M is a 1931 German film directed by Fritz Lang. The basic storyline is a crime drama with chronological presentation based on a real-life case of serial killer. However, it is not presenting a simple, clear-cut binary opposition, but an original angle to show the murderer as both a perpetrator and a victim. Besides this thoughtful theme, Lang’s use of shadow, light, camera movement and sound also made this film a masterpiece. This essay sets out to discuss several points made by Anton Kaes in his book M, and to compare them with relative scenes in the movie M.
As the last major German film director to adopt sound, Lang did a respectable job. Not only did he use sound to enrich images, but he gave sound itself a significant meaning and a unique power. I wonder if this is a typical German style- or is not done, or is done best. In the book M, Anton Kaes (2008) indicates that “Sound affirms presence and life; silence connotes absence and death.” This is a great way to generalize how sound works in M: when there are noises and voices- children singing, traffic noise, crowed people- things are always under control, though crimes may being prepared as well. Normal noises represent everyday experience; they are common and ordinary enough to make us feel relaxed. But when the sound film suddenly falls silent- in Lang’s M, always a violent silence, a pregnant silence- we become anxious, like we are announced that something is wrong. Why the kids stop singing? Why the courtyard is empty? Why no one is holding the balloon? In M, silence is always a sign of absence.
However, some of the scenes in M give sound a very rich meaning that is more than “presence and life”. In the middle of the film, there is a scene when Beckert looks into a shop window and sees a little girl. He follows her down the street until the girl meets her mother. In this scene, we are firstly led by a sound bridge: the sound of car horn. Then we see a crowded street with people walking by in a rush. The school bell rings. The lesson is over. Two women passed by- are they on the way to pick up their children from school? Until now, we’ve heard a bunch of daily noises that indicate normal life. Suddenly, the next shot falls silent- we see Beckert from a store window. He is eating an apple, looks calm but demanding, full of dangerous desire- no one eats an apple like that! People eat because they want to taste the food, but Beckert’s eating style seems like he wants to destroy the food. What is his food? His eyes snap into focus- a girl appears in the reflection. According to Kaes, “His body stiffens...Beckert stands transfixed.” In this long, dead silence, we can sense his uncontrollable inner urge precisely, and can predict a terrible coming crime. This moment supports Kaes’s point that “silence connotes absence and death”, like that kind of quiet, calm sea before a hurricane.
We don’t have too much time to taste this silence- the little girl went out of the knife frame inside the store window. She’s leaving. Beckert turns around, stares at the direction she goes. Slight traffic noises now gradually appear as background sounds, and above these, we hear the whistling again. It is as clear as someone is whistling in our ears, and absolutely not a sound “affirms presence and life” (Kaes, 2008). I have heard about a music therapy intended to increase pig’s appetite: let the pigs listen to the music during dinnertime. Finally pigs want food whenever they hear the music. From previous plot we already know that Beckert whistles “Hall of the Mountain King” whenever he is ready to commit a crime. Now we hear the whistling, we expect the crime. The sound in M- in this case, Beckert’s whistling- does not indicate presence, but a premeditated absence; and not life, but a coming death. To me this is the most terrifying moment in the whole movie. The last second before death is always more fearful than death itself. Obviously, this last second has been extended in M. It is not a vivid sound affirms life, but a sound indicates death, like the bell tolls for whomever.
In the book M, Kaes (2008) also claims that “This ‘heritage of silent film’ in sound referred to the self-expressiveness of voices and noises- a tradition that originated from radio and telephone, where pitch and volume, inflection and intonation, rhythm and cadence compensated for the bodily absence of persons and things.” This means the use of sound in M is a way to present or express the existing things: who are they, where are they, what are they doing, why do they appear, what information do they convey... The scene I chose to both support and refute this point is when Beckert hides inside an office building while the mafia search the building in an amazing systematic pattern.
After the well-organized mafia team gets into the building, there comes a long shot of all the mafia stand outside a guardroom with its door opened. Schranker in the room stands in front of the guard, says: “How many other watchmen are in the building? Don’t want to answer? Very well.” He comes to the door, shuts the door against the rest of the mafia as well as us. Silence. People in the guardroom slightly moved. We cannot see them clearly, but one thing can be sure of is people outside the guardroom are as curious as us- they move forward to the door and windows, perfectly blocked our view. Great, now we see nothing but the movements of their heads. Suddenly there comes a piercing shriek. A few seconds later, Schranker opens the door: “There are still two watchmen on their rounds.” How he gets the answer is obvious, he must tortured the guard cruelly- we think. We can even imagine what he did, and cannot even imagine it. Is it just because of the scream? No. It’s about the whole arrangement of sound: when the door closed, we cannot hear a single line from them but just a scream. How piercing should that be? Since the crowd cut off our view, the sound compensates for the absence of image perfectly.
But far more than “sounds compensated for the bodily absence” can we discover in this scene. In many cases, the sound is not used to convey a message from something or somebody, but functions as an important message itself. When the mafia finally find Beckert in the attic, a watchman rings the alarm. The movie uses the sound of alarm as a bridge and cuts to another shot of the ringing alarm in the police office. The sound here is not compensating for anything; itself is all it wants to express: that is time’s up. The police is coming. Hurry. Let’s scram!
In the attic scene, we see Beckert stands in the back of the attic with his eyes widened. The camera keeps focusing on Beckert, so we are only able to hear the sound of searching process instead of to see how the mafia guys force every lock, open every door. “He’s not here!” Beckert bends down; “Next door!” The sound is getting closer; he crouched down in the dark. Suddenly the beam of a flashlight penetrates the darkness, “There he is, the dog!” During this whole searching process, are the sounds compensating for the bodily absence? It is the bodily absence compensating for the sound. We are guessing how far the mafia guys are from Beckert. Step by step, we become as nervous as he is. The limitation of our view makes our ears more sensitive, and leaves us space for imagination.
For the relationship between sound and image in M, especially in this scene, I’d rather say they fulfilled each other than say the sound compensated for the image. Like the “married print” in Singin in the Rain, sound and image in M also married to each other, and make one plus one greater than two.
One of M’s great successes lies in Beckert’s unique personality. “The film represents Beckert as an outsider who is pathologised, doubly marked as clinically insane and criminal.” says Kaes. Take the scene when Beckert is brought to the trial in the abandoned building as an example. From Schranker angrily asks Beckert to admit his guilty, while he keeps denying, “But I never even met her”; till he finally admits the crime, says “I really can’t help it”. The double audiences- that are the jurors and us- regard him as nothing but an insane bastard, which supports Kaes’s point. However, when he begins to express his complex psychology (“Who knows what it’s like to be me? How I’m forced to act...How I must...don’t want to, must...don’t want to, must...”), he is no longer a criminal but a victim to me. He is a victim of his sin. I was gooseflesh all over when he said “I have to roam the streets endlessly, always sensing that someone’s following me. It’s me! I’m shadowing myself!” Can’t one be both a criminal and a victim?
When Beckert insults people in the judgement: “Who are you? All of you? Criminals!” He’s not only talking to the jurors but also to us the viewer. Here I personally don’t agree with Kaes viewpoint that Beckert is “marked as clinically insane”. What Beckert says is not a bunch of rubbish from a madman, nor any excuse made by a criminal. He is a philosopher. Our controllable desire makes us feel like we are sensible human beings. Can Beckert do anything about his desire? How could anyone judges anyone and says it is ‘justice’? Or maybe we should redefine the fuzzy word ‘justice’- that is to let a bunch of patients who have lighter symptoms control another bunch of patients who have some more obvious disorders.
Kaes also indicates that “Unable to help himself, he lives outside the law...What is a community to do with a subject whose very existence challenges the established order?” In my opinion, the not-very-sick community have to deal with the extremely-sick patients like Beckert. This procedure is not a punishment in the name of justice, but a necessary treatment- not to the patient, but to the community, like cutting off a malignant tumor from one’s body. The trial scene shows Beckert’s complex personality. Besides only “an outsider who is pathologised, doubly marked as clinically insane and criminal”, he is the magnified evil thing inside us. We can always discover ourselves from the cinema.
All in all, I love and respect this film as well as Anton Kaes’s criticism. Jean Luc Godard used to say that “Writing criticism was a form of filmmaking and vice versa.” I agree with him especially in the case of M. Like sound and image, color and form, the readings always help me understand the corresponding films better, and vice versa. Actually if you look at the letter M, itself is like something with its mirror image. On the other side of the mirror, there might be a novel, a director, a viewer, or another film. I can’t help comparing the trial of Beckert with the trial of Joan from The Passion of Joan of Arc. Beckert is devil; is a child murderer; is like the anti-Joan. But the strongest unity always lies in the most extreme contrary. Beckert and Joan are both suffering; both overwhelmed by something inside them (his urge and her faith) and outside the morality or law; both been considered as outsiders. They make their decisions that beyond others’ understanding, but are ‘they’ the one who actually make these decisions? The great helplessness in their humanity tortures me.
Reference:
Face, M. (2004). Closely watched films: an introduction to the art of the narrative film technique. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
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