I've recently been studying the film M for an art project I am working on. The story is about a German man who cannot stop himself from killing children. At the time when the film takes place, in Germany and in the rest of Europe—between the two wars—there existed great hopefulness that a new society could be birthed from the ashes of the carnage of what would later be called the first world war.
As such, the film takes place during the Weimar Republic, a time in German history that birthed creative art movements such as The Bauhaus and, in addition to this film, many classics of German expressionism. However, the era was also characterized by economic chaos, increasing fragmentation of German society, and fascistic government forces who chose to take advantage of the economic and cultural dissipation to grab power.
The murderer, played by the great Peter Lorre, is intended to be an Everyman representing the German people; perhaps a man more sensitive to the lies and distortions of his society and thus compelled to mass murder children in response to those inconsistencies.
I can't help but see our ten-year spate of school killings, reported by the BBC, as reflective of our own American culture's increasing fragmentation. And like German society between the wars, we have a government unresponsive to the will of the people—get out of Iraq! stay out of Iran!—and which has centralized power in the executive branch... just like Hitler & Co.
But our President sure gave a nice little press conference about the Virginia Tech incident, also assuring us that he was praying! Great! What's next? Will he tell us, as he did after 9-11, to go shopping?
And our culture continues it's downward spiral.
It's enough to send someone on a killing spree.
Article comments
1 - Michael J. West
You've done ten excellent reviews, stuff that shows great taste in and a discriminating, critical mind for, literature and film and music.
Why would you then mar that with this piece that manages to both make gross generalizations and twist an irrelevant, nonsensical partisan interpretation out of perhaps the ONLY completely nonpartisan U.S. news event in recent memory?
(And I'm an anti-war, anti-Bush Democrat!)
2 - gette
wow! you've read my reviews? thanks!
3 - gette
Let me clarify my facetiousness: if you truly feel that I've "done ten excellent reviews, stuff that shows great taste in and a discriminating, critical mind for, literature and film and music", then why have you not commented on those pieces?
I am having flashbacks to bringing home my report card to my dad who always focused on the one B and ignored the remaining As... LOL! You're not a parent, are you?
And anyway, what did you think of M? How do you feel that it reflects the current political atmosphere of American culture, and I don't mean in this very moment, but recent in a more geologic sense: the past 30 - 40 years or so? A timeline that perhaps I failed to define in my OPINION piece?
Looking forward to your response!
4 - Baritone
The notion of America as the great melting pot, any sense of this being an homogenous nation is at least a gross over-statement. That this country came together in the effort to defeat the Axis in WWII was a great, but very ephemeral phenomenon. There were vast divides in our society prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor as witnessed by the Great Depression.
The ties that bound us together began coming unravelled almost before the ink was dry on Japan's surrender with the advent of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the rise of the Civil Rights movement. It became clear quickly that all was not well in the land of the "Great Liberators."
When it comes down to it, Americans just don't like each other very much. It goes beyond politics and into personal lifestyles - who we make whoopie with, the clothes we wear, the music we listen to - the "If it ain't Country, it ain't music mentality.
The one interesting sequence in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine was his quest to find out why Americans shoot each other with such regularity. Ultimately, he came up with no satisfactory answer. I believe the antipathy many of us harbour toward our neighbors was born out of our frontier heritage. The "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality. The notion that everyone is a potential enemy - people coveting and out to get whatever others have. Materialism, in a word.
America was not born in a vacuum. Our ancestors brought with them many of the proclivities of their native lands. But, over the years, Americans have honed natural human tendancies toward isolation and suspicion making them uniquely our own. Couple that with itchy trigger fingers, and chaos ensues.
Baritone
5 - george
"The notion of America as the great melting pot, any sense of this being an homogenous nation is at least a gross over-statement." I totally agree with what Baritone said here.
The only thing that is holding America together is its wealth. America is the richest country in the world and has been since at least right after World War II. This wealth is a "glue" that has kept the majority of Americans, irregardless of race, religon or country-of-origin, well-off (astronomically wealthy actually, if you compare Americans to the rest of the world's citizens). In other words, if America wasn't so rich like it is at this point in history, the "great melting pot" would probably fall apart in some way.
Think of the war in ex-Yugoslavia. When Tito took power after World War II people of different ethnicity started to mix more. There were inter-racial marriages. The people in ex-Yugoslavia were not incredibly wealthy, but they were not dirt-poor either. Tito was getting financial support from the Russians and the U.S. at the same time, and under Socialism, everybody had a job. But when the funds started to dry up and Tito died, the whole system collapsed and Milosevic took over. And the rest we know: Bosnians fighting Serbs, fighting Croats, and later Kosovars and Albanians.
I know stories of people who had lived across the hall from each other for years, good neighbors, Serb and Croat, who suddenly turned into mortal enemies when these wars started.
"I can't help but see our ten-year spate of school killings...as reflective of our own American culture's increasing fragmentation."
I can't pinpoint now exactly what is happening in American society that someone suddenly feels the need to slaughter 33 people because he doesn't feel good about himself. [Gun control would certainly help this problem to happen less.] But I agree with gette that something is falling apart.
6 - Dawn
That last sentence was beyond stupid.