Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's "M"

"M"

As mentioned in the lecture the film starts off with kids playing a game similar to "eenie meenie minny mo," except they talk and chant about death, violence and, killers.  This shows the "desensitization" Germans had during that time, even within the children.  There is no doubt about it that you can see the feelings Fritz had about Nazi Germany, and the direction it was headed.  It portrays a very horrible society.  Its dark and cruel, corrupt and rotten.  The cinematography did a great job conveying the darkness and shadows, also the camera close up and zooms of all the grotesque things and dirty things in places the movie takes you also does a great job showing Germany during the 1930's in the eyes of Fritz.  

As I mentioned above, the first scene really draws me, it is eerie and creepy although it is of kids playing.  You can see as it starts that something from above is peering in, just as we are because of the way it was shot.  The children are content for the time being, but are seem to be being "watched." The lecture describes that the film takes no POV it is just an observer, someone from the outside looking in, just as this scene does.  You tend to think someone on the outside is disconnected with society just as Beckert is.  I would like to connect this scene to another where you most definitely get the presence that someone is there.  As Elsie runs down the street you see her playing to herself and not aware of the world around her, just as in the first scene; the kids may be saying these terrible songs but don't fully understand the violence, but still are not effected by singing about it, again "desensitized." She then comes to a poster which is about the murderer, she stops to read it as she is still playing with the ball- fully emerged in her game, and as that is happening the shadow of the man in black appears, and you can finally see the figure that was most likely lurking above the kids before.       This scene like the other does a good job setting up the movie and what is to come, and also showing an example of the children and society in Germany.  The woman who had called to the children to stop singing that song, was not there as Elsie faced the "man in black," another example of the powerless society in Germany at that time.