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Description

Fritz Lang's 'M' (1931) is an undisputed classic of world cinema. Lang considered it his most lasting work. Peter Lorre's extraordinary performance as the childlike misfit Hans Beckert was one of the most striking of film debuts, and it made him an international star. Lang's vision of a city gripped with fear, haunted by surveillance and total mobillization, is still remarkably powerful today. And 'M' resonates too in the serial-killer genre which is so prominent in contemporary cinema. 'M' speaks to us as a timeless classic, but also as a Weimar film that has too often been isolated from its political and cultural context. In this groundbreaking book, Anton Kaes reconnects 'M''s much-studied formal brilliance to its significance as an event in 1931 Germany, recapturing the film's extraordinary social and symbolic energy. Interweaving close reading with cultural history, Kaes reconstitutes 'M' as a crucial modernist artwork. In addition he analyzes Joseph Losey's 1951 film noir remake and, in an appendix, publishes for the first time 'M''s missing scene.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Berlin, 1931
2. Serial Murder, Serial Culture
3. Total Mobilisation
4. Before the Law
5. Los Angeles, 1951
Appendix: The Missing Scene
Notes
Credits
Bibliography

Product details

Published 01 Jan 2000
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 88
ISBN 9780851703701
Imprint British Film Institute
Illustrations illustrated
Dimensions 190 x 135 mm
Series BFI Film Classics
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

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