這部影片名氣太響，可在最后5分鐘到來之前，還真是沒覺得特別。人物賦予夸張的戲劇性表情，說是驚悚片著力點(diǎn)卻不在兇殺，更多描述黑白兩道對罪犯的抓捕，就像一場鬧劇。這是我看的德國表現(xiàn)主義大師弗里茨·朗的首部影片，“表現(xiàn)主義”可是很厲害的，很前衛(wèi)，它創(chuàng)立的電影風(fēng)格已經(jīng)成為現(xiàn)代電影藝術(shù)的常用手法。茂瑙就是我十分喜歡的一位，我覺得他在默片時(shí)期已經(jīng)做完了所有關(guān)于電影表現(xiàn)手法的嘗試。
 
說《M就是兇手》十分偉大，因?yàn)樗怯笆飞系谝徊恐v述連環(huán)變態(tài)殺手的電影，弗里茨·朗的第一部有聲片。世界上第一部有聲片也就誕生在1927年吧，1931年出品的《M》對聲效的運(yùn)用已經(jīng)十分了得，尤其是兇手哼著格里格的《皮爾金特》誘殺女孩，《皮爾金特》是格里格為易卜生的同名詩劇寫的配樂，就講了一個(gè)病態(tài)地沉溺于幻想的角色，最終成為犧牲品。
 
這在當(dāng)時(shí)一定非常里程碑，不過，時(shí)間流逝，“第一”會(huì)慢慢變成符號，一道考題，一則引用短語，從極具意義到意義的尸體，在最后5分鐘到來之前，你仿佛在看一個(gè)被后來者撫摸、仿效和取用了多次的紀(jì)念品，直到最后5分鐘，令我驚嘆的5分鐘，宣告它永遠(yuǎn)屹立于偉大作品之林，并且永不褪色。

“初衷”是個(gè)挺機(jī)靈的小子，常常發(fā)覺我們的理解和藝術(shù)家的創(chuàng)作初衷不是一回事，不知道是他們故意在戲弄我們，還是我們成全了他們，作品被包裝成蘊(yùn)含無窮深意，訪問弗里茨·朗關(guān)于《M》的創(chuàng)作想法，他說：“這部電影的要義不在于懲罰罪犯，而是警告母親們：你們要看好自己的孩子！”對于這個(gè)說法，會(huì)令評論家大跌眼鏡嗎？我也想不通這樣的創(chuàng)作意圖，但按照一般評論的說法，這部影片“黑社會(huì)組織嚴(yán)明、私設(shè)公堂的做法，更是直指了1931年篡權(quán)前的納粹，放在今天來看，依然具有相當(dāng)震撼的警世意義”我也覺得太過嚴(yán)重了。
 
兇手M表現(xiàn)為精神異常，連續(xù)作案，殺了八九個(gè)女孩子。警方展開地毯式搜捕還是一無所獲，在此期間，黑幫老大的娛樂場所屢次受到排查，生意不振，黑幫老大要出擊，利用丐幫人肉搜索，先于警察擒獲M。最后5分鐘開始了，黑社會(huì)組織模擬法庭，法官、審判長、聽審聽眾一應(yīng)俱全，還為M配了辯護(hù)律師，開始雙方駁辯：
 
M說：他自己無法控制自己的行為，只要一看到小女孩，他的內(nèi)心就由惡魔驅(qū)使，引導(dǎo)他犯下不可饒恕的罪惡，在那時(shí)，他忘記了一切。有兩個(gè)他在斗爭，一個(gè)說“你要做”，一個(gè)說“你不能”，內(nèi)心時(shí)時(shí)備受煎熬；而要裁決他的黑社會(huì)都是心智正常的普通人，可以控制自己的行為，卻也做著殺人放火的勾當(dāng)危害社會(huì)，到底是誰應(yīng)該受到制裁呢？
 
還以為是擺設(shè)的辯護(hù)律師卻異常認(rèn)真、堅(jiān)持，他極力為 M 辯護(hù)：“因?yàn)槲业谋桓嬖诓豢煽咕艿臎_動(dòng)下犯了罪，所以不該被判處死刑……沒有人會(huì)因?yàn)槿滩蛔〉氖虑槎軕土P……沒有人能夠把一個(gè)不能為自己行為負(fù)責(zé)的人殺死，這個(gè)國家不行，你們當(dāng)然也不行……應(yīng)該把他送進(jìn)醫(yī)院，而不是監(jiān)獄或者絞刑架”。
 
審判長（黑幫老大）說：出院后又開始?xì)⑷四兀繎?yīng)該判他死刑……
此刻，圍坐著的聽眾沸騰起來，攻向M，想即刻處死他。
此刻，警察趕到，“救”了M，影片在此高潮落幕，一位母親呆看鏡頭“ 這樣救不回我們的孩子，我們應(yīng)該很小心地照看自己的孩子?！保ㄎ也惶宄约嚎吹氖悄膫€(gè)版本，據(jù)說修復(fù)版是加長了法庭戲，是有一場真正法官進(jìn)行的審判？）
 
突然之間，一個(gè)難題甩到觀眾面前?！禡》的意義出現(xiàn)了。


拼音文字容易湊出點(diǎn)名堂來，譬如鉆石的檢驗(yàn)就會(huì)說用4C標(biāo)準(zhǔn)（Carat、Clarity、Colour、Cut），管理服務(wù)要追求5S（safety、standardization……），片名叫V叫M叫Z都可以看作有寓意。
 
兇手的名字與M無關(guān)，之所以說“M就是兇手”，是某人急中生智怕兇手給跟溜了，乘其不備涂在兇手衣服背后的記號，在那個(gè)場景中，M就是 murder，但到了（模擬）法庭上，他是一名精神病患者而受法律保護(hù)，他將接受治療而不是處決，大眾無法面對法律對他們道德觀念的不合作，此時(shí)的M就是 moral，法律只在為我所用、為我出頭時(shí)才受我尊敬，否則就讓道德來處死他吧，這才體現(xiàn)公平和公正，鏡頭掃去，黑社會(huì)和受害者家屬和一般民眾，已經(jīng)模糊不清。
 
此時(shí)再來看導(dǎo)演頗為奇怪的創(chuàng)作意圖“我們應(yīng)該很小心地照看自己的孩子”（這行字也正是電影放到這時(shí)出現(xiàn)的）就會(huì)覺得是對社會(huì)失控?zé)o可挽救（沒有小心照看、放任社會(huì)走向危險(xiǎn)極端）、個(gè)體意志與集體利益相處尷尬（個(gè)體發(fā)瘋威脅到群體生命，群體瘋狂折磨個(gè)體生命）、法律無能道德恐怖（法律只能是最大限度的實(shí)現(xiàn)公正，道德能用來殺人）的無奈諷刺了。
 
據(jù)說《M就是兇手》是原片名，制片人獲悉希特勒在大選中可能獲勝，擔(dān)心該片被禁，改為《M》，可見，這個(gè)M原是不簡單；而一部亙古長青的影片必是緊扣人類永恒難解的命題，看電影的同時(shí)看自己的。

        Fritz Lang, one of the most celebrated auteurs of Germany's national cinema, lays out a chilling crime story in M(1931). In this provocative motion picture, a search for the cruel child murderer, Beckert, drives the whole city to turmoil. As all members in the city become involved in the search for the criminal, two different forms of human abnormality lurked in the city are exposed: the criminal mentality as well as the conflict between the institutional authority and the general public of which it is in charge. While the search continues, both forms of human abnormality keep growing unchecked; yet, eventually, the citizens identified with such abnormality have to face the catastrophic consequences of their behavior. Through innovative use of sound and provocative editing techniques, Lang points to the city as the foster home of both forms of human abnormality. Furthermore, he invites the audience to question the unforeseen detriments of a city in modernity that all its members eventually have to confront.

        As Lang's first film with sound, Lang ingeniously manipulates this new technology to portray the city as an adoptive home of human abnormality. At the very beginning of the film, before any image appears on screen, the audience first hears a child singing a familiar tune: “Wait, wait just a little while/ then the black man will come after you/ with his little chopper/ he will make mince meat out of you.” According to Todd Herzog, this tune is a homage to the “Haarmann song” that tells the chilling crimes of the notorious serial killer Fritz Haarmann. Herzog believes that this song serves to, “l(fā)ocate M in a specific historical context, the world of the Weimar Republic at the time of the film's release, and to place it in dialogue with that world”(Herzog, “Fritz Lang's M(1931), An Open Case”, P232). Nevertheless, Fritz's use of this song to begin the film allows a different interpretation. As the film begins with the dark screen and the nursery rhyme, an image soon appears in a few seconds. A medium shot locates the source of the sound in the yard of a mietskascerne, where a group of kids are playing and singing. By placing the source of the cruel tune in the mouth of a na?ve child, Lang further implies that the modern city has become a sink of iniquity, even for the innocent who have yet to understand the city in which they are situated. The victim of today is just as likely to become the perpetrator in the future.

        Beckert's whistle is a repetition in the film which symbolizes his criminal mentality. Each time when he begins to whistle, the audience witnesses the awakening of the monstrous murderer within him. Thus far, Lang constantly shifts the source of the whistle from on-screen to off-screen; such manipulation of the sound source sheds light on the unlikelihood to locate the specific origin of human abnormality in a modern milieu. In a scene when Beckert stands on the street and looks into a shop-window, the sequence is accompanied with no diegetic sound. All what the audience can see is that Beckert dramatically changes his facial expression when he sees a little girl in the reflection of the shop-window. As the girl walks away, the camera moves out of the shop to the street and captures Beckert staring in the direction that the girl is walking. The audience then hears the diegetic sound of the street traffic, and Beckert's whistle simultaneously joins in as he starts following the girl and walks out of the frame. In the next medium-long shot, the camera tracks the little girl as she walks on the street. The whistle continues in the background; however, Beckert no longer appears on-screen in this tracking shot. While the audience has been led to believe that the whistle comes from Beckert by the previous shot; Lang purposefully leaves the established sound source off-screen in the following shot, which leads the audience to question whether Beckert himself is the source of his abnormality, or if the city is that with which has fostered his brutal crimes.

        Lang further manipulates sound to create off-screen space that contrasts the on-screen image in order to depict another form of human abnormality: the revolt against the political authority. The conflict between the underworld business and the police points to a divergence between the authority and the public, which is previously kept in disguise by a seemingly stable social order. However, as Beckert's crimes disturb the social order and alarm the police, they immediately assume that the criminal must be someone from the underworld, and decide to break the ostensible peace and raid their gathering spots. One night, the police secretly surround one of the underworld's gathering place; in which the entire process is accompanied with no sound. The camera soon moves downstairs into the basement where people in the underworld business gather. As a woman shouts out that the police is here, everyone begins rushing towards the exit to leave the basement. In a medium shot, the camera awaits at the top of the stairs and looks slightly down as everyone starts running towards the camera. Among the frenzied noises, the audience first clearly hears a woman's scream as the policemen yell back at her; yet the entire action takes place upstairs in off-screen space while the shot remains still, featuring the panicking crowds. Soon, the police enter from the lower frame and gradually push the crowds back into the basement for investigation. The image on-screen contrasts the actions taken place in off-screen space; such contrast allows the audience to look beyond the images shown on-screen and picture the entire city, where its underlying instability and human abnormality are close to outbreak due to the police's disruption of a public order that does not solve social problems, but merely hides them unseen.

        Throughout the film, Long constructs several montage sequences which implicitly build cause-and-effect relationships between the modern city and human abnormality. In the beginning of the film, when Elsie's mother becomes worried about Elsie for having not returned home, a medium shot shows Elsie's mother walking towards the window and looking out. When she begins calling out “Elsie”, the image cuts to an aisle shot of the stairwell in the Mietskaserne. As the mother's cry echoes down the stairs, the audience then follows the camera to an empty space where people in the neighbourhood hang their laundry; Elsie is still absent on-screen. The sequence continues as it cuts to a close-up on the lunch table, where Elsie's seat remains empty. The grieving howl of the mother has now ended, yet the sequence did not until the audience are shown with two more shots: Elsie's ball rolling on the grass, and the ballon that the criminal Beckerd bought for Elsie entangled in the electric wires on the city street. In this sequence, Lang juxtaposes the mother's continuous calling for Elsie with discontinuity editing of on-screen images. The audience follows the mother as she searches for Elsie in all public spaces in the city where Elsie can possibly be; yet Elsie's ball and ballon at the end of the sequence tell audience that Elsie must have already been slaughtered by the murderer Beckerd. In this sequence, Lang associates the befalling of Elsie's tragic death with the city itself: the development of the modern metropolis not only enlarges the public space, but also catalyses crime and threat among the citizens.

        In another scene when the minister condemns the police chief on the phone for the police department's incompetence in finding the killer, Lang edits a flashback as the chief explains their difficulty. The editing of this flashback again connotes the unforeseen detriments of a city in modernity. When the chief tells the minister about a white paper bag that they found behind the hedge, a close-up on the paper bag gives the audience a clue that it is a candy wrapper, and the store's name was on the wrapper. Then, the image cuts to a close-up of a map of the city, in which circles and circles are drawn with a pair of compasses in increasing radius. While the search widens, the police interrogates owners of candy stores all over the city. However, all owners shake their heads and cannot remember who had bought the candy for little Elsie. As population increases, the city provides perpetrators the opportunity to disguise their abnormality and let it grow unchecked. The editing of this sequence connects the failure to identify the abnormal with the city itself.

        Lang further implies a cause-and-effect relationship between the city and another form of human abnormality, namely, the public and the institutional authority's revolt against each other. As both the leads of the underworld and the chiefs of the political institutions gather for two separate meetings to discuss their objectives on the case of Beckert, Lang uses cross-cutting to juxtapose both meetings. The heads of the underworld complain about the consistent police raids' harm to their business and decide to find the killer by themselves in order to resurrect their business. As the underworld head waves his hand, the shot cuts to the head of police's same action. The police simultaneously decides to continue their search for Beckert without the help of the public, by organizing more police raids and search among public spaces. While the underworld condemns the police for interfering the underworld's business, the police chief Lohmann also refuses to ask the public for help as he states, “Don't talk to me about the public helping, it disgusts me.” The cross-cutting technique invites the audience to contrast the underworld and the police's conflicting attitudes against each other. Such social conflict is another form of human abnormality that is against the democratic ideal of the Weimar republic.

        As the underworld collaborates with the beggars and has seized Beckerd from the building, together they leave the scene in a hurry. Lang then presents the audience with a montage sequence in which he rewinds the crimes that the underworld has just committed. The audience follows the camera into the room where both watchmen have been knocked out and tied up. Then, the sequence continues with still shots of the forcefully broken office door, the compartment's broken fences, and ends with the hole they have dug on the floor in order to make the crime scene look like a result of burglary. This montage sequence is shown with no sound, leaving the audience in contemplation of the underworld's motive and the destructions their abnormal behaviors have caused. The heads of the underworld are provoked to capture Beckerd not because that they find Beckerd's behavior immoral, but because the underworld's business is interrupted by the police's consistent raids. In turn, they decide to look for Beckerd without collaboration with the police, and purposefully commit a series of crimes in order to achieve their goal. The lack of stability in the city's social order has fostered the formation of the underworld, and the underworld's distrust with the political authority. Yet, their abnormal behaviors will lead them to their final conviction.

        The film ends with the final conviction of both the underworld and the child murderer. The audience should not forget that it is the underworld, despite their unrighteous motives, who has asked for help from the beggars and successfully seized Beckert. Nevertheless, both parties have to eventually face the catastrophic consequences of their abnormal behaviors. The first being the underworld's imprudent disruption of the public order for their own economic benefits, and the second being the brutal crimes that Beckert has committed. Throughout the film, Lang manipulates the sound effects and the editing of the sequences to point to the modern city itself as the very cause of all forms of human abnormality preeminent in it. The diegetic world in the film, which is the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, still echoes the modern milieu in which we live. However we try to trace any form of abnormality that hinders the public order, we are always led back to the society as the cause, without identifying the specific origin. Perhaps, the only way of prevention lies in the hands of the people who make up the society, with self-awareness of their behaviors, and positive objectives to make changes.
 
 
                                      Works Cited
 
Herzog, Todd. "Fritz Lang's M(1931): An Open Case." An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era Weimar Cinema. Ed. Noah Isenberg. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 291-309. Print.
 
M. Dir. Fritz Lang. Perf. Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut. Criterion Collection, 2004, DVD.
 

(寫于2008-03-02 18:26:41)（圖片轉(zhuǎn)不過來。。。）

Fritz LANG 的《M,可詛咒的人》
是他的第一部有聲電影（1931年），也是作為classic film的范本之一，電影的拍攝技巧以及所表達(dá)的電影語言是相當(dāng)?shù)木剩?br>于是截取了幾個(gè)小畫面來和大家分享一下～～
 
鏡頭一：
1，（故事背景：由于兒童殺人犯的屢次犯案，柏林的人們都處在人心惶惶的狀態(tài)中，大街上都貼滿了捉拿“殺人犯Murderer”懸賞告示），鏡頭中一個(gè)小女孩拍著皮球來到告示前，接著將球拍打在貼有告示的柱子上，鏡頭隨著球的運(yùn)動(dòng)停留在告示上，巧妙地帶出重點(diǎn)，并且是由一個(gè)“小女孩”。）


 
2，觀眾在固定鏡頭地時(shí)間內(nèi)閱讀完了告示的內(nèi)容，隨著小女孩的皮球若隱若現(xiàn)，氣氛中突然自發(fā)的有一種緊張感，似乎小女孩像獵物一般自己走到了虎口！
    果不其然，有個(gè)黑影出現(xiàn)，請注意黑影遮住的地方（沒錯(cuò)！正是“Morder”德語的“殺人犯”）

 
3， 黑影問小女孩：“你的皮球真好看，你叫什么名字?。俊?，當(dāng)M（黑影）問你叫什么名字的時(shí)候彎下了腰，正好就把剛才遮住的 “殺人犯”顯現(xiàn)了出來，就是無聲中他也做了一番自我介紹～～

 
鏡頭二：
當(dāng)小女孩落入虎口后，電影用了一組“空”鏡頭來表現(xiàn)孩子的死亡，例如母親等待孩子回來吃飯的空盤子

 
精彩的櫥窗鏡頭
鏡頭一：
1，巧妙的運(yùn)用了櫥窗的反光，制造出了mise en abime 的效果。（故事背景：Mr.M又在街上閑逛（善良無知的面孔），可是此時(shí)全城已經(jīng)暗自組織起了捉拿他的“游擊隊(duì)伍”），反光中的展示的刀叉?zhèn)?，框框的把他“圍”了起來，完全是foreshadowing的作用嘛～

 
2，接著他Mr.M在櫥窗的鏡子中發(fā)現(xiàn)了“獵物”（也被刀叉圍住，danger!!），于是他的“毒癮”又要發(fā)作了。接著鏡頭退到他身后，請注意櫥窗上顯示出的他的映像，代表著他的雙重人格在此刻的顯現(xiàn)“Mr.M～～變身?。　?br>
 
3，天真的小女孩走過另一個(gè)櫥窗，她完全不知道后面有只大灰狼～～，櫥窗中有個(gè)不斷上下動(dòng)的“火箭”，直直的朝她插了下來，DANGER！?。?，右邊有個(gè)自己忽悠的轉(zhuǎn)盤，小心你已成為目標(biāo)，小心被大灰狼“忽悠”了～～～

 
鏡頭三：
1，（故事背景： Mr.M終于找到了今晚的獵物，“忽悠”正在進(jìn)行中，對付小孩子要來軟的，于是他們在琳瑯滿目的櫥窗前逛，跟蹤他的人已經(jīng)借機(jī)很巧妙的在他的背上作了記號（開頭那只手），以便“游擊隊(duì)員”跟蹤。）請注意，導(dǎo)演有給我們一個(gè)小驚喜，在櫥窗里的玩具的腿正好在運(yùn)動(dòng)中顯現(xiàn)了個(gè)M字型，并且遠(yuǎn)處的墻上也有個(gè)M字，演員的走位也正處在玩具腿的正下方，預(yù)示著雙重危險(xiǎn)的到來。后來當(dāng)M透過櫥窗的鏡子發(fā)現(xiàn)自己肩上的M字印時(shí)，他的噩運(yùn)就開始了（演員碩大的眼睛也是影片的亮點(diǎn)?。?br>
 
其實(shí)這個(gè)Mr.M是一個(gè)精神病患者，對于他的犯案許多情況下他自己都沒有意識，最后當(dāng)市民私自而未通過公正司法想處死Mr.M時(shí)他也是一個(gè)受害者。劇本在對于這個(gè)人物的處理手法上也相當(dāng)講究，影片的前半部，當(dāng)他是犯罪人的時(shí)候幾乎沒有Mr.M的清晰畫面，無非是他的聲音，影子，背影。而當(dāng)后半部，他成為受害者的時(shí)候影片重點(diǎn)給與了他鏡頭，這當(dāng)中的暗喻意義是相當(dāng)重要的。
 
31年的片子能有這樣的技巧和思想深度，F(xiàn)ritz LANG 不愧是被現(xiàn)代電影工作者模仿最多的先行者啊～～看到最后的人真是太有耐心了～～55

1.該片拍攝與20世紀(jì)三十年代，這時(shí)候德國剛開始或已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備走上法西斯主義道路。電影中警民的不和諧實(shí)則透視了人民對政府和權(quán)威的不信任。其中警察在酒場檢查妓女和男人時(shí)，是一個(gè)比較明顯的政治隱喻——在當(dāng)時(shí)社會(huì)環(huán)境和條件下，男人們并不完全配合警察的調(diào)查，就連身份階層低級的妓女都對警察表現(xiàn)出不屑的神色和嘲笑
2,這部三十年代的有聲片是對電影技術(shù)的又一次成功的革命性嘗試。除了影片中 人物的口哨聲等并沒有多余的配樂。卻能在將近兩個(gè)小時(shí)時(shí)間的電影中將情節(jié)近乎完美的銜接。
3.警察和黑道分開討論如何抓捕殺人狂時(shí)，用到的交叉蒙太奇清晰無破綻。警察開會(huì)是方桌，代表秩序和規(guī)則。黑社會(huì)成員討論是彼此圍坐在一張不小的圓桌邊，在某種程度上象征著與所謂秩序的對抗。具有諷刺意味的是，他們兩方討論的話題一樣——將同一人抓獲
4.開場小孩們圍坐在一起玩游戲的鏡頭由上至下俯拍，其一可將情節(jié)發(fā)生的環(huán)境進(jìn)行全面的概括，其二是孩子們?nèi)狈ΡＷo(hù)意識之下弱小的象征。有趣的是歌謠的內(nèi)容，弗里茨·郎意味深長的將案情的大致通過歌謠和大人的反應(yīng)呈現(xiàn)給觀眾，使觀眾在幾分鐘內(nèi)就知曉了電影是基于怎樣的背景和環(huán)境進(jìn)行講述的。
5.愛麗絲被兇手M帶走后，鏡頭給了愛麗絲家中幾處地方的空鏡。同景別無技巧剪輯代表一種并列關(guān)系，仿佛不用刻意解釋，單是從這組鏡頭中，觀眾就能明白發(fā)生了什么。
6.場面調(diào)度。