in “Arsenic and old lace”.

“M” is sometimes interpreted in the light of Nazi propaganda as well as other Lang’s early films. But these are usually the cases of lowest common denominators. Lorre’s final monologue from the film was later took by Fritz Hippler, Nazi propaganda filmmaker, and made into fake documentary and presented as a speech of a Jew who can’t control his homicidal urges. This is, of course, an extreme case of taking things out of context.

Lang, on the other hand, became known as one of the greatest masters, known best for his early German films that include, besides “M” and “Metropolis”, also “The Nibelungs”, “Woman in the moon”, “Dr. Mabuse: the Gambler” and “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse”. His later, American films include classic detective noir “The big heat”, “Fury”, “Moonfleet”, “Clash by night”, “Human desire”…

posted by Srdjan @ 7:22 AM