A house in the middle of a street

Let us think about living in a big city. We are surrounded by dozens of people, each day we pass and/or meet hundreds and we live among millions. Nevertheless we are almost alone. We hardly know the people around us and we are barely interested in them. This chosen ignorance seems quite egoistic and yet it helps us making it through the day. By shielding ourselves we keep us from being overpowered by the impressions and situations that surround us. In addition we simply cannot be affected by and interested in literally everything, can we?

In Fritz Lang’s M from 1931 we are confronted with a city of no name (nevertheless it is Berlin), with four million citizens and through plot and narration we follow the events regarding the hunt for the child murderer Hans Beckert.

The film does not simply follow Beckert though. We, the audience are guided by an auctorial way of narration and are therefore able to observe the plot from plenty of angles and sometimes we witness situations, which do not have direct consequences and which will not be explained.

In the scene, in which inspector Groeber meets with Beckert’s landlady Mrs Winkler (47’), Lang first shows Groeber approaching the building.

Lang places the camera on the street in front of the apartment house. The door is not centered and more on the left side of the picture. In the front we see a single tree, probably one that had been planted by the agency of urban planning, and bits of a cart. These establishing seconds give the impression of an urban still life and leaves the entrance as being one of many and not one in particular.

 

 

 

Suddenly Beckert comes out of the door and leaves the picture to the left. Instead of following the antagonist the camera remains and seconds pass by.

Then a shadow appears in from the right, shortly followed by its origin, inspector Groeber. The policeman stops in front of the door, throws the remains of his cigarette of the ground, which gives the urban still life more detail, and enters the building. Cut.

Let us now think of the building itself and let us make assumptions on its size. According to the setting, the building, which we cannot see as a whole, can be considered to be part of a block, which means that the roads passing the building are long and straight. A possible bent right next to the building would lead into a back alley. Back alleys are either dead ends or parts of private grounds or simple dark and uncanny places. It is unlikely that either the leaving Beckert would now enter a back alley or the arriving Groeber would come out of one.

It therefore seems to be highly impossible that Groeber did not see Beckert leaving the building, which leads to the question, how come that the policeman did not address the other person?

Georg Simmel wrote about human behaviour in big cities in his essay about The Metropolis and the Mental Life (1903) and has stated that people in big cities are overpowered by all the different impressions that affect them every day and everywhere and that they have to make up a sort of an airiness or blasé attitude to protect themselves.

Taking also Tom Gunning into consideration, who discusses the possibility of the city in M itself being the main character instead of a particular person like Hans Beckert, inspector Lohmann or the criminal Schränker, it becomes clear what Lang is trying to achieve here. The presented sequence is “just there” and will never be commented further on in the film.

It is therefore on the same level as those sequences in the collage (10'-13'), in which the rising hysteria among the city’s citizens is portrayed.

It is also one of those moments, where the allegorical aspects of the film kick in.
Lang uses the phenomenon of selective perception to show, how easy an evil thing, a threat can spread among region and society.

Tom Gunning concludes that “Beckert plays hide and seek with us, appearing usually indirectly or obliquely, then withdrawing into darkness” (p. 164). In fact, Beckert is not hiding. Neither is he actively hiding, nor is he hiding in terms of Lang giving him only rare on screen time. Beckert is simply nothing more than all the other impressions and phenomena. Using the rigid camera position without panning or any other movement, Lang pretends to be documenting the scene. This gives the impression of the scene not being staged and proofs Simmel’s airiness.

In analyses about historical classifications on the movie, it is often mentioned that M is part of the so-called New Objectivity (see also From Caligari to Hitler).

Films of that kind are straight opposite to the movement of the German expressionism and have clean shapes realistic approaches as key features.

Lang’s film is by far not a documentary by definition. It contains moments of suspense, an atmosphere of uncanniness and of course tells a fictional story. Yet again, there are shots and sequences like the one discussed in this article that recollect the works of the Lumière brothers, which had been staged but also gave impressions of real routines.

As a side note I would like to mention that on a plain narrative base, it is quite convenient that Beckert is not at present when Groeber meets with the landlady. Being alone in the room gives the inspector enough time to search for evidence. The possible evidence can later on be analysed (Lohmann: “Ariston, Ariston…”). We, the audience are better in informed than the police and of course, this increases the tension, but this would be a little boring, would it?

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Material, used for this essay:

M, GER 1931, D: Fritz Lang

Gunning, Tom, The Films of Fritz Lang. Allegories of Vision and Modernity, bfi London 2000

Kaes, Anton, M, bfi London 2000

Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of German film, Princeton University Press 1947

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