[US] M (1931) Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] Release Details

1. Film Scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler

A video interview with Claude Chabrol by Pierre-Henri Gibert, about Lang's filmmaking techniques.

For the television program Ciné parade, Claude Chabrol was asked to inaugurate a series of homages to classic cinema by contemporary directors. Chabrol - himself often a director of tense psychosexual thrillers, such as Le boucher and La cérémonie - chose the ur-thriller M. In this short, a sort of M in ten minutes, Maurice Risch plays Peter Lorre playing Hans Beckert. The piece originally aired in 1982.

Director William Friedkin sat with Fritz Lang over the course of two days in 1975 (the year before Lang died) to make this remarkable film, which combines artful photography with intimate conversation. It should be noted that Lang was not a reliably truthful interview subject. Indeed, much doubt has been cast on the tale of his leaving Germany in 1933, which he recounts with great enthusiasm here. Even if the story isn't true, surely the astounding level of detail offered by Lang in its telling reveals a great cinematic mind at work.

Harold Nebenzal, son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal, graciously sat down with the Criterion Collection in August 2004 to discuss his father's pioneering independent company, Nero Films, producer of such films as M, Pandora's Box, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Westfront 1918, and The Threepenny Opera. Nebenzal himself worked on his father's 1951 Hollywood remake of M, as well as Cabaret, and is the author of the award-winning novel Café Berlin

In 1976 and 1977, M editor Paul Falkenberg was asked to address film studies classes at the New School in New York. Students watched M with Falkenberg and discussed its history. Presented here are audio excerpts from those conversations, set to clips from the film.

This documentary traces the "physical history" of Fritz Lang's M, from its production and original distribution to the digital restoration used as the basis for this edition. It includes a look at the French-language version of M but was produced before the discovery of the English-language version, which is also included on this disc.