By digging deeper into the elements of cinematography of M, we can garner the conception that it is not only a movie about both the ground and the underbelly of the city being wary and searching for the child killer in the urban space, but also a film centering on a city’s surveillance and order. Throughout the movie, we capture the idea that the whole city is under regular surveillance and monitor implemented from a single citizen to a heavily-controlled authority, which operates as a dynamic organism. But as every artificial system can have bugs, the criminal evades from the absence of the certain areas of the system but fortunately the city is under control and order is brought back again. Apart from that, while taking further steps into the psychological state of the murderer, we also grow deeper insight into the relationships between order and care and thus probe into the solutions for crimes in M.（文章核心观点：在弗里茨· 朗的镜头语言下，《M就是凶手》这部电影里的城市处于严密的监控之下，但自身又是一个具有高流动性的主体。就像所有以人类行为构建的系统都有漏洞一样，在这座城市同样也会有监控的光束照耀不到的角落，成为犯罪行为的容身之所。但所幸系统能够复原，秩序可以重建，《M就是凶手》更想启示我们思考的，是摆在每一个制度制定者、秩序参与者面前的难题：应该多给法外之徒们锁链还是关怀？《M就是凶手》为我们设想了一种可能。）
The alternate use of high angle shots and low angle shots portrays the city’s nearly omniscient monitoring of people’s manners and actions in the urban space and the delivering of order through Lang’s dynamic control of camera. We begin the trace of the city’s retaining of order with the first high-angle overview of children playing a pointing game in the prologue of the film. Lang’s camera here is merciless, lingering on the scene until a child is “out” randomly as the chant ceases suddenly, while his elimination from the game still adheres to its rules. This is where we establish the conception of order, which is omniscient and every individual in this city is tightly clinging to it.
It also prepares us to keep up with the dynamic movement of the camera, which emblems the austerity of surveillance in the city space. Because right after Elsie has been murdered, the surveillance and control of order are intensified exerted by every single individual in the city. Under this rigorous mass system, even a beggar or someone’s neighbor is sensitive and cautious about children’s safety and every male citizen’s unorthodox contact with children is suspected and taken seriously. This explains the function of the high-angle and low-angle shots of the inquiry between the tall onlooker and an unprepossessing man. In this scene, the unfriendly-looking man is interrogated by a passerby because he is spot talking with children unusually in this sensitive period. The city is on edge because a children murderer is at large, and the angle of the shots manifests the efforts of the citizens trying to maintain the order of the city advertently.
Taking a step further from the object of children being gazed to the overlook of the residential stairs from Elsie’s mother’s point of view, at this moment the look of the scene viewed from the camera is still harsh because of the emptiness revealed in the shot. But compared to the aforementioned scenes, the motherly concern rising in this scene lights up the tone of it. The tension between care and order is also brought on the stage the first time in this movie. Here from the overtone of the shot we know that Elsie may have been exterior from the lookout of her mother as well as the order her mother creates for their kinship and may now, obscurely, fall into other relationships categorized as other types of order.
We start to reflect on the surveillance system of the city. Before people hear about Elsie’s murder and keep an eye on each other’s behaviors more closely, it seems that the system itself fails to control and monitor the conducts of the serial killer because he escapes from certain loose parts of it. This is illustrated in the scene where the murder’s shadow is cast on the notice of reward for himself. The way he lowers his head turns to be a challenging poise towards the seemingly ubiquitous control of the system, which appears to be a hint of the absence of the surveillance at certain points because it is not shot from a high angle.
But the bug of the system doesn’t always exist and the system may be capable of self-rehabilitation as we continue our observation with another high-angle shot. We seize Elsie and a man buying balloons from a senior citizen, and while the narrative information is still restricted, the activities of the murderer and Elsie are instead palpable as the city’s monitoring of their activities is present there conducted by one of the citizens, enabling the clues to be traceable. Therefore, although the previous murder of other children is hard to follow, in this particular case, there’s still possibility for the system to retrieve through its continuous monitoring.
Accompanied by the monitoring voluntarily carried out by every citizen, the two mainstream groups of the city-- the police and the underworld also commit themselves in scrupulous seeking for the murderer, trying to retrieve the order in their realm and also, to a larger extent, the order of the city. Because whee the cops enhance their monitor and searching in approximately every public space of the city to preserve the city’s order, these measures impede the underground’s normal activities and force them to participate in the hunting for the murderer which, interestingly, adding to the sustaining of the system’s order. Here we follow the high-angle shots presenting the progressive expansion of the scale for investigating both displaying on a map and spreading out all over the city space led by the cops as well as that showing the arrangements of vagrants by a map and a notebook for recording organized by the gangs. Contrast with the callous grab of the scenes, Lang’s camera is less inhuman now because the city is operating orderly to resist the disorder of murder and prevent it from happening again together.
On top of the high angle and low angle of the shots, contemplating on other cinematographic components of the film, we can have a better understanding of the dialectic associations between order and care. The film evokes us to take the psychological state of the killer into account so that we can think through the possible solutions of order preservation and care imposing on people carefully by reflecting on other aspects of framing such as distance of shots and camera movements.
While drawing comparison of the similar framing of the shots, we may notice that the scene where Elsie’s mother is washing clothes is framed in a medium shot, which reminds us of the one delineating the childish behaviors of the culprit eating an apple and putting another into some customers’ bags at the same time. The difference of their psychological states embodied through their conducts is overt. Here Elsie’s mother’s housekeeping activity can be coded as mature and rational as opposed to that of the murder’s, and it is notable that the childlike quality of him is one of the factors that relate to his crime. This is strengthened subsequently when bunches of long shots keep us in pace with how the murderer loses his self-control and deviates from social order step by step. The criminal’s face is deposed in a triangle, trapping him and foreshadowing him in dysfunction of his crime. Through his point-of-view, we can posit that the girl, framed in another triangle, smaller in size, is also one of the collections he desires to possess, which suggests his childish and perverse state of mind, consistent with his crime all the time.
Thereby the relationships between care and order is forwarded into discussion. The bug of the system of surveillance can be fixed by the authorities and every single individual of the city, but what is more fundamental and radical is that we are never able to peer into every citizen’s psychological state of mind. Consequently, we never know who is going to be the next murderer within our control of order as in nearly half of the movie, the murder’s identity remains unknown. If there’s only surveillance and redemption after crime is committed, the same tragedy will recur in the city. So something has to be done besides the preservation of order, and there comes the prominent necessity of care. The final scene where Elsie’s mother advances to urge people to take care of one’s own children is the strong illustration of our standpoints. Remaining the same framing and poise as hers, the reactions of the murderer in the trial reveal the pathological and distorted desire of him, which is virtually the result of lacking care and love. This is implied through the parallel of the two scenes where the word “children” Elsie’s mother stresses about is actually referring to children of the murder’s kind, who is acting childishly and has irrational desire in mind. I think it is still a sign of immaturity that is in great need of being taken good care of. More importantly, this mental demand cannot be replaced by any form of settlements deriving from the city’s current system and order while this is also necessary. For me, Lang is also alluding that the city and its people have the responsibility to care for each citizen’s psychological needs, which should be put into effects coordinated with the dynamics of order.
To summarize, M discusses about the dynamism of order of the city, supervising each citizen’s activities in every corner of the urban scope and can be redeemed at some level when there’s bug in it. While it is essential to keep the system running permanently, it is more urgent to care about those who is deficient in being looked after well psychologically, so that the pathological desire contributing to the crime may be perceived ahead of time and more tragedy caused by crime can be diminished.