M就是凶手1931

  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。

原文地址：http://www.qh505.com/blog/post/1897.html

《凶手M》或者是《可诅咒的人》，又或者是《凶手就在我们中间》，《The Murderers Are Among Us》、《Fritz Lang's M》、《M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder》、《M - Mörder unter uns》……不同的电影翻译指向一个共同的符号：M，大写的M，影子的M，犯罪的M，M是小贩涂在手掌上的记号，M是印在凶手肩上的符号，只擦去了一半却永远无法清除，M是以法律的名义受到制裁，还是以人民的名义受到惩罚？

在这无休止的疑问中，只有那口哨声一直响彻在街上，宛如游戏，被消解了。就像影片一开始那些孩子们围在一起玩的游戏，他们唱着那首歌：“他带着刀，把你切成碎片，然后你出局了。”歌声在小区里飘荡，这是可怕的歌，“该死的旋律”，在这歌声中是长长的楼梯，无声的窒息压抑过来，母亲对着窗外叫“爱思”，小女孩没有回来，只有死一般的楼梯，和没有人玩的皮球，以及断了线的气球。女孩爱思贝克曼失踪了，永不回来了，就像这个城市那些已经失踪的8个孩子一样，被口哨声带走了。

留下的只有那个恐怖的黑影，戴着礼帽，而且礼貌地和爱思贝克曼讲话，背影留在“悬赏一万马克”的通缉海报上，口哨声留在街头谱卖气球的盲老人耳中。恐怖的黑影和欢快的口哨声组合在一起，这里没有游戏，只有死亡。凶手是谁，谁是凶手？从游戏开始，是不是要从游戏结束？“糖果、玩具乃至苹果，将生活引向终点。”这是可怕的日子，似乎街上随时都有凶手出现，“坐在你身边的人可能就是凶手”，和小孩在一起的陌生人被怀疑是凶手；在酒吧里的客人被怀疑是凶手，他们一个个被带走接受调查，他们似乎一个个都有污点和被质疑的可能。
 
当所有人都被怀疑，杀人事件就仿佛变成了集体性行为，而个体被隐匿了。警察局出动了大量的警力，在每个犯罪现场取证搜索，他们发现了皱了的糖果纸，但一无所获；他们搜查了两公里之内的所有咖啡馆，但一无所获；他们一周只睡十二小时，但一无所获；他们抓走了两车嫌疑人员，但一无所获；他们总共发现了1500条线索，“可以装进60本书”，但一无所获。

众多的警力，众多的线索，众多的怀疑，但似乎越来越走向反面，越来越没有价值，目击证人为凶手是否带红帽子还是绿帽子争论不休，他们甚至用“三文治占卜”来推断凶手，一切似乎陷入游戏的困局，但是口哨声依旧响起，凶手在别处。而且可怕的是，凶手还正大光明、胆大妄为地给报馆写信，信里说：“但是我还没有做够。”这是无休止的恐惧，这是无休止的疯狂，警察从凶手的公开信查找指纹，对照笔迹，分析出凶手不连续的字迹表明是无生气的性格，从而得出凶手是一个疯子。他们从监狱、疯人院寻找线索，被治疗又被释放的病人成了怀疑对象，他们装扮成乞丐，他们跟踪每个孩子，他们甚至蹲点在怀疑对象的家里，查找光滑的桌子、废弃的垃圾桶，以及窗台上的铅笔碎屑，但是这些行动并不能获取最有价值的线索，这一切衬托着警察的无能。

而在警察的另一面，黑道也出手了，因为凶手影响了他们的生意。凶手又一次出现在街上，又引诱着一个小女孩，他还是吹起了可怕的口哨，而这次发现的不是警察密布在街上的那些乞丐，是那个卖气球的盲老人听到了这哨声，然后小贩跟踪，他用M在凶手衣服上做了记号，而行迹暴露的凶手最终摆脱了警察雇来的乞丐的追踪，逃进了商业大楼。而这次得到消息的不是警察，而是黑道。他们闯进了凶手躲着的商业大厦，包围了所有的出口，并且通过打昏保安、破坏大楼，终于找到了藏匿在阁楼里的凶手，等警察赶到，人去楼空，只有撬天花板而没有逃走的法兰兹留在现场。警察抓住了这唯一的线索，对凶手M的追查变成了对法兰兹的审问，当卡尔曼督查听到法兰兹说“找到那小孩的杀手”时，叼在嘴里的烟突然掉落下来，卡尔曼像一尊木偶，站在那里半天没有发出声音，那是一种新的恐惧？在警察大肆搜捕而一无所获的结局面前，凶手却被黑道的人抓走了，这是不是对法律无能的绝好讽刺？他用水冲了头以让自己从这个惊人消息中回过神来。

曾经的自大，傲慢，以及对抓获凶手的绝对把握，这是警察为代表的法律的生动写照，那时，卡尔曼督察坐在办公室里，吸着烟，打着电话汇报搜捕进程，那是一个讽刺的仰拍镜头，和开始时小孩子的玩游戏时的俯拍形成强烈对比，一个是恐惧的现实，一个是法律制度下的理想，“以法律之名”和“以人民之名”的强烈对比。更强烈对比的还有最后的审判。凶手被黑道带到了老肯兹和立维酒厂，来自社会底层的人们齐聚一堂，实行了他们对凶手的审判。这是一个讽喻，那些人或者身上都带着对现实的不满，或者都有犯罪的前科，都有过被法律制裁的经历，但是现在他们站在了法律的另一面，他们高高在上面对一个杀人凶手，他们是审判者，他们在自己的法庭上掌握着对另一个个体的生杀大权，他们甚至为凶手叫来了辩护律师。他们叫着“杀了他！”当凶手的辩护律师说要交给警察，通过法院判决的时候，他们都笑了。

凶手声嘶力竭，他说自己一直有着恐惧，在街上被跟踪，随时可能被杀害，这种无尽的痛苦面前，他不能阻止自己，“除了我做那事”，他才能平息心中的恐惧，没有人知道他内心的哭泣，杀人才能消除这种痛苦。凶手是个疯子，是个病人，在大街上精神萎靡，瞌睡连连，只要他看到小孩出现就会重振精神，眼睛里发出兴奋的光芒，伴随而来的便是那欢快的口哨声。凶手并不是忏悔，而是说出了自己内心的恐惧。那些审判者说，他犯了谋杀罪，连自己都判决了自己的死刑，那结局就只有一条：杀了他。而辩护人发言了，他说，被告在不可抗拒的冲动下犯了罪，所以不该被判处死刑，没有人会因为忍不住的事情而受惩罚，没有人能够把一个不能为自己行为负责的人杀死，“这个国家不行，你们当然也不行”而对于凶手，应该把他送进医院，而不是监狱或者绞刑架。

凶手变成了病人，惩罚变成了医治，这是不是代表着法律？而在这个私设的法庭上，审判者都曾经是法律的受害者，而当面对同为杀人罪犯的时候，他们却代表了另一种正义，黑帮老大说，如果当成病人被医治，然后又被释放，然后又去杀小孩，然后又被抓，如此循环，没完没了，那么凶手就永远不会受到制裁和惩罚。而不管是黑帮的审判，还是所谓的辩护人，他们不休止的争论中，没有警察，就像搜捕凶手的那个过程一样，警察所代表的法律是缺失的，甚至是走向另一条路，而当最后警察赶到老肯兹和立维酒厂里的审判现场时，那些站在法律对面，声称警察是笨蛋的审判者举起了手，“以法律之名”，一双手伸向了那个颤抖着的凶手，法律回归，而凶手似乎也找到了自己的庇护。

谁是凶手，似乎并没有悬念，而悬念似乎只在警察那边，在没完没了的搜查取证中，那些无辜的人倒成了嫌犯，警察让社会陷入了新的恐惧，这种恐惧和凶手并没有直接关系，而对于凶手来说，是完全充满了游戏意义，他是个精神病患者，他是个疯子，他消除自我恐惧的唯一办法便是口哨，以及与欢快的口哨声一起的孩子、糖果、气球，这是他消除自我痛苦的唯一办法。这是对法律的挑衅，还是对自我的拯救？而警察为代表的法律却永远在现场之外，在凶手之外，甚至在恐惧之外，具有讽刺意味的是，发现真正的凶手是一个看不见的盲老人，在凶手肩上印上大写M的是一个小贩，他们和警察无关，和法律无关。而那些黑道里的人，更在法律之外，或者说，他们对凶手的审判完全是抛弃所谓的法律，在自足的老肯兹和立维酒厂里完成了审判。

但是法律还在那里，警察还在那里，面对警察他们还是举起了投降的手，“以法律的名义”又将凶手带向一个未知的世界。而最后真正法庭的审判只有短短40秒，三个哭泣的母亲坐着，她们说：“以人民之名，这不会把受害者带回来，我们要多点关心自己的小孩，你也要。”以人民之名去关心孩子，这是不是对于“以法律之名”的又一次解构？电影结束，她们的声音留在那里，从此人人自危，还是对司法无力的谴责？

大写的M并没有从凶手的衣服上擦去，这是一个符号，从小贩的手掌上印上去，像一面镜子刻在那个时时露出惊恐表情的凶手身上，街上所有人都处在对凶手杀人的恐惧中，那么凶手的恐惧又在哪里？“以法律之名”和“以人民之名”是两种恐惧，似乎每个人的内心都有摆脱不了的痛苦，杀人只不过是他消除社会恐惧的一种手段，但是这种手段的悖论在于，他将制造更多的恐惧。口哨声本来是欢快的，但是那是格里格的《皮尔金特》，《皮尔金特》是格里格为易卜生的同名诗剧写的配乐，就讲了一个病态地沉溺于幻想的角色，最终成为牺牲品。

大写的M刻在每一个人的心灵深处。

        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.