The Use of Sound in Fritz Lang's M

In Fritz Lang's 1931 film M, cinematic sound is put to effective but sparing use through passages of silence and at times, sparse dialog. I listened to M through headphones and it gave me not only a closer listen to the film's sound, but actually focused my attention on the sound and encouraged me to discuss the aural merits of this landmark production. Despite considerable attention given in other essays to the film's visual accomplishments as well as Lang's social commentary on German society, this essay will focus on the film's soundtrack. (Incidentally, I viewed the first fifteen minutes or so of the film without headphones and found it not nearly as effective as listening with the headphones.)

There are long passages of silence in M which fooled me into turning up my stereo and checking the settings of my DVD player to make sure they were correct. I wondered why Lang would have chosen to give M a thin soundtrack but then I considered that this may have been a result of the technical limitations of that time. It was not until later that I read a bit of trivia at the Internet Movie Database that this was intentionally done by Lang. M was Fritz Lang's first movie with sound and I must admit, it shows.