In 1920, Robert Wiene, a German expressionist cinematographer, directed the eccentric movie Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari which begins with Francis, a mentally disordered man, telling a story to his older companion seated next to him on a bench. The story being told by the peculiar character reveals that the director of the mental institute they both reside in is Dr. Caligari, a wicked man, that uses Cesare, the 23 year old somnambulist, for his evil experiments that end up impacting the lives of many, including the hauntingly beautiful Jane. It has been argued that German expressionism, the artistic movement in which Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari is connected to, is often characterized by the "depiction of reality that is widely distorted for emotional effect" (Darsa, 2013) since the artist's main focus relies on the idea that their artistic creations should be less focused on being aesthetically pleasing and more concerned on creating powerful reactions in the audience.
Figure Nº.1 - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - Example of one of the official movie's poster.
Some academics tend to disregard the cinematographic influence that Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari and other German expressionist films had to the history of cinema by arguing that it isn't cinema since there is no "purification of the technique, all the effects are obtained by the aid of means belonging to painting, music, literature, (...)" and that there is "never any unity" (Cendrars, 1922, cited by Robinson, 1997, p.52) associating these films with theatrical recordings. However, many screenwriters, directors and cultural influencers ignore these arguments and proclaim that this era was very pivotal to the future of film making taking in consideration that it exploits different ways to visually present the plot to the spectators like the use of "Flashbacks", right in the beginning of the movie, where "a juncture is wrought between present and past (...) to represent ideas" (Turim, 2014, p.1).
Clip Nº.2 - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - Flashback scene.
In case of malfuction of the clip, clickhttps://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/clip/138551
Another technique that Wiene utilized to visually reformulate the way that stories are told in this film is by the use of "Shadows" to portrait the homicide of Alan without showing the gore element typically associated with murder scenes offering the viewers "an extra sensory experience that highlights (...) anxiety, distortion and inner-trauma" (Langford, 2012, p.47) as shown in the image.
Figure Nº.2 - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - Alan's murder scene.
According to the theorist Michelle Langford (Langford, 2012, p.47), one of the reasons Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari ended up shaping the history of world cinema alongside with other German expressionist work was due to the fact that it presents an innovating, twisted and mysterious narrative format style and that is clearly perceptible when the film's story attempts, for example, to "recreate, those experiences of the carnival where fortune telling and mysticism offered an alternative means of expression to a culture of rationalism". Furthermore, the revolutionary camera work used in Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari displays the director's continuous imagination in discovering ways to unsettle the audience. In the scene and image presented below, Wiene decided to present shots of the full scenario the characters are inserted in to provoke the spectators. He intends to show them how incapacitated they are to resolve the situation even though they have access to every bit of information presented visually.
Clip Nº.2 - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - June's attempted murder and abduction scene.
In case of malfuction of the clip, clickhttps://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/clip/138549
Figure Nº.3 - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari - June's attempted murder scene.
An additional argument used to defend the importance of classifying this film as a cinematographic piece of work, is the fact that it was one of the first movies to introduce a "Plot Twist", a radical change in the direction of the expected ending of the plot and that is visible when "the end of the movie turns the basic story line into its opposite. The whole plot appears suddenly as a paranoid system of a patient living in the lunatic asylum of the "real" Dr. Caligari" (Karenberg, 2011, p.925). To conclude, despite being influenced by other artistic creations such as music, literature or theatre, German expressionism revolutionized the history of film by its intention to explore cinema as an art in every spectrum possible, from narrative to production representing, at the time, a "serious economic and artistic threat to (...) Hollywood" (Roberts, 2004, p.175). Word Count: 524.
Reference List:
- Darsa, A. (2013). Art House: An Introduction to German Expressionist Films. Retrieved from http://news.artnet.com/market/art-house-an-introduction-to-german-expressionist-films-32845 - Karenberg, A. (n.d.). The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Psychiatry and horror in a German movie of 1920. Nervenheilkunde, 30(11), 925–928. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edselc&AN=edselc.2-52.0-80055109201&site=eds-live - Langford, M. (2012). Directory of world cinema. Bristol : Intellect. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01619a&AN=up.1006564&site=eds-live - Roberts, I. (2004). Caligari Revisited: Circles, Cycles and Counter-Revolution in Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari. German Life & Letters, 57(2), 175–187. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=12511818&site=eds-live - Robinson, D. (1997). Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. London : British Film Institute. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01619a&AN=up.337753&site=eds-live - Turim, M. C. (2014). Flashbacks in Film : Memory & History. London: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=677297&site=eds-live - Wiene, R. (1920). Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari [Film]. Germany: Decla-Bioscop
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