133. M

Song - Jeanny (Falco)

Movie: M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

Filmmakers are like the rest of us. Whenever they get a new toy they like to play with it and show it around as much as possible. Which is why most color films from the '40's and 50's are much more colorful than most contemporary movies. M has become famous for providing the blueprint for noirs and police investigation thrillers, but it is also Fritz Lang's first sound film. I only realised that after watching the film and reading up on it. It is incredible how seamlessly sound is incorporated in the film's aesthetic and how it is always used in the service of the story. With the exception of one somewhat contrived scene - in which we see a bunch of oddly framed policeman listening to someone out of the shot telling them something - Lang never lets the sound take center stage. Aside from a couple of silent sequences, sound here is used pretty much in the same way as it is in 'modern' movies. 

While the use of sound is impressive, perhaps even more so is how Lang solves problems that do betray that M stems from the early days of cinema. A creaky long take, in which the camera glides through a beggars' establishment and then goes up the first floor, intends to give us the mood of the place and show how the mafia connects to the beggars. It achieves that, but what the shot truly illuminates is how uncomfortable it was to set up such complex shots at that time. It's not a surprise that for most of the rest of the film Lang refrains from such complexity and either keeps the camera still or lets it gently pan to the left or right. Yet he never makes the film feel static, because he constantly plays with lights and shadows, has people moving in and out of the frame, and crosscuts between two different spaces in which the action takes part. There is a wonderful short sequence in which a mafia boss has a discussion with his 'colleagues', when in the middle of his monologue Lang cuts to the police station where the police commissioner 'finishes' the mafia boss' sentence (and even his arm movement) in his own speech to the cops. 

That sequence touches on another interesting aspect of the film: Lang's cynicism. It's easy to say this in hindsight, but watching this film you don't get the feeling that Lang was terribly surprised by the Nazi's rise to power. He presents a society easily swayed by populist mobs, where there is mistrust both among and between the higher and lower classes, and where civil institutions have lost authority and competence. The film shows how in the hunt for a child murderer, the mafia is always one step ahead of the police, largely because the mafia has a better understanding of, and connection to, the life on the streets. They are eventually not only the ones who catch the murderer, but also the ones who give him a (somewhat fair!) trial. It barely seems to matter that at the end of the film the killer does find himself in a 'real' courtroom. The seats where the judges are supposed to sit are empty. Once they arrive, claiming they will preside "in the name of the people" Lang cuts to grieving mothers for whom the trial is an afterthought. "It won't bring our children back." And on that note, the film ends.