M+(dir.+Lang,+1931)

= Key Terms to know =

Dialogue, Sound Effects, synchronous sound, asynchronous sound, diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, leitmotif, motif, parallel action/editing


**Fritz Lang's M** - editing sound as visuals Ken Dancynger

Fritz Lang's M (1931), contains both dialogue sequences and silent sequences with music or sound effects. Lang edited the sound as if he were editing the visuals.

We are introduced to the murderer in shadow when he speaks to a young girl, Elsie. We hear the conversation he makes with her, but we see only his shadow, which is ironically shown on a reward poster for his capture.

Lang then set up a parallel action sequence by intercutting shots of the murderer with the young girl's mother. The culmination of the scene relies wholly on sound for its continuity. The mother calls out for her child. Each time she calls for Elsie, we see a different visual: out of the window of home, down the stairs, out into the yard where the laundry dries, to the empty dinner table where Elsie would sit, and finally far away to the child's ball rolling out of a treed area and to a balloon stuck in a telephone line.

With each shot, her cries became more distant. For the last two shots, the mother's cries are no more than faint echo.

In this sequence, the primary continuity comes from the soundtrack. The mother's cries unify all the various shots, and the sense of distance implied by volume and tone of the call suggests that Elsie is now lost to her mother.

Later in the film, Lang elaborates on this use of sound to provide the unifying idea for a sequence. In one scene, the minister complains to the chief of police that they must find the killer of Elsie. The conversation reveals the scope of the investigation. As they speak, we see visual details of the search for the killer. The visuals show a variety of activities, including the discovery of a candy wrapper at the scene of the crime and the subsequent investigation of candy shops. Geographically, the police investigation moves all around the town and takes place over an extended period of time. These //time and place shifts are all coordinated through the conversation// between the minister and the chief of police.

In terms of screen time, the conversation is five minutes long, but it communicates and investigation that takes place over many days and in many places. We sense the police department's commitment but also its frustration at the lack of results.

What follows is the famous scene of parallel action where Lang intercut two meetings. The police and the crimal underworld meet separately, and the leaders of both organizations discuss their frustrations about the child murderer and devise strategies for capturing him. The paralleling of the dialogue and intercutting of the scenes creates a thematic unity. The police and the underworld are organized under the same types of authority and systems.

Rather than simply relying on visuals parallel action, Lang cut on dialogue at one point, starting a sentence in police camp and ending it in the criminal meeting. The crosscutting is all driven by dialogue. There are common visual elements: the meeting setting, the smoking room, the seating, the prominence of one leader in each group. Despite these viusals cues, it is the dialogue that is used to set up the parallel action and to give the audience a sense of progress. Unlike Griffith's train chase, there is no visual dynamic to carry us toward a resolution, nor is there a metric montage. The pace and character of the dialogue establish and carry us through this scene.

Lang used sound as if it were another visual element, editing it freely. Notable is how Lang used the design of sound to overcome space and time issues. Through his use of dialogue over the visuals, time collapses and the audience moves all about the city with greater ease than if he had straight-cut the visuals

source: Ken Dancynger __//The Technique of film and video editing//__

=Sound/Music Motif/Leitmotif= Much has been made of Lang’s innovative use of sound in M, and this aspect of the film benefits enormously from the restoration of the print. Most powerful is the recurring use of a motif from Grieg’s Peer Gynt, a whistled phrase that becomes increasingly more ominous, functioning as both a lure for Beckert’s victims and the cause of his downfall when the balloon seller recognizes it. (The whistler is Lang himself, because Lorre couldn’t!)-[|Bright Lights Film Journal] media type="custom" key="24572458"

=**A Short Introduction to M 1931 Dir. Fritz Lang**=

Historical Background: The Peter Kürten Connection, Thea von Harbou, Research Fritz Lang's 'M' has been called many things: 'frightfully good', 'the predecessor to all serial killer thrillers like Psycho and The Silence Of The Lambs', 'one of the defining movies of European pre-WWII cinema' and much more. 'M' premiered May 11th 1931 in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin to the standing ovations of an enthusiastic audience.

The story of 'M' germinates in the late 1920s when the German public was exposed to a number of high profile serial murders. Although Fritz Lang has always denied it, it has often been assumed that one particular serial killer, the 'Vampir von Düsseldorf' (the vampire of Düsseldorf) Peter Kürten was the real-life inspiration to 'M' but there were other cases of serial killers (Haarmann, Denk and Großmann), all committing crimes in the late 1920s. There was also a string of child killings in the city of Breslau, a crime which was never solved.

In early 1930 during the height of the public’s hysteria over the case the police department of Düsseldorf - now also supported by a group of detectives from the Berlin police, commonly referred to as 'Alex' - published a 25 page special bulletin which must have been known by Lang. This special edition of the publication 'Kriminal Magazine' described the 'Düsseldorfer Massenmörder' (serial killer of Düsseldorf) and proclaimed 'Alles vergebens! Der Mörder bleibt unerkannt! Er ist mitten unter uns!' (Everything in vain! The murderer remains unknown! **He is among us!**). Interestingly enough the working title for 'M' was 'Mörder unter uns' (**murderer among us**).

Thea von Harbou (Lang’s creative partner and wife) and Fritz Lang had studied the methods of police work, met with psychiatrists about serial killers and familiarized themselves with the area of eastern Berlin in detail and thus were able to write a very detailed and accurate script. The psychological profile of their killer 'Hans Beckert' avoided all grotesque exaggerations that often plague other films. Everything was intended to be realistic and Fritz Lang went so far as to employ a number of real criminals during the catacomb trial scene.

soure:http://www.cyberroach.com/m Not only did von Harbou use newspaper articles for the script, but she "maintained regular contact with the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz and was permitted access to the communications and secret publications of Berlin's force". Recalling the script, von Harbou's secretary, Hilde Guttmann, claims, "I saw many other film manuscripts, but never one which could compare with the manuscript for M. Two typewriter ribbons were stuck together to give us three colors: one black and red, and the other blue. **The camera work and the action were typed in black**, the dialogue blue, and the sound , where synchronized, was typed in red " (Unfortunately, she is uncredited as the script writer for M).

source: [|wikipedia]

M is known for:
 * Lang's innovative and brilliant use of sound in this his first synch sound "talkie"
 * The establishment of a seminal role for Peter Lorre (who would later head to Hollywood along with Lang and many others with the rise of Nazi power)
 * The establishment of many cinematic tropes of the // police procedural //, // serial killer // , and // underworld as mirror of society // films.

=**Further Analysis**=


 * Reading:** http://brightlightsfilm.com/29/m.php#.VFs5rvSUdSQ

The roots of [|noir]  go back to German Expressionism, and there’s no movie that’s more German, Expressionist, or noir than [|Fritz Lang] ’s masterful — and finally restored — //M // (1931). While this story of the pursuit of a child-killer lacks one of the crucial elements of the genre, the femme fatale, the other components of noir are here in force. There’s the dark cityscape, an unstable environment in which children play in the street singing chants about "black bogeymen" and murderers. There’s the paranoid pathology of the individual in the person of the twisted Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), who courts and kills his young victims for reasons he can’t express or fathom, and a frenzied mob that brings its own brand of justice against him... [|Continue]

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