Two movies

           “Tenderness of the Wolves” is a fictional movie of real-life serial child killer. The assassin name is Fritz Haarmann who is a gay German man and also admitted to kill adolescent boys. Haarmann uses his title as an informant for the local police to take young boys to his house. After feeding the boys he will take them to his bed in order to sexually assault them. Once finishing his sexual abuse he will kill his victims and sells their corps as canned pork on the black market. This movie is similar to M because the killer was not only a serial killer but also was sweet to his victim like in the movie M. For example the assassin in M was buying candies and balloon for his victims and in “Tenderness of the Wolves” the killer was giving the young boys food, a place to stay and a job opportunity. Another common thing is that both killers targeted children. One of the differences is that in M young girls were killed and in Tenderness adolescent boys were assassinated.

          In “It Happened in Broad Daylight’ Fan-Made Trailer we saw a man who found a dead body of a little girl in the wood and run away from it. Later on we saw other murders but we could not identify the serial killer and the movie did not give us a detail on how those little girls were killed. In addition we did not know how was the police reaction.

Kracauer's central thesis and Desire for Authoritarian Leader

Kracauer’s central thesis

The point that deals with authorities in time of crisis was a deceiving part of the movie. We saw in the movie how the Police handled the problem and how the town was terrorized by the serial killer. People were not free to go out at that time because the Police would not let them do it. For instance a person that did not have a proper identification was sent to a precinct to be checked. It was possible because in 1930 Germans government was able to use the “emergency powers” which allowed the State to break civil rights laws. This promoted the dictatorial powers later on. However, it was chaos because the repercussion of the police on the population forced the beggars to react because the social crisis affected their business. At certain point the audience gets confused because you do not know if the beggars were more efficient than the beggars.  

Desire for Authoritarian Leader

Based on the three films we have watched I strongly believe that there was a need of authoritarianism because citizens were not happy when the police was searching houses and business places without warning. For instance there was a kind of a protest when the police arrived to one the bars at night and people found themselves stranded. Moreover, a woman was cursing at the police and other people were making fun of the chief of the police. Bottom line was that the population was exhausted from the oppression. At this point we can deduct that the desire for an authoritarian leader was welcome. In addition the Nazis who are criminals themselves will do anything in order to catch the killer. They argued that this was the only way for them to get the police off their back. Having criminals stage a trial in the movie confirmed that the people needed a kind of authority because beggars wanted to end the killer’s life right away, which is not the proper way to have justice. Even though the assassin himself told the beggars that he is a deranged person and he could not help it. Therefore, he asked to be transferred to the right authorities in order to get the help that he needed. Even a mentally ill person realized that the beggars did not an authority to put him on trial. In the other movies we the audience realizes that there were murders but authorities were more or less active to the crime.

Author Argument

The argument that makes this movie a success is that the author thinks that a serial killer is considered to be mentally ill. Therefore, he should not get the death penalty but must be remitted to the authorities for treatment. To do so those authorities will assign the same sick person to a doctor who will try to cure him. M supported the same idea when he was in trial by stating that his motivation for killing these young girls were involuntary and it was impossible to control his eager to kill. The author argument makes sense in a country where the democracy is applied. No one is allowed to take another person life which the assassin did. However, he did not do it voluntary and the justice should take time to evaluate his state of health before sentencing him.

The author also touches another point that deals with authorities in time of crisis because most of the time the government violates civil rights when there is a war or a social crisis. We saw in the movie how the Police handled the problem. When the population was terrorized by the serial killer people were not free to go out at that time because the Police would not let them do it. For instance if a citizen did not have a proper identification he was sent to a precinct to be checked. A similar situation happened even in the U.S during the civil war when Lincoln violated the first Amendment by not allowing the Press or citizens to criticize the war. For example Newspapers were not authorized to print out certain information. In addition, the government had the same attitude after September 11^Th2001 when terrorists attacked the U.S. Right after the attack more laws were passed by Congress giving more power to law enforcement to search people’s houses without a warning once they were suspected to be “terrorists”. This aspect that the author talked about in the movie was one of the best subjects because it tells us that history repeats itself.   

A Specific scene

  The last poor performance of the magician and Rath was a result of Lola’s dominance on Emmanuel in the movie. Once on scene Rath could not perform because he was more focus on how other men were talking to his wife Lola. His jealously made him speechless and crazy. Moreover, Rath did not care about the audience and the magician even frightened him to break his neck. At certain point the ex-teacher could not take the pressure anymore and decided to walk away from the scene because he saw a man who was kissing his wife. He attacked his wife and the man and Lola almost got killed. People rushed downstairs to save Lola from a catastrophe. Ruth was chained and put in a little room like a prisoner. Rath was later on freed by the magician decided to leave the cabaret for the school where he was a teacher. Ruth was found dead a moment later.

  The interpretation that I can give to this particular scene of the movie is that the pressure that the teacher got from Lola is similar to the oppression that Germans received from their government during the two world wars. Ruth who did not want to perform or do anything could be assimilated to a Nihilist attitude. The teacher looked lost and nothing made sense to him at that moment. Freud was right by saying that an individual attitude is a result of a social pressure. Ruth could not handle this kind of life because he came from a middle class that had different values. For instance a wife should be respectful and loyal to her husband. But it was not in Lola’s case because she was from another group of the society that allows certain behaviors in life. For example it was normal for Lola to have more than one man at the same time. The opposite values could not help Rath’s marriage as well. The life in the cabaret was a mess because it was a place where most men of that town were going to find a woman who could fulfill their sexual needs. In counterpart this activity was a source revenue for women that worked in the cabaret. In addition, when the teacher fled from the cabaret to the school was one of symbols for Nihilism. We can refer this act to “le voyage dans la lune”. Rath left his middle class society once he got fired for the cabaret thinking that he could have a better life with Lola. However, he had to run away from the cabaret to his old world like these people who went to discover the moon had to run for their lives also. 

Summary

   This paragraph indicates that the middle class and working class from Germany were not friendly to each other like the ones from England. Moreover, the middle class did not want the working class to be able to move up to the middle class.There was also a fight for equality between the sexes. One group (left-wing political parties) wanted more equality between man and woman but the conservatives did not want change. However, the constitution was able to mandate gender equality.

   We can see the same different social classes in the movie. Rath belongs to the middle class and Lola was for the working class. However, it was clear that these two classes were not mixed because Rath got fired once the principal found that the teacher was hanging out at Lola’s cabaret. This meant that middle class people were not allowed to go out with those who belong to the working class in Germany at that time. Rath confirmed the same idea when he runs away from the cabaret because he refused to die in the working class neighborhood.