A Man in the Shadow: Fritz Lang’s M (1931)
M (1931) is a story of a mentally disturbed serial child-murderer in Berlin. While the police are unable to catch the child-murderer, other organizations join in the manhunt. With the support of the blind balloon salesman, the organized crimes catch Hans (the murderer). Hans is judged in an underground kangaroo court. He falls to his knees, begging people to understand his pathological desire for killing children. The police show up just before the outraged people attempt to execute Hans. The film abruptly ends with a victims’ mothers’ speech, in which sorrowfully reminds and warns parents of their responsibility to take care of their children and to be vigilant. The ending of the film can be seen as a dark twist for blame the mothers instead of the murderer. The beginning sequence starts with the children play a circle game, follows by a new child loss successfully creates a threatening and horrified atmosphere to lead the story.
The first time Hans appears onscreen it is as a man in the shadows. The shot starts with Elsie (the victim) bouncing her ball. When she reads the wanted posted that asks “who is the murderer”, the camera rises up and makes her off the screen. Then the shadow shows up on the poster, looking down on her. This arrangement metaphorically suggests that the power of the shadow is over her. The shadow covers the little girl in the dark, which is meant to illustrate her weakness compared to the murderer.
Sound is what leads to the demise of the murderer. At 6’49’’, Hans whistles a distinctive song “In the Hall of the Mountain King” for the first time as he purchases a balloon for Elsie from a blind salesman. The whistling indicates the presence of the character since his face is not yet shown on the screen. The spectators can recognize this whistling later in the film as it repetitively appears. When the mother finds Elsie missing, she yelled her name out of the window and towards the empty stairs. Each time she calls Elsie, the specters observe different visual in silence. An empty chair with set dinnerware where Elsie would sit; the yard where the laundry dries, the ball rolling down the treed area and her balloon stunk in the telephone line. The cross-cutting applied here .The continuity of presenting those objects in each frame is effectively leading the spectators to realize that the death of the little girl has happened. The lack of sound in this case reinforces the atmosphere and attributes a sense of emptiness.