M (1931) - Crazed Society VS Child Killer

The 1931 movie M (directed by Fritz Lang), is a 1931 German thriller that follows the story of a serial killer Hans Beckert (played by Peter Lorre) who preys on children and the events that follow as his actions begin to upset the town and world around him. This 1931 movie magnificently utilizes emotional perspective to create this suspense-thriller and the paranoia found within.

Between having a huge lack in camera movement and also having the movie portray pity and audience sympathy onto the main villain, it is relatively safe to say this movie plays a bit outside of the rules. However, the biggest “rule” this movie broke as it strayed away from statistical cinematic norms is its choice of whom to play the role of the paranoiac in this film. Whilst I do not believe it is not 100% solid from whose perspective this movie takes place as it seems to follow a series of events instead of just one person, it is clear however that the paranoiac of this film is not one individual or another, it is the entire town. And whilst it is Hans who is the villain in this movie, it is also the town who is the one threatening the peace, causing an uproar, and pulling the net shut.

Despite only having 12 lines of dialog in the movie and not being the main paranoiac, Hans it defiantly able to add to the paranoia. One of the best example of this is his constant whistling of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. As I personally have been listening to this musical piece on repeat for the last 41 minutes so far, I can defiantly agree with this being the perfect music piece for a movie of paranoia as it conveys it extravagantly well with its very heightened build. Now transforming this already creepy, suspenseful, catchy, and masterful piece into the whistling of a child murder? Perfect!

As if to reassure Hans’s creepiness and the town being the paranoiac, you need only to look at the end courtroom scene where Hans is begging for his life. Not only did the director make a very specific and interesting choice of having the camera span across the entire bleachers of town members to show and reinforce their job as the paranoia and power-holders, but that scene also contains a very emotionally compelling monologue from Hans as he pleads for his life in court as the article Playing all the weird angles of Fritz Lang’s M by Tasha Robinson states “And that trial is particularly telling, as Lang switches between intimate, close-up shots of Hans wailing about his compulsions, and wide, panning, unsympathetic shots of the hundreds of criminals who’ve come to judge him”. This monologue specifically reminded me of Joan of Arc’s “Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?” monologue from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part I, Act V, Scene 4 which is rated as my 2nd or 3rd favorite Shakespeare monologue to preform and compete with out of my 9 Shakespeare monologues. Whist Joan’s defiantly gets a lot more “stage time” and amazing dialogue while pleading, the comparison lies in both the emotion level between Joan and Hans as they know they are doomed but fight and plead whilst insanely pleading and denying their insanity, while also showcasing the feeling that even though they are both defiantly the emotion/verbal height of the already emotional room, they also are somehow not the power-holders in their scene. Both scenes play with society playing the paranoiac and holding power over the paranoid and scared character insanely and emotionally pleading for their life as all bloodthirsty eyes are on them.

Watch the trailer here: