To Profile a Profile
To Profile a Profile
Nika Moradi Tabrizi and Caleb Ho
Abstract
Drawing on a number of techniques used in 20th century German cinema to demonstrate the subjective nature of human identity, this collaborative project adopts Lotte Reiniger's medium-based technique of extending ambiguity through silhouettes to produce a stop-motion recreation of a pivotal scene from Fritz Lang's M; augmenting Lang's emphasis on the value of diegetic sound as a non-visual index of identity by reducing two central characters to their silhouette outlines— their profiles— within the context of a detective-genre film centred around the search for indexical information that will ultimately reveal a killer's identity— the act of profiling, to profile.
Written Statement
by Nika Moradi Tabrizi
profile (n.): an outline of something, especially a person’s face, as seen from one side
profile (v.): collecting information about someone, especially a criminal, in order to give a description of them; the act of reducing and distilling a person to a stereotype or sketch
Inspired by Beckert’s initial appearance in Fritz Lang’s M as a shadow on his own “wanted” poster, our project combines Lotte Reiniger’s use of silhouette art and stop-motion puppetry in Harlequin with Fritz Lang’s interplay between image and sound to create a stop-motion recreation of the same scene in M (4:12-4:55; 8:10-8:15) which was our source of inspiration.
Lotte Reiniger’s meticulous combination of shadow puppetry, silhouette art, paper cutting, and collage techniques reduces the external identity of each character in Harlequin to a mere outline; the ability of the audience to recognize the characters and their predestined stories drew on the 15th century Italian theatrical tradition of commedia dell’arte, which involved stage performances of certain stock characters with well-known typologies— for example, the character of Harlequin is always a sexually promiscuous trickster who provokes the other characters and challenges their roles. His scope of existence will always be the same— from his cheeky disposition to his outfit that he wears, which provides his familiar outline. Reiniger uses silhouette art to extend the already-existing ambiguity of the social spaces created by the fairytale genre. The especially ambiguous nature of silhouettes serves to remind the audience of the subjective nature of identity—not as a mark of authenticity, but a performance; it can be constructed not only by the self, but also by authority, categories, stereotypes and societal expectations.
Our project applies Reiniger’s medium-based technique of extending ambiguity through silhouettes to Fritz Lang’s M, a film which also critiques the modern understanding of identity as reduced to external, objective, and impersonal physical traces (Gellen 426) through an emphasis on the nonvisual traces of identity. Following a similar method to Reiniger, one of my main contributions to the work was creating the puppets by tracing the contours of the characters’ faces and bodies onto black paper, cutting out the individual body parts and joining them together with string at the anatomical joints so that we could recreate the characters’ movements. This project plays with the different meanings of the word “profile”, combining silhouette outlines of characters in M— their profiles— with the theme of M, the search for a killer’s identity by piecing together indexical information— the detective-story genre centred around the act of profiling; to profile.
We present a unique recreation of the scene in M where the audience first sees Hans Beckert, the serial killer who the town spends the rest of the film trying to identify. Although Beckert is introduced to the audience merely through his shadow, the audience is able to infer this silhouette as that of the killer through previous dialogue— the children’s song about a “man in black” who will “make mincemeat out of you!” (1:02-1:12), their mothers’ conversation about a “murderer” (2:48)— and the implications that arise from Beckert’s shadow covering the word “murder” on the wanted advertisement. This scene marks the beginning of a film in which identity is defined by external traces; one which urges the audience to consider the value of the unseen.
Mimicking Reiniger’s intentions for using shadow puppets, we used silhouettes, a contemporary emblem of “blank, universal humanity” (Stamler 2018), to extend the enigmatic identity of the killer by fully reducing his external appearance to a shadowy outline, further emphasizing Lang’s intentions for making the film: a critique of the dehumanizing nature of modern criminal investigation which, among the mass uniformity and anonymity of modern urban crowds, assigns identity to individuals based on the objective, de-psychologized traces one leaves behind (Gellen 426-430).
Through M, Lang utilizes the medium of sound cinema to emphasize “nonvisual modes of knowledge” (Gellen 426), urging the audience to more intently focus on the interplay of image and diegetic sound in order to extract meaning. The film trains the audience to make connections between certain sounds and a corresponding occurrence, creating acoustic signals that tell the audience what is happening in the film even when it is not shown on-screen. Most central to the theme of the film is the whistling tune that the audience hears whenever Beckert has killed or intends to kill; the sound which ultimately serves as the incriminating acoustic index of Beckert’s identity as the killer. By reducing the external appearance of the characters and background components in M to their shadows, our chosen medium builds on Lang’s emphasized importance of sound by directing the audience’s attention away from visible indexes of identity— given the enigmatic nature of the silhouettes— and towards nonvisual traces of identity— particularly, Beckert’s voice; the ultimate index of the film.
We chose to portray the child in the scene as a silhouette puppet as well, as it works to further emphasize other plot points and character details in M. Although the silhouette in this scene is that of Elsie Beckmann, the only child killed by Beckert within the duration of the film, the anonymity of her silhouette alludes to the nature of the rest of Beckert’s crimes— the identity of the child ultimately did not matter, he simply felt the urge to kill upon seeing the profile of a child.
Beckert’s uncontrollable urge to kill reflects Lang’s nod towards the relationship between identity and autonomy; the conflict between one’s identity as defined by their physical, external traces versus one’s internal identity, their humanity. In the kangaroo court scene towards the end of M, Beckert, who has been publicly assigned the identity of a murderer as a result of the objective traces he has left behind, attempts to appeal to the crowd by reminding them that there is a part of his identity which exists beyond the physical. Through a public display of his humanity, Beckert serves to challenge the inhumane expectations of modern society regarding self-expression (Gellen 443)— much like a stock character in commedia dell’arte who is expected to behave in a certain way. What the crowd learns about Beckert here is that he “do[esn’t] remember a thing” (1:43:35) about the murders he has committed, revealing a conflict between an identity which has no intent to murder and one which his real identity has no autonomy over— the one who “can’t help it” (1:40:58) and “must” (1:44:09) kill, who drives him into these situations against his will.
The medium of our project serves to emphasize Beckert’s disbelief of his own actions, the disconnect between the physical manifestations of this identity and his true self, and his sense of separation from reality by leveraging the materiality of shadow puppetry to emphasize the characters’ constructed realities and lack of autonomy. Puppetry as a whole is a kind of performance which explicitly grounds the viewer in reality— we either overtly see, or know, that the puppet cannot perform without somebody to control its performance. In Harlequin, the audience sees Reiniger’s hand physically placing Harlequin into the scene (2:15); a visual reminder that he is being manipulated by the author to create this play. By making Beckert into a puppet who is dropped into the scene with Elsie against his will, this unique representation of M emphasizes the lack of autonomy he felt over the force within him which repeatedly compelled him to commit murder, even though he truly did not want to do so.
Works Cited
Gellen, Kata. “Indexing Identity: Fritz Lang’s M.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. 22, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 425–448, https://doi.org/10.1353/mod.2015.0053.
Harlequin. Directed by Lotte Reiniger, Towa Film, 1931. Kanopy. Web. 20 Apr. 2024.
M. Directed by Fritz Lang, Nero-Film, 1931. Kanopy. Web. 20 Apr. 2024.
Stamler, Hannah. “Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now.” The Brooklyn Rail, 13 Apr. 2018, brooklynrail.org/2018/05/art_books/Black-Out-Silhouettes-Then-and-Now.
Nika Moradi Tabrizi is an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia completing her final year in the Faculty of Arts with a Major in Psychology. Her lifelong passion for all things pertaining to art and design has inspired her to pursue the application and integration of various artistic mediums to different fields of study.
Caleb Ho is an undergraduate student attending the University of British Columbia. Currently in his fourth year, Caleb aims to apply to an education program to become a teacher in the future. In his free time, Caleb enjoys sitting in parks on nice days, watching films and spending time with friends.
Picture: Still from To Profile a Profile. Original artwork and video by Nika Moradi Tabrizi and Caleb Ho.
