M (1931)

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Movie
Original title M.
M A city is looking for a murderer Logo 001.svg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1931
length 107 or 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (after re-examination)
Rod
Director Fritz Lang
script Thea von Harbou ,
Fritz Lang
production Seymour minor number
music none, except for the whistled melody In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 by Edvard Grieg
camera Fritz Arno Wagner
cut Paul Falkenberg
occupation

M by Fritz Lang with Peter Lorre in the leading role is one of the first German sound film productions . The Cahiers du cinéma outwitted M in 2008 in their list of the 100 best films of all time in sixth place, the best result for a German film production.

The crime film is about a child murderer who is up to mischief in a big city. The murders lead to fear among parents and distrust among residents. The organized criminals dislike the fact that the police have increased their vigilance. That's why not only the police, but also the underworld chase the murderer. In addition to the crime story, the film also contains comical scenes and a discussion on dealing with serious criminals.

For director Fritz Lang, the film was another highlight of his career in Germany. Lorre had his first major role that made him widely known. Both left Nazi Germany after 1933 to continue working in America. "M" became a classic that was remade in 1951 and 2019.

action

An unknown child killer puts the residents of Berlin (the town's name is pronounced but not in the film) in terror and hysteria - which is intensified by the coverage of the press and everywhere ailing wanted posters . After all, not only the police but also the troubled underworld take up the pursuit of the serial killer . A high reward is offered.

A mother in a working-class neighborhood is waiting impatiently for her daughter to return from school. But she went with a man who was not shown. He gives little Elsie Beckmann sweets and a balloon and thus gains her trust. When the girl's body is found, the police intensify their efforts without finding a promising lead. The authorities have noted that the population is becoming increasingly nervous: there are mutual suspicions and anonymous reports, which further exacerbates the tension and fatigue of the police officers.

In order to mock the police, the killer sends a letter of confession to the newspaper, which is published as an original copy. It is examined graphologically in order to fathom the psyche of the perpetrator.

The constant police raids and controls hinder the criminal ring clubs in their "business". She is also hurt to be associated with the sex offender. Therefore, some of their “spokesmen” decide to look for the killer themselves , under the leadership of the cabinet maker (a notorious safe breaker who has already shot several police officers). In a nightly crisis meeting, people think back and forth for hours. The cabinet maker finally has an idea: The beggars' organization is involved in the search .

At a conference of police officers and experts taking place at the same time, Commissioner Lohmann suggested searching through the documents on former inmates of mental institutions in order to find a clue. One day the murderer approaches a little girl again. When he bought him a balloon, he was identified by the blind balloon seller. He recognizes the characteristic whistling of the man who last bought a balloon from him for little Elsie Beckmann. The blind man immediately informs a young boy who is chasing the man and identifying him with a chalk mark with an "M" on his coat.

"M" has meanwhile also been identified as Hans Beckert by the criminal police after a covert search of his room. A cigarette butt found at the last scene of the crime contributed to the investigation. Beckert, who left the girl standing, ran away and is now being followed by several beggars, just before closing time managed to slip into an office building that the criminals will soon be moving around. After dark, the cabinet maker, disguised as a police officer, deceives a night watchman. This allows his people to break into the house and use burglary tools to search it after overpowering the other guards. Eventually they find “M” in his hiding place on the floor. In the meantime one of the depressed night watchmen comes to and triggers the alarm system; this will notify the police. The criminals flee the house in a hurry and drag the child murderer to a disused schnapps factory. The entire half- and underworld is gathered there and “M” has a macabre show trial. Beckert desperately expresses his self-alienation and inner division:

“I always have to walk through the streets, and I always feel that someone is after me. I am myself! (...) Sometimes I feel as if I am running after myself! I want to run away from myself, but I can't! Can't escape me! (...) When I do, I don't know anything anymore ... Then I stand in front of a poster and read what I have done and read. I did this?"

Schränker's group forgot Franz, the burglar's foreman, in the office building. Unsuspecting he is caught by the police. Lohmann pretends that a night watchman was killed during the operation. He grabs Franz by his conscience and makes him talk. Franz reveals the schnapps factory meeting point. Lohmann and his people arrive there at the last minute and prevent the tribunal from lynching the alleged killer .

The verdict cannot be seen. The film ends with a take from the beginning of the film. The mother complains that this will not bring her children back to life either; you just have to take better care of the children.

Script development and reference to real events

Initially, Lang and his co-writer and wife Thea von Harbou developed a plot about a writer of defamatory letters. The only thing left of this idea in the finished work is that the child murderer fools the police and the public with a letter of confession. Through his habitual intensive reading of the newspaper, Lang became aware of a number of serious violent crimes that were increasing in Germany at the time.

The case of the serial killer Peter Kürten , also known as the "Vampire of Düsseldorf ", found the strongest entrance into the plot . Kürten was arrested in May 1930 after completing the script; his process took place with enormous media attention. M premiered three weeks after the death sentence . In Spain the film is known under the title M - El vampiro de Düsseldorf , in Italy under M - Il mostro di Düsseldorf and in Brazil M - O vampiro de Düsseldorf . The dialect spoken in the film, the city maps in the police station and in the conference room of the ring association, as well as street advertising for a Berlin daily newspaper, however, point to Berlin as the location of the action. In addition, in a telephone conversation with the police, the minister speaks of "[...] that an unknown murderer is terrorizing four and a half million people"; this could clearly only mean Berlin , at that time the third largest city in the world. The Berlin police headquarters on Alexanderplatz , which is called by its popular nickname "Alex", is also mentioned several times . You can also see the Berlin license plate "IA" on vehicles . The gang boss, the cabinet maker, is called the best man between Berlin and Frisco by his buddies.

Other cases that served as models were long ago - serial killers like Carl Grossmann , Karl Denke and the murder of the Fehse sisters. The Fritz Haarmann case also served as a model. Lang: "So in most cases you will find a strange coincidence of the events, an almost regular repetitive occurrence of the accompanying circumstances, such as the appalling fear psychosis of the population, the self-accusation of mentally inferior people, denunciations in which the hatred and the whole jealousy are expressed, which has accumulated in years of living side by side, seems to be discharging, attempts to mislead the criminal police partly out of malicious motives, partly out of overzealousness. "

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou did extensive research for the script in prisons and psychiatric clinics and met sex offenders. Lang also had contacts with the Berlin criminal police and their homicide squad and was able to inspect the files of authentic cases. With the figure of the unconventional detective inspector Karl Lohmann, Lang set a monument to the famous Berlin detective Ernst Gennat (1880–1939), who had also investigated the Kürten case. The character of Karl Lohmann also appears in Lang's next film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse , there also portrayed by Otto Wernicke .

In fact, the Düsseldorf underworld was looking for the perpetrator of the murders committed by Kürten on its own initiative, but the motif appeared in the Threepenny Opera as early as 1928 .

In the opening credits only Thea von Harbou is named as the author of the script; Lang later said laconically and alluding to the fact that von Harbou later adapted to the Nazi regime, the mention went to his wife and she went to the Nazis.

Formal means

After his lavish spectacles from the mid-1920s - the big "ham" in his words - Fritz Lang wanted to turn to people, become more intimate, go deeper into the psychology of the characters. He is said to have been involved with The tired death , Dr. Mabuse and the Nibelungen had boldly developed the film aesthetic by 1924, but afterwards, in an artistic dead end, only produced brilliant routine entertainment.

According to Seeßlen, despite Lang's turn to psychology , M stands beyond morality, sympathy and antipathy. The actual subject of the film is not one of the characters, but the process, the regularities of collective action, of social groups, of the city.

Peter Lorre, who, like Fritz Lang, came from Vienna and lived in Berlin, was already a well-known theater actor, but not yet established in film. During the day he played for M and in the evening he was on stage in Valentin Katajew's play Squaring the Circle . His performance also contributes to the rank of the work; he had "created the definitive film portrait of a sex offender". The role brought his film career the breakthrough, but it also set him to this type for a long time; in his early years in the United States, he was offered a series of murderous roles. Also Gustaf was already famous as a stage actor when he briefly before shooting for M was committed. The fact that he plays the cupboard with ice-cold precision fits the character of the character.

M glides confidently through several genres. Initially a socially realistic proletarian drama, the film then depicts police work and methods such as fingerprint processes and graphology in an almost documentary manner . This is followed by a satire on the hysterical fear of the citizens, their denunciation and their lust for lynching. When the hunt for the identified murderer becomes more concrete, the film turns into a thriller , and according to the laws of this genre, the audience's participation switches to the side of the persecuted. The final part is an absurd judicial drama.

Fritz Lang opposed the naturalistic use of sound in the emerging sound film, against its use to increase the impression of reality. The first sound films tended to use sound in an ill-considered manner; M presented a first filmtonlichen represents peak. Long succeeded where many others have failed in the difficult transition period to talkies. He used the sound to improve the cinematographic style from the silent film era, not to replace it. There are longer moments of ghostly silence that the next sound effect suddenly interrupts. In a scene with no noise, the crooks first drive up, then the police in cars, and only a high-pitched police whistle lets the underworld run wild in a tumultuous manner. The dramaturgically economic use of the sound in M is partly due to the fact that the production company Nero had to make expensive license and rent payments to the Tobis , which at the time had a monopoly on the young sound technology. Image and sound are often decoupled, for example when a narrative voice is superimposed on mounted shots.

The whistle used as a leitmotif from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 , “ In the Hall of the Mountain King ”, heralds a new threat. According to Lang, the whistle was made by himself - it misses the melody, but that fits the murderer's remote spirit. “Grieg's piece of music has often been used as accompanying music in silent films, for example in The Birth of a Nation ; here it functions as much more than a glorifying agitato: in addition to the announcement of the murderer, the expression of dogged repetition and threat, it refers to the instinctual and yet childish character of the murderer. Like a symbol of fate, it leads to its recognition and capture. (...) It is difficult to imagine a more effective setting than this. ”With the exception of the whistling, M completely dispenses with film music; In the early sound films, specially composed music was not yet in use, and the minimalist use of the leitmotif unfolds its dramatic effect even more.

The conferences of the police and the criminals are connected to each other by acoustic and optical parallel assembly. Some sentences that are started by the police are finished by a criminal, or vice versa. You can see two systems acting in the same direction, which normally work against each other.

Interpretations

The figure of the child murderer is an unfree, infantile and vulnerable figure, exposed to its sick impulses, "a descendant of sleepwalkers, divided personalities and human puppets" from expressionist German silent films.

M draws the structure of society in a compact and condensed manner. Police and criminals are two organizations that define their areas of power against each other as they determine each other and whose procedures are similar. The police search is carried out partly by means of deception. A police force that lets the criminals dispute its task of order is also a reflection of the situation in the Weimar Republic , in which the Nazis challenged the weak institutions. The rummaging work in the office building corresponds to the infiltration of the state with the promise to "restore orderly conditions". Another thing the National Socialists had in common was the elimination of abnormal outsiders: “This beast has no right to exist, it has to be exterminated.” The semantic error has already been pointed out: an individual can only be killed, one can only exterminate one species or a people. With his swelling rhetoric and his leather coat, the cupboard is reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels .

Lang takes a stand for the rule of law and against populist lynching. The trial is a farce, the verdict, like the people's courts later introduced by the Nazis, has already been decided: “You can't get out of here. (...) You are only harmless when you are dead. "

Fritz Lang is clear about the nature of the Nazis, which is gradually becoming apparent, as well as about the state of the state and the people after the onset of the Great Depression . It is less clear whether Lang “only” described the aspiration of the Nazis and their behavior in a particularly pointed manner when M was created, or whether he has already decisively condemned them. He took a clear stand against them with his next work The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) . Lang himself named the motivations of serial killers, “the pros and cons of the death penalty” and a statement against the death penalty as the main themes of M.

Expression of the war hysteria

Enzo Traverso sees the film as a successful processing of the war hysteria that the First World War sparked, and refers to the reception by the founder of the film sociology Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966). The main character of the film describes Kracauer as a " regressive rebel " who embodies the collective emotional world of society with its fearful experiences from the First World War; this society is now submitting to a National Socialist order and is looking for a “protective authority” (Traverso) in it. According to Kracauer, the film constantly swings back and forth between “the ideas of anarchy and authoritarian order”. The reference to World War I is subtly made by a scene in the middle of the film. The murderer walks through town in search of another victim. A film poster of the Western Front 1918 by GW Pabst hangs on a wall . Anton Kaes describes this scene as the key to understanding the film. Enzo Traverso writes about the connection between the film and the portrayal of the fear of war: “The fear of death is the fear of death of war. The murderer is invisible, he hides like the enemy during the war in the city, he is there, nearby, threatening, like in a trench. "

In Lang's film Blinde Wut ( Fury ) (1936), too , according to Traverso, “fear and violent death ... are central”. Fury tells the story of a lynching in which “an honorable citizen is convicted of a crime he did not commit.” After the verdict, the mob gathers and decides to set the prison on fire: “Similar to the ' Pack ', as Elias Canetti describes it in mass and power , this hysterical crowd becomes uncontrollable and murderous. ”Traverso sees Fury as an in-depth statement on the previous film M :“ The process of civilization is not unstoppable; the return to a primitive state of nature, in a Hobbesian sense , in which the law of violence rules, is always possible. If the film shows us with the words that Fritz Lang Lotte Eisner puts in our mouths that each of us can become a murderer, Fury draws the conclusion: Each of us can be killed. ”Like numerous film critics, Traverso sees in both films refer to fascist reactions to the experiences of the First World War and the inability to deal with the war hysteria. In M , Traverso sees an attempt to express the war hysteria through the art of film. The film is historical evidence of an “essence” of the time and its fear of death as an experience from the war. With regard to the gestures in M , he comes to a comparison with rhetorical gestures such as those made by Adolf Hitler on postcards in 1927 . Wide open eyes, accusations, looking into the distance and other gestures can be compared here according to Traverso, if the respective iconography of the images is disregarded, which in Hitler's case is not intended to express fear of death, but aggression and aggression and which were also identified by subtitles on the postcards .

Production and performance

Fritz Lang with cameraman Curt Courant (center) on the set of the film Woman in the Moon (1929)

After two productions by Fritz Lang-Film GmbH for UFA - Spione und Frau im Mond - Lang finally fell out with UFA and worked for the first time with the internationally successful Nero-Film by Seymour Nebenzahl after more than a year without commissions . According to his own information, Lang negotiated in a later interview allegedly complete artistic freedom. He said that he had not received it to this extent in any other work; without them it would have been impossible to make a film about a sex offender who molested children . In this freedom lies the difference to his first US film Blinde Wut , with which he spoke out against lynching. There, an innocent white man is wrongly suspected and persecuted. According to Lang, a real film against lynching would have to be about a black man who actually raped a white woman.

The film was shot for six weeks, from January to March 1931, mainly in a rented Zeppelin hangar at Staaken airfield on the outskirts of Berlin, where the set designer Emil Hasler set up the sets.

Lang later confirmed and sometimes denied that he dropped the working title “Murderer among us”, where the “murderer” can be understood in the singular or plural, under pressure from the Nazis, who felt they were meant by it. For the chalk mark “M” he noted that a natural “M” can be seen in each hand. The working title was later used for the first German post-war film, The Murderers Are Among Us (1946) (Lang found that his working title was “stolen”).

The work passed the film inspection office without censorship intervention. In addition to the final monologue, which Peter Lorre also performed in English and French, individual scenes with French and English actors were shot for export. The premiere was on May 11, 1931 in Berlin in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo ; the film was a hit with audiences. The press was sometimes more skeptical about the film; While the left was accused of creating a mood for the death penalty, the right-wing press found that the figure of the child murderer was shown too much sympathy.

After a visit to the cinema, Joseph Goebbels noted in an obvious misinterpretation of the work: “Seen in the evening with Magda film 'M' by Fritz Lang. Fabulous! Against humanity drudgery. For death penalty! Well done. Our director will be long one day. He is creative. ”However, soon after they came to power, the Nazis banned the performance of M and misused an excerpt from it in their anti-Semitic propaganda film Der Ewige Jude (1940) to prove that Peter Lorre allegedly distorted the German people's sense of justice.

In 1950, Seymour Nebenzahl, the producer of the original film, produced a remake of the same name in the USA under the direction of Joseph Losey - Fritz Lang, who was financially at odds with Nebenzahl, turned down the director offered him. He then scoffed that he himself had never received such good reviews as after this new version.

Significance of the work in terms of film history

Contemporary reception: Depiction of Peter Lorre in the role of M on a mural in a discotheque in Bavaria, 1994

According to Positif , M is the hinge between Lang's post-expressionist silent films and his cool, sober, neo-expressionist Hollywood productions "the absolute masterpiece, recognized by everyone, the great compulsory classic that examines school material, picture by picture." Often with M , superlatives are used. It is "the best German crime film" or "in any case one of the few indispensable films of modern times". In 1994, the Deutsche Kinemathek Foundation announced, as a result of a survey among film experts, that M was the most important work in German film history. In 2003, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in collaboration with numerous filmmakers, created a film canon with 35 works for work in schools and included M on this list.

Reviews

“Lang's first sound film is one of the masterpieces of German pre-war cinema. References to the social climate of the Weimar Republic on the eve of National Socialism are obvious: the authorities and the underworld appear as organizations of the same kind, which together bring down the 'deviant' in the name of the 'healthy popular feeling'. Lang's sarcastic descriptions of manhunt and mass hysteria as well as Peter Lorre's ingenious interpretation of the murderer as both perpetrator and victim were later perceived by the National Socialists as subversive, and not without reason. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Like so many of the classics of the film, M is one of those who get a little intoxicated with their own virtuosity, who willingly put their resources to the test and still like to add something. But Fritz Lang uses both compositional principles: abundance and reduction. "

- Georg Seeßlen

“M is a masterful exercise of style, an unrestricted model for mise-en-scène, a parable of everything that essentially defines a film. Even the smallest details are tainted with meaning, and the settings are strung together with infallible intuition. "

- Les films clés du cinéma

"The film, which creates tension and atmosphere solely through strong play and a surprisingly high-contrast camera work, shows itself to be a masterpiece of a bygone era, but one that is still able to captivate today."

- Protestant film observer

restoration

When the censorship was released on April 27, 1931 (B.28843, youth ban), the film M was 3,208 meters long and had a running time of 117 minutes, but parts of this original version are missing. This version was banned by the Nazis on July 5, 1934. After the Second World War , a film version with a length of just 2,693 meters and a running time of 99 minutes was released in cinemas. In March 1960, the film was given the title M - Your killer looks at you and was later listed under M - A city seeks a murderer . This title was also used in DVD releases and television broadcasts.

A 108-minute, restored long version of the film was presented at the 2001 Berlinale.

For a DVD release in 2003 all available parts of the film were collected in order to get as close as possible to the original version. In the Federal Film Archives, there were 2,623 meters of censorship version of May 1931, however, in relatively poor condition. Other parts of the film were found at the Cinematheque Suisse in Lausanne and at the Nederlands Filmmuseum . After putting all the available parts together, the film was the closest to the original version at 3,024 meters and a running time of 105 minutes. All parts of the film had to be subjected to intensive digital post-processing. In previous publications, for example, the original film format of the early silent film era of 1: 1.19 was not adhered to, but changed to 1: 1.33 (standard format ). As a result, parts of the picture were missing at the top and bottom. In addition, numerous damage, the grayscale, sharpness, the shaky image status and the sound had to be reworked.

Another restoration was carried out in 2011, which enabled the film to be extended to 111 minutes with French copies. This version was released on two DVDs with lots of bonus material.

Remake

In 2019, a series remake of the film was released at the 69th Berlinale . The plot of M - A City Seeks a Murderer has been moved to the present and to Vienna. The various roles were taken on by Verena Altenberger , Bela B , Moritz Bleibtreu , Christian Dolezal , Lars Eidinger , Michael Fuith , Udo Kier , Christoph Krutzler , Gerhard Liebmann , Sophie Rois and Julia Stemberger and many other well-known German and Austrian actors. It is a production by RTL Crime , ORF and Superfilm . The director took David Schalko .

Film about the development of M

Directed by Gordian Maugg , the semi-documentary film Fritz Lang - The Other in Us was shot in 2016, which thematizes Fritz Lang's genesis and research on M in black and white . The main actors of this award-winning documentary drama are Heino Ferch , Thomas Thieme and Samuel Finzi .

media

  • M - 1 DVD, Criterion Collection # 30, USA, 1998. German with optional English subtitles. (Edition in wrong image format 1: 1.33)
  • M - A city is looking for a murderer  - 1 DVD, Ufa Classic Edition 2002
  • M - restored version on 2 DVDs (Eureka Video VFC11618), 2003. German with English subtitles that can be switched off, bonus material in English.
  • M - 2-DVD set, Criterion Collection # 30, USA, December 2004. Restored version. German with optional English subtitles, bonus material in English. (Improved edition in the correct picture format 1: 1.19).
  • M - 1 DVD, Transit Classics 2006. Restored version with bonus material.
  • M - Blu-ray, Masters of Cinema / Eureka Video, Great Britain, February 2010. German with optional English subtitles. Including the English-language version of M (1932) rediscovered on the occasion of the International Film History Congress of CineGraph 2005 .
  • M - Blu-ray, Criterion Collection, USA, May 2010. German with optional English subtitles. Including the English version of M (1932) rediscovered in 2005
  • M - 2-disc Blu-ray / DVD set, Universum Film, Berlin, May 2011. German with optional German and English subtitles. New digital 2K restoration 2011 by TLEFilms Berlin in a completed and qualitatively improved version.

Graphic novel

A graphic novel based on the film was created by the American John J. Muth . A German version of the comic was published in the 1990s in an unfinished multi-volume edition and in 2009 for the first time as a complete edition in one volume.

music

The song M - A City Seeks Its Killer by the North German punk rock band Turbostaat refers to the content of the film. The song was released in 2003 on their second album Swan .

During the tour Einefrage der Ehre (1995) by the Berlin punk band Die Ärzte , quotes from the court scene , in which the murderer tries desperately to defend himself, were used in a dark up-tempo piece of music in the overture . The intro was released as the B-side on the single Hurra .

Further references can be found in the song Jeanny von Falco and Dr. Mabuse of the synth-pop band Propaganda .

See also

literature

  • Christoph Bareither, Urs Büttner (Ed.): Fritz Lang: "M - A city is looking for a murderer." Texts and contexts. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8260-4214-0 .
  • Paul Duncan, Jürgen Müller (Eds.): Film Noir, 100 All-Time Favorites. Taschen, Cologne 2014. ISBN 978-3-8365-4353-8 , pp. 62–69.
  • Christian Heger: Between hope and despair. Film analytical remarks on the opening sequence of Fritz Lang's film 'M'. In: Christian Heger: In the shadow realm of fictions: Studies on the fantastic history of motifs and the inhospitable (media) modernity. AVM, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-86306-636-9 , pp. 179-191.
  • Rudolf Freund: M. In: Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginning to 1933. A film guide. 2nd Edition. Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-009-5 , pp. 254-257.
  • Joe Hembus , Christa Bandmann: Classics of the German sound film. 1930-1960. Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-10207-3 .
  • Anton Kaes: M. British Film Institute, London 2000, ISBN 0-85170-370-4 (English).
  • Philipp Alexander Ostrowicz: M and the orders of the film. In: Maik Bozza, Michael Herrmann (Hrsg.): Shadow images - light shapes. The cinema by Fritz Lang and FW Murnau. Transcript, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-8376-1103-8 , pp. 173-190.
  • Georg Seeßlen : M - A city is looking for a murderer. In: Alfred Holighaus (ed.): The film canon. 35 movies you need to know. Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86505-160-X , pp. 41-50.
  • Michael Töteberg: Fritz Lang. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-499-50339-5 , pp. 67-74.
  • Guntram Vogt: M. Murderers among us. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Classic films - descriptions and comments. Volume 1: 1913-1945. 5th edition. Reclam junior, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-030033-6 , pp. 275-280.
  • Stefan Volk: M - A city is looking for a murderer. (= Institute for Cinema and Film Culture (ed.): Film booklet). Cologne 2002 ( PDF ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ release document for M . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2006 (PDF; test number: 20 703-a DVD).
  2. ↑ Cahiers du Cinema 100 Films ( Memento from July 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Walker, Alexander: Interview with Fritz Lang. BBC Radio (1967), in: Grant, Barry Keith (Ed.): Fritz Lang Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2003, p. 78.
  4. ↑ Gehler / Kasten p. 146.
  5. ↑ Ursula von Keitz: Here are all experts in legal questions ...: Crisis experience and crime in Fritz Lang's film "M - a city seeks a murderer" In: IASLonline, 2002. (Review of the book by Kaes)
  6. ^ A b Fritz Lang: My film "M" - a factual report ; in: Die Filmwoche, Volume 9, No. 21, May 20, 1931, Berlin.
  7. ↑ a b Hart, Henry: Fritz Lang today, in: Films in Review, June / July 1956th
  8. ↑ Bogdanovich, p. 184, and Michael Töteberg: Fritz Lang ; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1985; ISBN 3-499-50339-5 ; P. 68.
  9. ^ Töteberg 1985, p. 67, and Metzler: Film Lexikon ; JB Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2005; ISBN 3-476-02068-1 ; P. 394.
  10. ↑ Georg Seeßlen: M - A city is looking for a murderer ; in: Alfred Holighaus (ed.): The film canon. 35 Movies You Must Know About ; Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2005; ISBN 3-86505-160-X ; Pp. 46-47.
  11. ↑ The Chronicle of the Film ; Chronik Verlag, Gütersloh, Munich 1994; ISBN 3-570-14337-6 ; P. 92; also Dyer 1964.
  12. ↑ See (also direct quotation) in Peter John Dyer: Fugitive from Murder ; in: Sight and Sound ; Summer 1964; P. 127. In the same sense, Claude Beylie: Les films clés du cinéma ; Larousse-Bordas, Paris 1997; ISBN 2-03-320170-8 ; Pp. 123-125.
  13. ↑ For the genres used, see Thomas Koebner: Metamorphoses - Fritz Lang's "M" restored in the cinema ; in: Film-dienst No. 12 (June 4, 1996), pp. 36-38; also Seeßlen 2005, p. 44.
  14. ^ Lang, Fritz: Los vom Naturalismus, in: Film-Kurier, 13th vol., No. 3, 5th January 1931, Berlin.
  15. ↑ Sidney Gottlieb: M ; in: Magill's Survey Of Cinema. Foreign Language Films , Volume 4; Salem Press, Englewood Cliffs NJ 1985; ISBN 0-89356-247-5 ; P. 1876.
  16. ^ Gene Phillips: Fritz Lang Remembers ; in: Focus on Film , No. 20, spring 1975; Pp. 43-51.
  17. ^ The Oxford History of World Cinema ; Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996; ISBN 0-19-811257-2 ; P. 251.
  18. ↑ Georg Seesslen: Cinema of fear - history and mythology of the film thriller ; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg, 1980; P. 55.
  19. ↑ Seeßlen 2005, p. 45.
  20. ↑ Töteberg 1985, pp. 72-74.
  21. ^ Geor Gandert: M: Protocol ; Marion von Schröder Verlag, Hamburg 1963.
  22. ↑ Cinéma 62, No. 70, 1962, pp. 70-75.
  23. ↑ a b c d e f Enzo Traverso: Fear, Violence and Death. War and destruction fantasies. In: jour fixe initiative berlin (ed.): Ghost subject. Munster 2007.
  24. ↑ On the term see also: Annita Kalpaka, Nora Räthzel (ed.): The difficulty of not being racist ; Cologne: Dreisam Verlag, 1994. There the term “rebellious self-submission”, see: Gudrun Hentges: Rassismus - Streit um die Causes ; in: Die Zeit, edition of July 23, 1993 [1] .
  25. ^ Anton Kaes: M ; London 2000; P. 42; in: Traverso 2007, p. 233.
  26. ↑ Bogdanovich p. 228.
  27. ↑ Bernarnd Rosenberg, Harry Silverstein: The Real Tinsel, Interview with Fritz Lang ; Macmillan, New York 1970.
  28. ↑ Gretchen Berg in: Cahiers du Cinéma , No. 179, June 1966, pp. 50–63.
  29. ↑ Gandert 1963.
  30. ↑ Bogdanovich p. 179.
  31. ^ McGilligan p. 156.
  32. ↑ Töteberg 1985, pp. 74 and 146.
  33. ↑ Töteberg 1985, p. 69.
  34. ^ Joseph Goebbels: Diaries , entry from May 21, 1931.
  35. ↑ http://www.deutsches-filminstitut.de/dt2nb54.htm ( Memento from October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  36. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung : Wait, just wait a while ; January 16, 2007, p. 11.
  37. ↑ Positif No. 365, July / August 1991, Paris, p. 124.
  38. ↑ Jörg Uthmann: Killer, Krimis, Kommissare - Brief Kulturgeschichte des Mordes ; CH Beck, Munich 2006; ISBN 978-3-406-54115-5 ; P. 8.
  39. ↑ Gottlieb 1985; Pp. 1873-1879.
  40. ↑ Bernhard Matt (Ed.): The 100 best cult films ; Heyne Verlag, Munich 1998; P. 358.
  41. ^ M. In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  42. ↑ Claude Beylie: Les films clés du cinéma ; Larousse-Bordas, Paris 1997; ISBN 2-03-320170-8 ; Pp. 123-125.
  43. ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 189/1953.
  44. ↑ Kristina Heuer: Remake of "M - A City Is Looking For A Murderer". Retrieved January 23, 2019 .
  45. ↑ Criterion.com: M
  46. ↑ Masters of Cinema: M
  47. ↑ Criterion.com: M
  48. ↑ DVDuell.de: Fritz Langs M in a completed version in May 2011 on Blu-ray and DVD
  49. ^ M. - A graphic novel based on the film by Fritz Lang ; Screenplay: Thea Harbou and Fritz Lang, graphics: Jon J Muth with forewords and afterwords by Georg Seeßlen, Jon J Muth and Jochen Ecke; b / w with a yellow cast and color effects; CrossCult, Ludwigshafen 2009.