Born in Vienna in 1890, Fritz Lang began his directing career in and witnessed Hitler’s rise to power. He fled Fascism to continue his career as an émigré in Hollywood, where he died in 1976.
Lang’s first sound film, M (1931), is among his best known. Based on a true story, it’s set in Berlin where a child murderer is at large. When the intensity of the police hunt interferes with the activities of the criminal underworld, they form a vigilante group to root out the killer.
Lang was keen to experiment with cinema’s new sound technology: the murderer whistles Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ as he pursues his victims. In this Prix Italia-winning 2003 adaptation for Radio 3, the song is just one element of a dense urban sound collage that recreates the tension of a terrorised community, the rumblings of the gangster class, and the fevered atmosphere of the newspaper office that receives a defiant letter from the murderer himself.
Writer and filmmaker Ian Sinclair talks with Francine Stock about the significance of M in a clip from Radio 4’s The Film Programme. And in an interview not heard since its original broadcast on the Home Service in 1962, Fritz Lang discusses his career with Paul Mayersburg, exploring the symbolism of the Dr M’Abuse films (one of which was banned by Goebbels), the need to fight against fate, and how American audiences care most about Joe Public while Europeans are enthralled by the dastardly plots of the Nietschean ‘superman’.
Listen to Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou - M
Listen to The Film Programme as Francine Stock talks to filmmaker Ian Sinclair about Fritz Lang's dark 1931 masterpiece, M
Listen to On Films. Fritz Lang, creator of M and Metropolis, tells Paul Mayersberg about his career (1962)
Written by Alison Frank.
