Version with pictures: https://www.toutiao.com/i6489316972629590541/ https://www.toutiao.com/i6490431533315260941/ 1 "M" is Fritz Lang's first sound film based on the criminal career of a real-life serial killer. While it wasn't the first film to describe crime, "M" undoubtedly kicked off a subgenre of crime cinema: serial killer films and films about police procedures. And to a certain extent, it influenced the birth of Noir Film. Although the concept of film noir originated in France and carried forward through Hollywood, it is not an exaggeration to say that Fritz Lang's "M" inspired film noir. The film has a distinct trace of German expressionist films, clever lighting, a lot of shadows, looking up, looking down shots, and adding many regular shapes such as squares, circles, and polygons. These tactics were designed to create a terrifying real world, expressing the distorted and chaotic social reality at that time. Under the film's slightly exaggerated performance and composition style, the darkness of human nature is infinitely magnified. Director Fritz Lang's subtle designs are everywhere. Take the scene where the murderer appears. First, the camera moves from the little girl who shoots the ball to a poster offering a reward for the murderer, and then a black shadow appears on the poster. At the same time, the child is still shooting the ball on the poster. The shadow leaned over: "What's your name?" We knew right away that this shadow was the murderer, and he had found his next prey! This freehand horror method does not know how many horror films and thrillers in later generations have been marked with the idea of "shadow". The murderer reappeared while taking the little girl to buy a balloon. At this time, the murderer turned his back to the audience and whistled. We still don't know what he looks like, but what he will do. Sure enough, he killed the little girl, but the director didn't show this part, but suggested it with a ball rolling into the camera and a balloon tangled in a wire. These two succinct and meaningful shots evoke the inner emotions of the viewer more than the direct depiction of the murder. This approach has been imitated countless times. As the police’s carpet search is shown in the middle of the film, the camera crept through the streets and crumbling bars like a lewd peep. Glancing past the drunken homeless, the staggered, and the house full of cups and plates, it's reminiscent of the squalid criminal dens in the corners of the city in film noir. Also, the 1.19 used by the movie: The special proportion of 1 creates a strong sense of restraint in the picture, and the warehouse, conference room, basement, and bar all appear very squeezed. The professional "searching" methods of criminals in the factory building are reminiscent of the professional stealing techniques in crime movies in the 1940s and 1960s, especially in the robber genre, such as "Fight of Men", "Red Circle", "Street of Our Lady" The Big Man". There is an interesting scene in the back: the man who chiseled the floor heard nothing and did not know that his companions were gone. He called his partner to take the ladder from below, and a rope was put down on it. Before he could climb up, the flashlight salvo shot at him. It turned out that the person above was a policeman. The police asked him to raise his hand, "I'm hanging on a ladder, how can I raise my hand". This one-shot shot was taken from above, and then slowly zooming out, we found that there were police officers standing around the hole. 2 A little girl asked a man for the time, and someone saw him not far away, thinking that this man was the murderer who had not yet been arrested. A big man came over, glared at the short man, and asked him why he was talking to the little girl. The man was very angry and wanted to leave, but the big man grabbed his arm, and soon people gathered around, "Beat him! ", "He is the murderer! Catch him and call the police!" The angry people grabbed him tightly. "The police are not there when you need them!" ...the police show up, but that's another scene. The police caught a thief, and the thief denounced: "It is right to catch the pickpocket, but it is more important to catch the murderer!" "What? He is the murderer?" . These are two consecutive paragraphs in "M is the Murderer". It gives the impression that the public's anger was completely ignited by the criminal serial child killer, and the people's dissatisfaction, patience, and hostility all spewed out through this incident. Not only the police's carpet search was flawless, but even the underworld elements were dispatched, and the whole city went into a frenzy. Director Fritz Lang's 1931 film and his first sound film, critic Roger Ebert said the film had "clearly a nod to the early 1930s. Hate in Germany". Look at the city through Lang's lens: empty and desolate streets, dirty and noisy pubs, dull and cramped basements, and rooms where people gather to be either messy or smoky. And the hostility that pervades the whole society, even the work done by the police is filthy and ugly. You can feel the kind of hatred, or anger, that Lang instills in the movie. The social context at the time was that the Nazis had not yet taken full control of Germany, but their influence was growing. What's more, Germany's economic crisis has paralyzed cities, and the people at the bottom are living in dire straits and see no hope. Therefore, "M" shows a picture of a sick society, and the murderer M is an extremely evil existence. Even the underworld members hate him and want to "completely eliminate" him. And why does a villain like M appear? The reason why M kills is because of his mental illness, he can't control himself to kill the little girl, so M's evil is a kind of spiritual, not moral. What a patient like him needs is not execution, but treatment. As the "lawyer" at the end said, he should be handed over to a doctor, not an executioner. As a mentally ill criminal, M is the disease of society itself. The director's deep meaning is here: society is sick, it breeds dictators, breeds extreme evil, and society needs to be cured! Many people interpret "M" as an accusation of fascism, which actually misinterprets the director's meaning. Fritz Lang once talked about the creative idea of "M": "The point of this film is not to punish criminals, but to warn mothers: you should take care of your children!" At the end, the mother who lost her child faces the camera Say: "This can't save our children. We should be more careful with our children..." Obviously, when the police and politicians cannot act against evil as institutions of power, we are all in danger. In the film, the judiciary is the main object of satire. The police are no longer a positive role in maintaining justice and punishing sin. Their ugly faces are reminiscent of the equally subversive image of priests in "The Passion of Joan of Arc". They are even inferior to some conscientious criminals. In the middle of the film, the camera switches back and forth between a meeting of the gangsters and a meeting of the top police. Create a similar visual experience: all are in a gloomy room, all are sitting at round tables, all are a lot of people smoking, the smoke sometimes obscures the camera lens. The similarity between the two conferences clearly emphasizes that the police and gangs are actually the same raccoon dog, and no one can save this sick society. As an aside, in order to enhance the authenticity, Fritz Lang found some real gangsters, and many of them were thieves wanted by the police at the time. It can be said that the film was shot during a guerrilla fight with the police. In contrast to the incompetence of the police, the gang is united, disciplined and cooperative. And the police did some shady tricks. When they caught the only thief who didn't escape to the police station, they lied to him that a guard was dead and he would be in charge unless he confessed their purpose... In one powerful shot, the camera tilts up close to the floor to film Detective Roman Reigns making a phone call. His feet were stretched out in front of the camera, his body was slumped on the chair, and his fat lower limbs were even more huge. He had a fat head and ears, a greasy face, and an ugly smirk. Peter Lorre, who played Killer M, was 26 years old at the time. Although he had a baby face, his round-eyed expression when he was frightened and his fierce expression at certain moments did look like a mentally ill killer. Although he was also a comedian and cabaret, his presence in "M" was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and continued into his noir films for Warner Bros., such as "Casablanca", "The Maltese Falcon", "The Devil" . The whistle he blew was called "Pilkynt," Grieg's score for Ibsen's verse play of the same name, about a character who was morbidly addicted to fantasy and ended up being a victim.
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