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
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
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