Films for discussion and exploration…
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Readings
Flashback - Chapter 4
Short Guide - Chapter 4
Week 03 Notes
Chaplin given freedom in terms of his own hand in “The Kid.” Last film you will see where creator has control over many aspects of the film from producing, directing, writing, editing to distribution and marketing.
Watch INTRODUCTION to KID. Discusses how he took control of the film. He blocked every scene, had his stamp on writing, narrative flair of the film.
DISCUSSION - The KID – how did you take notes on how the film worked visually?
Fade in and fade out visually
· Two different story lines going on split in a way that was easy to follow – does Chaplin try visual aids to keep u interested? The intertitles help
· Dream sequence – every piece of set was reconceived – even very minor details was enhanced in a different way to add flair to that sequence
· Shots were simple, not complicated. Editing was slower – can follow action. A lot of wide open shots, more room. Bigger sets, tighter composition.
· How do we connect visually to what is happening on screen to the story? How does it reinforce the storyline in the film? The apartment doesn’t change, from when he was a baby to when he was five or six. Acting expressive, didn’t need luxury but had each other. A simplicity in setting up with shots, sequencing moves scene to scene what is the focus on – the acting! And on the relationship between the two main actors in the film – The Tramp and John. How does that situate us since we don’t know his name? It could be anybody.
· The introduction clip shows how the film travelled all over the world as the storyline was understandable across generations and internationally – the relationship father / son relationship – translated across societies.
· Final Sequence – how does it contrast with what came before? It was odd, came outta nowhere. What was shown in first ¾ of film showed that this was a reality and likely to happen. The camera did what it had done – it was a documentary tool with a documentary look to it. You get the sense you are being lead to believe could happen. High contrast for the dream sequence leads to a different understanding. What does it draw attention to? A perfect life, that he wished he had – people got along, he was with the kid again, and it was “perfect.” Illustrated internal conflict with the devil; idealized dream state. A psychological makeup for him. When the devil came things were turned upside down – it mirrored in a different way what had happened in the first part of the film. The two scenarios help introduce the same ideas.
· Chaplin struggled in his own filmmaking in wanting to incorporate avant-garde elements. The dream sequence was his attempt to inject avant-garde elements to have his audience take a leap into a new world, which is difficult, not understandable and it doesn’t smack you on the head about what is happening, and it was an element that was trusting audiences to go on a trip with them. He is challenging viewers to understand films differently – that metaphorically change how you look at films. His attempt to be artful.
· Is it a happy ending? Would he be welcomed in the home in reality? She might shut him out. It’s an indeterminate ending. He left it intentionally indeterminate to let the viewer struggle with it to determine what the outcome is. Films to this point were for entertainment and spectacle and this moves us into something different – a realm of emotion, drama, etc.
· Other films like this? ROYAL TENNEBAUMS; FAMILY STONE; LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL; PAPER MOON. Is LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL a homage to or influenced by THE KID?
AVANT GARDE FILMMAKING….
· By the early 1920s, the big five studios were set in stone and up and running. Each of the five studios developed their own culture and became known for producing certain kinds of films. The consolidation of the platform around filmmaking and the themes of film comes about in the 1920s and 1930s so by the time of the dawn of WWII, you have an established clearly created system of films in Hollywood which leaves no room for creativity, avant garde and potential to expand innovation of the cinema.
· No way of dealing with online media forms without the incursion of commerce which has its effects. It’s not cool to have advertising early on, as the commerce element will affect creativity.
· How much to experiment to gain audiences for entertainment value of film.
· IN EUROPE during this period in response to consolidation of film industry in North America.
· Modernism and film go hand in hand. It was in response to development of the city. Film also had a wink and a nod knowing – as films were filled with themes of everyday life and what really happens. But cinema expands possibilities for the public. Today we have a different life online – should you have a different life online? Cinema had a kind of public, it created a people that wanted to be part of a network of those interested in film and a lot of it was seen as dangerous. Police kept tabs on what was happening at screenings as people thought it might be dangerous.
· The avant garde were watching the development of filmmaking. That element of art makers that were on the radical edge of making art as a way of bringing about social and political change. Sometimes it was just about pushing the form of art in new ways. Artists looked at cinema and thought about how I could use cinema in my art practice? During Weimer Republic in Germany, you have the emergence of GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM. The rise of modern and contemporary art did not emerge in a vacuum, but alongside photography and film just like today artists turn towards video gaming, new media and digital forms of art making. Expressionists were interested in challenging traditional forms of art.
· GE was an early 20th century art movement (among many others – the Fauves; the Futurists; counter-culture traditions in art making). They did not limit themselves to drawing, painting, sculpting – they became involved in literature, drama, stage design, music, dance (multi media – different media modes). GEs came out of architecture and design of space; architects design the way you move through space. The thought of how to make people move through space lead early GEs to think in a radical way. They fractioned into a number of groups.. THE BRIDGE founded in 1905, were originally architectural students and they designed their name from Nietzsche (was associated with ideas of nihilism; but in earliest phases he wrote the following quote – “Man is a rope, fastened between animal and…. man is a bridge and not an end.” Man is a constantly evolving individual. The Bridges liked that Nietzsche believed man was a part of a process of being. They questioned traditional structures. They questioned traditional art academies (mimesis – throws out idea of copying). The interior vision is as important as what you see outside of yourself. CONNECT to Chaplin – first ¾ is slavish realism; the last dream was fantasy / not real or true to life.
· This evolved style had a great deal of high emotion attached to it.
· Interest in primitivism
· How can we create art that undoes perspective? That questions the idea of putting things into their proper order
· The rapidly changing cities of Dresdin and Berlin were places of chaos, places of difficulties. After WWI, there was ridiculous inflation where people lost everything; are we suspicious of traditional power structures?
· The GEs would have watched what happens when the most intelligent minds come together to create WWI and then the results of that war were felt across Europe
· Notion to remove taboos; to go out into nature and be nude; when you are naked you equalize everybody. There is a sense of freedom artists attach to their places.
· The Weimar Culture – was an important breeding ground for how GEs took their interests in art
· Weimar was a government emerged after WWI, in throws of defeat. Berlin was a center of Weimar culture, semi in control with a lot of freedom – a power vacuum that allowed Hitler to rise up; world of cabaret where women given freedom to pursue interests they weren’t previously allowed to pursue; the film culture had independent distributors and filmmakers who made experimental films.
· More experimental nature in G, from Budhapest, Berlin to London where people travelled and shared techniques (development of an avant garde film network).
· Style –
· SECOND LIFE – replicate life you have here.
· GE in film has a very particular history – the movement was called Espressionism but the effects you see came almost entirely from GE AG movement. Other elements come from French but by and large GE influenced the most
· Ridiculous amount of films being made, and Hollywood feared in the 1920s that Germany would outpace it
· Expressionism marked by modes…
o DARK SHADOWS / DRAMATIC LIGHTING / CONTRAST
o BOLD CONTRAST that affected the entire composition of the film
o No longer thinking of film as filming something in front of you but as something you create, put together;
o VISUAL STORYTELLING is important here, with DISTORTED or ANGULAR SHOTS. A lot of distortion in expressionist cinema;
o MISE-EN-SCENE – The French translation is “placing on stage” – an expression that begins to be used with AG filmmaking to describe the design aspects of what is visually shown on screen, which tell the visual themes or the visual story playing out on the screen. Chaplin’s dream sequence had a different MISE-EN-SCENE than the rest of the film.
o A lot of artists were stage designers and worked in the theatre. They thought of their MISE-EN-SCENE as applying how they would work in the film. IT refers to everything that is placed in front of the camera and how it is arranged, the composition / style of the entire film. The sets, the composition, the props, lighting, costume – is all a part of MISE-EN-SCENE. It all creates an atmosphere for the film and the final feel of the film itself.
o Three films in the 1920s had influence on how films would be made not only in Germany but in the movement of film noir (typified by deep contrast in light and in characters in turmoil)…
§ CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI – 1920, Robert Wiene – silent film created in 1920; the silent aspect is large; (film festival – the ARTIST done completely in B&W and is silent); IF YOU create silence for the viewer (music and inter-titles are “noise”), what is lost when you remove music and inter-titles? – mood? Without music you are not told what to feel ? there is a sense that the silent aspect of making of film allowed them more artistic creativity. GE was a fully silent mode of making film in that there were no speaking parts but there was music and intertitles. MOST INFLUENCAL GE film as it contains all devices developed in this kind of filmmaking. Used flashback / emotional storytelling. CHAPLIN Looked closely at GE movies. The director considered this as a new form of visual storytelling. The MISE-EN-SCENE necessitated the collaboration between painters, writers and cameramen to create a motif. Lots of interesting camerawork, makeup, over-acting and under-acting, sets, an interesting medium to call attention to the director’s way of storytelling.
· It was anti-heroic evil characters as the main characters;
· Involves madness, paranoia and expression. Deal with psychological states of mind.
· The film is usually told only parts from a very subjective pov.
· AN element of a primarily urban setting with a criminal underworld (will see this in film noir as well), brings a dangerous element to the film that reminds people of where the subtext of film came from;
· Complex sets – disorientation through mazes, visually disoriented with high contrast b&w, highly composed architectural composition in odd stairways, jutting out of objects, things that pop out at you
· The use of shadows and light
§ NOSFERATU – FW MURNAU, 1922 – First classic vampire film; began with this film. An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA but this film was made specifically through a GE viewpoint or MISE-EN-SCENE. Horror – not a lot of talking in the films, rather a lot of movement and music. A lot of passageways, tight shots, with fantastic music, the expressive aspects overplayed?, this was a cross over film without a lot of symbolism and metaphor; rather it tried to capture people’s attention.
§ METROPOLIS – Fritz Lang – last of GE films. It was created in the german studio system as an attempt to take experimental GEAG films and move them into the more mainstream that both incited a kind of thought provoking serious social political message that was also visually entertaining. Hard to know the original feeling as the film was chopped up over the years. UFA was a major film studio, but government owned film studio – prior to Wiemar republic it was a public service arm of the government (how to be a good German). UFA produced 600 films a year – no studio in Hollywood at this time produced this month. They had 1 million customers a day watching these films. Large number of people were influenced by a small arm of the government and was a serious competitor to Hollywood. LANG came through Vienna, and to Germany and he decided to come work on theatre but took an interest in filmmaking. He thought about how to unite art filmmaking and the growing interest in populist thrillers. He united the art film with the popular thriller. He went onto Hollywood… The film was written by Lang and made it with his wife of the time who was a German actress whom he married and divorced after she became a supporter of Hitler (a lot of filmmakers went on to make films under the Hitler regime – he just gave them artistic freedoms). SYNOPSIS > 2026, done before skyskrapers when people had to imagine how individuals would move through cities. The MISE-EN-SCENE inspired people who built the cities of the future – set in an urban dystopia, a vision of the society where people are miserable and unhappy. The film goes on to create an interesting commentary on two parts of the city – above and below the ground. The two groups come into conflict. There were those with unquestionable power and many who were ignored by government. A love story is set in this loaded social construct; it helped conceive the sci-fi genre and featured a mad scientist character who creates a robot doppelganger who destroys the city; he was the godfather of the psychological character – multi-faceted anti-heroes. Lang would take characters and give them evil traits that you will have to accept if you are to like them. High production values for its time.
o Soviet Union has a revolution – BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, 1925 – Sergei Eisenstein – film was propagandistic as it portrayed the revolutionary fight. People paid attention to the new technique of montaging that he developed which allowed him to advance storytelling. News real like sequences are inter-cut with scenes of actors. Editing and montage effects were very new (famous baby carriage scene); very radical montaging with all cuts done by hand – he almost went blind doing this. He cut by hand and assembled all of the film stock himself. Over time he’d help invent processes to move that process along.
o ABEL GANCE – Napoleon, 1927 – panoramic polyvision – created 3 films and screened them simultaneously to get a wider shot. Later you’d end up with wider screen films but this was incredibly labour intensive, exhaustive and shows the demand of the artist to create the film they wanted to create. KEVIN BROWNLOW DISCUSSES GANCE’S NAPOLEON. THE camera was liberated, had movement. His rapid cutting technique was very new.
· Innovations were driven by the limits of the imagination. Filmmakers created what they needed to make their films. This would evaporate, within the systems that emerged for making cinema.
Week 03 Screening Report Journal
Film: M (1931)
Screening Date: 2011-09-26
IMDB Link: https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/
A. Briefly describe what your expectations for the film were? What did you already know about the film and from what source? What did you know about the country and historical period/style of its origin? Did you know anything about the director? What was the most important feature of the film you were looking for?
I was looking forward to seeing the 1931 film M again for the first time in about ten years, and I was looking forward to the chance to once again be haunted by director Fritz Lang’s visuals and the climatic sequence of the town’s citizens confronting Peter Lorre’s accused child murderer.
Having screened the film before, I was familiar with the overall story of the film as well as with actor Peter Lorre’s haunting depiction of a child murderer (which in many ways reminds me of Robert Mitchum’s performance as Harry Powell in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter).
A few years ago, during the Vancouver Art Gallery’s 2008 exhibition Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art I picked up Jon J Muth’s comic book graphic novel adaptation of M which I enjoyed thoroughly for its interesting use of hundreds of hand drawings created with silverprint, graphite, powdered charcoal and pastel as based on photographs of actors Muth cast to help play out and revisualize Lang’s masterwork.
I also knew that the film was made in Germany in the late 1920s when German directors were experimenting with using an ever expanding, wide range of visual and other storytelling techniques to tell stories they were interested in. Overall, German Expressionist filmmaking served to push the envelope of what was acceptable for filmmaking. All of the techniques and styles developed during this time all served to enhance the dark storylines and worlds that were inhabited by ambiguous characters whose motives were never clear-cut or black and white.
During the time period Fritz Lang worked as a director in Germany, the country itself was in turmoil. Having lost the Great War, Germany was hit hard with a series of reparations that it had to pay combined with a plethora of other restrictions that resulted in the stagnation of its economy. Unemployment, inflation and poverty plagued the country as the government of the Weimar Republic slowly crumbled, leading to the rise of the authoritarian dictator Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Party.
I knew that director Fritz Lang was a very influential director who helped define the German expressionist movement in filmmaking that also helped to lay the groundwork for the Hollywood film noir. I knew that as a director, he started his work in Germany, but left Europe for Hollywood in the mid-1930s to escape persecution due to his Jewish heritage. He was able to continue his career making movies in Hollywood, where he directed many movies in the film noir genre.
ARTIFACT 01 > Lang, Fritz. “Images from Fritz Lang’s M.”
Having previously seen M about ten years ago on a small 13” television, I was looking forward to seeing it on a larger screen. I knew that experiencing it on a larger screen would help enhance the bleak, dark sets and the interaction of the various characters, especially in the film’s final scenes of the town confronting the accused child murderer.
B. Using Chapter 3 of Corrigan’s Short Guide to Writing About Film as a guide, describe and outline some of the main themes explored in the film, the primary narrative, the main characters, and discuss the point of view the film takes.
M is a reflection on the darkness of human nature, both in individuals and collectively as represented in the organization and actions of the state and collectively by its citizens. The central villain of the story, Hans Beckert is a psychologically dark character consumed and overwhelmed by an impulse to murder young children, an impulse that Hans himself admits he does not fully understand. In this respect, Lang is encouraging audiences to consider the darkness that might exist within them as well.
Over the course of its story, M also explores the claustrophobic feelings that can rise up among citizens in a state during a time of crisis. Beckert’s actions (the murdering of children) propel the narrative forward, as the film sets up a mystery who-done-it for the other characters in the film to solve. As the situation grows dire, citizen accuses citizen, and the police, led by Inspector Karl Lohmann, search pubs and homes and institute curfews. In some respects this may have mirrored the rise of the Nazi state, and the eventual hunting of Jews and other undesirables by the state. The mob also gets involved, as they do not want to be pinned as being the perpetrators of such horrible crimes, and they enlist the help of the city’s homeless people to search for the real killer.
Eventually, Beckert’s identity as the child killer is revealed, and the citizenry rises up to chase and confront Beckert in a mob trial where the citizens take up the roles of judge, jury and executioner. Eventually, the police come to the rescue of Beckert, saving him from the mob that more than likely would have killed him; but the film ultimately leaves things open ended in terms of whether or not any kind of real justice is served for Beckert’s crimes. Certainly, the open ended nature of the film mirrors real life criticisms where citizens often feel that punishments given by the state often do not reflect the severity of the crimes.
C. Please pinpoint one memorable scene of the film and describe its mise-en-scène (elements and techniques of visual style—that is, both elements on the set and/or aspects of the camera movement and editing choices—see Corrigan pp. 51-57 for help with this aspect).
The film opens (Artifact 02 below) by fading in from black on a group of children playing a musical chairs like game involving a song about a murderer. Lang holds his camera up on high, looking down at the children like an adult (or perhaps Beckert) might look down on a group of children. The camera pans across the group of children and looks up high to a woman on a balcony hanging clothes to dry on a line. From behind the railing and the bars on the balcony, she yells at the children to stop singing the horrid song and then goes inside. But the children keep on singing.
Lang then cuts to a stairway, showing the woman carrying her laundry to her flat. She is again behind the “bars” of the stairway railing and she tells a neighbour how she told the kids to stop singing their awful song. The conversation reveals that the song only serves to enunciate the fears they have of the child murderer that is on the loose. The camera then cuts to a point of view inside the second woman’s apartment, as she tells the other woman not too worry so much. Behind the first woman are the stairs and a window, with a strong representation of the cross being formed by the window panes. The first woman then leaves the second woman with the laundry.
The camera pulls away from this second woman, and the audience watches as she washes more clothing. The silence of the room is awkward and both the woman and the audience is interrupted by a cuckoo clock that goes off inside the apartment, at the same time as church bells ring outside. Lang then cross cuts to the outside street as the bells ring out and then cuts back to the apartment where we see the woman cooking. Another cut takes us back outside, to a child looking to cross the street. She is helped by a policeman as Lang quickly cuts back to the apartment to show the woman setting the table for dinner. Each time Lang cuts, one gets the sense that time is passing by. Lang cuts back to the child walking down the street, the sound of her bouncing ball mimics the sound of a clock ticking. From this scene, Lang pans up to a sign posted to a telephone poll. The sign is a wanted poster looking for the child killer. Then, in what is one of the film’s most memorable images, the shadow of Beckert appears over the sign as he approaches and talks to the girl. The audience does not have to be told anything else – it knows that this is the killer.
Lang then cuts back to the apartment. Dinner is ready. The woman hears kids in the hallway and asks them if they know where her daughter is. They don’t. The woman peers down from behind the banister and then returns to her apartment. Lang cuts back to show us the killer whistling and buying a balloon for the child. Lang’s camera is up high, as it was when we opened on the story and looked down at the kids. In spite of the wide shot, the feeling is becoming one of clausterphobia, as the audience worries for the future of the child. Lang cuts back to the woman, who asks a neighbour if they had seen her child. She looks down the stairwell and Lang gives the audience her point of view, looking down at a maze of empty stairs that seem to go on forever. Still, no child. The woman returns to her apartment as the cuckoo clock again rings. She hears a voice outside, and goes to the window. She yells out for her child, as Lang shows us the empty playground, the empty chair where the child would normally be sitting for dinner. He then cuts back to the single close up image of the child’s ball rolling across the screen and coming to a stop. Another quick cut to a telephone poll and wires that have ensnared the balloon the child was given earlier. And with a fade to black the audience knows the child is now dead.
No music plays across any of these scenes and this only serves to help heighten the tension as the scenes play out.
ARTIFACT 02 > jcrsmusic. “M (1931) - opening.” YouTube, 29 May 2020.
D. Overall, what were your impressions of the film? Describe one way that the film met your expectations and one way that the film surprised and/or exceeded your expectations.
Overall, I found M to be deeply disturbing to watch, especially the opening sequence. We don’t need to be shown the violence that the film describes at times; and ultimately the opening sequence proves the idea that less is more when it comes to storytelling and creating suspense.
At times, some sequences felt a little too long – some dialogue and speeches by different characters could have been shortened to help keep the pace of the overall story moving at a faster pace. No doubt the explanations (INSTRUCTOR’S NOTE: “also to keep up the idea that discourse is keeping the rumours going) and dialogue were probably inserted to help with exposition, so that the audience would be able to follow what was happening, but given the quick movement of other silent films like The Kid, with some scenes less would have again been more.
E. Describe how the film’s mis-en-scene develops and contributes to the film’s narrative.
With the passing of each scene, Lang is able to effectively ramp up the suspense that the audience feels. Whether it is the opening sequence wherein the murder of a child occurs, or in later scenes as the police, the mob and other citizens search for the possible murderer, Lang works hard to infuse a sense of impending dread into his film. Often the camera sits away from the action, to create space between the audience and the characters. It makes the world seem larger than life, and it makes us feel small within it. All of this helps to propel the narrative forward and also helps to emphasize the various themes described above.
INSTRUCTOR’S FEEDBACK
“I can see your passion and interest in film well exemplified in your journals. Fantastic detail and attention to the nuances of camera work and mis-en-scene. You also spent some time discussing contextual elements to - all great additions to your reflections!
POSITIVES: Great detail and attention to visuals. Historical context. Thoughtful Reflections
WORK ON: Your final 2-3 reviews lacked the same attention and detail as your first few reviews. Add more detail to questions D and E, even if it means less detail is given to questions A and B.” - Dr Dorothy Barenscott
GRADE: A / A+
A pdf copy of this assignment can be found here.