Fritz Lang’s Radio Aesthetic: M. A City Searches for A Murderer

Fritz Lang’s Radio Aesthetic: M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder

Michael P. Ryan

German Studies Review, Volume 36, Number 2, May 2013, pp. 259-279(Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/gsr.2013.0085

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German Studies Review 36.2 (2013): 259–279 © 2013 by The German Studies Association.

ABSTRACT

Fritz Lang’s Radio Aesthetic: M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder

Michael P. Ryan

Prior to sound film’s debut the matter was arguably plain: radio was a sound

medium, and film was a visual medium; radio was the purveyor of fantasized

images, and film was the purveyor of fantasized sound. With the emergence of

the talkie, however, a new era in film aesthetics ensued, and cinema turned to

radio in order to learn from the acoustic medium’s experience with dramatic

sound design. In this regard, Fritz Lang’s M serves as an excellent case study.

My contention is that crucial to M’s celebrated sound track is a quintessentially

radiophonic sound design.1

In 1931 Fritz Lang released his first sound film, M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (M. A City Searches for a Murderer).2 Early reviews tended to alternate between bashing the film’s content and praising its formal design. In one such instance, a reviewer carped: “The film deals with the Kürten case. It wants to be timely, timelier, the timeli-est. Topicality at any cost,” including good taste, was the objection.3 M was presumed to have been inspired by the recent case of the child-murderer, Peter Kürten, and therefore, in terms of content, deemed salacious. Nevertheless, even this scandalized critic judged M to be an “excellently conceived, photographed [and] composed film.”4 Regarding the film’s acoustic composition, a host of scholars concur: M’s sound track is exceptional. Lotte Eisner declares that M’s acoustic design exhibits an “astonishing mastery and maturity,”5 Anton Kaes lauds the film’s “complex sound collages,”6 and Tom Gunning announces that although “M’s innovative use of sound forms one of the clichés of film history, this universal acknowledgment cannot render its power banal.”7 Given such widespread recognition, one might rightly wonder: how does M, in contrast to so many other early sound films, achieve its acoustical brilliance? The answer to this question is likely embedded in a very particular phase of German

260 German Studies Review 36 /2 • 2013

film history, specifically, the phase in which sound film technology appears to have triggered an aesthetic exchange between Weimar’s two media giants, radio and film. Following a brief review of the relationship that developed between radio and film before, during, and immediately after cinema’s conversion to sound, this examination contends that M’s acoustical brilliance is the result of an intermedial sound aesthetic, that is, to be more precise, a finely tuned radio aesthetic.8

Radio and FilmDebuting in 1923, public radio in Germany initially avoided the broadcast of film-related content. According to Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus, prior to 1929 studio appearances by filmmakers were uncommon, on-air film criticism was rare, and the broadcast of film music was limited.9 With the advent of sound film in 1928–29, however, radio officials not only sanctioned the broadcast of new radio shows like Blick auf die Leinwand (A Glance at the Screen) and 10 Minuten Film but also commis-sioned the recording of Fritz Walter Bischoff’s radio drama Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball! (Hello! This is Channel Earth!, 1928–30). Announcing the deal to record Bischoff’s piece, an enthusiastic radio critic proclaimed: “The German Radio Company is now a film producer. While Berlin theaters are showing sound films without sound, a sound film is being filmed in Tri-Ergon’s recording studio that will not be shown in movie theaters but rather be broadcast over the radio.”10 Up to this point in time radio drama had been a matter of live performance; hence, the decision to record Bischoff’s radio drama was indeed groundbreaking. And yet, note that, originally broadcast in 1928, the live version of Bischoff’s pioneering work had already adapted a number of tech-niques honed in film culture—e.g., cinematic montage—to the airwaves. Moreover, although Weimar radio drama had been greatly influenced by the theater, radio art in Germany was also regularly explained in terms of film culture: Franz Konrad Hoefert’s Extrablätter (Special Edition, 1928) was described in the radio press as 12 acoustical images that pass by the microphone “like a movie”;11 Hans Bodenstadt’s Der Herr der Erde (The Lord of the Earth, 1926) was deemed a “Sensationsfilm”;12 and, according to Friedrich Wolf, SOS . . . RAO RAO . . . FOYN–“Krassin” Rettet “Italia” (SOS . . . RAO RAO . . . FOYN–“Krassin” Saves “Italia,” 1929) was nothing less than a combination of “theater, radio, and film.”13 Significantly, with sound films’ debut wireless culture began to reconsider how the acoustic wonder fit within the modern media landscape: “Radio is analogous to sound film alone—not to the theater,” declares Alfred Braun, a high-profile radio announcer and producer in Berlin.14

As Daniel Gilfillan rightly points out, when considering the interface of radio and film during the Weimar era, Walter Ruttmann’s sound-on-film radio drama, Weekend (1930), is of the utmost consequence.15 Broadcast in tandem with Bischoff’s Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball! in June of 1930, Weekend is a fascinating collage of voice, machine noises, and music that evokes pulsating images of leisure and work in and just out-

Michael P. Ryan 261

side of Berlin. Similar to Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball!, it was (and still is) considered a media “hybrid,” a thrilling combination of radio and film.16 Nonetheless, here it is important to point out that Ruttmann’s Weekend was not only broadcast over the radio but was also “screened” in a Berlin movie theater with the curtains closed.17 In fact, Ruttmann’s sound-on-film radio drama would even be presented at the Belgian International Congress of Independent Film “as an example of the German school of avant-garde cinema.”18 What this means is that Weekend was not only viewed as experimental radio, but was also viewed as experimental cinema. More to the point, it demonstrates that while film was penetrating radio culture, radio was penetrating film culture. As such, and given that, as Mark E. Cory points out in 1992, “[t]he influence of the slightly more mature medium of film on its younger technological sibling has long been acknowledged,” it is crucial that we also account for radio’s influence on film culture.19

According to radio and film scholars alike, prior to the advent of sound film, cinema generally refrained from putting radio on screen: Carsten Lenk reports that wireless was deployed as a “Sujet” in “very few [German] movies”;20 Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus states that “content-wise, radio and film scarcely reference one another before 1929”;21 and, in more general terms, Harald Jossé concludes that “while the spread of radio was a further stimulus to the introduction of sound film in the USA, radio in Germany played an insignificant role in sound film’s development.”22 In brief, scholars purport that cinema basically ignored radio during the silent film era. However, my research indicates that silent film was instantaneously attracted to mass broadcast. Indeed, even if we set aside the untold number of silent films in which radio made at least a cameo appearance—in films such as Die Puppe vom Lunapark (The Doll from Lunapark, Jaap Speyer, 1924), Die Millionenkompagnie (The Million Company, Fred Sauer, 1924–25), Die Frau ohne Namen (The Woman without a Name, Georg Jacoby, 1926–27), and Die Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon, Fritz Lang, 1929)—and confine ourselves to productions that featured radio broadcast, then the evidence suggests that radio quickly penetrated silent film culture.23 For the purpose of this examination, Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen (Under the Spell of Sound Waves, 1923–24), Radiofimmel (Radio Mania, 1925), and Deutscher Rundfunk (German Radio, Walter Ruttmann, 1928) will be of particular interest.

Filmed in Berlin’s Vox-Haus—the location of Germany’s inaugural transmis-sion—Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen was the radio industry’s first film.24 The aim of the work was to inform the public about radio’s technical capabilities and give an overview of radio programming content. A critic summarizes the broadcast industry’s immediate interest in the visual medium: “Film, the common domain of the masses, is undoubtedly the best way to make something popular. Thus it was a given that film would be used in the service of radio.”25 Important here is that although Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen is both promotional and educational in nature, it


should also be viewed as an experimental film. Consider the following announcement printed in Germany’s premier radio programming journal, Der Deutsche Rundfunk (The German Radio):

In order for the public to have immediate access to authentic instruction about

mass broadcast, we forego the film and lecture rights of our three-act film, ‘Im

Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen,’ length 1000 meter, for certain administrative

districts in Germany and abroad. Reliable reception of a radio concert will follow

the lecture on channel 2800, Königs Wusterhausen.26

What this citation suggests is that radio officials were not merely interested in informing the public about mass broadcast, but also interested in testing the inter-face of radio and cinema. In kind, it appears that the film was preceded by an oral presentation, and that this presentation was not only heard by filmgoers but also by radio listeners.. In 1924 the movie journal Der Film reported that Universum-Film AG (Ufa) had broadcast the oral presentation of, in this case, an unidentified film. According to Mühl-Benninghaus, the unnamed film probably refers to an earlier ver-sion of Ufa’s Achtung, Achtung, Hier ist Berlin auf Welle 505! (Attention, Attention, This is Berlin on Channel 505!, 1925).27 Additionally, still another Ufa film, Berlin auf Welle 505 (Berlin on Channel 505), was subsequently released in 1926. Given the film’s radiophonic title, it is reasonable to imagine that Berlin auf Welle 505’s oral presentation was likewise broadcast for Germany’s radio listenership. Equally important, however, is that during one or more screenings of Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen a radio concert was piped into the movie theater from the Königs Wusterhausen radio station.28 In other words, silent film’s live orchestra was replaced by a live radio broadcast and “six Telefunken Loudspeakers.”29 The reason this is important is because experiments over the airwaves and in the movie theaters signal that an intermedial exchange was underway. Significantly, the interface of sound broadcast and silent film in German movie theatres arguably yielded a new medium, a Rundfunk-Film (radio-film).

Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen demonstrates a willingness on the part of the radio and film industries to collaborate on experimental films, a willingness that would eventually manifest itself in the release of what appears to be Germany’s first sound film, Deutscher Rundfunk. In the meantime, though, between 1923 and 1928 popular film would repeatedly cast the broadcast medium on screen. With “new” media themes ranging from fears about radio penetrating the home (Radiofimmel), to radio as an object of desire (Funkzauber [Radio Magic, Richard Oswald, 1927]), to the transformation of the human body via radio robotics (Tragödie im Zirkus Royal [Tragedy at the Royal Circus, Alfred Lind, 1927–28]), films such as these cover a cross section of popular genres, including melodrama, comedy, detective, and sci-

Michael P. Ryan 263

ence fiction. Radiofimmel, however, is of the greatest import for at least two reasons: 1) it appears to be the only surviving production of its kind; and 2) this lighthearted comedy evidences Weimar film culture’s early appropriation of radio aesthetics.30

Released in 1925, Radiofimmel opens with the depiction of an argument between an older woman and her young nephew. The young man, a boy in his mid- to late teens, plans on purchasing a radio. But his aunt refuses to allow him to do so; radio is portrayed as a device that triggers a conflict between generations and genders. The aunt perceives the medium as something that would sully the home, and is adamant the she has no interest in radio listening. Nevertheless, in spite of his aunt’s objec-tions, her nephew resolves to purchase a radio set. As the boy walks the streets of Berlin looking for a radio store, he imagines the thrill of wireless broadcast. At this juncture, Radiofimmel cuts to a pitch black dissolve. Entering the boy’s imagination, we see a ball of light off in the darkness. As it moves toward us, it is revealed to be the glowing vacuum tube of a radio receiver. At this point, the boy’s smiling face is superimposed over the image of the receiver. The young man will eventually secure his radio set and, as popular film would have it, his aunt (and his sister) will become enamored with the device. At stake here, though, is the emergence of radio aesthetics in silent film culture.

It will likely not surprise that radio was often symbolized in wireless culture with themes and images of outer space. Long-forgotten novels like Paul Rosenhayn’s Der Ruf aus dem Aether (The Call from the Ether, 1924), tell the story of a man who receives radio messages from outer space. The novel catastrophizes an alien broad-cast’s penetration of the home; this means that within the popular imaginary, radio sound—Elektro-Akustik—was not merely penetrating, it was alien(ating). Similarly, Rudolf Leonhard’s poem, “Radio” (1928), depicts sound broadcast as “das ganze Meer des Alls” (“the entire ocean/sea of outer space”);31 but one does not merely listen to the oceans of space deployed by sound broadcast, one swallows it: “Das ganze All, In mich ein-!” (“All of outer space, into me!”).32 Radiofimmel’s black dissolve likewise means to represent radio as the ether par excellence. In turn, the film emphasizes the ether setting via the ball of light that appears off in the darkness. German radio culture created an entire network of interconnected symbolism; hence, radio was not merely represented as a means of interplanetary communication but also as the very center of our universe, that is, the sun. Broadcast during the very early days of public radio, Hans Brennert’s poem, “Dem neuen Roland” (“To the new Roland,” 1924), revels in the newly erected system of public broadcast and shouts: “Berlin – ! – Berlin in light – Berlin in the sunshine.”33 Similarly, Walter Bloem’s 1924 poem, which was written and broadcast for the first annual commemoration of public broadcast in Germany, declares that ordinary listeners are not to be found at the receiving end of each radio transmission but rather Germany’s “Sonnenkinder” (“children of the sun”).34 Consequently, with a black dissolve (i.e., outer space) and a ball of light


(i.e., the sun), Radiofimmel outfits itself with recognizable radio symbolism, and then punctuates its radiophonic nature via the superimposition of a young boy’s head over a radio receiver: disembodiment is crucial to most any radio aesthetic.

As mentioned, publicity was one of the motivating forces behind many of the “documentary-style” films commissioned by the German radio industry.35 This is why the “inventor” of promotional film, Julius Pinschewer, was hired to produce works like Der Rundfunk als Nachrichten- und Kultur-Vermittler (Radio as Mediator of News and Culture, 1928) and Der Rundfunk auf dem Lande (Radio in the Country, 1928). And yet, as Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen indicates, a number of these films were also produced in order to audition new varieties of cinema. In turn, in 1928 the radio and film industries joined forces to release Germany’s first sound film, Deutscher Rundfunk / Tönende Welle (Sounding Wave, Walter Ruttmann, 1928).36 Tönende Welle boasts an impressive cultural pedigree: Walter Ruttmann is the direc-tor and Edmund Meisel composed the picture’s musical score. Although the film has been lost, we know that it provided filmgoers with an audiovisual tour of Germany’s radio station network (Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne etc.). Radio, however, did not merely supply the film with its subject but also its form. Reviewing his pioneering work, Ruttmann announces: “The imageless radio and the soundless film are two opposites that when played against each other come closer to another meaning of the term sound film. The best way of promoting illusion and fantasy lies in the contrast-ing representation of sound and image.”37 What this means is that radio was vital to Ruttmann’s realization of a contrapuntal sound design, i.e., the asynchronous method that would be championed by filmmakers, theoreticians, and critics alike.38 A critical feature of Tönende Welle’s radio aesthetic was reportedly Ruttmann’s juxtaposition of radio voice with the German landscape; every time Tönende Welle introduced a new geographical location, it contrasted the image of the landscape with the disembodied voice of a local radio announcer. Moreover, according to one film critic, radio voice also functioned as “tönende Zwischentitel” (“acoustical intertitles”) throughout the film.39 This is pivotal: whereas silent film usually inscribed a blackened screen with white script in order to delineate for the viewer what, for example, has or will tran-spire in a work, Ruttmann appears to have repeatedly “inscribed” a blackened screen with the disembodied voice of a noted radio announcer. With this move, off-screen voice was introduced to German filmgoers as a radiophonic form. Given radio’s vital contribution to the content and form of the film, Ruttmann would refer to Tönende Welle as his “Rundfunk-film” [sic].40

Not long after the premier of Ruttmann’s first sound film, other German filmmak-ers began confronting the industry’s transition to sound. According to a number of contemporary accounts, many of these directors proved ill-prepared to contend with the intricacies of the acoustic dimension. “Thus we are now witnessing something gro-tesque,” writes one frustrated critic, “directors who have never occupied themselves

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with the acoustic, and in fact do not even have an ear for it, possess the decisive word over the entire recording process, including the sound track.”41 In response to the burgeoning crisis, radio and film critics proposed (and even insisted) that directors avail themselves of radio’s years-long experience with dramatic sound design. In a timely piece—“Lernt den Tonfilm kennen: Ein Wort an unsere Regisseure” (“Get to know Sound Film: A Word to our Directors,” 1929)—a contributor to Tonfilm-Zeitung (Sound Film Journal) writes:

Well, now that film can and should be complemented and extended by word and

sound, you are standing aside and waiting to see if perhaps the i n s t r u m e n t

will l e a r n how to be played by you? No, y o u s h o u l d l e a r n, y o u h a v e

t o l e a r n. But that is not so difficult today. The electro-acoustic is not uncharted

territory. Five and a half years of radio broadcast have passed and they have pro-

vided us with a plethora of experience. Just listen occasionally to the programs on

the radio—what they do over the airwaves, you can do . . . in the “talking” film.42

The precise manner in which sound was to be utilized in cinema remained a hotly contested issue; nonetheless, important here is that critics immediately recognized radio as a valuable aesthetic resource. While reviewing Germany’s first feature-length sound film, namely, E. A. Dupont’s Atlantic (1929), Herbert Ihering observed: “The crossfade in radio dramas, the increasing pace, the cuts and acoustic accents, film directors should at least study the medium.”43 Ihering’s astute observation may very well have been influenced by the experimental nature of Atlantic’s premier, for while Dupont’s talkie was being screened by a gathering of filmgoers, it was also being broadcast for untold thousands of radio listeners.44 In any regard, crucial here is that during Weimar cinema’s transition to sound, as the crisis in film aesthetics began to take hold, critics began to champion radio as a viable aesthetic resource. Consequently, when taken as a whole, radio and film history offer sufficient cause to examine celebrated sound films such as Fritz Lang’s M in the context of the inter-medial relationship that developed between radio and film during the Weimar era.

Fritz Lang’s MLang and his films played a prominent role in the media relationship forged between radio and cinema during the silent film and early sound film eras. With at least two studio appearances in 1927, he was one of the precious few filmmakers to be heard over the airwaves prior to 1929;45 the music of Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927) represent two of the select musical accompaniments to be broadcast during the silent film era;46 and his last silent film, Die Frau im Mond (1929), was one of the first film premiers to be broadcast in Germany.47 Produced during a period in film history when directors, radio critics, and film critics were advocating wireless


as a viable aesthetic resource, there is reason to believe that Lang’s involvement in radio culture took on newfound significance with his filming of M. Anton Kaes has already observed that “M’s complex sound collages are closer to Walther Ruttmann’s acoustic film experiment Weekend than to the contemporary musicals and operettas produced by Ufa . . . to flaunt the new invention.”48 At this juncture, however, my aim is to contend that M’s sound track is not merely akin to radio but is in fact rampant with radiophonic techniques and aesthetics.49

The film opens with a potent image, a well-known symbol of human agency: “A Hand with its fingers spread; on the palm a red M.”50 The disembodied append-

age problematizes the notion of identity—via the absence of the body—and evokes more than a modicum of suspense. Thereafter, the movie credits unroll on screen: “A Fritz Lang Film” (9). And then, for the first time in Lang’s career, one of his films speaks (see Figure 1).

According to Kaes it is a “thundering” gong—the sound of which reverberates for “a full 10 seconds.”51 Impor-tantly, the sound of the gong was a nationally

recognized radio symbol during the Weimar era. Among other functions, it announced the current time, the start of a news broadcast, the beginning of a radio drama, and the beginning of a new scene in a radio drama. The instrument was employed so often that Heinz Schwitzke recalls how German broadcast studios resembled oriental temples.52 As a nationally recognized symbol for modern broadcast, the gong conveys a radiophonic “now”; M wants to be “timely, timelier, the timeliest,” and, as Renate Schumacher points out, the live nature of radio broadcast instantaneously transformed everything heard over the airwaves into something “timely” (aktuell).53 As the sound of the gong alerts the radio ear of the filmgoer, the movie screen is rendered entirely black. With this move, Fritz Lang effectively blinds his audience, for as radio theorists would soon discern: “Radio has absolutely nothing to do with sighted people, such a sensory function does not exist for [radio] listeners; we are dealing with a blind

Figure 1. Gong / Das Sendespiel beginnt. Photograph Böhn-Film.

Der Deutsche Rundfunk. Heft 41. 1929: 1300. Print.

Michael P. Ryan 267

audience.”54 Hence, as the sound of M’s gong rumbles throughout the theater, the audience’s method of reception is transformed into an activity that would have been familiar to most any radio listener—that is, the act of “blind listening.”

In terms of radio history, the first true European radio play is said to be Richard Hughes’ A Comedy of Danger (1924). Translated and broadcast for the German public in 1925, the piece tells the story of a couple visiting a coal mine. During their visit, the lights suddenly go out. This was a clever solution to the difficulties that radio pre-sented. The inexperienced ear of the early radio listener often had difficulty following the dramatic action. In this case, however, characters and listeners alike experience the action “blind.” In response to the success of Hughes’ piece, early German radio theory claimed that a-visual themes and circumstances would help the radio listener focus on the content of a broadcast, i.e., the sound. In turn, Weimar radio culture consistently gravitated towards themes of blindness and darkness.55 Radio dramas such as Bertolt Brecht’s Der Flug der Lindberghs (Lindbergh’s Flight, 1929) confronted its primary character with blinding storms (rain/snow); on-air presentations discussed subjects like “Die Nacht der Städte” (“The Night of the Cities,” 1930); and radio fic-tion opted for titles like Der Befehl aus dem Dunkel (The Command from the Dark, 1933). Lang’s radio aesthetic encourages M’s audience to focus on the film’s sound track as a critical feature of the cinematic experience. Moreover, blinded by the film’s opening, the attentive moviegoer should become aware that she is not merely sitting with the sound of the gong but also sitting in the sound of the gong; barring the use of headphones, radiophonic sound is almost always “surround sound.”

Radio VoiceAs the sound of the gong begins to fade into the darkness, the disembodied voice of a young girl rises in its place: “VOICE GIRL: Wait, wait just a little while” (M, 9), she admonishes. M is punctuating its wireless aesthetic: first the ether gong (radio’s sound symbol), then the darkened screen (blind listening), and now the introduction of a disembodied voice (a radio voice, I suggest). Anticipated by experimental films such as Tönende Welle, M radicalizes off-screen space to the dimensions of radio space, i.e., outer space: “For a seemingly endless moment,” as Lutz Koepnick has suggested, “we have no idea where we are, how we got there, and where we might be going from here. Instead, we feel ourselves suspended, our senses feeling blatantly exposed.”56 Surrounded by sound and still blind, we float through the ether—suspended in space we experience what everybody experiences in outer space, namely, disembodiment. But this is not science fiction. As with the disembodiment of the young boy in Radio-fimmel, it is a representation—and, in Lang’s case, a brilliant realization—of radio’s ability to vanish the body. In keeping with this, the little girl’s radio voice is gradually increased. This is important because each adjustment in volume provides the blind listener with a sense of her proximity to the little girl (close, closer). However, the


little girl is not moving toward us; on the contrary, we are moving toward her. This is why, when our ability to see is finally restored, we find ourselves floating above a circle of children. Disembodied, we are allowed to hover above the children just long enough to determine who owns the voice that beckoned us here.

Beyond experimental sound films like Ruttmann’s Tönende Welle, Wilhelm Thiele’s Liebeswalzer (The Love Waltz, 1930) is one of the earliest feature films to test the deployment of off-screen voice. Reviewing the film’s utilization of the new technique, Rudolf Arnheim writes:

In the ballroom of Lauenburg castle there is a small gallery from which one can

observe what is going on below in the court hall. During the reception festivities a

radio reporter stands above in the gallery before the microphone; he reports what

is happening below in the hall. The recording apparatus is directly in front of him.

We see it up close, and we hear him speak accordingly loud. But after a while, the

film image is cut . . . but the acoustic flow is not cut, and the voice of the radio

announcer continues to be heard, although he cannot be seen on screen.57

According to Arnheim, when confronted with the sound of disembodied voice, he felt compelled to search out the body of the reporter on screen. And when he could not locate the reporter on screen, he became distracted (i.e., annoyed). Arnheim’s complaints aside, though, it is probable that Liebeswalzer introduces off-screen voice via radio—a medium notorious for making the bodies of its speakers disappear—in an effort to alert its audience to the disembodied nature of the new technique. Unlike Liebeswalzer, however, M will not depict a radio apparatus; it simply appropriates radio’s blind aesthetic, deploys a radio voice, and then leaves us to wander in search of something very particular, namely, an image. To be clear, the film seems to be somewhat at odds with itself, it wants to employ new acoustical techniques, but it also wants to assert the value of the filmic image.

Radio Drama SoundBetween the years 1924 and 1930, German radio drama refined its use of dramatic sound via a more expressive sound design. In many cases, the objective was to provide the sightless radio listener with a sonic setting which could be easily understood. In my estimation, M’s acoustic design evidences a working knowledge of the sounds heard in German radio drama. Beyond the opening radio gong, the film’s non-vocal sound track consists of footsteps, doorbells, ticking clocks, school bells, car horns, and the tapping of a nail. Aside from the tapping of a nail, the balance of M’s non-vocal sound track would have been familiar to the average radio listener; M is deploying aural signatures that “speak for themselves.” When, for example, the film sounds a car horn from an off-screen position, the noise not only tells us what it is (a car

Michael P. Ryan 269

horn) but also where it is (in the street). As Kaes suggests, similar to a radio drama, M’s sound track carries with it a “strong signifying potential” and distinguishes itself by incorporating “complex sound collages.”58

The technique employed to create these collages is utilized in a very early sequence of the film. Here I am thinking of when we first encounter Frau Beckmann, Elsie’s mother, in her kitchen. While Frau Beckmann waits for Elsie to return home from school (as we know, she will not return home), we watch the mother move about the kitchen. We then hear two sounds: first the sound of a cuckoo clock located in her kitchen, and then the sound of a bell located at Elsie’s school. M blends the sound of the cuckoo clock with the ringing of the bell in very a precise fashion: as they con-verge, the sound of the clock is slowly reduced while the sound of the bell is slowly increased. When the sound of the bell reaches a crescendo, we cut from the mother’s kitchen to Elsie’s school. The practice in question was referred to as a crossfade. The method was originally utilized during a broadcast of Fritz Walter Bischoff’s Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball! Recounting how the technique was performed, Bischoff recalls:

A technician . . . can rotate the capacitor on the amplifier in order to cause the

acoustic image of the previous sequence to fade and, at the same time, gradually

turns up the volume of the next acoustic sequence in order to intensify its form

and shape. With gradual turns of the amplifier from two radio studios, it is possible

to make acoustic scenes dive into each other.59

Important here is that radio dramas employed the crossfade to not only mix disparate sounds but also disparate locations. Weekend, for example, is divided into six parts: 1) “Jazz der Arbeit” (“Jazz of Work”); 2) “Feierabend” (“After work”); 3) “Fahrt ins Freie” (“Drive into the Country”); 4) “Pastorale” (“Pastoral”); 5) “Wiederbeginn der Arbeit” (“Return to Work”); and 6) “Jazz der Arbeit.” In Ruttmann’s notes regarding the section entitled “Pastorale,” he writes: “A hymn from the village church ushers in series of rural musical complexes which mix with each other spatially: While one fades in the distance, the next begins to swell in its place.”60 Similarly, when the acoustic signatures of the kitchen clock and the school bell are mixed, M is not only mixing sound, but also space. In other words, the film’s sound track is not merely radiophonic because it mixes self-expressive sound, or because it appropriates a technique used in radio drama, but also because in mixing space, the film triggers a radiophonic effect: the instantaneous contraction of, in this case, city space.

Radio VisionWhile Frau Beckmann continues to wait for Elsie to return home, the doorbell rings from an off-screen position. She hopes that it is Elsie, but it turns out to be a man delivering popular magazines. The mother’s worry builds with each passing moment;


she wrings at her apron and wanders the kitchen. At the kitchen window, she begins to call out for Elsie:

FRAU BECKMANN fearful: El-sie? . . . Elsie!

From above. The empty stairwell.

VOICE FRAU BECKMANN: Elsie!

In the attic. In dim light you see hanging laundry.

VOICE FRAU BECKMANN: Elsie! . . . Elsie!

Close from above. Elsie’s place at the kitchen table: the unused plate, spoon, napkin,

a cup. An empty chair at the table.

VOICE FRAU BECKMANN: Elsie!

Close. Ground sparsely covered with grass. Elsie’s ball rolls slowly from a shrub

until it is lying in the middle of the image.

The wires of a telegraph pole snag Elsie’s balloon. The wind twists it back and forth

and finally blows it away.

VOICE FRAU BECKMANN from a distance: Elsie . . . (M, 14–15).

Note that while the mother repeatedly calls out—“Elsie! . . . Elsie!”—we are shown the stairs, the attic, the kitchen table, the phone lines, and so on. What this means is that the mother’s disembodied voice is searching the landscape for Elsie but, importantly, her voice does so by means of a very special gift: sight. Her voice sees the empty staircase, it sees the attic clothesline, it sees the empty table setting and, lastly, it sees the famous representation of Elsie’s dead body twisting in telegraph wires.

As radio culture took form, radio voice was quickly endowed with a number of powers, including the power of sight. For example, Alfred Döblin’s radio drama, Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf (The Story of Franz Biberkopf, 1930), portrays the plight of Franz Biberkopf in analogue form as the biblical figure Job:

VOICE: (whispering) Job [.]

JOB: Who is calling?

VOICE: Job [.]

JOB: Who is that?

VOICE: Job, you’re in the cabbage garden by the dog house. Over there is the palace

you once owned. What tortures you the most, Job?

JOB: Who is asking?

VOICE: I am but a voice.61

As this excerpt suggests, radio voice was endowed with sight with logical purpose. Indeed a disembodied voice needed “eyes” in order to describe a story’s setting to its blind listenership. The technique may have been first employed in silent cinema. In

Michael P. Ryan 271

Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen the audience is given a point of view shot, radio voice’s point of view. At the conclusion of the film, we find ourselves flying in the air through a snowy wilderness. Having picked up considerable speed, we suddenly stop and leer at a secluded home. The film’s closing caption declares: “Thus enters the voice of the world into the farthest, loneliest, and most secluded rural area.” Surrounding media seized on the radio trope. Importantly, we know that Fritz Lang was well aware of radio voice’s ability to see. This is why at the conclusion of Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1932–33) we discover that the voice behind the curtain—which is capable of seeing everything that transpires in the film—is in fact emanating from a “private” radio studio.62

Radio NewsSubsequent to Elsie’s murder we find ourselves peering over Hans Beckert’s shoulder. He is seated at his desk writing a letter to the police. While doing so he keeps his back to the camera (and thus to the audience). He then begins to whistle a distorted tune (an off-key rendition of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”). As we lean over Beckert’s shoulder, and as he continues to whistle, we do what all radio listeners do: we “listen in.” A signature trope in radio culture, film quickly appropriated the act of eavesdropping as an allusion to radio listening. As we watch the aunt and her nephew argue about the purchase of a radio set, Radiofimmel cuts to an adjacent room in the house. There we find Auguste, the family’s housemaid, eavesdropping on the argument taking place in the other room. Seeing Auguste with her ear pressed to the key hole, the aunt’s daughter remarks: “Auguste, don’t fall through the door!” When we listen in over Beckert’s shoulder, the sound of his sickly whistle allows us to eavesdrop on the figure’s warped inner nature. In this regard, it is useful to recall that in the German language Hans Beckert is not merely composing a Brief (letter) but also a Sendung (letter/broadcast). Fittingly, M cuts from the composition of Beckert’s Sendung to a crowd of disembodied voices. One voice begins to read aloud from a wanted poster as another, more distinct voice rises to take over the role of narrator. Noël Burch has argued that the second voice is actually the voice of a radio announcer.63 Kaes concurs, noting that the voice “disembodied at first, could easily have been that of a radio.”64 In contrast, Gunning disagrees and points out that the voice in question “is revealed to be a man at a bar reading a newspaper [aloud].”65 Gunning’s objection is understandable. However, I would point out that, as Weimar radio culture would have it, it is precisely because the film cuts from a disembodied voice to a man reading a newspaper aloud that Burch’s and Kaes’ interpretation of the scene is likely confirmed. German radio announcers regularly based their news reports on the daily newspaper and they were even known to read the newspaper aloud over the airwaves.66 In fact, the connection between the two media was so strong that radio news was commonly referred to as “die gesprochene Tageszeitung” (“the spoken


newspaper”) during the Weimar era.67 Nevertheless, at stake here is not whether or not we are listening to a newspaper being read aloud in a bar or in a broadcast studio; on the contrary, at stake here is what the disagreement about this sequence reveals. In my view, it reveals that M has provided us with a brilliant representation of the intermedial fog that had enveloped Weimar’s modern media landscape.

The Acoustic MotifAs Hans Beckert gazes into a window display, we again peer over his shoulder. From this vantage point, we see the reflection of a little girl. To the eye of the killer (and the viewer), the girl appears to be sitting upon a shelf of consumer goods. Beckert runs his hand across his lips and leers at the girl. And then: “Loud and out of tune he whistles the first bars of a motif by Edvard Grieg” (M, 63). Beckert is shaken by his uncontrollable urges and hurriedly departs for a café. Once there, he struggles with himself: “He presses his clinched fists against his eyes, and begins to whistle again. Then he presses his clinched fists against his ears” (65). Throughout the film, the reoccurring sound of Beckert’s whistle provides the filmgoer with a sense of the killer’s inner turmoil and distorted mental state. The technique itself was likely gleaned from the increasingly complex world of radio drama. As the art form continued to develop, the sonic leitmotiv emerged as a favored agent of signification.

Acoustic leitmotifs varied in German radio drama, in Bishoff’s Song (1929) the listener is hooked with a repeating jazz riff; in Geno Oehlischläger’s and Walter Gronostay’s Glocken (Bells, 1930) the audience is escorted from city to city via the repetition of chiming bells; and, in 1930, Eduard Reinacher’s Der Narr mit der Hacke (The Fool with the Pickaxe) resounds with a brilliant guilt motif portrayed by the sound of digging. In this piece, a Japanese monk equipped only with a pickaxe willfully tunnels his way through a mountain made of granite. When he finally breaks through to the other side of the mountain, we discover that he had killed a man with his pickaxe in his youth. For years, though, the only sign villagers (and radio listeners) have of the monk’s existence is the sound of his pickaxe cracking against the granite. The acoustic motif serves as an almost unrelenting reminder of the monk’s guilt, and as the sound of the pickaxe banging against the granite likely reverberated at a varying pitch, this in turn captured the undulating nature of guilt. Similarly, Lang outfits M with a sound motif that conveys the varying tones of Beckert’s psychological distortion. Nonetheless, crucial here is that Beckert’s whistle also turns out be the vital clue which enables an old man to identify him as the killer. With this move M emphasizes radio’s critical contribution to the film’s sound track, for the old man who identifies Beckert as the killer is not merely an attentive listener, but more precisely, a blind listener.68

Given that the notion of blind listening was principal to early radio theory, blind and/or blinded characters were recurring figures in Weimar radio drama: Brecht’s

Michael P. Ryan 273

Der Flug der Lindberghs confronts the primary character with blinding storms; Job, in Döblin’s Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf, doggedly refuses to open his eyes and thus effectively blinds himself; and Hans Franck’s Godiva (1930) dramatizes the blinding of a castle squire. In this piece, a certain Count Leofric has reinstated his right to have a nude virgin sent to him on horseback once a year. Enthralled with Godiva, Leofric has restored the tradition in order to make her jealous. Having discovered his plan to receive another woman, Godiva arranges to make the ride herself. Leofric, however, has instructed a squire to observe the virgin’s ride up to the castle. In love with Godiva, the sight of her naked body causes the squire to go blind. Franck’s Godiva was originally written for the stage, but it was in all likelihood shortened and adapted for the radio in such away so as to focus on the blinding of the Count’s squire.69 Efforts to isolate the ear in radio drama and thus encourage listeners to experience the acoustic dimension blind was a critical component of Weimar radio art. This is in part why Walter Ruttmann deemed Weekend a “blind film.”70

Figure 2. M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder. Dir. Fritz Lang. 1931. SZ-Cinemathek, 2007. DVD.


The AppealOnce Beckert is captured, he is brought to a dank basement and forced to plead his case. Terrified, he insists to a “jury” of thieves and cutthroats that a mistake has been made (M, 107). In reply, we hear the voice of the blind salesman emanating from an off-screen position: “Oh, no! No mistake! Absolutely not. This is not a mistake!” (107).The old man extends his hand from an off-screen position to grab Beckert by the shoulder. “No, no!” rejoins the balloon salesman, “No Mistake!” (107).

With this confirmation, Schränker, the leader of this criminal underground, begins accosting Beckert with a series of photographs of missing children. With each image, Beckert takes another step back from his accusers and then attempts to escape:

VOICE: Stop him!

VOICES: Get hold of him! . . . Get hold of him!

VOICES: Stop him! . . . Don’t let him get out!

VOICES: Grab him! . . . Hold him good! (110)

Figure 3. M. Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder. Dir. Fritz Lang. 1931. SZ-Cinemathek, 2007. DVD.

Michael P. Ryan 275

His captors are quick to pursue him, but note how this is represented: a mob of off-screen voices chases Beckert. Only at the conclusion of the sequence do we actually see a body apprehending the killer. Beckert is then tossed down the stairs and a crowd of degenerates antagonize him: “Kill the dog! Beat him to death! . . . Beat him to death!” (112). Schränker at first chimes in—“we are going to kill you, that’s what we want!” (113)—but then feigns a sense of judicial equity, even informing Beckert that he will receive his very own defense attorney.

Realizing that he is hopelessly trapped, Beckert appeals for mercy (and under-standing). He makes his case from his knees and attempts to explain his plight: “Who knows what it looks like within me? How it . . . screams and yells on the inside! That I have to do it! Don’t want to! Have to! Don’t want to! Have to! And then . . . a voice screams . . . and I can’t take it anymore!!” (116). Beckert declares that he is a victim. Not a victim of modern society, however, but the victim of something he finds more insidious: sound—specifically the disembodied voices screaming in his head. We may of course read this as the plea of a sound-beleaguered schizophrenic alone. Or, considering how radio listening itself is often compared to the auditory hallucina-tions of schizophrenia, we might instead read this as part and parcel of M’s wireless aesthetic. Either way, though, what at first appears to be a certain death sentence for Beckert is at least momentarily averted by the arrival of the authorities. The police whisk the killer away before he can be executed. We are never told what becomes of Hans Beckert; in fact, we never see him again.

ConclusionThe evidence indicates that an intense period of industrial collaboration and intermedial experimentation occurred between radio and film before, during, and after Weimar cinema’s conversion to sound film. Precipitated by public broadcast’s debut in October of 1923, a wave of feature, educational, promotional, cultural, and experimental films surfaced to explain, hawk, interrogate, and test the acoustic wonder. In short order, the radio industry and the film industry began collaborating on cutting-edge projects such as Im Bannkreis der tönenden Wellen and Tönende Welle. With the full-throated debut of sound film in 1929–30, the two industries also collaborated on the broadcast of Dupont’s Atlantic and the production of revolutionary sound-on-film radio dramas such as Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball! and Weekend. Around this same time, film critics began touting radio as a viable aesthetic resource. In fact, come 1930, some would even begin calling for an interchangeable sound design to be developed for radio and film.71 In other words, during this phase of German film history, the medium is not the message, for the message is not singular: the message is plural, multi, poly—the message is intermediality.

Few would disagree that M was produced during a volatile period of transition in German film culture. The nature of this transition is signaled by Carroll’s conception


of M as a “silent sound film”;72 to be clear, M is viewed by Carroll as a film in transi-tion; a film caught in between two cinematic forms, namely silent film and sound film. And this appears quite correct. M’s sound track is after all rather sparse and significant portions of the film remain silent. Therefore, M is representative of a period in cinema history when film was transitioning from its identity as a silent medium toward its identity as a sound medium. Nonetheless, in my view, it is highly unlikely that cinema made its way from point A (silent film) to point B (sound film) without coming in contact with surrounding media; to be sure, cinema’s period of transition was not performed in isolation: just as silent film began by comparing and contrasting itself with theater and photography, appropriating what it believed to fit its media identity, early sound film compared and contrasted itself with music, theater, and radio, and likewise appropriated techniques and aesthetics that it believed to fit its media identity.73

M’s sound track is compelling. As such, it is vital to the film’s status in the history of German sound film. And now, in my estimation, there is sufficient reason to believe that M owes a profound debt to the radio era. As I have attempted to demonstrate, Lang’s first sound film appropriates established radio symbolism (the gong), enacts a fundamental principle of early radio theory (blind listening), employs techniques honed in radio drama (acoustic crossfade), echoes an expressive sound design (radio drama), endows off-screen voice with the ability to see (radio vision), transmits a 1930s-style news broadcast (the spoken newspaper), literalizes well-known radio jargon (“listening in”), dramatizes the role of a blind listener (radio drama) and, among still other radiophonic paradigms, the film even subjugates its primary character to the incessant sound of disembodied voices in his head (radio listening). If all of this or even most of this is true, then this leads me to believe that M’s place in early sound film history needs to be reconsidered and ultimately redefined in such a way so as to acknowledge the film’s radiophonic nature, for the evidence suggests that although M is presently renowned for its exceptional sound design, it should be renowned for its exceptional radio-sound design. Similar to Walter Ruttmann’s Tönende Welle, M is a film in transition; a film that appropriates radiophonic techniques and aesthetics while it navigates a crisis in film aesthetics. Fortunately though, Ruttmann provides us with a name for such films; Fritz Lang’s first sound film, I suggest, is a Rundfunk-Film.

Duke University

Notes 1. Research for this contribution was supported by a New Faculty Fellowship award from the

American Council of Learned Societies, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Earlier versions of the manuscript greatly benefited from comments made by German Studies Review’s anonymous readers and the journal’s editor, Sabine Hake.

2. This and all subsequent translations are my own. 3. “Filme, von denen man spricht,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 9, no. 23 (1931): 7.

Michael P. Ryan 277

4. “Filme, von denen man spricht,” 7. 5. Lotte Eisner, Fritz Lang (New York: Da Capo, 1986), 117. 6. Anton Kaes, M (London: BFI, 2000), 19. 7. Tom Gunning, The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity (London: BFI, 2006),

165. 8. This appears to be the first full-length “radio reading” of Fritz Lang’s M. Previous scholarship

that touches on radio’s role in the film will be discussed in the body of my analysis. 9. Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm: Strategien der Elektro- und der

Filmindustrie in den 20er und 30er Jahren (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1999), 60–63.10. Hans Tasiemka, “Film ohne Bild: ‘Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball’ wird vertonfilmt,” Der Deutsche

Rundfunk 7, no. 49 (1929): 1547.11. Gad M. Lippmann, “Filmkritik im Rundfunk,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 7, no. 38 (1929): 1217. 12. Arno Schirokauer, “Hamburgs Sensationsfilm: ‘Der Herr der Erde.’ Eine kritische Betrachtung,”

Funk 3, no. 30, in Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm, 64.13. Friedrich Wolf, “SOS . . . RAO RAO . . . FOYN– ‘Krassin’ Rettet ‘Italia,’” in Frühe Sozialistische

Hörspiele, ed. Stefan Bodo Würffel (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1982), 41.14. Alfred Braun, “Rundfunk–Bühne–Tonfilm: Erfahrungen an der ‘Rundfunkversuchstelle’: Ein

Brief and den ‘Funk,’” Funk 7, no. 13 (1930): 72. 15. See Daniel Gilfillan, Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio (Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 2009), especially pages 3–5 and pages 75–81. 16. Kaes, M, 19.17. See Kaes, M, 19.18. Erik Steiner, trans., “Jerzy Toeplitz im Gespräch mit Walter Ruttmann,” Wiadomosci Literackie

28 (1933), in Jeanpaul Goergen, Walter Ruttmann: Eine Dokumentation (Berlin: Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek, 1989), 90.

19. Mark E. Cory “Soundplay: The Polyphonous Tradition of German Radio Art,” in Wireless Imagina-tion: Sound, Radio and the Avant-Garde, eds. Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead (Cambridge: MIT University Press, 1992), 340. For a recent analysis of radio’s role in early American sound film culture, see Paul Young, The Cinema Dreams its Rivals (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). I will discuss Bischoff ’s and Ruttmann’s radio dramas in more detail during my examination of M.

20. Carsten Lenk, Die Erscheinung des Rundfunks: Einführung und Nutzung eines neuen Mediums 1923–1932 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997), 71.

21. Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm, 60.22. Harald Jossé, Die Entstehung des Tonfilms: Beitrag zu einer faktenorientierten Mediengeschichts-

schreibung (Freiburg: K.A., 1984), 250.23. Corresponding to, among other genres, feature, promotional, cultural, educational, and experi-

mental film, productions focusing on radio during the silent era include but were not limited to: Gerettet durch Funkspruch (Saved by Wireless, Frank G. Kirby, 1923–24), Die Radio-Heirat (The Radio Marriage, Wilhelm Prager, 1923–24), Radio (1923–24), Rundfunk! (Radio!, 1924), Der Bayern-Rundfunk (Bavarian Radio, 1924), Billys Radiospaziergang (Billy’s Radio Walk, 1924), Mister Radio (Nunzio Malasomma, 1924), Das Radiomädel (The Radio Girl, 1924–25), Radioleiden-Radiofreuden (Radio Distress and Radio Delight, 1924–25), Der Breslauer Sender im Film (The Breslau Station in Film, 1925), Radiofimmel (Radio Mania, 1925), Harry Hill im Banne der Todesstrahlen (Harry Hill in the Grip of Death Rays, Valy Arnheim, 1925), Stimmen aus dem Aether (Voices from the Ether, 1925), Harry Hill auf Welle 1000 (Harry Hill on Chan-nel 1000, Valy Arnheim, 1926), Tod der Langeweile (Death of Boredom, 1926), Im Zeichen des Rundfunks (The Character of Broadcasting, 1927), Funkzauber (Radio Magic, Richard Oswald, 1927), Deutscher Rundfunk (German Radio, Walter Ruttmann, 1928), Achtung! Achtung! Ein Film vom deutschen Rundfunk (Attention! Attention! A Film by German Radio, 1928), and Tragödie im Zirkus Royal (Tragedy at the Royal Circus, Alfred Lind, 1927–28).


24. I am grateful to Das Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv (Berlin) for allowing me to view this film.25. “Rundfunk und Film. Die Film groteske ‘Die Radio-Heirat,’” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 2, no. 11

(1924): 417. 26. “Radio-Vortrags-Film,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 2, no. 15 (1924): 717.27. In brief, the kind of intermedial experimentation that took place during screenings of Im Bannkreis

der tönenden Wellen does not appear to have been an isolated case of industrial collaboration. See “Film-Radio-Vortrag,” Der Film 9, no. 5 (1924), in Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm, 61.

28. See “Der Breslauer Rundfunksender,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 2, no. 11 (1924): 417.29. “Der Breslauer Rundfunksender,” 417.30. I would like to thank the Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin) for allowing me to screen this film.31. Rudolf Leonhard, “Radio,” Funk 5, no. 53 (1928), in Clas Dammann, Stimme aus dem Äther–

Fenster zur Welt: Die Anfänge von Radio und Fernsehen in Deutschland (Cologne: Böhlau, 2005), 42.

32. Leonhard, “Radio,” in Dammann, Stimme, 42.33. Hans Brennert, “Dem neuen Roland,” in Alfred Braun, Achtung, Achtung: Hier ist Berlin!: Aus

der Geschichte des Deutschen Rundfunks in Berlin 1923–1932 (Berlin: Haude & Spener, 1968), 26.

34. Walter Bloem, “Vorspruch für die Festveranstaltung zur ersten Jahresgedenkfeier der Eröffnung des deutschen Rundfunks,” Der Deutscher Rundfunk 2, no. 44 (1924): 2600.

35. As Nora Alter rightly points out, in the 1920s “the category ‘documentary’ film did not exist.” However, since I have been unable to view and thus properly categorize all of these films, I am employing the term “documentary” to differentiate feature films from genres such as educational, promotional, and culture films. Nora Alter, “Berlin Symphony of a Great City (1927), City, Image, Sound,” in Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era, ed. Noah Isenberg (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 197.

36. In September of 1928 Deutscher Rundfunk was marketed with the title Tönende Welle. Der Deutsche Funk-Film. It underwent an official title change to Tönende Welle when a new version was released in June of 1931; it was released yet again in May of 1933. See Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 124.

37. Walter Ruttmann, Film und Volk 2 (1928/1929), in Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 8.38. See John Belton and Elisabeth Weis, eds., Film Sound: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1985).39. Karl Westermeyer, “Der neue Tonfilm,” in Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 32.40. Walter Ruttmann, “Film und Volk,” in Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 8.41. Hans S. von Heister, “Kritik des Tonfilms,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 8, no. 44 (1930): 4.42. “Lernt den Tonfilm Kennen: Ein Wort an unsere Regisseure,” Tonfilm-Zeitung: Erstes Organ

der gesamten Tonfilm-Industrie 1, no. 7 (1929). Original italics. 43. Herbert Ihering, “Duponts Atlantic,” Berliner Börsen-Courier, 29 October 1929.44. See “Atlantik im Rundfunk,” Tonfilm-Zeitung: Erstes Organ der gesamten Tonfilm-Industrie 1,

no. 10 (1929).45. “Werbung,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 5, no. 2 (1927): 96. 46. Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm, 62.47. Radio microphones were reportedly setup inside and outside of the movie theater. The place-

ment of microphones inside of the theater suggests that the film’s musical accompaniment was broadcast for Weimar’s radio public. “Filmpremiere im Rundfunk,” Der Deutsche Rundfunk 7, no. 41 (1929): 1311.

48. Kaes, M, 19. 49. Sound, whether vocal or non-vocal, is notoriously difficult to represent in print. In an effort to

combat this difficulty when quoting the film I have chosen to cite the screenplay. Of use here is

Michael P. Ryan 279

that the screenplay emphasizes when, for example, “VOICE” is critical to a particular scene or sequence.

50. Fritz Lang, Fritz Lang M: Protokoll. Mit einem Interview des Regisseurs von Gero Gandert (Ham-burg: Marion von Schroeder, 1963), 9. All further quotations will be taken from this edition and cited in text.

51. Kaes, M, 9.52. Heinz Schwitzke, Das Hörspiel: Dramaturgie und Geschichte (Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch,

1963), 41, quoted in Mark E. Cory “Soundplay: The Polyphonous Tradition of German Radio Art,” in Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and the Avant-Garde, eds. Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead (Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press, 1992), 335.

53. See Renate Schumacher, “Radio als Medium und Faktor des aktuellen Geschehens,” in vol. 1 Programmgeschichte des Hörfunks in der Weimarer Republik, ed. Joachim-Felix Leonhard (Munich: Taschenbuch, 1997), 423–622.

54. Friedrich Natteroth, “Das Problem: Lautphysiologie—der Blinde im Rundfunk—‘Hannele,’” Der Deutscher Rundfunk 3, no. 50 (1925): 3262, in August Soppe, Der Streit um das Hörspiel 1924/25: Entstehungsbedingungen eines Genres (Berlin: Spiess, 1978), 99.

55. Theresia Wittenbrink, “Rundfunk und literarische Tradition,” in vol. 2 Programmgeschichte des Hörfunks in der Weimar Republik, ed. Joachim-Felix Leonhard, (Munich: DTV, 1997), 996–1195.

56. Lutz Koepnick, “Rilke’s Rumblings and Lang’s Bang,” Monatshefte 98, no. 2 (2006): 208. 57. Rudolf Arnheim, “Beitrag zur Krise der Montage,” in Rudolf Arnheim: Die Seele in der Silber-

schicht: Medientheoretische Texte Photographie—Film—Rundfunk, ed. Helmut H. Diederichs (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), 78.

58. Kaes, M, 20, 19.59. Fritz Walter Bischoff, “Zur Dramaturgie des Hörspiels,” Rundfunkjahrbuch (1929): 202. 60. Walter Ruttmann, “Weekend,” in Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 130.61. Alfred Döblin, “Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf,” in Alfred Döblin: Ausgewählte Werke in

Einzelbänden: Drama Hörspiel Film (Olten: Walter, 1983), 273.62. Gunning, Allegories of Vision, 153.63. Noël Burch, “Fritz Lang: The German Period,” in In and Out of Synch: The Awakening of a

Cine-Dreamer, ed. Noël Burch (Aldershot: Scolar, 1991), 23.64. Kaes, M, 39.65. Gunning, Allegories of Vision, 176.66. See Renate Schumacher, “Radio als Medium,” 424.67. Alfred Döblin, “Literatur und Rundfunk,” in Ausgewählte Werke in Einzelbänden: Schriften zu

Ästhetik, Poetik und Literatur (Olten: Walter, 1989), 253.68. My discussion of Narr mit der Hacke is indebted to Cory, “Soundplay,” 300.69. “Godiva,” Funk, no. 15 (1930): 86. 70. Erik Steiner, trans., “Jerzy Toeplitz im Gespräch mit Walter Ruttmann,” Wiadomosci Literackie

(1933), in Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, 90.71. See “Rundfunkmöglichkeiten der Tonfilm—Wochenschau. Ein neuer Beitrag zum aktuellen

Programm,” Funk 7, no. 41 (1930): 200.72. Noel Carroll, “Lang, Pabst and Sound,” Cinetracts 2, no. 1 (1978): 16.73. For an insightful account of technology as an agent of film history, see Sabine Hake, “Provoca-

tions of the Disembodied Voice: Song and the Transition to Sound in Berger’s Day and Night,” in Peripheral Visions: The Hidden Stages of Weimar Cinema, ed. Kenneth S. Calhoon (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 55–72.

Fritz Lang’s Radio Aesthetic: M. A City Searches for A Murderer

Documents