M就是凶手

http://axinlove.com/2010/04/m/

《M[凶手M]》表现主义
by @xinl.ve 100406

杰作，推荐一看，但不能理解为什么能位列Top 250: #56。

在艺术的表现力和电影理应具有的戏剧性与趣味性来看，《M[凶手M]》臻至极致。数十年后，Guy Ritchie的极具风格化的摄影、叙事等技法，本片导演Fritz Lang[弗里茨·朗]和拍摄《Sunrise：A Song Of Two Humans[日出：二人之歌]》的茂瑙早已为之，特别是Fritz Lang拍摄的本片，“没有”过分玄乎的宏大主题，《M》单凭表现主义的风格登上了荣誉之巅。

借一段文字：
表现主义电影折射了当时的德国，同时也超越了当时的德国。他们思考的驱动力来自于战败后德国破败的现实，工业社会的冷漠资本膨胀对人的异化塑造了他们思考的姿态——面向共同的人类精神世界发问。在表现暴力、谋杀和死亡的主题时，表现主义电影导演们无不倾向于在影片中制造出一种迷幻、扭曲和阴冷的世界。对于这样一个世界心怀恐惧是全人类的共性，在这样一个世界中逃亡出去寻找精神的安慰之地也是全人类的愿望。当时的德国中产阶级对现实不满，带有自由意志论的时代精神和社会反叛助长了表现主义的发展。参加表现主义运动的人，在政治信仰和哲学观点上存在着很大的差异。其中有无政府主义者、虚无主义者，也有社会主义者。因此，表现主义运动从来不是一个完全统一协调的运动，也很少有始终如一的“纯粹”的表现主义者。但他们也有一些共同的思想倾向和艺术特点，即不满社会现状，要求改革，要求“革命”。

按照上一段文字，《M》已经隐喻着因第一次世界大战的失败而陷入萧条的德国社会有迎来纳粹极权的可能，加上《Das weiße Band[白丝带]》的推波助澜，《M》的题旨好像真是如此。按照部分电影介绍的说法，柏林的警察历经数月抓不住诱拐小孩子并杀害之的罪犯，无奈的普通人（电影中实际是黑帮组织乞丐、小偷和混混等违法之徒，真实世界里少数演员还有被逮进去的情况发生）只好自己组织起来行使正义，“In the name of the law/people”。政府无能，老百姓有力，革命来改朝换代是可以的，《M》因此暗示了德国纳粹的登台。并且导演Fritz Lang为了警示这种危险，在最后结局时，让某个悲伤的母亲说，“看好自己的孩子！”为什么要看好自己的孩子？既怕被拐走（被杀），也是怕被诱骗（成为纳粹）。

过分的解读莫过于此，多少人真看出了晦涩的《Das weiße Band》背后幼年纳粹的成长，抱着自己创造的幻觉可能误读了《M》。

忽视警察为抓捕变态凶手M付出的努力，并把抓获罪犯的功劳归功于黑帮代表的普通人，从而强化“人民行使正义”的电影主题，一厢情愿地厉害。黑帮分子要找出凶手的动机是因为警察的扫荡和宵禁政策极大地影响了他们的生意，并不是真要为民伸张正义。独立于黑帮分子找寻线索的警察并非想象中无能，在嫌犯的住处搜寻到香烟、铅笔屑，并在其家中设伏等待其回家后抓住之。在黑帮分子抢先一步带走凶手后，两个警察一个白脸一个红脸地唬骗被落在办公室的倒霉蛋，从而获悉“普通人”一伙审判罪犯的场所。等等诸如此类，描写政府、警察一方的情节，说明他们的效率其实还是蛮高的，并非电影的反面人物或者参照物。

召集法庭并为嫌犯指定辩护律师的最后一场是电影的高潮。“民意汹汹”的“小偷小摸们”在地下世界一本正经地采用了世俗里的法官、辩护、控方和评审团的形式，要以师出有名的方式判处宣告嫌犯有罪。如此的安排，的确会让人误以为导演站在了人民的一边，然而联想表现主义电影中黑色、夸张、荒诞和颠覆性。正常的“形式”与风格化的电影格格不入，黑帮审判凶人的场景才是异常里的正常。

截两张图，顺便参考表现主义的特点：





1.影像：表现主义的导演注重具有象征意味的造型，倾向认为电影的影像应该成为平面艺术。在构图和布景上下足了功夫。往往在一个构图中用相似的形状并列而形成相当具有表现力的镜头。表现主义电影经常摒弃常规的影像形态，采用倾斜、颠倒的影像，采用常规电影很少使用的特殊拍摄角度，画面的明暗反差一般会很大。表现主义电影常用人物特写和富有象征意义的空镜头，使用特写可以看作是在“放大”表演，增强戏剧性；而对环境的渲染可以看作是对人物行为和灵魂的“解释”，力图揭示人物行为背后的社会诱因。此外，主观镜头也是表现主义常用的手法，表现主义艺术家轻视局限于客观的写实，强调表现“主观的现实”。

2.表演：表现主义的表演一般比较夸张，基本放弃了写实主义的表演方式取而代之的是展示迅速的变动、舞蹈般的动作、变形或扭曲的表情。

3.题材和类型：在表现主义的代表作品中，题材的特征是显而易见的，恐怖、灾难、犯罪题材是最常见的，表现主义电影艺术家们往往从被扭曲的、阴暗的世界中去寻找素材，在那似乎与现实隔绝的、封闭的世界中，去挖掘人物内心深处的孤独、残暴、恐怖、狂乱的精神状态。内容荒诞离奇，有时结构散乱，情节变化突兀，故事人物类型化，往往鬼魂与活人同时出现（《吸血鬼》等），生与死、梦幻与现实之间没有明确的界线。表现主义电影导演们关注畸形社会中的心理非常态，关注那些焦虑与紧张的情绪，力图透视那些狂乱行为背后的深层动机和原因，用主观化的影像风格来反证社会事实，作品因此具有社会意义和社会价值。

56的排位，有了些许答案。

M.1931.720p.BluRay.x264-SiNNERS

        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, “locate 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 naïve 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.
 

1.该片拍摄与20世纪三十年代，这时候德国刚开始或已经准备走上法西斯主义道路。电影中警民的不和谐实则透视了人民对政府和权威的不信任。其中警察在酒场检查妓女和男人时，是一个比较明显的政治隐喻——在当时社会环境和条件下，男人们并不完全配合警察的调查，就连身份阶层低级的妓女都对警察表现出不屑的神色和嘲笑
2,这部三十年代的有声片是对电影技术的又一次成功的革命性尝试。除了影片中 人物的口哨声等并没有多余的配乐。却能在将近两个小时时间的电影中将情节近乎完美的衔接。
3.警察和黑道分开讨论如何抓捕杀人狂时，用到的交叉蒙太奇清晰无破绽。警察开会是方桌，代表秩序和规则。黑社会成员讨论是彼此围坐在一张不小的圆桌边，在某种程度上象征着与所谓秩序的对抗。具有讽刺意味的是，他们两方讨论的话题一样——将同一人抓获
4.开场小孩们围坐在一起玩游戏的镜头由上至下俯拍，其一可将情节发生的环境进行全面的概括，其二是孩子们缺乏保护意识之下弱小的象征。有趣的是歌谣的内容，弗里茨·郎意味深长的将案情的大致通过歌谣和大人的反应呈现给观众，使观众在几分钟内就知晓了电影是基于怎样的背景和环境进行讲述的。
5.爱丽丝被凶手M带走后，镜头给了爱丽丝家中几处地方的空镜。同景别无技巧剪辑代表一种并列关系，仿佛不用刻意解释，单是从这组镜头中，观众就能明白发生了什么。
6.场面调度。

M就是凶手有感
一个不需要法律制裁的凶手

同样的犯罪题材的电影，这个电影风格就是不同希区柯克的画风，就像希区柯克的电影《惊魂记》，他们的电影点相同的是都是说精神病患者的行凶。

M就是凶手，他重点的在于平铺直叙的讲述这个电影，涉及人物关系之多，有犯罪团伙，警察群体，小镇市民都是一堆一堆的演员，到影片中间部分才真正出现主角就是男主人公凶手M（ps:整部电影两个多小时，除了15分钟有一处凶手的闪现）。凶手M的露脸戏份并不多，很快他被犯罪团伙分钱雇佣的卧底市井们捉住，然后就开始自述自己的行凶是无意识行为。

那个时代的电影注重的是故事，所以编剧也是个煞费苦心纯技术活。而这部电影的演员也是平起平坐，因为没有所谓主角，他涉及演员关系之复杂，人员之多，所以应该把主角分为阵营，凶手，警队，黑帮，群众。同样胖子老希在《惊魂记》中也用了同样方法，假设女小职员是主角，随着故事发展，20分钟她就遇害了。所以主角并没有不死光环，故事才是真理。

惊魂记，胖子老希重点放在角色上的多重身份的塑造上，例如一个普通的女职员成为突然变成了携款逃走罪犯，一个友善的旅店老板原来是变态的杀人凶手。（ps:胖子老希的电影总是喜欢在人物身份的多重性下功夫，例如说西北偏北的一个才华横溢的广告商人莫名其妙的突然卷入犯罪团伙的卧底，一个年轻貌美的女人又是警察那边的卧底，又是犯罪头目的一张棋牌。在例如后窗里面的一个报社摄影师因为意外腿伤，通过偷窥又意外成为了侦探。例如迷魂记里面本来一个平常的售货小姐受雇佣变成了迷惑警察的演员。）

胖子老希的人物身份的多重性设定，使得电影更加立体，富有饱和感。这就是一个没有电影特效，一切剧情靠剧本的年代，因为没有特效，导演必须在电影的故事上花费心机，才能博得观众欢心，同时又是一个没有特效的年代，更加考验摄影师现场布光和演员的表演能力。而不是像现在的电影，那些演员只要美美的，很傻很天真就够了。现在的黑白电影质感都懒得打光，就像迪斯尼的仙野踪境，后期把实景变成黑白做复古的感觉就好。

故事的核心是角色，所以角色需要丰富多重的心理塑造。角色的每个表情，每次动作都是体现他的心理层面，电影没有小说里面的心理描写，只能通过演员的表演和观众进行视觉传达。

那是一个法律制裁的年代，法律至上，但是凶手并没有受到所谓制裁。因为他行凶是在无意识的情况下进行的，他说他的行凶时，就像背后有个魔鬼告诉他这样做，然后他脑袋一热就做了，这种无意识是不受谴责的，而且要受政府保护。但是就像影片说的那样，那些受害者，甚至她们的家庭，就是这样无可奈何的承受罪犯不受制裁，他们的疼痛夹杂着更多的无奈。影片中冰冷的旁观，没有正反派的人物结局设定，没有给观众留下坏蛋必须死的正义快感，而是像一部缺少感性思维的摄像机，好像说着我就是拍摄而已。

影片的小细节应该有掌声。一部变态凶手犯罪电影，却没有一个直面血腥镜头。一个电线杆上的氢气球，一个乱草堆上的小皮球，成功地暗示了小女孩已经遇害了。道具运用的有意义，小女孩放学回家玩的小皮球，遇害现场周围的糖纸。电影渲染的氛围很到位，一群人在一个密闭的会议室，因为想找出凶手的却又无能为力的焦头烂额的情绪，利用抽香烟雪茄弥漫开来的烟雾，来表达人心惶恐。每一个设定都是有存在的意义。还有就是当行凶过程前响起的音乐，口哨的音乐代表凶手的出现，先声夺人很好的例子，每次行凶前的口哨声音也表达了凶手的玩乐性格，他不像十二宫的杀人犯般的心思细密，说明了凶手的行为是一个无计划的感性行为。

黑白两派的介入。白派就是警察，负责正面搜寻，根据凶手线索，凶手给报社寄出了一张声明，潦草的字迹显示了凶手艺术情感的不确定性，为后面的无意识犯罪做了充足的铺垫。后来机智的警察顺藤摸瓜找到了凶手的住所，找到凶手写字用的红铅笔。白派是确定凶手的。黑派，觉得这个凶手出现导致黑派干不了事业，因为大规模的警察搜罗阻碍他们的交易。所以他们也讨厌那个凶手，赶紧捉赶紧判，赶紧恢复他们的生意。所以黑派分发市井人金钱，有序安放他们在固定方位作卧底，来捉住凶手再次犯案。不过他们也有正义的一面，面对凶手的兽性行为他们加以谴责，声讨命债命还。他们也有人性的一面，居然给凶手配置一个辩护律师，然后辩护律师说凶手是精神病患者，他的行为不构成犯罪，不受到惩罚。

这是一个法制的小社会，因为有法，所以有依据，而不是通过看的不顺眼就治罪。

  这部片子的名声实在不小，当然了，它头顶上的便签个个都是闪闪发光：表现主义大师弗里茨·朗加上“世界上最好的演员”彼得·洛，再加上真实事件改编，加上第一部连环杀手电影，加上IMDB TOP排在#56，最后再加上弗里茨·朗的第一部有声片，没有理由不相信这是一部值得好好玩味的电影。
  但是我错了，以上的所有头衔都不足以概述[M]的根本内核，在最后一场戏到来之前，我一直以为这就是一部讲述30年代变态杀人魔的有声片而已，但是一场来自黑帮的审判生生地把这部110分钟的黑白电影提升到一个绝非任何一部当代电影可以小看的地步，从[大都会]到[M]，弗里茨·朗越发走向人的内心。
   但是首先，不可回避的是，这的的确确是弗里茨·朗的第一部有声电影，技术的革新往往是最基础和决定性的。不过严格一点说，很多声音元素还是缺乏的，甚至到大部分情况下，声音只单纯作为画面的解释而存在，弗里茨·朗似乎相当不放心声音的表达作用，在好几处都给声音加上画面来表达，比如警长在看关于抢劫案的口供时，对于现场的再现其实是声画重复的表达。其次，所谓“有声”，更大程度上只是“有对白”，早期有声片最直观地意识到了语言可以直接参与影片，但是还没有加入音效，除了对白，汽车，街道，道具，很难听到环境的音效，当然更不用说表现性的音效和音乐了。再次，音画同步看起来还是一个恪守的原则，一个声音对应一个画面，所有的声音都是当下的写实的，于今看起来还真是难得的感觉。
  当然说回来，这几点仅能作为对今昔电影的声音运用作比较而言，在有声电影仅仅出现4年之后，弗里茨·朗就给出了这样一部音画结合的佳作，已然难以想象，况且[M]中还有一个重要的声音元素，那就是凶手所哼唱的那首[皮尔金特]，再次提出，那是在1931年，弗里茨·朗让一个杀手哼着歌去杀人，并且让这个关键性的元素——在情节上和听觉上都同样关键——重复出现，要知道，用哼着歌杀人而给人留下深刻印象的办法来塑造变态杀人魔形象，至今还是屡试不爽的经典。（例子就不用举了吧）
   除去声音之外，最后5分钟的审判，黑帮对于杀人犯的审判，以及那个辩护人所说的，“没有人可以杀了人不负责，一个国家也不能”，这之中所表达的政治司法观念，甚至对于人权的思考，只消联系1931年的德国现实，也不难略知一二。