ERCESOQR

What can criminologists learn from Fritz Lang?

The movie “M” : A Masterpiece of Criminology, Crime, Norms and Values

By Thomas Gilly, ERCES

The Film Director and the Story of the Movie

Fritz Lang (Dec. 5, 1890 - Aug. 2, 1976), Austrian-American film director born in Vienna is one of the world’s greatest and most celebrated artists in the history of movies. Until his immigration to France (1933) and later to the US (1934), Lang DEVELOPED among other movies "Der müde Tod" ("The Tired Death," 1921, released in the U.S. as "Between Two Worlds, "Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler" (1922), a two-part portrait of a master criminal, "Metropolis" (1926) and "M" (1931). "M" (1931), starring Peter Lorre as a compulsive child-murderer, is the first German sound film and remains the acknowledged masterpiece of Lang's German period. “M” was his personal favorite.

The movie proposes a case study of an ordinary citizen who semengly lives like all others. But “M” suffers from compulsions and mental constraints. “M” is not an “ordinary” offender; he is a psycho-pathological serial killer of children; he is not acting deliberately; he murders because he must do it, not because he wants to do it. “M” knows very well that killing children is evil.

The whole society shows concern about M’s crimes. People are afraid and feel UNsure, all the more so as the police can not arrest him. There is a real public campaign that is aimed at the mobilization of all parts of the society; “M” is not only the public enemy no 1, but he is also the incarnation of evil and bestiality.

In the movie this image contrasts the “tragedy” of a human being who is the prisoner of his compulsions and the victim of his mental illness. With the help of the Berlin City “Lumenproletariat” M is captured by the gangsters of the criminal underground world, not by the police. For those people “M” really damages their criminal business. With every new child murder and accompanying intensity of police investigation and the frequency of police patrols, the gangsters consider themselves victims. They are more afraid of the “negative effects” that result from the increasing police activities than of the children murders themselves

For the gangsters but also for the “Lumpenproletariat” “M” is an outsider whose criminal activities do not only hurt their common norms and values, but also damage their illegal business.

For all these people it is clear that “M” must be condemned to death. According to their opinion, the death penalty is not only the appropriate means to provide for and to do justice; it is also the appropriate means to prevent “M” from committing further crimes. “M’s” physical elimination is considered the best way to re establish the normal state of their criminal affairs. For all these people it is clear that the inherent “public order” of their sub-cultural environment requires M’s elimination.

They all know very well that according to the law, “M” is not responsible for his crimes and that it is very likely that he will be placed in a hospital by virtue of a regular trial. They decide to organize their own trial, all the more so as their experience teaches them that it happens frequently that many of the “patients”, because of erroneous medical expertise, are declared definitively cured of their insanity and, when released, do it shortly afterwards again. In order to prevent this risk, they decide to judge “M” themselves.

As they perceive themselves as”honest people” they decide to be respectful of the inherent rulers and guarantees of the regular criminal procedure. A real trial is organized, with a lawyer being committed to defend the accused offender, a “public” prosecutor, a judge and a public jury, all being chosen among the members of the subcultures. For the “public” prosecutor things are quite clear: M is a beast; M’s crimes are not the fact of “honest gangsters” for whom the transgression of norms is a means to reach desirable and honest goals like money achievement. Contra “M” cries to the crowd: “What do you, you criminals, really know about my tragedy? You who have chosen your profession, you who prefer to break law rather than to work, but me who do not want to do it, must do it, must do it, but do not want to do it?” The “prosecutor”, a dangerous career criminal and multi-recidivist, fools him, arguing that for all of them breaking law is a real choice that depends on the individual’s will, not a constraint: He claims that as “M” has no liberty of choice, as he must kill, the only solution is to kill him. For argument’s sake the “public” prosecutor repeats that the experience teaches that serial killers like “M” continue to kill, and that it is impossible to cure them of their insanity after release from the hospital.

He receives substantial support from the audience, namely the mothers of the killed children. The defense argues: that M, through lack of his liberty of choice, can not be considered being responsible for his acts. “Nobody, even not the State, has the right to condemn “M” to death. People who are ill must be placed in hospitals, not in prisons. I do not allow that you murder this human being”. In sum the gangsters and the members of the “Lumpenproletariat” are copying the fundamentals of the legal criminal procedure. M is finally found guilty.

Meanwhile the police, due to systematic investigation and research, have identified “M” as the serial killer. The success is due to systematic research that is aimed at the identification of all people who had medical treatment in psychiatric hospital centers and who, after being cured of mental illness, were released This part of the investigation is associated with a very professional and modern scientific crime detection: the cigarette buTs collected by the police at the scene of crime are the same as those that are found by the police agents in “M” apartment; it is the same structure and the same cigarette mark. But as “M” is in the hands of the gangsters, the police forces are looking forward to arrest “M” at his home are waiting for nothing

Due to the testimony of a small time bandit, the police acknowledge that “M” has been captured by the gangsters and the folks of the “Lumbenproletariat” and that the hidden - place is an old brewery.

In the last moment, the police forces, due to their intervention, save M's life. Instead of being lynched by the gangsters, and the folks of the Lumpenproletariat he shall be judged and condemned by a regular Court. M addresses his thanks to the police.

The last sequence of the movie dealS with the regular trial. But it tells us nothing about the proceedings and nothing about the final sentence. Instead we hear the judge pronouncing the usual “In the name of the German people….” while a mother of a killed child revolts with disappointment: “That does not bring back to me my little daughter alive – we should better take care of our children! “. .

The Movie’s Criminological Relevance.

The movie’s criminological relevance can be captured on different levels of interpretation. At first glance, the movie proposes a real criminological case study. The offender’s personality is indeed a major concern of classical criminology. Since the pioneers of criminology have provided for the classification of offences and offenders, their division into groups and types, the distinction between ordinary and not ordinary criminals, between psycho-pathological and “normal” offenders has become an inherent part of the discourse of clinical criminology.

Sociological approaches to crime in general and sociological deviance theory in particular supplant “individual pathology” via of social pathology. Even if the classical criminological question AS TO why individuals commit crime is not irrelevant to sociological deviance theory; it is not its major concern. Sociological approaches to crime and deviance rather focus on the social and legal construction of crime and deviance, on the objective conditions of criminalization of deviant behavior and on the nature and the mechanisms of social reaction against crime and deviance. Moreover since Durkheim had supplanted the definition of crime, that referred traditionally to the nature of crime by that of a functional definition sociologists and deviance theorists agree with the opinion that crime, to a certain degree, is normal; therefore it can no longer be thought of as emblematic of social pathology.

Social reaction to crime and deviance is a major concern of modern deviance theory. This issue is the focal center of Fritz Lang’s movie. The movie is indeed a master piece of modern deviance theory, providing for an in depth study of the inherent nature and complexity of social reaction.

But the movie’s originality and real innovation derives from its radical criticism. The inherent ambiguity, but also the limits of justice require consideration of the philosophical, social and ethical fundamentals of justice. The complex relation between norms and values is at the heart of this reflection.

1. The Eternal Question: Why People Commit Crime? A Lesson on Crime and Rationality

To the question “why people commit crime” Fritz Lang’s movie gives us a clear answer:

As for “M”, the sexual serial killer, the answer is: he kills because he must do it, because he cannot act in a different way.

As for the gangsters, the answer is: crime is a means to reach desirable and honest goals; they commit crime because law breaking is the most appropriate and successful means to reach cultural goals (money, achievement), not because they cannot act in a different way.

It is easy to link this second answer and the inherent core-proposals of classical anomie theory. Even if Fritz Lang’s movie tells us nothing about the way we have to interpret this second figure regarding the “gangsters’ crime talk, it is more appropriate to privilege Merton’s anomie theory rather than that OF Durkheim’S. For argument’s sake the gangsters tell us that they break law because the breaking of law is an appropriate means to reach desirable and honest cultural goals. But this assumes (i) that these goals are not ill conceived (as they are in Durham’s thesis), (ii) that law is broken through lack in equal distribution of opportunities (Merton) rather than by lack of healthy cultural goals (Durkheim), (iii) that it is likely that the cultural context of the movies’ story is one that hyper-emphasized the cultural goals (money achievement) while de-emphasizing the normative limits to reach those goals (Merton).

The fundamental difference that separates this second figure from the first one is that the former precludes a rational motivation of crime whereas rationality is involved in the latter.

When “M” is killing, reason has left him; when the gangsters break law they do it by virtue of a calculation; breaking law is not only reasonable, but it is also rationalist.

1.1 Rational Choice and Sexual Serial Killers

At a first glance this difference can be interpreted as of the relation between crime and intelligence. This issue is a major concern of criminology; systematic investigation and in depth study of the offender’s intellectual state of mind and proceeding is indeed a central focus of criminology. What is important here to acknowledge is that M’s intellectual state of mind is double-faced. M’s intellectual state of mind is that of an ordinary citizen. Moreover his socio-professional position, but also the way he interprets and explains his dilemma tells us that he has an IQ that is superior with regards to “normal” peoples’ intelligence. In contrast with the gangsters he is an intellectual. On the other hand, he is no longer himself when he is “doing it”; reason has completely left him.

In turn, the way he chooses his victims, watches out for good opportunity and seduces the children is a master piece of cold intelligence. For argument’s sake, “M” has a predilection for locations where children congregate; for instance either public fun fairs, playgrounds etc where children easily can loose their way or feel extremely confident.

“M” seduces children by offering them chocolates or helping them to search playthings they have lost, it happens also that he offers playthings or a ride on the merry-go-round. All these proceedings are means to drive them apart and kill them in a hidden place. In general, he acts in the late afternoon or evening; when night comes “M” feels sure of himself; darkness prevents people from identifying him, but it also prevents him from looking to his alter–ego.

On all these accounts it would be an error to believe that “M” is devoid of any intelligence; he uses intelligent means to prepare and to reach a goal, not the goal that would command his reason or intelligence, but the one which requires his mental illness. Moreover “M” proceeds in a rational way, he makes a choice for the most appropriated-time and place and the most efficacious way to track and seduce his victims

This assumes that Fritz Lang had already anticipated modern criminology’s concern for rational choice theory and its relevance for sexual serial offenders.

1.2 Crime prevention and Crime rationale

If we compare the means – goals scheme as it is relevant for “M” with that which is relevant for the gangsters and bandits and if we focus on the inherent rationality of both, it becomes obvious that as far as “M” is concerned, the means to reach an irrational goal are rational whereas for the gangsters law-breaking is a rational means to reach a rational goal

Obviously the study in depth of this matter is very relevant to crime prevention; it can also be helpful for crime investigation. In sum what is involved in the movie and what explains its actuality is the relevance of criminology for criminal justice and security issues.

2. Norms and Values. A Lesson on Crime Culture and Crime Concepts..

According to Durkheim, crime hurts common consciousness. Durkheim argued that an act hurts common consciousness not because it is criminal, but inversely that an act is criminal because it hurts common consciousness[1]. Durkheim agreed with the opinion of earlier criminologists, namely Garofalo. But he disagreed with the pioneers of criminology in many other points[2]. This last observation being put aside, it is obvious that our movie director hold the same opinion. For argument’s sake, for all parties in the story, M’s behavior is criminal; it hurts the collective consciousness of the ordinary citizen, that of the gangsters and the “Lumpenproletariat”, that of the parents who have lost their children, that of the police forces and even the consciousness of M himself.

2.1 Crime and Common Consciousness

Despite the diversity of all those social groups, a common consciousness really exists. Nobody doubts that M is doing evil. It is worth acknowledgING that as far as the movie is concerned, common consciousness is defined with reference to morals; common consciousness holds for the moral consciousness of the whole society. Obviously crime is defined with regards to its inherent nature rather than with regards to its social construction. Committing crime is evil and not limited to M's case. Even the gangsters know that what they do is wrong and evil, although crime is heir daily business.

The first part of Fritz Lang’s criminological lesson consists in the advocacy for the realist, not the constructivist definition of crime. By this I mean that one of the movie’s major aims is to make us understand that crime, instead of being the result of social constructions, is constituted with reference to its inherent nature. And this is exactly the fundamentals of criminology.

On this account, the movie(s message is a clear advocacy of the realist and traditional (criminological) crime definition versus the constructivist (sociological) crime definition.

Given the circumstance that the radical version of constructivism, namely in sociological deviance theory, culminates with the revolting acknowledgement that crime is the result of social reactions and collective definitions, it is very likely that labeling theory and radical criminology are involved in the movie’s critics of constructivism

When an act hurts common consciousness it is because, in general, this act is interpreted or perceived as being morally deplorable or even inadmissible. On the other hand note that not all acts that hurt common consciousness are automatically perceived / interpreted as morally deplorable or inadmissible acts. For argument’s sake many transgressions of cultural habits do hurt common consciousness without being perceived or interpreted as morally deplorable or inadmissible. For instance, when criminologists meet together at a conference they generally introduce themselves to each other; they do this by virtue of custom. When some people omit to introduce themselves, then they behave inconveniently, but not in a morally deplorable or even inadmissible way; we speak about them as people who do not have good manners.

2.2 Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms. Crime and Value

Custom refers to a certain state of being, a certain way of acting or even a certain manner of feeling and thinking. Moreover these states or manners of being and of acting are the most frequent, most popular and most regular behavioral acts within a given society. Such a behavior can be thought as normative behavior and the most frequent, prominent and popular states of being or manners of acting can be thought as of norms. In philosophy we call these norms by the name “descriptive norms”. Descriptive norms do not provide for prescriptions, they are devoid of any information about what is forbidden or allowed to do, about what should or should not be done. The act that hurts common consciousness without involving a moral appreciation or depreciation is in general the transgression of a descriptive norm, whereas an act that hurts common consciousness because of its morally deplorable or inadmissible nature is in general the transgression of a prescriptive norm.

Norms that provide for interdictions require sanctions; descriptive norms, in general, do not require sanctions. For instance the participant of a criminological meeting who doES not introduce himself is generally not subjected to any sanction; people talk about him / her as someone who lacks politeness. It is likely that people forget this incident and stop discussing it shortly after it terminates. What happens when the transgression of a descriptive norm (custom or habit), instead of being a singular incident, re-produces several times? The agent who repeats his behavior might be exposed to social sanction (exclusion), but it is also possible that people become familiar with this specific behavior and finish by accepting it without providing for any sanction.

“Crime culture” is a notion that has come to the fore of the criminological debate. Criminologists apply the notion to situations where crime commitment has become a normal behavior, where crime has become a custom or habit.

For the gangsters, but also for the “Lumpenproletariat” of Berlin breaking the law is the most frequent, popular and prominent means to achieve money. Breaking the law is a descriptive, not a prescriptive norm.

“Crime culture” is a major concern of Fritz Lang’s movie. For the members of the Berlin underworld, breaking the law is business. This business is a regular activity, it is their “normal“, daily job. On this account this specific subculture must be thought as of a culture of crime. The way the members of this crime culture define themselves and perceive their behavior is devoid of any morals (moral appreciation or depreciation). Being “normal” behavior, crime business does not require a sanction.

In this respect this chapter of the movie’s criminological lesson deals with the nature of descriptive norms; As far as breaking The law is a descriptive norm, it prevents the agents who transgress the legal norm from acting in another way. Even if they know their acts are illegal and sanctioned by law; even if they are likely to recognize that theIR behavIOR is not morally correct, their conscientiousness prevents them from considering their business as a case for morals. .

But this is not the only thing we can learn from Lang regarding crime culture and the relation between descriptive and prescriptive norms. The interaction between both is another important aspect of the criminological lesson.

2.3 Value Adjustment

Obviously crime culture develops as the result of the increase in the frequency and prominence of breaking the law. Experience teaches that in a given socio-cultural context increase in the frequency of law breaking often leads individuals to increase their tolerance. For instance it is in the nature of the Berlin crime culture to be composed of people who tolerate the breaking of law; and these people tolerate law breaking because it is somewhat normal to break law. This assumes that the same people who tolerate today certain types of criminal behavior, because of their popular and normal nature, would not necessarily have tolerated them in the past. Obviously they would not have tolerated them because the breaking of this or that specific prescriptive legal norm could not be thought as of a normal social behavior. On the other hand, it could be that the same people who tolerate today in a given socio-cultural context certain types of offences will not tolerate them any longer in a near future.

The process that is involved in both cases must be thought as of the shifting of certain specific figures of law breaking from not normal /extraordinary social behavior to normal / ordinary social behavior and inversely. In both cases people adjust their values. In the first case the opinion that stealing, for example, is a perfectly appropriate means to achieve money has become mainstream opinion. By “mainstream opinion” I understand the opinion that is held by the majority of the members of a given social group or the majority of the members of a given society.

As for the second case, it could be that the majority of the members of a given social group or even the whole society who would have, for the first time adjusted their values (from intolerance to tolerance/ inappropriate or even morally deplorable behavior to appropriate or morally not desirable or just behavior) might, by virtue of a second adjustment, return back to their initial normative position (steeling is not normal / not appropriate / morally deplorable behavior). This change can have different reasons. It could be that people re-adjust their values (return to their initial position) because the objective social conditions have changed. For instance people profit from better, more equal distribution of opportunity structure. Another reason could be that money achievement has become a cultural goal that has lost much of its former prominence or stealing as a means to achieve money, compared to other more profit making illegal means, is no longer popular. It could also be that, due to a revival of morals in laity and in religion, people simply will no longer agree with the opinion that stealing property, however the conditions, is an acceptable act.

Obviously these observations apply to many other offences. For argument’s sake, the decriminalization of homosexuality, prostitution or even drug use was the result of collective value adjustmentS. Increasing intolerance towards minor offences and incivilities being associated to increasing law enforcement and increasing requirement for more and harder punishments developed as a result of collective value adjustment.

On all these accounts, Fritz Lang’s movie is a masterpiece about crime and values. The movie invites its audience to think about value adjustment and to discuss this issue. It must be thought of as an anticipation of “ecological effect theory’ (values might increase crime) or of “cognitive dissonance affect theory” (Fiske and Taylor 1991), an issue that has come to the fore of the criminological debate. Finally the movie is a lesson about the inherent dynamics of the notion of crime culture.

2.4 Crime Culture’s Inherent Dynamics

“Crime is business” – that is the crime culture’s leitmotiv. And yet the members of this crime culture do not ignore what they do is criminal from the viewpoint of the law. This assumes

(i) that a norm that is thought within a specific cultural environment as of a descriptive norm can belong to the inherent prescriptive norms of a given legal culture;

(ii) that an act, even if it does not hurt common consciousness – here: the common consciousness of the subculture’s members – might be legally defined as crime and sanctioned by law;

(iii) that a transgression of a prescriptive norm might, but not necessarily must refer to morals.

2.5 Formal Legal and Material Signifier of Crime

We have here a very good illustration of the discrepancy between the formal and the material signifier of crime. Obviously not all behavior that is criminalized by the law – maker hurts common consciousness. The experience teaches that the law – maker often criminalizes behavior that does not hurt our consciousness; it happens also frequently that the law-maker does not criminalize behavior that hurt our consciousness

The movie is again a good illustration: Stealing property is a social behavior that does not hurt the common consciousness of the Berlin crime sub-culture. And yet the German law-maker criminalizes the underworld’s business activities. Even if Fritz Lang does not discuss the issue, it could be that many citizens hold the opinion that stealing property is the result of unequal opportunities. It could be that inequality and exclusion hurt the public opinion’s moral consciousness; not stealing property.

Durkheim was the first sociologist to address systematically this issue[3].

Obviously the movie’s lesson illustrates the relevance of Durkheim’s theory for issues of criminology.

On the other hand, our movie does not miss the opportunity to address the fact that both concepts / definitions of crime, in general, converge, all the evidence suggests that illegal business hurts the consciousness of ordinary citizen who achieve their goals by legal means. For argument’s sake in the movie this consciousness of ordinary citizen is incarnated in M’s crime talk. M is not an ordinary criminal – he is an ordinary citizen; like all others, he employs legal means to achieve ordinary cultural goals. When “M” addresses the criminal nature of the underworld’s business, when he treats the gangsters as ugly people who are doing evil because they are too lazy to gain their bread by legal means), he talks and feels about crime like all other decent citizen, not as a criminal. The movie addresses another case of convergence. As far as M's murders damage the moral consciousness of the whole society, the equation: crime = act that hurts common consciousness = act being criminalized by the law maker is absolutely valid, and with regards to its impact, radical.

Obviously people react to crime in various ways and in different manners. Their reaction varies in function of their cultural, social and economical environment, but also in function of the nature of the offence and the various modalities of its perception. We have also seen before that informal social reaction can, but must NOT converge with formal legal social reaction.

3. Crime and Punishment. Variation on Social Reaction. A Lessen About the Rationale of Social Reaction

As we have already seen, the whole society reacts negatively to M’s assassinations. All the evidence suggests that this convergence has something to do with the circumstance that. M is not an ordinary killer but a serial sexual killer of innocent little children who are incapable of defending themselves.

3.1 The Criminological and the Victimological Rationale

It is very likely that the general and global nature of this negative social reaction has something to do with the quality of the victimS rather than with M's personality. This observation is extremely relevant. For instance, it is an important observation with regards to the nature of sanctions, sanction systems and their scientific rationale. When the offender, his / her personality and his / her criminal behavior is the criterion, then the sanction necessarily varies as a function of the offender’s personality and the dangerousness of the offence. Insofar as many of our contemporary systems provide for individualized or personalized sanctions, an inherent postulate in the rationale of penal systems refers to the criterion of the offender and his / her personality. As the evaluation of the degree of dangerousness depends on normative priorities that vary in function of the social, cultural, political and economical change, sanction systems are necessarily subjected to change. In systems that refer to both criteria, the judge possesses a wide range of powers. He examines the legal qualification of the agent’s behavior and he examines the circumstances of the agent’s behavior, but he also provides for the study of his / her motivation and personality. This assumes that the judge, instead of simply applying the text of the law, interprets it with regards to the circumstances of the transgression, the motivation and the agent’s personality. The execution of the sanction depends on this liberty of interpretation and varies from case to case. Given the fact that criminology is traditionally the science that studies the criminal and his / her behavior, the judge who examines the circumstances, the motivation and the personality of the agent is somewhat doing the job of a criminologist. This professional image has a long tradition in the history of criminology. Even if this image has lost much of its former prominence, the requirements for a humanist penal procedure and a humanist sanction system largely contribute to its durability. Criminology remains the privilege of liberal and scientifically legitimated penal politics.

On the other hand, a sanction system that demonstrates a major concern for the interests of the victims is concerned with victimology and with the reparation of the damage that is caused to the victim. The circumstances of the offender’s behavior, motivation and personality are outside of the bounds of victimology. It is a well known fact that penal systems that show a major concern for the victim and his/her interest provide for a whole gamut of sanctions that are, compared to the former, softer to a certain degree, and harder to another degree. When the damage caused to the victim is the focal center, then the sanction that applies is always aimed at the reparation of the damage; it depends therefore on the evaluation of the damage and, given that the interest of the victim has absolute priority, it is clear that evaluation substantially involves the victim. The experience teaches that victims are likely to evaluate their material or corporal damage in terms of lost gains and likely to require monetary reparation in cases where the law provides for imprisonment. On the other hand, it could be that victims of a very serious corporal and / moral damage require life imprisonment or even the death penalty where the penal system, due to the liberal and humanist reform, would provide for short-time imprisonment or even fines. It is not likely that victims, survivors of a terrorist attack, agree with the humanitarian advocacy for the abolishment of death-penalty. It is very likely that parents whose children are the victim of sexual serial killers refuse to engage in a debate that is aimed at the reparation of their damage.

Can lost life be restored? How? Is there a life-repair? Whatever is required – neither death-penalty, nor life imprisonment or internment in a psychiatric hospital – “nothing”, revolts the mother of the killed child in F Lang’s movie, “can bring my daughter back to me!” .And yet victims that face such situation often require the death-penalty, although they hold the opinion that there is no life-repair.

This leads us to the debate about the fundamentalS of justice to be discussed later.

It is a well known fact that some types of offences and offenders have a larger and deeper emotional impact on the collective consciousness than other. They attract our attention, and, in general, we react with violence and revolt. The reason is that such offences, because of their nature, are extremely provocative. When we face them, hear about in the radio or watch them in the TV news, we feel with the victims and, more importantly, we identify with the victims. “What a horrible thing, imagine that it happen to you!” – Obviously this sort of crime talk is familiar to all of us. Violation and assassination of children, in many regards, is the prototype.

This phenomenon is observable in all social classes, social groups and sub-cultures. It is useful to remember the very well known fact that people imprisoned for very dangerous offenses, namely for murder of children accompanied with sexual violence, are not accepted as full members of the prisoners' society and that the majority of the prisoners repel and repudiate these offenders. Isolation and negative labeling is also applied to political prisoners, when imprisoned with those found guilty for common offenses. Therefore, it is easy to draw an analogy with the way the gangsters and the members of the “Lumpenproletariat” react to “M”. Obviously the victimological scheme is much more provocative and emotionally attractive – more popular than the scheme that focuses on the offender.

It could be that some types of offenders provoke our emotion and maintain our attention in a similar way. The “freedom fighter” who commits crime in the name of liberty and justice, even the terrorist or simply the bank robber who pulled it off without any violence and has become “in less than 15 minutes a millionaire” are – however controversial - figures that belong to this romantic crime image. As many of us have imagined in our childhood to be a little hero or to become a great Robin Hood and as many of us have dreamed of becoming a millionaire without much effort, we are likely to admire and envy these “heroes” and their “heroic acts.” We are likely to turn a blind eye to these offences and, if we had the choice, would not apply sanctions.

Apart from these few exceptions, nobody would be in the offender’s shoe, but everybody could be in the shoe of the victim. In this case, the fact that we require sanctions does not derive from the fact that we are victims, but from the fact that we might become victims. This assumes that the victimological scheme supposes crime commitment: in turn to identify with the victim, we do not need to be really a victim. This assumes furthermore that people might require sanctions because they are fearful of potential victimization.

3.2 Insecurity, Crime Prevention and Rationality

This observation is very relevant for the actual debate about domestic insecurity, namely the increasing feeling of insecurity within the population. For many observers, it is obvious that the increasing feeling of insecurity has provoked the population’s demand for more and harsher punishment. Critical commentators – however controversial this intellectual position might be – are likely to link insecurity polemics, penal regression and populist penal policy.

On all these accounts, it seems to be legitimate to argue that Fritz Lang’s direction anticipated the current insecurity debate and other controversial issues.

On the one hand, Lang, by providing for a critical representation of the population’s hyper-reaction that culminates in collective hysteria and requirement for vengeance, directed the movie in anticipation of the critical side of the actual debater.

On the other hand, Lang’s movie is a warning against hyper-criticism. Even if people react in an exaggerated manner to crime, they react. They react because they are afraid. When people are afraid to become victims, they have reasons to feel unsafe; their feeling develops not “ex nihilo”. When people are afraid it is not only by virtue of their pure imagination, but also, and in the majority of the cases, because there are objective reasons for being afraid. M is indeed a dangerous serial children killer. Insecurity, there is a combination of subjective and objective factors.

By addressing the rational dimension and the emotional aspect of insecurity, Fritz Lang anticipated a question that is fundamental with regards to the actual debate about domestic security policy: The question is whether and to which degree the legitimacy of criminal law making, namely crime prevention policy, should be based on the criterion of rationality?[4]

.3.3 An Advocacy for Legal Positivism

Fritz Lang’s rational criticism is associated with a moral criticism The population reacts to M's crimes with hysteria and incredible violence. Being compared to the legal dispositions that provide for internment and medical cure the popular reaction is devoid of any sorts of humanism. But this is only the first part of an observation that foremost addresses the repressive vindictive potential of social reaction whose major concern is "lex talionis" and revenge. As lex talionis stipulates that there is need to harm, injury, put to death somebody because he/she has upset one or caused one’s harm, injury or death[5], lex talionis implies a concept of justice that refers to the victim, not to the offender.

The observation’s other part is that the victimological scheme, because of its nature (enormous emotional reactive potential, ability to be shifted from the particular concrete/ effective case to a general/ abstract or virtual) and its reference (the interest of the victim) has a natural predilection to provide for more and harsher sanctions than the criminological scheme.

Fritz Lang, by staging this empirical evidence and by confronting us with the discrepancy between the (cruel and inhuman) informal social reaction, on the one side, and the (liberal and humanitarian) formal reaction to crime, on the other, advocates the primacy of the formal legal reaction towards crime upon the informal social reaction. On this account his movie must be thought as an advocacy for legal positivism.

Even if it has become obvious during the last decades that penal policy’s focal center has somewhat shifted from criminology to victimology, it is worth acknowledging that criminological concerns fit the spirit and the major topics of the criminal law systems more than considerations related to victimological issues. For argument’s sake, the concept of the free will is much more attractive for the criminological debate than for victimology. Note that victimological concerns are likely to soften a strict and rigid conception of the legality of crime and punishment. Victimological concerns might damage a strict understanding of the legality of crime and punishment.

Should criminal law-making and penal policy be based on and refer to major concern of criminology or should victimology be its major concern? The discrepancy between the population’s violent and brutal reaction that refers to the victimological scheme and the more humanitarian reaction of the criminal law that refers to the offender requires for the criminological preference.

Given all these observations, Fritz Lang’s movie can be easily interpreted as the advocacy for a reasonable and extremely careful impact of victimological concern on penal policy.

And yet this advocacy does not preclude a moral criticism. The mother of the killed child is disappointed about the outcome of the trial. This is disappointment with the outcome of a regular trial, but also about the concept of justice and the sanction system that are inherent in the positivist law, not about the sanction that is concretely applied to “M”. What is important here is not the appropriate or inappropriate nature of the sanction, but the inherent ethical dilemma in a sanction system that is part of legal positivism.

This ethical case culminates with the question: Could it be that liberal penal and sanction systems neglect the victims’ interests and major concerns? Is humanist and humanitarian penal policy’s an absolute guideline or is it a relative value? More emphatically: when would a humanist criminal justice system provide for justice that hurts human consciousness?[6]

This question introduces the last section of this essay.

III

JUSTICE LESSONS

Obviously the movie confronts its audience with various concepts of justice and with different theories of justice. For argument’s sake, lex talionis and revenge are figures of retributive justice and the other one is remedial or corrective justice. The concept of justice that is involved in the mother’s disappointment is, as mentioned already, restorative justice. The humanist, humanitarian and liberal criminal justice is rather aimed at the offender’s remedial or correction. Internment and cure in a hospital is the legal means for M’s remedial.

The disappointment with the outcome of a regular trial implicates the refusal to accept a regular trial. A regular trial is a trial that is respectful of the rules and fundamentals that govern the criminal procedure. This assumes

(i) that the disappointment must be thought at least as of the disillusion about the nature and the functioning of the institution that we call be the name “justice”. Moreover what is in question here is the whole of the modern justice system;

(ii) the disappointment refers to a particular concept of justice.

By virtue of this particular concept justice is nothing but the careful respect and the application of the fundamentals and principal rules that govern the criminal procedure; it is somewhat the complete congruence or unity between the judicial practice and the formal rules that govern the procedure. It is the application of the law.

As long as we move within the limits of this positivist legal scheme we can not be disappointed about it; neither can we question its legitimacy, nor can we criticize it. With one exception: The formal rules are not respected.

This is not the case in Fritz Lang’s movie. The mother’s disillusion must refer to another concept of justice. What is it and to which general theory does it belongs?

1 Justice for Victims and Justice for Offenders. A lesson About the Relativity of Justice

The first answer to our question can be given with reference to Aristotle’s distinction between natural and conventional law and justice. Thus it is natural law that is involved in the disappointment. The disappointment with the regular trial and the corresponding criminal justice system concerns conventional law and justice; the cause of the disappointment is that this system can not satisfy the requirement for natural justice. The issue refers to a conceptual dilemma.

The second reason for the disappointment is that life that is taken away can not be restored; there is no life-repair and whatever justice is expected to realize it can never bring back the murdered children. This assumes that justice, as it is ideally advocated in the movie, is genuinely aimed at the reestablishment of the status quo ante. The concept of justice that is involved in the disappointment is restorative justice. The equation justice = restorative justice is another cause for the disappointment. As life can not be restored the requirement for (restorative) justice can never be satisfied.

In this case the dilemma is not conceptual, but practical: it is the impossibility to apply justice that is ideally aimed to restore to a specific circumstance or situation.

But this is only a first – obviously the most logical explanation of the parent’s disappointment. Given the categorical refusal to accept a regular trial and the whole criminal justice, a second explanation consists in the acknowledgment that the fundamentals of the regular criminal procedure can not satisfy the parent’s requirement for justice. This explanation addresses the practical aspect of the conceptual dilemma.

Regardless pf the court’s sentence, none of the sanctions and penalties that are available can satisfy the requirement for restorative justice. Neither the repressive, nor the preventive or the social educative function of the sanction can satisfy the requirement for restorative justice. Even if the movie says nothing about it, it suggests that the whole gamut of restorative measures that are inherent in our contemporary justice systems must fail.

To draw the analogy between this second case and the first one, the dilemma is conceptual, not practical: The fundamentals of the regular criminal justice can never be the means to reach and satisfy the goal of restorative justice.

Why? Apart from the observation that criminal justice can never be the means to restore life that is taken away, the first and most general answer we can give to this question is that the whole gamut of sanctions and penalties that can be applied to this particular case refer altogether to a concept of justice that is evaluated with reference to the interests / concerns of the involved actors. And since there is no life repair, they are altogether symbolic measures.

. Let me successively discuss these two points

1.1 Just for the Offender – Unjust for the Victim

As we have seen, we can distinguish between a criminal justice that shows a major concern for the offender and a criminal justice that is genuinely concerned with victims. In fact our contemporary criminal justice systems demonstrate concern with both. And yet the discussion of this issue requires A schematic distinction between both.

In the first case, the major target to which justice is aimed is to identify the agent’s behavior as transgression of a norm sanctioned by law, to declare his/her penal responsibility and to provide for the appropriate sanction. Criminal justice is “just” when it is respectful of the legality of crime and punishment, of the free will and the individualization of the penalty. It is just when it provides the accused with an equal trial that is respectful of the legal dispositions.

For instance, internment in a hospital, if being applied, is just with regards to the legal statute of M’s personality. When he acts, he is devoid of free will and not responsible and his penal responsibility can not be engaged. In turn, internment in a hospital is not just with regards to the destruction of the most precious good – human life. It could be also and it is likely that it is not just with regards to the victim’s (parent’s) moral or physical damage or with regards to their requirement for justice. Analogically, internment and cure in a hospital is just with regards to a humanitarian penal system. But it is not just with regards to the destruction of human life. One might even argue that it is unjust from a humanist viewpoint, although it is humanitarian and might be thought as of humanism.

Internment in a hospital is just as far as it fits within the interest of ‘M’s mental illness and /or within the State’s major concern about a humanitarian penal theory and practice.

On the other hand it could be that internment is perceived as injustice by the victims. It is very likely that death penalty is A just penalty in their eyes. It might be also a just measure with regards to the State’s concern about public order and public safety. But it is not just with regards to a criminal justice that is respectful of human being and human rights

Physical elimination might be an appropriate and therefore a just means to provide for crime prevention; it can be also thought as of retributive justice ("lex talionis"): As it is impossible to restore life that is taken away, the decision to take away, in turn, the life of the man or women who has murdered can be thought as of a just means to reestablish a troubled ontological order. “Lex talionis” can be ethically legitimated and it can be thought as of a figure of humanist justice. This sort of retributive justice can be also legitimated with regards to the moral aspect of the requirement for justice: One has taken another life; he is therefore subjected to the same destiny. For argument’s sake the history of “lex talionis” teaches that murder and assassination are the issues of its predilection and consequent application.

1.2 A Critics of “Death Penalty and “Lex Talionis”

And yet our movie rejects this scheme of justice. It is neither an advocacy for the death-penalty nor is it a support for "lex talionis" or retributive justice. Why? I have already answered the question: theRe is no life repair. This assumes that, according to the movie’s message, neither death penalty nor "lex talionis" is an appropriate means for life repair. Given that it is possible to argue that death penalty can be thought as of a means of reparation that operates compensation (the loSS of life is compensated by the death of the offender who has taken life away), the message is somewhat surprising. To resolve the problem, one must acknowledge that the movie obviously rejects a scheme of reparation that is based on compensation. This assumes that it is impossible to supplant one’s life by that of another one. And this impossibility derives from the principle that each human life has a singular nature, an authenticity that can never be the subject of an exchange.

At a first glance the movie’s choice is clear: It advocates the primacy of justice for the offender upon justice for the victim. Moreover it is a clear advocacy for a criminal justice that is respectful of human rights and the tributary of legal positivism. This observation is the second explanation for the movie’s hostility towards death penalty and "lex talionis".

And yet the mother’s disappointment is disappointment about the regular trial and the fundamentals of the modern criminal justice system.

Obviously both schemes are deficient: A criminal justice that is concerned about the offender can never completely satisfy victims’ requirement for justice. Inversely a criminal justice that is concerned about the victims can never completely satisfy the requirement for an equal, a humanist and a humanitarian offenders’ justice.

Exceptionally both schemes converge. For argument’s sake, one might argue that the application of death penalty to mass murderers who act deliberately for ideological or other reasons can be thought as of an ethical precept that fits perfectly within both schemes. If the nature of a humanist offender justice consists of the abolishment of death-penalty, people whose acts constitute very serious offences against humanity can hardly be granted with the rights and inherent values of a humanist justice. Otherwise a humanist justice would hold for the annihilation of both the value system on which it is based and the offence against it; it would provoke humanity’s revolt. This observation is quite more than a simple think-piece.

The circumstance that criminal justice systems that had abolished death penalty for humanist consideration, did not hesitate, for the same humanist consideration, reintroduced it, namely in the case of Nazi criminals demonstrates the empirical relevance of this observation. Eichmann is the best example. It is also clear that in such cases death-penalty holds for the ethically legitimated victims’ requirement for justice[7].

2. Normative contra Ethical Justice. A Lesson on Deontological and Teleological Justice.

The dilemma is somewhat inherent in the scheme. It derives from the common nature of both systems with what is called a teleological conception of justice. Indeed in both cases, justice derives from the respect and satisfaction of the major concerns / interests of the involved parties. Offender justice is just when it respects and satisfies the offender’s interest / major concern. The same observation applies to the victim justice. A just criminal justice system is the one that is aimed at the equilibrium between both.

The teleological conception that is involved in both is a utilitarian conception of justice. Justice is “just” when it is useful to the victim / offender, or event to the State’s concern about public order and / or safety.

3.1 Against Utilitarian Justice

. Obviously the lesson it teaches is a critical one. For argument’s sake the gangster’s involvement in crime investigation – in sum the fact that they are doing the “job of the police and of the criminal justice” derives from a rational calculation. They do the “job” because it is useful for their business; doing the job of the police and that of the criminal justice, in their eyes, is the most appropriate and useful means to reach their specific goal which differs from those of the police and the criminal justice system. Even if their job is efficacious and helpful with regards to the crime investigation, even if the role they play is substantial, the movie addresses its morally and ethically inadmissible nature. “How can it be that you all, who are criminals, take the right to judge criminals”? – This is M’s and the defense lawyer’s revolting reaction towards popular informal criminal justice that is guided by personal concerns and interests.

The message is clear: The utilitarian conception of justice must fail because justice that is aimed at the satisfaction of the interests and major concern of all citizen, of the whole society, is utopia; it can never reach its goal because of the differences and the conflicts of interest / concerns that exist and develop between individual members of the society or social groups. This assumes that the “common good” or the “common utility” which is the utilitarian core proposal is an illusion.

Goals (interests) are different and often antagonistic, but the means are the same. On this account co-operation between different social actors and groups is always possible. Different actors develop common strategies and act in the same sense by virtue of a rational calculation. This is exactly what the movie shows. But this rational calculation is a case for ethics. This is the movie’s critical advice.

The core-proposal of this critical lesson about utilitarian justice is the following one:

Justice can never be the result or the derivation of a rational calculation that is aimed at the satisfaction of different interest and concerns. Otherwise that what is just would derive from unjust or even criminal interests, concerns and behavior.

Given the general and principal character of this critics, it is very likely that Fritz Lang, if he lived in our times, would include in his critical advise co-operation schemes between the police and members of the prison population or even active members of the milieu, being hired as under-cover agents or information officers hired, that are frequently used, namely within the frame of very serious crime investigation and prevention. And it is not at all clear that Fritz Lang’s criticism would not cover other practices, e. g. promise of sentence compelling for witness.

This is the final message of M’s and the defense lawyer’s revolt: Even if the rational calculation engenders the satisfaction of the interests of both, the gangsters and the regular criminal justice, even if a somewhat common good is involved in this rationale, this common good is always underpinned by its opposite, crime, evil and injustice are always inherent parts in criminal justice.

One might argue that Lang’s critique of utilitarian justice is contradicted by the advocacy that points to the uselessness of the death penalty. As far as there is no life repair a sanction that would provide for and apply the death penalty is uselessness. Similarly a sanction that would consist of M’s punishment, not of his medical treatment is, apart from its (real or presumed) impact on crime prevention, without any social utility, all the more so as in M’s case medical treatment, not punishment, is the appropriate means for remedial justice.

At a first glance, the movie’s lesson about utilitarian justice is contradictory; it is critical with regards to the “means – goals scheme” that is involved in the fundamentals of justice, it is not critical with regards to the sanction system. In turn, the advocacy for a medical treatment is contradicted by the fact that treatment could not be an appropriate means to reach victims’ requirement for justice. This observation leads us back to our initial scheme: a sanction that is useful with regards to concerns of the offender (remedial justice) might hurt the justice requirements of victims.

On all these accounts Fritz Lang’s lesson about utilitarian justice is a critical one; the advocacy for a sanction that would not consist in punishment, but that would provide for a medical treatment is an advocacy for a humanitarian justice that is respectful of human rights, not an advocacy for utilitarian justice.

And yet, such an advocacy is, as I mentioned before, a case for ethics.

3.2 The Limits of the Deontological Conception of Justice.

The movie makes a clear choice between informal justice which is guided and animated by particular interests and formal legal justice. This assumes that concerns about offenders and victims are involved, to various degrees, in the formal legal justice. This further assumes that the formal legal justice is supposed to dissolve particular justice interests and concerns into a general concern for justice.

As far as the informal social reaction against M’s crimes involves a utilitarian and a teleological concept of justice and as far as the advocacy for the need to provide M with a regular trial can be thought as of an absolute postulate, Lang’s choice for the primacy of the formal legal criminal justice is not only a celebration of legal positivism; it is also a clear choice for a deontological conception of justice and against the teleological conception.

And yet even if the formal legal criminal justice is, in comparison to the informal one, somewhat less evil, it cannot satisfy the requirement for justice. Even if the formal legal justice system’s major concern is to dissolve particular concerns of justice into a general one that is seeking for an equal treatment of victims and offenders, that is respectful of both the rights and liberties of each individual and the principles of the criminal legality (“nullum crimen sine lege”, “nulla poena sine lege”), this deontological figure of justice does not really fit within the justice requirements that are involved in the ideal of justice at the heart of the movie.

This observation applies not only to a formal legal criminal justice system, it is also based on a teleological concept of justice and it applies to a criminal justice that derives from a deontological conception of justice, although the latter, accordingly to the movie’s message, has greater primacy than the former.

In regards to a deontological criminal justice, as Kant and later Rawls have imagined, it contradicts the possibility to consider values such as good and evil as appropriate and legitimate means to correct either the inequality or the immorality of legal justice. Neither Kant’s categorical imperative nor Rawls absolute primacy of the just upon the good – a think-piece that derives from the postulated primacy of liberty upon all other political and moral values and that is largely the tributary of the liberal US constitution support such “moral correctness” of justice.

And yet such a possibility – another figure of teleological justice – in Fritz Lang’s movie, it has virtually become reality. Insofar the movie provides us wit a lesson of justice that is the tributary of Aristotle. It differs from Aristotle in this that it does not provide its audience with a concept of justice that is aimed at the correction of the legal criminal justice and that can be thought as a real and serious alternative to normative justice. The movies major concern is to question the ethical dilemma that is inherent of the legal criminal justice by confronting it with an axiological conception of justice.

Whatever the regular trial’s outcome may be – it can never satisfy the justice requirement of the children’s parents. In fact it is much more appropriate to say that the outcome of the regular trial can never satisfy the ideal of justice that is involved in the parents’ revolt, but at the same time it is transcending their personal requirement for justice. Otherwise the justice requirement would refer to a “moral of victims”. This assumes that by the notion of “moral correctness” I understand something that refers to ethical considerations rather than to individual morals. And this explains why it is preferable to point, as I did before, the ethical dilemma, not the moral one.

3.3 Normative and Axiological Justice

Obviously, even if the criminal justice provides for the most equal and respectful trial with regards to the rights and legal guarantees of the parties that are involved, the most just regular trial is not just. Why? Because human life and human being is an absolute good; it belongs to an order that escapes from the one that is based on human convention. Schematically this transition can be analyzed as of a process that supplants “crime transcendence” by that of “crime immanence”. The offence is shifted from the natural order and the ontological level to the conventional normative order and the existential level of social being and social conventions. The contingency of justice and crime is the result of this process...

The conventional normative or (positivist) legal order is aimed at the regulation and solution of differences in and conflicts of interests of the society’s members. The members that are involved in these conflicts are not simply individuals but legal persons – persons who have (legally protected) rights and obligations.

As conventions suppose the liberty to engage, the normative (positivist) legal order supposes the individual’s free will. It involves reason. And it supposes liberty: You are free to act and you can do what you want with the condition that your behavior does not hurt the liberty of the other. The offence is defined with regards to the liberty (the right to do) of each citizen, not with regards to an eternal natural and objective order of goods and values that transcends the individual and that is not concerned about his / her liberty. Therefore the offence is the transgression of the norm that defines the citizens’ respective liberty of action and provides for its legal protection.

What is in question here is justice that (i) is always respectful of the positivist law (the law as it results from social convention), (ii) derives from the subjective rights of the individuals.

Obviously the dilemma the movie discusses is inherent in the normative conception of justice. By this I mean that justice is always an inherent figure of the legal norm, never an inherent figure of values, that it comes into existence and exists by virtue of the legal norm, not by virtue of values and that it depends on the auto-referential validity of the positive law, not on the validity of an external axiological order or system. Insofar as the normative conception of justice advocates the primacy of norms upon values, axiological concerns can never alter the absolute principle that is to provide the person with inherent rights and the person’s right with intrinsic validity. This is the core proposal of deontological justice.

Natural justice or justice that refers to a natural or transcendental order shows no concern about the interests or the rights of human beings, namely victims and offenders. The trouble of the order that is caused by the offence can never be the subject of normative legal arrangement or regulation.

The preceding observations lead us to the following conclusion.

The parent’s are disappointed with a normative justice; a normative justice implicates that the possibility to think of human life as of a conventional legal order has become reality. Human life and human beings can never be the subject of a normative deal, a legal arrangement or regulation. No deal can be made, even one which incorporates the death penalty.

3.4 The Original Requirement for Justice and the Experience of Fate

As there is no possibility for a normative deal, as the law can not provide for justice and as penal justice is irrelevant to justice, the remains of justice is its original and authentic involvement in fate. ”Fate” in classical Greek tragedy denotes evil as it is involved in metaphysical and religious justice.

In the final analysis, the parents revolting disappointment reflects the tragedy of those who are confronted with ad suffer but can not understand evil. It happens, we can neither change what happens, nor can human beingS prevent what shall happen; there is no escape – that is the original sense of the factual nature of evil. And the original requirement for justice derives from the experience of this factual nature.

Even M can not understand what happens to him.

The movie ends with the parents’ consolation: “Take better care of your children”. Given the irrevocable nature of fate, this is a little comfort. But this is the only one as no human justice can face fate; no human justice can have an impact on evil that simply happens and that is neither just nor unjust, although is perceived as the greatest injustice.

INSTEAD OF ACONCLUSUION

Fritz Lang’s Staging of Ancient Greek Tragedy. An Advocacy for Modern Critical Understanding of Catharsis.

Fate ‘evil) as it is involved in metaphysical or religious justice is neither just, nor is it unjust. Since the factual nature of evil escapes human intelligence, the requirement for justice is incarnate in the general and diffuse complaint about that what happens and can not be understood. Through lack of understanding the reasons and causes of evil, people accuse other people; it is somewhat a means to identify a cause. The accusation transforms the impossibility to think of justice as of an issue that is accessible to human being into a concrete reality.. The accusation involves the designation of the guilty person. With the accusation, the complaint looses its original indistinctive nature; it requires vengeance. Vengeance is the original form of retributive justice. In Ancient Greek tragedy, the complaint and the accusation refer to an order that provides the incomprehensible fate and the enormous pain with sense. The order is troubled and the pain that is involved in that trouble requires vengeance. And this order, which provides vengeance with legitimization and which is its final cause, is called by the name of justice.

In Ancient Greek tragedy it is the chorus that pays attention to that order and that refers to it in order to achieve the catharsis. In Fritz Lang’s movie vengeance is the major concern of the “vox populi”... Thus the public opinion’s requirement for vengeance can be thought as of the role and function of the ancient Greek chorus; it is somewhat like the modern version of the classical chorus. There is another important aspect in the movie that remembers the Greek tragedy: The pain of Electra and Medea is enormous and without end; they suffer but can not change anything; they suffer, but cannot understand their fate. Is there a difference in nature between these classical figures and the parents?

On all these accounts “M” is one of the most original and successful transfers of ancient Greek tragedy from the stage to the movie. The observation is valid also with regards to staging of both the catharsis and the original structure of the tragedy. When we are watching the movie we are likely to agree with the “vox populi” which requires vengeance. The “vox populi” as it is staged in the movie reflects, to a certain degree, our own voice, the voice of the public that is watching the movie. The reason is that the movie version of the classical chorus is the means to achieve the catharsis in which we who are watching are involved (our catharsis).

The screenplay reproduces the inherent structure of the classical Greek tragedy. At the first instance, a singer leaves the chorus and answers its questions, At a second time, an actor who replies to the requirements of the members of the chorus enters the stage. A third and a fourth actor are introduced at later times by Aeschylus and by Loophole. The movie confronts us with exactly the same scheme: The process that consists of the differentiation between the chorus as a whole and a single member (singer) is translated at the movie level as differentiation between the public opinion (vox populi) as a global not differentiated entity that speaks with one voice and several sub-groups or sub-cultures; e. g. the gangsters, the “Lumpenproletariat” and even the police. Each of these groups (collective persons) “replies” in its own way to the requirements of the “vox populi”, without leaving the scheme.

With “M” is introduced a personality that is foreign to the chorus and holds an opposite opinion. At a first glance, the parents who express their revolting disappointment at the end of the story are members of the chorus and representatives of the “vox populi". In fact they distance themselves from public opinion which requires vengeance and also from the normal criminal justice system. In fact we must take them aside, all the more so as they constitute the focal center of the conflict that opposes the metaphysical or natural concept of justice to that of conventional justice.

On the other hand, note that the movie differs from this classical scheme in the sense that the chorus is a negative institution; this observation is valid with regards to both its justice concerns and requirements (controversial from a moral viewpoint; deplorable from the viewpoint of a human justice; inadmissible from the legal viewpoint) and the catharsis. In classical Greek tragedy the catharsis’ major aim is therapy: the requirement for justice (vengeance) has a therapeutic effect with regards to the social order and with regards to the consciousness of the people who are watching the play. By confronting us with “M’s case, by constraining us to pay attention to M’s and his lawyer’s critical assessments and by staging the revolting disappointment of the parents, Fritz Lang troubles the original therapeutic aim and effect that is inherent of the classical scheme. He destroys its prominence and the therapeutic effect that explains its actuality and popularity. And finally he denounces the reason that explains the success of popular crime and thriller movie.

The catharsis’s aim is shifted from the concrete to a meta level. The catharsis’ successful achievement depends on its therapeutic impact upon its original therapeutic aim and effect. The best therapy is the one that helps us to critically reflect on the old one and to recognize the negative result. “M,” the lawyer and the parents help us to achieve this goal. And they can help us to achieve this goal because they are playing the role of the chorus in Lang’s movie. What happens is that the old chorus is supplanted by a new one that incarnated somewhat the critical consciousness of the old one. The members of this new critical chorus, M, the lawyer and the parents achieve critical catharsis.

This modern and critical version of catharsis is largely the tributary of the inherent project of the philosophy of Enlightenment. It requires a justice that is respectful of the positive law and shows a major concern for human rights.

There is no substitute for legal justice; nothing, not even the most diligent and the most altruist moral outworker that can long for a regular trial. The conflict between the requirement for justice in which fate is involved, between this original experience of evil involving metaphysical and religious justice and the justice requirement of the positivist law can not be resolved. No human justice can successfully face fate. This conflict is relevant to the individual’s experience of evil, not to justice. Whatever the regular court’s sentence may be – no sanction, no penalty, even not death penalty, can satisfy the requirement for justice that is involved in the parents’ revolt, not only because there is no life repair but also because there is no compromise between two figures of justice that are completely different with regards to their nature.

And yet, despite its inherent contradictions, positive law is the best and most appropriate justice system. Fritz Lang’s lesson clearly relates to the tragedy of crime as it is experienced in modern times.

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[1]E. Durkheim, in ‘:De la Division du travail’ PUF, Paris 1950, 7, notes: “Il ne faut pas dire qu’un acte froisse la conscience commune parce qu’il est criminel, mais qu’il est criminel parce qu# il froisse la conscience commune.” ( It is wrong to say that an act hurts common consciousness because it is criminal, but we must say that it is a crime because it hurts common not right consciousness)

[2] In contrast to Garofalo, who developed a catalogue of different types of crime and criminals which referred to the concept of the nature of crime, Durkheim refused to define crime with regards to its nature.

[3] Durkheim argued that the law-maker might criminalize acts that do not hurt common consciousness. Even if Durkheim held the opinion that an act is criminal because it hurts common consciousness, he observed that the law-maker might criminalize behavior that does not hurt our consciousness. According to Durkheim it is the formal social reaction, namely the legal qualification or definition in general, and the penalty in particular, that constitute the scientific criteria that allows to identify an act as crime. But this does not mean that the legal construction and definition of crime is the cause of the emotional reaction to crime, this means that the legal definition offers the sociological access to different types of solidarity, it is the key that opens the door to the latter.

[4] In “An Advocacy For Investigation And Fundamental Theoretical Discussion Of The Complex Relations Between Crime, Ethics And Social & Political Philosophy” ( 2004); I’ve discussed this issue in depth.

[6] Obviously this question has been and continues to be exteremely relevant for crime against humanity. I will discuss this issue later in this essay.

[7] Other cases – however controversial – can be thought as of the same scheme : Terrorist attacks against innocent people, namely children and women or even serial sexual abuse and assassination of young girls as a means to achieve moner (Affaire Dutrou in Belgium)