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When Evan first approached me to write an article on a noir film of my choice I was both excited and apprehensive. Excited because noir has always been one of my favorite genres and who wouldn’t enjoy writing about a film and style they love? But while noir is often classified as an American film style (much like the Western) and as such Evan rightfully tabulated an exhaustive list of fantastic American noir films, which brings us to my apprehension.

You see my favorite noir film is High and Low, directed by the great Akira Kurosawa, and that film is slightly less than American, and thus was excluded from Evan’s list. So knowing that it would be difficult in trying to explain why I was reviewing High and Low, I decided to switch gears and review an entirely different foreign film, that film being Fritz Lang’s M.

M focuses on a child murderer in Germany and the hysteria that occurs in the community and the underworld as both groups attempt to capture him. M is one of the many renowned films that were part of the German Expressionism movement, it has influenced numerous films and directors, and it is often credited as being the foremost precursor to what would eventually become known as film noir.

See, the introduction to this entire episode is the easy part. It is rather simple to say a film influenced noir, but proving it? That would mean coming out from the shadows and separating out the influences of noir and how they appear in M, no small task. No small task at all.

M has had many influences on modern film, but one of the easiest to notice, as well as being one of the first to appear in the film, is its dialog. Specifically, how Lang purposely chose to have the dialog carry over from one cut to the next, using the dialog to act as both a scene transition and a link connecting each scene in a giant web in which to entrap the viewer.

By doing this, what would normally seem like a standard delivery of dialog now feels with each scene transition like the pace of the delivery is increasing, ratcheting up the pace of the film as the characters become more and more frantic with how to catch the killer and just who might be to blame. While few films would follow Lang’s lead and seemingly string together so many scenes in succession, noir keyed in on the rapid delivery and went in their own direction with it.

While noir is known for its fast paced, and often times witty dialog, and while it would keep these exchanges encapsulated within a single scene, the speed of the delivery was specifically used to dazzle the viewers and make the characters on screen seem larger then life. This verbal swordplay also had the added benefit of keeping audiences constantly on guard. So rather then spending their time trying to figure out the twists and turns of the story before the film revealed it, the audience was instead simply attempting to keep up with the frantic pace. While noir doesn’t directly co-opt the dialog delivery from M, it does recognize that the pacing of the dialog’s delivery is an effective way of disorienting and entertaining the audience.

The next influential aspect of M is in its character introduction, specifically the introduction of Peter Lorre as the titular character Hans Beckert. M chooses to introduce the character of Beckert through a simple newspaper article describing his crimes; from there Lang is careful not to reveal the killer’s face. First, using a simple leitmotif, which is a common opera technique of using a sound or song to identify a character and M is recognized as the first film to ever use, of Beckert whistling In the Hall of the Mountain King, then only showing the killer’s shadow as he stalks his latest victim, and even later simply showing his hands as he
ferociously scribes a letter to the newspapers describing his exploits.

During the first Act Lang also makes sure to have characters continually talking about the murderer, so that while you may not know what he looks like, and he may not be visible on screen, but so his presence infects the entire film. This has the effect of keeping the viewer focused on discovering the killer, even though he is absent throughout many of the early scenes. Later in the film Lang will use the leitmotif to even greater effect, incorporating the song as part of the score to help the viewers know that Beckert is lurking somewhere nearby, even if the audience can not see him, causing the hysteria that is covering the characters in the film to infect the audience as well.

While these are not standard techniques for noir films, this process was used to even greater effect in Carol Reed’s The Third Man, as the character Harry Lime (played to perfection by Orson Welles) is audibly present in conversations in nearly every scene in spite of not appearing in the film until a full hour after it started, and even then his scenes only added up to a few scant minutes of screen time.

Following the use of a simple shadow to introduce our killer, Lang took even greater liberties with his camera work throughout the course of making M. Lang often employed extreme angles, long takes and shadows to make the visual look of M standout as much as the audio.

M opens with an impressive overhead shot of a group of children playing a game while singing a song about a child murderer. The camera then slowly drifts past the children and moves further upwards to catch an adult scolding them for singing such a wretched song. It is an ominous, and thoroughly morbid, opening to the film and it acts as a precursor of what is to come. Lang would use similar camera positioning throughout the film, often times giving the viewer a fly on the wall perspective, and thus adding a feeling of voyeurism for the viewers. The look was so fitting and distinct that Roger Ebert came to label it a “rat’s eye view”.

But where M stands out, and was often emulated, was in its use of shadows. From the introduction of Beckert, to an impressive chase sequence through the city streets, Lang time and again uses shadows to add a layer of visual dread to the film so thick you practically feel the need to wash it off when the film finally ends. But the single best use of shadows in M is when Beckert is hiding in the attic of and old building, desperately trying to hide from those who are hunting him.

Due to Lorre’s seriously unconventional looks Hollywood directors often struggled to find ways to use him as anything but a supporting character. But in M, Lang takes Lorre’s large and expressive eyes and has them peer out from the darkness, standing in stark contrast to the darkness engulfing the rest of his body. The visual is so distinct it registers as an almost cartoonish effect, and it isn’t surprising that the visual of eyes peering out from pitch black darkness would quickly become a cartoon staple.

Now noir isn’t well known for fancy camera angles or long takes, though to be perfectly fair such techniques crop up fairly frequently, but noir is well known for its use of shadows and back lighting for dramatic effect and a rather distinct look to the genre. With the films often occurring during storms, fog filled evenings and other natural visual obstructions; noir clearly was influenced by German Expressionism in many respects in terms of visual style. But while many German Expressionism films typically leaned towards the fantastic, M was one that remained grounded in reality as well as dealing with a seedy underbelly that noir often patterned itself after. And with its visual flair and complicated characters, M was the perfect mold to base the genre on. This leads me to the last major influence M had on film noir, that of its depiction of the criminal underworld.

Far from relying on cookie cutter stereotypes or black and white archetypes, M created a vast and complicated world that operated on multiple levels. After exploring a similar dynamic in Metropolis it is rather easy to see why such a story would appeal to Lang. But rather then focusing on the separation between the cultural elites and the working class, Lang focuses instead on the differences between the honest and the dishonest.

The criminal underworld is shown to operate on similar principles and scruples as that of those who make an “honest” living. Thieves don’t steal from other thieves, they coordinate with each other so as to not limit their takes or force their mark into poverty, and they do not kill for the sake of killing. The phrase “honor among thieves” truly applies to M.

When Beckert’s murderous rampage causes the police to react by rounding up the usual suspects for interrogation, the thieves, rogues and scoundrels quickly come to the conclusion that the killer’s actions are making them all look bad, and even worse, it is ruining their business. He must therefore be dealt with as swiftly as possible setting off a race by both the mob and the police to catch Beckert and bring him to justice. But in an interesting twist neither the mob nor police are portrayed as incompetent or superior to the other. In fact, Lang clearly demonstrates that the police would have caught Beckert if the mob hadn’t intervened minutes earlier.

Noir would often take a similar approach to its various characters by prominently displaying anti-heroes, femme fatales and other layered and complex characters that couldn’t easily be labeled as good or evil. And much like the second half of M, which exists almost entirely in the world of the criminals and the mob, noir typically focused on the criminal elements that exist just around the corner from normal society, often times dragging individuals previously ignorant of such locales and characters, and following them as they attempt to navigate and survive in such a foreign and dangerous environment.

But the greatest trick M ever pulled wasn’t merely making criminals out to be a lawful society that follows its own rules and regulations like you or I would. No, it was taking a sadistic, unfeeling murderous scumbag like Beckert and turning him into a sympathetic creature driven by insanity and habit, albeit a twisted habit to be sure. Lorre’s monologue in defense of his actions as he is being tried by a jury of his criminal peers is both masterful and borderline heartbreaking, and it comes from a character who for the better part of two hours you spent loathing. The scene adds a surprising dose of ambiguity to what had seemed to be a rather obvious solution. Lang isn’t attempting to provide answers, but rather complicate the questions to the degree in which they would be in real life. That ending is the true genius of M.

But what about one of the most iconic aspects of film noir, the femme fatale? Does it exist in M? Are the children that seduce the dark desires of Beckert representative of such a recognizable archetype? To a degree they are. The children shown t be the eventual victims of Beckert are typically fair haired, fair skinned and quite innocent, as a femme fatale is typically portrayed. And these victims bring about the downfall of Beckert as he is powerless to resist his horrible desires. But as with the rest of the film, M has a far more complicated and darker relationship with femme fatales. For the children do not represent them, but rather Beckert does.

You see the film revolves around Beckert, and much like a femme fatale, it is his exploits and choices that bring about the events of M. He is the one venturing from the underworld to proper society to influence and manipulate the innocent. He is the one who draws outside elements into his world, in the form of the police and the criminal underworld, to try and stop his sinister plan. And he is the one that is revealed to be powerless to resist his very nature, that of his unquenchable desire to kill children, and who will stop at nothing in a frivolous attempt to satiate those desires. Even his basic character progression follows a similar path as that of the prototypical femme fatale. He is initially introduced as a kindly gentleman, only to have his true dark nature revealed later in the film. This is followed up with his textbook “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” speech to conclude the film. Do any of us truly know what it is like to be such a character?

And thus, with a cramped hand and a beleaguered brain, I conclude my take on M’s influence on the film noir genre. It has been a fun and interesting ride through the bowels of one of cinema’s premier films as I attempted to identify and describe the many bridges connecting it to my favorite genre of film. Now if you will excuse me, it is time for me to slither safely back to the cover of darkness, where I can safely and soundly screen any number of noir films in their proper environment.