Abbye Simkowitz
11/8/04
Fritz Lang: M

Genre Film: Reconciling the Irreconcilable

In “Film Genre and the Genre Film,” Schatz defines the “film genre” as a “system of conventions” (691) or “a vaguely defined amalgam of actions and attitudes, of characters and locales” (692) recognized by both audience and filmmakers to fall under one category such as the Western, Musical, Gangster film, etc. The “genre film” is the individual film that falls under that genre.  Schatz uses the “film-language analogy” to clarify how the audience and filmmakers come to recognize this system of conventions.  Basically, in time, through the communication between audience, filmmakers, critics, and media—the “circuit of exchange”—develop a “cultural consensus,” which is a “shared knowledge of the rules of any film genre” (692-3).  This shared knowledge can be understood as a sort of formalized sign system, analogous to our consensual knowledge of the rules of grammar in our formalized system of language.

Specifically, the film genre alludes to a cultural context that is familiar to us.  Each film genre is associated by significant dramatic conflicts that take place within this cultural context and are resolved “through established patterns of action and by familiar character types” within each genre (695).  The dramatic conflicts take place in either determinate space or indeterminate space.  In former, conflicts occur as a result of the location, usually a “struggle of control of the environment” (698).  The values of a culture are in conflict.  By contrast, in genres of indeterminate space conflicts occur within or among characters or within relation to a more macro, abstract sense of community.

Overall film genres seek to solve these dramatic conflicts and restore order.  Thus, the film genre subscribes to the idea of a happy ending.  Because the genres take place in a familiar cultural context the films imply stability in our world as well.  Thus, genres have appeal so long as the conflict is pertinent to the lives of its views.  Ultimately any conflict that would have pertinence to the audience signifies that it still exists in society.  Therefore, the resolution, or happy ending, can only be temporary.  The genre films compensate for this temporary ending through a “violent resolution,” a very climatic ending (701).  This has the effect of satisfying the audience.  Genre films are popular because they “project an idealized cultural self-image” and “they project it into a realm of historical timelessness” (702).

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When first considering this reading I didn’t see much of a connection between film genre and M as a possible genre film.  After all, the ending is anything but happy.  The ending line that mothers should watch their children suggests the persistence of this problem.  Also, the powerful mob, the chaotic masses, and general hysteria suggest an anarchic political state that has not been resolved by the end of the film.  Also, I question which genre M would even fit into. 

After pushing the idea we can see some elements of both the detective and gangster genre in the film.  The dramatic conflict in the film is the idea of a mass murderer on the loose.   Both the police and the mob (for different reasons) seek to gain control over their environment by finding and punishing the murderer.  Like the gangster and detective genres, the conflict exists in a determinate, contested space.  Social order must be restored.  The conflict embodies by the murderer can easily (superficially) be restored through the condemnation of that individual.  And in M, that individual is Lorre’s character, who is ultimately caught and probably punished in some way.  For now, the killer has been found and order restored.  This sense of a happy ending and conflict resolution is exemplified in the fake court scene and it can be interpreted that the crowd in that scene feels a sense of closure in witnessing the breakdown of Lorre’s character.

However, returning to my initial point the superficiality of this happy ending is made apparent within the film because it is obvious that order is not really restored.  For this reason, perhaps Lang is using elements of genre film to critique genre film.  Perhaps Lang is using elements of genre film to deconstruct any tendencies the audience has towards resolving an inevitably irresolvable conflict.  Afterall, in Fury (as we discussed last class) the kiss in the final shot serves the same purpose to work within conventions of genre to deconstruct illusions of closure and security.

This leads me to thinking if film genres persist in time because the problems supposedly resolved in the last genre film still exist, will the audience eventually be so aware of this cyclical pattern that the resolution, or idealized image, of the genre film will lose all value no longer persuading its audience?  In other words, will the happy ending lose its effect and the film genre, therefore, lose its value?  Eventually, will a violent resolution not be enough compensation?