Hey everyone, let me start out by briefly apologizing for the later-than-usual post today. The reason for the delay is justified though, in that I was too busy passing my time in the whimsical adventureland that is Harper College, testing my luck in a variety of carnivalesque games all of which designed to entertain me while simultaneously swindling me out of my hard earned self respect. After spending nearly two months stuck in their fun house of mystery, they’ve now assured me that the reason for this is that “most of my [goddam] file has gone missing,” and that’s “totally normal”. What joy will tomorrow’s chapter bring? My mind scarcely has the will to imagine.
I got many more responses to my semi-review of “Star Trek” than I was prepared for, and as a result I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit guilty for the lack of effort. A new and better review of the movie is in order. Ahem. Star Trek was good.
There.
I did see a fantastic movie yesterday, though. Fritz Lang’s “M” is so hallowed in film history that it is no surprise really that I hadn’t yet seen it. I guess after watching so many French documentaries on WWII, I somehow got the impression that I should avoid anything Deutsch. This was a terrible, terrible miscalculation on my part, for apparently the German people were well capable of understanding not only the basics of film, but the basics of making the best films ever made. True, I’m judging an entire country’s film history on one movie from 1931, but, to me this seems fair.
“M” is a murder mystery about the tracking and eventual capture of a pedophilic serial killer in the midst of the global depression in Berlin. Based on the real life killings that took place over a ten day period only months before this film’s release, “M” was as topical as it was poignant. It managed to capture the very real fear and paranoia felt by many at the time; a paranoia stemming from a wide range of issues, the least of which was a lack of control over an expanding metropolitan society. The crowd that the film really spoke to, however, was the post WWI crowd. Many have argued that this movie is the perfect example of the mentality that brought the German people into WWII without considering what it said about their being effected by WWI. The killer Beckert (played by the brilliant Peter Lorre) can be seen as a symbol for Germany itself, trapped into a hideous lifestyle forced by circumstances outside the bounds of control. The people who eventually bring Beckert to justice–Lang’s heroes of the tale–are a band of homeless people and criminals, which the German people could easily identify with after leaving WWI. In fact, Lang does a remarkable job of showing the importance of things which have been discarded throughout the entire film, often focusing on what important clues are found while rifling through trash. It is one of the many moral lessons that Lang touches upon with this film, and is of equal importance to the larger messages of balanced justice and the dangers of a fear-fed society.
Indeed, Lang makes it rather easy for us to see who the true villians of the feature are. He spends a great deal of time reinforcing the fact that mass media makes it all too easy for a hysterical mob to form almost out of thin air and proceeds to spin fiercely out of control, to the point where no one can be trusted to even the slightest degree. Lang also connects the political system to the police force, and in turn to the underground criminal society so that by the time you’re half way through the film, you assume they are all on the same side.
And what ties everything together is Lang’s masterwork of directing, letting the movie tell its story without bombarding us (Law & Order style) with constant time and place updates. The scene transitions are brilliant in their relevance, often connecting the killer with the most unlikely characters, and keeping us aware all along that the audience by way of camera perspective is too a character. Filmed only 66% with sound, the scenes in which minutes may pass with only eerie silence create an amazing uneasiness not often properly conveyed in film. For being Lang’s first feature to utilize audio, it’s nothing short of astonishing that this feat was so easily achieved.
And there is much more to this film than even that, but I want to leave something for those of you who haven’t yet seen it. Go see it as soon as you can.
See? That kinda makes up for “Star Trek”, right?
Das comeback des jahres!
Friday’s fast approaching with the ever-present threat that “Angels & Demons” will actually be unleashed on the unwitting public, and I’ll be forced to include it in my weekend box office predictions. And, much like last week, it’s really the only new thing opening up this weekend (you know, because we’re in summer blockbuster mode), so it’ll only have to do better than “X-Men Origins: Episode 1” and “Star Trek”, so, it should be interesting. Until then I’ll be catching the season finale of LOST, which Michael Emmerson assures me will cut off my arms and use them as crude paddles with which it will steer my soul down the ever-churning river of blood to the very gates of eternity; their iron bars ablaze with the hellfire fueled by nightmarish truth itself.
The Glass City 