EXPRESSIONISTIC EXPRESSION

M                               

1931

Director: Fritz Lang 

When hearing "expressionism" the first thing that comes to mind is Munch's The Scream, especially the black and white version. Fritz Lang's M is one restless, black&white scream.

Although key titles of German expressionism are silent movies such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis (1927) M is also a movie permeated with expressionistic elements. M is Lang's first sound movie in which the theme of a serial killer and the chase is brought trough different genres. The movie starts with a documentary representation of psychosis in the city, continues as a detective movie and ends as a drama. 

The film is based on a contrast between the underground world, the world of the criminals and the world above, the police. The director gives us an interesting comparison between these two worlds and using parallel editing he connects these world in their mutual goal, catching the murderer. Each group due to its own interests. 

Director uses shadows in representing the murderer, which is one of the elements of expressionism. Besides that, it is interesting how the murderer is introduced gradually, through sound, then shadows, from the back and finally his face in the mirror. 

Since M is Lang's first sound movie it is important to emphasize the interesting use of sound. Murderer's whistling is used in off-sound and therefore it makes a significant rhetorical device. Accordingly, what we do not see, but only hear, maintains the suspense, curiosity, as well as fear.
  

The movie M, with its use of sound, shadows and contrast and with what it chooses to show and what it decides to omit, evokes the feeling of anxiety and thus becomes expressionistic.