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Essay [Who's Afraid of the black man]

morbid children's or collective psychosis of fear? The figure of the black man is an ambivalent theme in the literature and film history. Whether as a violent criminal in M - A city is looking for a murderer or as Sandmann ETA Hoffmann, the black man is always pathological.

what right have you to judge her! ... because who you are all together? criminal!
(Peter Lorre in m - a city looking for a killer )

Who's afraid of the black man? is the title of a children's game, which has taken refuge in several variations to the present time. The black man is the officer. The one who asks the other players so, in the corner pushes and pulls on his side. And although his opponents on the question of whether someone is afraid before him has consistently answered "No one ," the black man moves in the game circles, tapping his opponent, then call the act for him.

applies psychoanalytic the black man but as the epitome of a child's fear - of a collective unconscious. That is so used by some parents to bring the children to reason and, ultimately, to intimidate them. The scenario is probably all know: After the Sandman comes the well-known question: "May I watch TV a bit? "mother and father then desperately look for formulas to persuade the child to bed. If no arguments more fruit, you should try the black man or another bogy figure: " Do what I say or the black man will get you. "The child will then cancel the sailing and crabbing add. What the authority of parents could be achieved by a fictional character.

A figure similar coin the Sandman, the adoption of the current in the contrary, 19 Century was still markedly abysmal character traits. In ETA Hoffmann's eponymous tale is the Sandman a terror entity with changeable face visible, the night the children sprinkled sand in the eye and in the worst case, that tears out then. What this story missing is the illusion of an intact world: the long snow-white beard of shaggy little man, which we now call Sandman, the coziness of it while watching and following children's stories on television. Hoffmann's The Sandman is a nightmarish counterpart, which is not much in common with its modern representatives.

In Jon J. Muth Graphic Novel M (first published in 1990, has since sold out, recently re-released at Cross Cult) is also missing the illusion of an intact world, for the black man in this gloomy scenario in the form of a child murderer reality. While Hoffman's character the Sandman still Part of a psychotic dream world seems to be the black man comes in M as a nightmare in the real world.

According to Klaus and Clare Klawitzky now Elsie Beckmann is missing, which was playing ball with her friends and did not return thereafter. Everything points to a crime. The urban population then gets into a prolonged state of alarm, but he, the black man is not to be found, for he has no face. Everyone is talking about it and no one knows what happened. It psychotic scenes follow on the road. Known to be denounced to have anything to do with the killing, passers-by are stopped on the sidewalk because they talk with children have. As the police continue to grope in the dark, although they have the search area immeasurably expands and more and more raids in the red light district by lead, decide the barons of the underworld itself to search for the perpetrators. Then be placed on every street and every public place items to scan the environment. By various means are criminologists and criminals to track down the perpetrator. But while the police have only identified the apartment and the name of the culprit, the killer made by the bosses of the underworld and is to be transferred in a process of guilt.

hidden in this film noir-like setting is a bleak moral entity traces the Jon J. Muth in muted browns and grays. The graphic novel was inspired by the same name, cinematic production of Fritz Lang from 1931. Lyrically, Muth holds very heavily on the original screenplay by Lang and Thea von Harbou . But M is - figuratively - by no means a copy of the original, because courage has enacted the most striking scenes and settings from Lang's film with a group of actors in Cincinnati. These impressions he has photographed and later restaged in ink and brush. Shall take in the graphic novel photo-realistic scenes to nachgefärbte backgrounds and individual characters and objects thus receive a completely new emphasis. In the last chapter, for example, where the story reaches its climax and the murderer Hans Beckert is to be sentenced, the panels seem more than usually detach from the page context. They mingle in a film of oil, between mimesis and alienation, between impotence and fear.

Fritz Lang's cinematic presentation

M is a real treasure Design - visually and thematically - and very interesting for comic book lovers. But this is not only due to Jon J. Muth, but also results from the really dense atmosphere of the film by Fritz Lang. Lang is in turn one of the great directors of European cinema ( Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Woman in the Moon) and created with M - looking for a murderer city not only one of the first sound films, but also a claustrophobic masterpiece of Expressionist cinema.

For research interest long before all the social climate of the Weimar Republic and in particular the impact of violence on the social interaction, " found in most cases, an almost legitimate repetitive appearance of the surrounding circumstances, such as the dreadful fear psychosis of the population that Self-incrimination mentally inferior, denunciations, which seem to hate and all the jealousy, which has stored up in years of living side by side to unload, attempts to mislead the criminal investigation and partly from malicious motives, partly from over-enthusiasm. "

therefore begin film and graphic novel with a strange sequence. One can see the skyline of a new city - from the dialect of its inhabitants is comparable to Berlin - in the next strip we see children playing, singing it a morbid song, " Wait, wait just a little while, / Soon the black man comes to you , / with the little Hackebeilchen, he / she makes minced out of you. "presentation of this song is terrible Fritz Haarmann, who murdered 24 boys from 1918 to 1924. The wide coverage of the case Haarmann alerted the public in the mid-1920s and created, in addition to a sensitivity to the issue of sexual abuse in a nationwide fear psychosis among the population, because what hair man had done seemed, at once everywhere.

M - A moral appeal?

The Haarmann M is a man of the middle class that puts a whole city in the state of alert. When Hans Beckert (In Fritz Lang's film of this by Peter Lorre embodies) it receives its civic identity, his true character is far more psychotic and totally dangerous. Beckert is clearly a madman with a multiple personality. During his middle I suffer from his actions, inspects his psychotic I have the next victim. This gives the figure a moral ambivalence that appears most evident in the trial. Beckert is provided by the bosses of the underworld to the Speech. The intention of the spokesman tavern - even manslaughter sought in three cases - is clear: "We want to make you harmless. "But Beckert doubts the credibility of the court:" What right have you to judge! ... Because who you are all together? Criminal! follow "to this argument, then the debt to look on the side of the plaintiff. The moral ambiguity of this scene is followed by a breakdown of order of good and evil, right and wrong. "At the end ," writes film scholar Georg Seeßlen " are all guilty, but no one is responsible (if only because we meet no one who would be able to assume responsibility) .

The figure of the black man's story is so in M - A city is looking for a murderer continued. But in contrast to the intangible, faceless because Sandmann by ETA Hoffman enters the black man in M like a nightmare coming to life in the real world. M is also, however, a recourse to the collective fears, which have not only shaped the Weimar Republic, but almost timeless. Muth and long access to these fears and verpflechten moribde it into a story that unfortunately is just as timeless as the figure of the black man.

top photo: Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert
Portrait: Fritz Lang (picture goldenageofhollywood.co.uk)