Fritz Lang's M Essay

Film, as a form of popular art, contributes greatly to various societies since its emergence for such a medium embodies the set of values and beliefs of the culture for which and within which it is made. Fritz Lang’s M (1931), which was produced during the Weimar Republic period, is an example of this role of motion pictures. In the following paragraphs, this essay will analyze the way the movie features the instability and insanity of the political and social situation through the examination of its narration and mise-en-scene.
Narration, as defined in Film Art: An Introduction, is “the process through which the plot conveys or withholds story information” (Bordwell and Thompson 503). In this particular production, Fritz Lang used narration
to depict a dysfunctional society and paranoid citizens that echo the societal and political condition at the time. At first glance, this film may be conceived simply as a cautionary tale, “warning mothers about neglecting their children” (Jenson 95). However, after careful analysis, the movie is, in fact, beyond the mere serial killing.
In Lang’s M, the film depicts several groups of social characters, such as citizens, police officers, criminals, and beggars that are entangled in the search for the child serial killer Hans Beckert. Such a heinous crime indicates the extreme instability of the society, which is a rather accurate reflection of the 1931 Weimar Republic. At this time, the republic was on the brink of collapse, due to its political unrest and economic deficiencies. With the continuous deaths of innocent children and the incitement of media outlets, citizens unsurprisingly felt more insecure and paranoid, which can be seen in the scene from the beginning of the film where the passers accuse a gentleman, who is accosted by a little girl, of being the murderer, since there is no clue to the whereabouts of the real killer. This insecurity in turn indicates the inability and omission of the police and the state. In the film, the government, raiding without probable cause, is unable to locate Beckert even with the message from the murderer himself and various witnesses. However, because of the constant raids from the police, the criminals decided to capture Beckert themselves, and eventually succeeded with the help from the beggars. Therefore, Lang created an ironic world, in which the citizens had to take on the supposed responsibilities of the state; that is, the people, in order to survive, must forfeit their individual rights and establish their own monitoring network out of the distrust towards the failed democracy.
Such an unstable society is able to nurture morbid killers, and Hans Beckert is definitely one of them.
Despite his inhumane killing of innocent children, Beckert is portrayed in an almost pitiful way. In the movie, Lang depicts Beckert as a weak, “pathologised”, and “clinically insane” middle-aged man, who cannot overcome his compulsion of seeking blood (Kaes 69). This insuppressible desire can be seen from him writing to the newspaper about his location and exclaiming “I really can’t help it” in the climax scene of the film. From the movie, we can see that Beckert’s twisted mind is the product of the society, and instead of giving him proper mental treatment, the citizens, regardless of their social status, resort to physical force due to abysmal fear. This kind of societal exploration is part of the Expressionism of Weimar Cinema, which focuses on dark themes such as crime, social destruction, immorality, and establishes the characteristics that contribute to the genre film noir, with the film’s recurring themes of “psychological conflict, paranoia, fate and moral ambiguity” (Smith
186).
In order to visualize the political and social situation described in the narration section, Fritz Lang used the cinematic technique of mise-en-scene, which is the “arrangement of people, places, and objects to be filmed” (Bordwell and Thompson 3). In the film, Lang was able to create a dreadful atmosphere without explicitly showing any violence. For example, the lost balloon and ball of Elsie cleverly present the fact that she is murdered. In general, these visual images help to engage the audience and provide the opportunity for the viewers to visualize the horror and empathize with the social context.
However, there is one scene from the film that needs to be analyzed more closely.
When the beggars track down Beckert on the street, they mark him with a big “M” on his jacket. Here, the M, which coincides with the title of the film, has three meanings. Firstly, M stands for murderer, or Mörder in German. This is an obvious explanation for the letter, since Beckert has committed a serious crime. However, such an atrocity can be further explored under the historical background. As mentioned in previous paragraph, this film was produced in 1931. At the time, the Nazis began to have more and more control over the country. Because of his partial Jewish heritage and a sympathized wife towards the National Socialists, Lang was fearful of the party, and used this scene as a premonition of the Nazi regime. It turned out that his concerns were warranted. The intended title for this film was Murderer among Us or Mörder unter uns; whereas it is alleged that Lang forfeited this title because “a Nazi studio manager paranoid that the public would think the title referred to the by-then already powerful National Socialists” (Kracauer 218). From this incident, we can see that the Nazis started to conduct censorship and propaganda even before the regime was
established.
Secondly, the M signals morals, or Moral in German. When the power of law is unable to punish the killer and bring back peace, the public, including criminals, has to use morality to seek justice. However, plagued by the terror of the serial killer (in the film), and the political and economic instabilities (in reality), the citizens of the “underworld” from M have already blurred the line between moral right and wrong. Hence, injustice continues when Beckert is trialed in the kangaroo court, as these criminals’ kind of solution is to use more killing to end the murders. This immorality emphasizes once again the influence of the crumbling Weimar Republic.
Finally, the M in the film symbolizes mania, or Manie in German. When Beckert discovered that he had been marked with “M”, his ambivalence between the fear of being captured and the calamity that he would uncontrollably cause is expressed through his astonishingly bulging eyes. These emotions are the ultimate representation of the political and social situation. Living under the influence of a turbulent era, everyone starts to become a victimized maniac as they hunt for refuge and serenity. Unfortunately, there is no way out, since the termination of a period of misery signals only the possibility for more of it. As Elsie’s mother utters at the end of the film, “One has to keep closer watch over the children. All of you!” Fritz Lang intended to use this line to warn everyone in the society, on the rise of Hitler, about the insidious future of Germany.
To summarize, M is a modern film that depicts the social and political context at the time of the transition from a tumbling democracy to a cruel empire. It is one of the best films of Fritz Lang, and has contributed to the development of future film genre and industry.