The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920 film)
 Theatrical release poster | ||
| Starring |
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| Directed by | Robert Wiene | |
| Written by |
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| Studio | Decla Film | |
| Music by | Giuseppe Becce | |
| Cinematography | Willy Hameister | |
| Released | Feb 26, 1920 in Germany | |
| Runtime | 74 minutes | |
| Country | Germany | |
| language | German intertitles | |
| Budget | $12,371 | |
| Gross | $4,713 | |
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. It is a key work of early German Expressionist cinema, telling the story of a hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark, twisted visual style, characterized by sharp-pointed forms, curved and oblique lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist at unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. The set design is described as "anti-realistic, claustrophobic" and "harsh," which is "coupled with feverish anxiety [that] entered the vocabulary of filmmakers and film viewers", especially during the Weimar Republic era, when the film is set.
The script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who became distrustful of authority after their military service during World War I. The film uses a frame story, with a prologue and epilogue combined with a twist ending. Janowitz said this device was imposed on the writers against their will. Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Röhrig handled the film's design, recommending a fantastic, graphic style over a naturalistic approach.
The film explores brutal and irrational authority. Writers and scholars have argued that it reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant and serves as an example of Germany's obedience to authority and reluctance to rebel against corrupt rule. Some critics interpret Caligari as representing the German war government, with Cesare symbolizing the common person conditioned, like soldiers, to kill. Other themes include the destabilized contrast between insanity and sanity, the subjective perception of reality, and the duality of human nature.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released when foreign film industries were easing restrictions on the import of German films after World War I, so it was screened internationally. Accounts vary regarding its financial and critical success upon release, but modern film critics and historians have largely praised it as a revolutionary film. The film was ranked number 12 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. Critic Roger Ebert called it arguably "the first true horror film," and reviewer Danny Peary called it cinema's first cult film and a precursor to arthouse films. The film helped draw worldwide attention to the artistic merit of German cinema and had a major influence on American films, especially in the horror and film noir genres.
Plot
In what seems to be a park, Franzis sits on a bench with an older man who laments that spirits have driven him away from his family and home. When a dazed woman passes by, Franzis introduces her as his "fiancée" Jane, explaining they have endured a terrible ordeal. Most of the rest of the film is a flashback of Franzis' story, set in Holstenwall, a shadowy village with twisted buildings and spiraling streets.
Franzis and his friend Alan, who are friendly rivals for Jane's affection, plan to visit the town fair. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari seeks a permit from the rude town clerk to showcase Cesare, a somnambulist, at the fair. The clerk yells at Caligari to wait but eventually approves the permit. That night, the clerk is murdered in his bed.
The next morning, Franzis and Alan visit Caligari's sideshow attraction, where he opens a coffin-like box to reveal the sleeping Cesare. Following Caligari's instructions, Cesare awakens and answers questions from the audience. Despite Franzis' protests, Alan asks, "How long shall I live?" To Alan's horror, Cesare responds, "Until dawn tomorrow." Later that night, a figure breaks into Alan's home and stabs him to death in his bed. Grief-stricken, Franzis investigates Alan's murder with help from Jane and her father, Dr. Olsen, who obtains police authorization to look into the somnambulist. That night, the police arrest a criminal carrying a knife, caught attempting to murder an elderly woman. When questioned by Franzis and Dr. Olsen, the criminal admits he tried to kill the woman but denies involvement in the previous two deaths, claiming he was merely trying to divert blame from himself.
At night, Franzis spies on Caligari and sees what looks like Cesare sleeping in his box. But the real Cesare sneaks into Jane's house while she sleeps. He raises a knife to stab her, but instead, he abducts her after a struggle, dragging her through the window onto the street. Chased by an angry mob, Cesare eventually drops Jane and runs away; he soon collapses and dies from exhaustion. Franzis confirms that the criminal who confessed to the elderly woman's murder is still locked away and couldn't have been Jane's attacker. Franzis and the police check out Caligari's sideshow and find out that the "Cesare" in the box is just a dummy. Caligari escapes amid the chaos. Franzis follows him and sees Caligari go into an insane asylum.
Later, Franzis is stunned to learn that Caligari is the asylum's director. With help from the staff, Franzis studies the director's records and diary while he sleeps. The writings reveal his obsession with an 18th-century mystic named Caligari, who used a somnambulist named Cesare to carry out murders in northern Italian towns. The director, trying to understand the original Caligari, experiments on a somnambulist admitted to the asylum, who becomes his Cesare. The asylum director screams, "I must become Caligari!" After the flashback, Franzis and the doctors call the police to Caligari's office, where they show him Cesare's corpse. Caligari then attacks a staff member. He's subdued, strapped into a straitjacket, and becomes an inmate in his own asylum.
The story then returns to the present, where Franzis finishes his story. In a shocking twist, Franzis is shown as an inmate in the asylum. Jane and Cesare are also patients; Jane believes she's a queen, while Cesare isn’t a somnambulist but awake, quiet, and not immediately dangerous. The man Franzis calls "Dr. Caligari" is actually the asylum director. Franzis attacks him, and he's restrained in a straitjacket, then placed in the same cell where Caligari was locked up in Franzis' story. The asylum director says he now understands Franzis's delusion and is confident he can cure him.
Legacy
Caligari is the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema and by far its most famous example. It is regarded as a classic film, frequently shown in introductory film courses, film societies, and museums, and remains one of the most recognized German films from the silent era. Film scholar Lewis Jacobs described it as the "most widely discussed film of the time". Caligari brought international attention to the artistic value of German cinema, while also establishing legitimacy for the medium among literary intellectuals within Germany itself. Lotte Eisner stated that it was in Expressionism, as exemplified by Caligari, that "the German cinema found its true nature". The term caligarism was coined later to describe a style of similar films that focus on themes such as bizarre madness and obsession, often through visual distortion. Expressionism arrived late in cinema, and by the time Caligari was released, many German critics believed the art form had become commercialized and trivialized; prominent writers like Kasimir Edschmid, René Schickele, and Yvan Goll had already declared the Expressionist movement dead by then. Few other purely Expressionist films were made, and for several decades, Caligari was the only one readily accessible. Among the few films that fully embraced the Expressionist style were Wiene’s Genuine (1920) and Raskolnikow (1923), as well as From Morn to Midnight (1920), Torgus (1921), Das Haus zum Mond (1921), Haus ohne Tür und ohne Fenster (1921), and Waxworks.
While few other purely Expressionistic films were made, Caligari still had a major influence over other German directors, and many of the film's Expressionist elements – particularly the use of setting, light and shadow to represent the specific psychology of its characters – became prevalent in German cinema. Among the films to use these elements were Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924), G. W. Pabst's Secrets of a Soul (1926), and Lang's Metropolis (1927) and M (1931).[163][165] The success of 'Caligari' also influenced the way German films were produced during the 1920s. For example, the majority of major German films over the next few years moved away from location shooting. It was fully filmed in studios, which assigned much more importance to designers in German cinema. Robinson argues this led to the rise of a large number of film designers – such as Hans Dreier, Rochus Gliese, Albin Grau, Otto Hunte, Alfred Junge, Erich Kettelhut, and Paul Leni – and that effect was felt abroad as many of these talents later emigrated from Germany with the rise of the Nazi Party. Additionally, the success of Caligari's collaborative effort – including its director, set designers and actors – influenced subsequent film production in Germany for many years, making teamwork a hallmark of German cinema in the Weimar Republic.
- Wikipedia article: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
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