Fritz Lang was already considered one of the leading filmmakers not just in Germany but in the world when he took a script by his wife Thea von Harbou to Nero Film and made perhaps the greatest crime film of all time. Considered a ‘Zeitfilm’ that dealt with contemporary social issues, “M” told the story of a child murderer on the loose in Berlin and how both sides of the law mobilized to bring the criminal to justice. Displaying an almost dizzying visual style to showcase a police procedural paired with an organized crime syndicate, and starring the instantly famous stage actor Peter Lorre as the killer, “M” was the first film to treat the element of sound in cinema as a narrative device instead of a novelty. Join Dave Anderson and I as we go through “M” scene by scene and discuss Kinder Morder, Lustmord, and Kaftka.
Works Cited:
Anton Kaes. M. The BFI Film Classics Series. The British Film Institute. 2000.
Siegfried Kracauer. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press, 1947
Maria Tatar. Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany. Princeton University Press, 1995.
