F.A.N Movie Club- Fritz Lang's M (1931)

Children: [singing] "Just you wait, it won't be long. The man in black will soon be here. With his cleaver's blade so true. He'll make mincemeat out of YOU!"

A killer of children is loose on the streets of Berlin. Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) is a plump, little man luring children with sweets and balloons, hiding in shadows and incessantly whistling a strand of music from Edvard Grieg's "At the Hall of the Mountain King".

As the killing progresses, every person in the city is on the lookout for this predator: frightened parents, confounded police officers, even Berlin's criminal underworld. The vision of Berlin conveyed: a smoky, dimly lit city comprised of seedy bars and hooker filled streets, speaks of a cesspool from which such a horrible monster could arise.

"M" is a story of a city, in a country, on the verge of a horrible time period. The rise of Nazism is on the horizon and the actions of the townspeople hints at the horror that would soon occur. As Roger Ebert observes, "M" depicts a Berlin with "characters have no virtues and lack even attractive vices. In other stories of the time we see nightclubs, champagne, sex and perversion. When "M'' visits a bar, it is to show closeups of greasy sausages, spilled beer, rotten cheese and stale cigar butts." Berlin is a city on the verge of an explosion, of a nervous breakdown, pushed to the edge by a killer.



Fritz Lang's first sound film, "M" sparingly uses dialogue and music, relying on the killer's leitmotif whistling and endless shots of cramped, claustrophobic Berlin, a city filled with grim people with ugly faces. These people form a lynch mob reminiscent of Lang's later film noir "Fury" and their pursuit of Beckert is as unnerving as the killer's clandestine hunt across the city. In the lynch mob, Lang creates a monster as unforgettable as Beckert, which drags the killer in a disturbingly silent scene to be judged for his crimes.

Beckert's monologue about his uncontrollable urges brings up uncomfortable, unanswerable questions about responsibility, of insanity, that the film addresses but does not ultimately answer.

A couple of questions to consider and elements to look out for:

1. How is Berlin depicted? Who is effected by the killer and what steps do they take to capture him? Famously, Lang portrays the police station and the criminal's hideout as mirror images of one another, with their groups of grim, serious men smoking and drinking, gossiping about the murders and planning to catch the perpetrator.

2. How does the film, Lang's first sound film, use montage and sound to elicit viewer response? An early shot involving a balloon effectively conveys a child's death in a way that a musical change or strand of dialogue couldn't.

3. How is the killer depicted? Peter Lorre, who would become famous for his supporting role in "Casablanca" is frequently depicted as a shadow or a whistle in a crowd. What do others, including children, say about him?

4. Note how the mob forms to trap Beckert, how they stake out the area and trap him. Consider how Beckert becomes marked and what it says about his place in society, how society is defined by his social status.

links for info:

imdb page: www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/
Ebert's Great Movies review: rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F19970803%2FREVIEWS08%2F401010339%2F1023

Note, M is in the public domain and thus should be easy to find. Youtube has several postings and it is on Hulu and Hulu+.

Here's a version of Grieg's "At the Hall of the Mountain King" from The Social Network soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross:



Bob's Thread on Stanley Kubrick's mind-blowing A Clockwork Orange can be found here. officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=offtopic&action=display&thread=455586 Keep up the good discussion!

The F.A.N. Film Club's General Thread can be found here:
officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=offtopic&action=display&thread=434020

Info for the club, including presenting schedule and general break down of how to do this is can be found on Google Docs here: docs.google.com/folder/d/0B9hPR8HPrcOLa3RNTzhWdWtIbkE/edit?pli=1

Feel free to add yourself to the list if you have a film you would like to present. Even if you are unsure when you can do it, it doesn't hurt to put it down. Just be sure you can present; don't no show. If you put something down but can't do it, let us know.