Plot Intro
A young man named Francis (Friedrich Feher) recounts a strange encounter he had at a travelling fair. A sideshow at the fair, a man named Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss) claims to possess inside his cabinet a fortune-telling somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). Francis and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) visit this show, where Cesare predicts Alan’s death. Sure enough, Alan is mysteriously murdered in the night- but that is only the first murder…
This is a difficult film to critique. It’s nearly 100 years old, it’s silent, it’s only about an hour long, it’s of poor visual quality, and it’s part of a wave known as “German Expressionism”- a popular but short-lived phase in cinema. In other words, it bears little to no resemblance to the movies that we know now.
But it’s a cornerstone in world cinema, in the horror genre, in German art, and in technical film making. And this is why we’ve chosen to watch it.
German Expressionism wasn’t just in films. It covered architecture, art, theatre, music and other art forms. It’s presence in film was, as I said, short-lived- but far from insignificant. It is recognisable due to its elaborate and crooked sets- unusual shapes for windows and doors, pointy fairy-tale-like buildings and creepy Babadook-looking villains. In an age when the technical quality of the film was blurry and patchwork, this ensured a striking visual to wow and unsettle the audience. It’s unsubtle use of light and shadow to create atmosphere, disjointed sets and over-the-top costumes would heavily influence the Hammer Horror productions of the 30s, 40s and 50s, the suspense work of Alfred Hitchcock, and the visual inventiveness of Tim Burton.
To see the causal point of modern techniques at such an early stage in film history was quite exciting for me. It’s a bit like seeing your grandparents’ childhood photos for the first time- you can see the resemblance and the change both so vividly.
Though on one level a tale of suspense about a murderous sleep-walker and his master, Dr Caligari has deep themes that has film critics orgasming incessantly. Germany in 1920 was understandably disenchanted with figures of authority- most of whom had pompously and irresponsibly led thousands of young men to their deaths in the trenches. The tale of a sleep-walker blindly following the orders of his maniacal owner has unsettling parallels with the relationship between the soldiers and their superiors during the recent war.
The film also touches on the blurred lines between reality and fiction, sanity and madness. The beginning of the war saw young men marching off to what they thought was a certain future of glory, but turned out to be a nightmare that would usually be found in fiction. The promise of glory turned out to be the fiction- the unthinkable Hell turned out to be reality. The final twist in the tale of Dr Caligari, which is hugely similar to Shutter Island, leaves the audience questioning what elements of the tale were true and what was delusion. Couple this with the increase in mental health disorders and research post-war, then you’ve got yourself a film about insanity, hysteria and terror that resonates well with the Western world of the early 20s.
After this historical meandering, I’m going to conclude with the decision that I am not going to give this film a mark. It is so different to even the sort of the movie-making we find 10, 20 or 100 years later, that it’s impossible to see this with an objective eye. I’d either mark it highly just because it’s influential, or I’d mark it low just because it’s a style of film-making that died out eons ago. Either way, it would be an unfair mark. Regardless, for anyone interested in film history, watch and research this film- it’s fascinating stuff.
Highlight
The scene in which Cesare walks into the bedroom of “the Girl” does have an element of creepiness to it. His gaunt, shadowy figure at the window evokes images of ghosts and vampires beautifully.
Lowlight
This label goes to the actor who plays Dr Caligari himself- Werner Krauss. Krauss was the Lon Cheney/Charles Laughton of his day- a celebrated and versatile character actor. Unfortunately, he was a horrendous antisemite and supporter of the Nazi party, taking part in Jewish propaganda films to help them. Post-war he was forced to leave his homeland of Austria and any productions he was involved in were met with protest. He died in relative obscurity, but probably could have done with a far worse outcome.
Mark
Abstainted
When we first watched Wings which won in 1927, I thought it couldn’t get more weird than this. An old silent black and white film, with lots of over-acting and a real requirement on your attention span. But I was proved wrong. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari is far more rudimentary, with shuddering jump-cuts, at times completely obscured film shots, and a strange reliance on a ‘vignette’ style of opening and closing scenes. It is, as Paul points out, fascinating.
The plot itself is thin and not that easy to follow - partly because the poor quality of the film means you often don’t really get who characters are - but a quick Wikipedia afterwards cleared up the questions and I found the similarity to the excellent thriller Shutter Island to be so obvious that one can only assume it was the main inspiration.
It’s a piece of film history more than anything - and reading up about how they created it is also interesting. They actually painted streaks of light on to the set, so that the lighting always seems jarring and odd. The characters are caricatures but the visual quality is so poor that they have to be in order for you to recognise them.
It’s not dull in the way The Seventh Seal was, despite its obtusity, perhaps because part of the fun of old films like these is imagining an audience watching this for the first time. It’s fifty minutes long but thinking of rows of people all squinting at the dark shadowy frames and considering it ground-breaking is a reminder of how far film comes. I mean, it’s only thirty years later that you have the polished excellence of All About Eve. And those two films (even just in quality of film-making and characterisation) are worlds apart.
I don’t really have much to say, except that like Paul I’m going to have to abstain from a mark. This isn’t a film in the way any other thing we’ve seen is. It’s more a historical document, an exhibit from a cinematography museum. Marking it for how it entertained seems wrong as it wasn’t entertaining but it was fascinating. And even seven years later, with Wings, the art has progressed so far as to centralise plot, characters and cinematography. This is a caveman painting on the wall, scrappy and full of raw innovation. Why compare it to Botticelli?
Highlight
I don’t really have anything other than the piece as a historical artefact, but to misquote Waldorf and Statler in Muppets Christmas Carol: it was short! I loved it!
Lowlight
Again, it seems weird to point out lowlights. Perhaps the twist at the end could have been clearer, but it’s probably one of the first examples of a twist in cinema! So it gets a pass - and it inspired Shutter Island which was great.
Mark
Abstained.
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