True Horror Unleashed: Robert Wiene’s THE CABINET OF Dr. CALIGARI (1920)
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This is a compilation of excerpts from some of the best writings on the film and German expressionism in general.
“The first true horror film”
The Critics’ Consensus on “Rotten Tomatoes” calls it arguably the first true horror film. Roger Ebert states the same and adds: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari “creates a mindscape, a subjective psychological fantasy. In this world, unspeakable horror becomes possible.”
Expressionism
Expressionist art distorted reality to convey artist’s inner feelings or ideas. German expressionist cinema was influenced by expressionist art and the theater of Max Reinhardt who was an impressionist.
After the defeat in the First World War, the widespread discontent in Germany led to a revolution that overthrew the monarchy, establishing the Weimar Republic. Hyperinflation hit the Weimar Republic hard when it couldn’t pay up for the war reparations. It created impoverished conditions leading to erosion of values and discontent among the public.
A new stimulus was thus given to the eternal attraction towards all that is obscure and undetermined, towards the kind of brooding speculative reflection called Grübelei which culminated in the apocalyptic doctrine of Expressionism. Poverty and constant insecurity help to explain the enthusiasm with which German artists embraced this movement. (Lotte Eisner)
Synopsis & Structure
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders.
The story of Dr. Caligari is narrated by Francis (Friedrich Fehér) to an older man. The film begins with the frame story of Francis from which there is a flashback. In the end, after the film completes the frame story of Francis, there is a twist. It transpires that Francis is in fact an inmate of an asylum along with Cesare. The one who is called Dr. Caligari by Francis is the asylum director. Francis turns out to be an unreliable narrator!
Chiaroscuro Lighting
One of the formal elements of German Expressionism was chiaroscuro lighting which employed extreme contrasts of light and dark, thus creating dramatic shadows. In German films shadow becomes an image of Destiny: the sleepwalking Cesare, stretching out his murderous hands, casts his gigantic shadow.
Reflective Surfaces
Yet another element was a preoccupation with mirrors, glass, and other reflective surfaces.
Anthropomorphism
Inanimate objects always seem to haunt German narcissism. When couched in Expressionist phraseology the personification is amplified; the metaphor expands and embraces people and objects in similar terms. So, we frequently find German-speaking authors attributing diabolical overtones to, for example, the street. (Lotte Eisner)
Abstractionism
Abstractionism is a selective and creative distortion which gives the artist a means of representing the complexity of the psyche. By linking this psychical complexity to an optical complexity, he can release an object’s internal life, the expression of its ‘soul’. The Expressionists are concerned solely with images in the mind. Hence oblique walls which have no reality. (Georg Marzynsky quoted by Lotte Eisner)
Staircases
(But) remembering the German fascination with Werden (becoming) rather than Sein (being), it could perhaps be granted nevertheless that their staircases represent an upward movement, the degrees of which are represented by the stairs themselves. And we can perhaps infer from the striking German respect for symmetry that the symmetry of a staircase embodies ideas of balance and harmony. (Lotte Eisner)
Closing Thoughts
In his influential book “From Caligari to Hitler”, Siegfried Kracauer has written that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant and is an example of Germany’s obedience to authority and unwillingness to rebel against deranged authority. According to him, the film is a premonition of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
German silent era is considered to have been ahead of Hollywood of that period. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the important films of that era. The film is of particular interest to students of cinema as it is rewarding to study it as part of film history and get to know its impact on a number of filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock. It heavily influenced the genres of horror film and film noir.
