THE JO-TEL … illegal blog downfield

I watched M a few nights back: 1931, directed by Fritz Lang (also Metropolis, The Last Laugh), starring Peter Lorre (also Maltese Falcon, Casablanca).  I've seen it before but didn't remember too much about it. Very controversial at the time because it is a about a serial killer who goes after children. It is generally regarded at the grandfather of serial killer movies and is great for its ability to evoke creepy sadness with non-violent imagery. For a while now movies have been pushing back the boundaries that used to prohibit the graphic depiction of violence (starting with the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch). So in the current context it's refreshing to watch a movie that finds less direct methods (albeit perhaps out of censor-imposed necessity) of conveying deprave violence.

With that said, some modern directors are doing interesting things by juxtaposing restraint and excess in the depicting violence. For instance, in No Country for Old Men, the Coens set the movie's tolerance for straight-on violence very high with the first few killings. But they use this, among other things, to heighten the effect of not showing the violence in later scenes. For instance (SPOILER ALERT), instead of showing Suger killing Brolin's wife at the end, they just show him subtly cleaning his boots as he exits her house. This may be the most viscerally affecting scene in the whole movie, bloody slayings included. I feel like these type of techniques have fully capitalized on both the skillfully violence-less depictions of violence in early movies like M and the unflinching and realistic depiction bravely pioneered by Peckinpaw, Penn, and others.

However, even for a viewer like me who is historically jiving with the film, the diversion from the plot to focus on the economic and social plight of Weimar Germany in M can be a bit tedious. But still, it is fascinating to remember that this film was made before these conditions helped to spur the rise of the Hitler and the fascist "solution". This movie was made 100 percent without the knowledge of the Holocaust. It's social perspective is all the more affecting with that in mind. But if these scenes lack the immediacy they may have had upon their initial release, we can still intellectually enjoy not only the historical context, but also the defining role that this combination of social statement and serial killing had for the grisly crime genra more generally. Indeed, most serial killer movies, in some way or another, ape M by depicting the killer's actions as a reaction to some abject societal condition. We are never allowed to agree with the killer's way of coping with these problems, but the killer nevertheless "underlines these problems in blood" to quote Faulkner regarding the Civil War. When Peter Lorre tries to force a smile onto his face in M, we understand the emotions at the base of his dementia.  And while this may or may not make the killings themselves more frightening, it certainly makes their occurrence more wrenching.

-Shark