“Peer Gynt” Will Never Sound the Same
Claudia Rosett has some suggestions on how to entertain yourself with something other than John Kerry’s Vietnam record. One item stands out:
Get your hands on an old black-and-white movie, Fritz Lang’s “M,” filmed in Berlin in 1931, which has more to say about terror, and the stopping of it, than just about anything produced in the 73 years since. It is the story of a child-killer, a murderer of innocents, stalking a terrorized city. The police finally rid the city of this monster by making life so unbearable for the ordinary criminals that the lords of the criminal underworld run him down themselves. It’s a terrific blueprint for dealing with terrorists and the regimes with which they consort, such as Syria and Iran.
I bought a copy three or four years ago, when the Critereon Collection DVD came out. Haven’t watched it since it first arrived in the months or year before September 11. It’s sitting in the Classics section of the DVD racks (yes, our movies are arranged alphabetically by genre), and I’ve thumbed past it more times than I can count, usually on my way to grabbing something with Kate or Bogart.
Time to make up for some lost time and watch “M” again.
And while you’re at it, pick up Humphrey Bogart in “Sahara” for a bit of war time propaganda on “Why we fight”.
Bogart plays a WWII army tank commander, who with his crew gather allied stragglers together in the libyan desert. They make their stand at an Oasis against the Nazis. Propaganda to be sure, but some of the lines uttered and the acting given are more noble than the B moive they are planted in.
Theres a speech that Bogart gives in the middle of the movie about how we need to come together to fight the enemy that I found particularly inspiring.
And since your on the criterion collection, pick up “The Third Man”, you’ll be glad you did.
“M” is excellent. My favorite movie of all time is “The Big Sleep”. I could watch it four times a day.
I will definitely check it out. Sounds like it’s just my speed.
Didn’t the US do something similar with the Yakuza in Japan?
If you’re in the mood for the macabre, pick up a copy of Tod Browning’s Freaks which has recently become available on DVD.
“M” is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. But, alas, it’s also an example of liberal excuse-making for criminals. The criminal underworld’s trial of Peter Lorre’s child-killer character allows him a long, sympathetically rendered soliloquy on how he Just Can’t Help Himself. Lang meant us to feel sorry for the murderous S. O. B., who was Moved By Subconscious Forces Beyond His Control. For me, the film’s deterministic message has always undermined the pleasure I take from Lang’s consummate artistry.
Those films do have relevence today, don’t they. Such as the film “review” line from His Kind Of Woman as applied to, say, Mr. Moore:
“…it had a message no pigeon would carry”
I don’t think I agree with the idea that Lang is merely trying to curry favor with the Lorre character. It’s just a character twist that makes his character empathetic rather than sympathetic. Why did Shakespeare put a hump in Richard’s back? Why was Hannibal Lecter a shrink who counseled psychos for years rather than a CPA? It’s just a literary device that shows an extreme version of human fallibility. We still want to string the SOB up.
Well, I still wanted to string the guy up. But the character’s speech went on too long, and wasn’t really countered by the other criminals. I understand that Lang was a lefty–er, “social realist”–himself; if so, that excuse-making soliloquy probably represented his own deterministic view. That’s certainly the way it always came across to me.
It’s been a long time since I saw it, but I understand if you think the “confessional” dragged along. I saw the scene as nothing more than a jury of peers giving the defendant his last breath of air.
“our movies are arranged alphabetically by genre”
exhales
I’m with Robert B. The “I can’t help myself!” speech was nonsense, since he obviously could. He didn’t leap on the children and kill them in the streets; he plotted, he stalked, he waited. He was perfectly capable of controlling his desires in order to slake them. Otherwise, though – a great movie, and it makes you wish you could have seen it in context, with all its innovations fresh and new.
‘M’ is, in my opinion, the finest serial killer movie ever made.
What I can’t understand is why they made 10,000,000 more of them, when the form was perfected in the 1930s.
=darwin
M is an incredible film. The use of sound is remarkable considering it was made only a couple years into the talkies era. I started watching it once, and my wife, whose taste in movies tends toward Julia Roberts romantic comedies, casually walked through the TV room, paused, started to watch, then after a couple of minutes she sat down on the couch, and stayed to watch the entire thing.