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redfiona99So the original plan had been to watch the Cabinet of Dr Caligari and the raccoon movie, only when I looked up the showings at BFI Southbank they were also showing M. Immediate change of plans ensued.
There is a reason M is a classic.
Actually there are many reasons. And I feel expounding on them would involve me selling the film short. There's a reason why books get written about this film (and I suspect many thesises). There are a few things I'd like to mention though.
It's amazing how loud the silences are. They're loud and they're dreadful and terrifying in an everyday terror rather than a monster's going to get you way.
Then there's the killer's whistling of something that's normally a happy, jaunty tune and it's horrific.
I also liked the detail of the kids at the beginning singing the really horrible Ring A Ring A Rosie variant, because, yes, that is what kids do.
I love that they are, in the main, ordinary decent criminals. Yes, they do bad things but they're not bad people. You can't get me to believe Franz is anything but someone for whom life happened and if it had happened even marginally differently, he'd have been a perfectly legitimate builder or something. And that's true for all of them, the pickpockets, the beggars and the prostitutes. There's no animosity when they're rounded up, yes, they don't like it but they and the police see each other as each other's opposites which is part of what makes the child murders so horrific because it's entirely outside of the experience of either side.
I did laugh when M's wiki page said that Quentin Tarantino said it was an influence. If you watch the scene where the other guild representatives are waiting for the safebreaker, it's very clear that he had to have seen it at least once before Reservoir Dogs.
The Safebreaker is the one exception to them all being "ordinary" criminals and you can tell that from the way the other's treat him. Even though they're theoretically his equals, he's automatically put in charge of everything and his word is the law. Of course, he's also the only one that's ever killed anyone, and everyone in the film treats that as a dividing line (the police inspector who finds Franz knows what his limits are, and the look on Franz's face when they accuse him of killing someone is just perfect [and utterly innocent], the "jury" at the end counts it as a point against the Safebreaker).
There's a reason everyone remembers the trial scene.
I think one of the things is that some of what you get out of it is what you come in with. For instance, I got really annoyed by the tvtropes commentators who were all "why are the evil criminals being mean to the poor widdle child-murderer?", and seemed to miss that the actual jury of non-criminals later on come to the same conclusion. But then again, I'm coming from a position of there being no difference between me and most criminals other than a certain amount of circumstance and luck.
It opens with one of those terrifying silences, as Beckert sees the mob.
It's interesting how restrained the mob are, they're willing to listen to Beckert's defence "lawyer", and even admit when he has a point, like when the defender points out that the safebreaker has killed people by choice.
Peter Lorre's performance as Beckert is amazing throughout (like the scene where Beckert drinks after one of his intended victims escapes him) but he's magnificent in this scene. It's where Beckert is desperately trying to explain himself and why he does the terrible things he does, and he's not quite got the words, but he's trying, not just because he's got to in order to save his life but he just wants someone to understand, and Peter Lorre's conveying all of that.
The thing that got me was the beggar in the audience that was nodding along when Beckert was talking about the voices that were forcing him to do things, and it was a clever way of indicating that lots of the people in the criminal mob were probably driven there by circumstance.
Another interesting thing was that it was the prostitutes who got the line about "think of the children", which you probably wouldn't see in most films. One of the best things about the film is that everyone is given such humanity.
Then there's the ending, where, after a trial you don't see but one where you know the same arguments were made as at the criminals trial, a jury comes to the same conclusion, and Beckert is sentenced to death, and you see Frau Beckmann crying because killing Beckert does nothing, and even knowing why doesn't bring her daughter back.
It's a brilliant ending, and fitting with the mood of the film.
There is a reason M is a classic.
Actually there are many reasons. And I feel expounding on them would involve me selling the film short. There's a reason why books get written about this film (and I suspect many thesises). There are a few things I'd like to mention though.
It's amazing how loud the silences are. They're loud and they're dreadful and terrifying in an everyday terror rather than a monster's going to get you way.
Then there's the killer's whistling of something that's normally a happy, jaunty tune and it's horrific.
I also liked the detail of the kids at the beginning singing the really horrible Ring A Ring A Rosie variant, because, yes, that is what kids do.
I love that they are, in the main, ordinary decent criminals. Yes, they do bad things but they're not bad people. You can't get me to believe Franz is anything but someone for whom life happened and if it had happened even marginally differently, he'd have been a perfectly legitimate builder or something. And that's true for all of them, the pickpockets, the beggars and the prostitutes. There's no animosity when they're rounded up, yes, they don't like it but they and the police see each other as each other's opposites which is part of what makes the child murders so horrific because it's entirely outside of the experience of either side.
I did laugh when M's wiki page said that Quentin Tarantino said it was an influence. If you watch the scene where the other guild representatives are waiting for the safebreaker, it's very clear that he had to have seen it at least once before Reservoir Dogs.
The Safebreaker is the one exception to them all being "ordinary" criminals and you can tell that from the way the other's treat him. Even though they're theoretically his equals, he's automatically put in charge of everything and his word is the law. Of course, he's also the only one that's ever killed anyone, and everyone in the film treats that as a dividing line (the police inspector who finds Franz knows what his limits are, and the look on Franz's face when they accuse him of killing someone is just perfect [and utterly innocent], the "jury" at the end counts it as a point against the Safebreaker).
There's a reason everyone remembers the trial scene.
I think one of the things is that some of what you get out of it is what you come in with. For instance, I got really annoyed by the tvtropes commentators who were all "why are the evil criminals being mean to the poor widdle child-murderer?", and seemed to miss that the actual jury of non-criminals later on come to the same conclusion. But then again, I'm coming from a position of there being no difference between me and most criminals other than a certain amount of circumstance and luck.
It opens with one of those terrifying silences, as Beckert sees the mob.
It's interesting how restrained the mob are, they're willing to listen to Beckert's defence "lawyer", and even admit when he has a point, like when the defender points out that the safebreaker has killed people by choice.
Peter Lorre's performance as Beckert is amazing throughout (like the scene where Beckert drinks after one of his intended victims escapes him) but he's magnificent in this scene. It's where Beckert is desperately trying to explain himself and why he does the terrible things he does, and he's not quite got the words, but he's trying, not just because he's got to in order to save his life but he just wants someone to understand, and Peter Lorre's conveying all of that.
The thing that got me was the beggar in the audience that was nodding along when Beckert was talking about the voices that were forcing him to do things, and it was a clever way of indicating that lots of the people in the criminal mob were probably driven there by circumstance.
Another interesting thing was that it was the prostitutes who got the line about "think of the children", which you probably wouldn't see in most films. One of the best things about the film is that everyone is given such humanity.
Then there's the ending, where, after a trial you don't see but one where you know the same arguments were made as at the criminals trial, a jury comes to the same conclusion, and Beckert is sentenced to death, and you see Frau Beckmann crying because killing Beckert does nothing, and even knowing why doesn't bring her daughter back.
It's a brilliant ending, and fitting with the mood of the film.
