Fritz Lang's M (1931), contains both
dialogue sequences and silent sequences with music or sound
effects. Lang edited the sound as if he were editing the
visuals.
We are introduced to the murder in shadow
when he speaks to a young girl, Elsie. We hear the conversation he
makes with her, but we see only his shadow, which is ironically shown on
a reward poster for his capture.
Lang then set up a parallel action
sequence by intercutting shots of the murderer with the young girl's
mother. The culmination of the scene relies wholly on sound for its
continuity. The mother calls out for her child. Each time she calls for
Elsie, we see a different visual: out of the window of home, down the
stairs, out into the yard where the laundry dries, to the empty dinner
table where Elsie would sit, and finally far away to the child's ball
rolling out of a treed area and to a balloon stuck in a telephone
line.
With each shot, cries became more distant.
For the last two shots, the mother's cries are no more than faint
echo.
In this sequence, the primary continuity
comes from the soundtrack. The mother's cries unify all the various
shots, and the sense of distance implied by tone of the call suggests
that Elsie is now lost to her mother.
Later in the film, Lang elaborates on this
use of sound to provide the unifying idea for a sequence. In one scene,
the minister complains to the chief of police that they must find the
killer of Elsie. The conversation reveals the scope of the
investigation. As they speak, we see visual details of the search for
the killer. The visuals show a variety of activities, including the
discovery of a candy wrapper at the scene of the crime and the
subsequent investigation of candy shops. Geographically, the police
investigation moves all around the town and takes place over an extended
period of time. These time and place shifts are all coordinated through
the conversation between the minister and the chief of
police.
In terms of screen time, the conversation
is five minutes long, but it communicates and investigation that takes
place over many days and in many places. We sense the police
department's commitment but also its frustration at the lack of
results.
What follows is the famous scene of
parallel action where Lang intercut two meetings. The police and the
crimal underworld meet separately, and the leaders of both organizations
discuss their frustrations about the child murderer and devise
strategies for capturing him.
Rather than simply relying on visuals
parallel action, Lang cut on dialogue at one point, starting a sentence
in police camp and ending it in the criminal meeting. The crosscutting
is all driven by dialogue. There are common visual elements: the meeting
setting, the smoking room, the seating, the prominence of one leader in
each group. Despite these viusals cues, it is the dialogue that is used
to set up the parallel action and to give the audience a sense of
progress. Unlike Griffith's train chase, there is no visual dynamic to
carry us toward a resolution, nor is there a metric montage. The pace
and character of the dialogue establish and carry us through this
scene.
Lang used sound as if it were another
visual element, editing it freely. Notably is how Lang used the design
of sound to overcome space and time issues. Through his use of dialogue
over the visuals, time collapses and the audience moves all about the
city with greater ease than if he had straight-cut the
visuals
From Film Sound
Theory
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