Everything about The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari totally explained
» This article is about the 1920 film. For other uses, see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (disambiguation).
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (original title:
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920
silent film directed by
Robert Wiene from a screenplay written by
Hans Janowitz and
Carl Mayer. It is one of the earliest, most influential and most artistically acclaimed
German Expressionist films.
Plot overview
The film tells the story of the deranged Dr. Caligari and his faithful sleepwalking Cesare, and their connection to a string of murders in a
German mountain village, Holstenwall.
Caligari presents one of the earliest examples of a motion picture "
frame story" in which the body of the plot is presented as a
flashback, as told by Francis.
The narrator, Francis, and his friend Alan visit a
carnival in the village where they see Dr. Caligari and the
somnambulist Cesare, whom the doctor is displaying as an attraction. Caligari brags that Cesare can answer any question he's asked. When Alan asks Cesare how long he's to live, Cesare tells Alan that he'll die tomorrow at dawn — a
prophecy which turns out to be fulfilled.
Francis, along with his girlfriend Jane, investigate Caligari and Cesare, which eventually leads to Cesare kidnapping Jane. Caligari orders Cesare to kill Jane, but the hypnotized slave refuses after her beauty captivates him. He carries Jane out of her house, leading the townsfolk on a lengthy chase. Francis discovers that "Caligari" is actually the head of the local
insane asylum, and with the help of his colleagues discovers that he's obsessed with the story of a
medieval Dr. Caligari, who used a
somnambulist to murder people as a traveling act.
Cesare falls to his death during the pursuit and the townsfolk discover that Caligari had created a dummy to distract Francis. After being confronted with the dead Cesare, Caligari breaks down and reveals his
mania and is imprisoned in his asylum. The influential
twist ending reveals that Francis' flashback is actually his
fantasy: The man he says is Caligari is his asylum doctor, who, after this revelation of the source of his patient's
delusion, says he's able to cure Francis.
Cast
History
Writers
Hans Janowitz and
Carl Mayer met each other in
Berlin following
World War I. The two saw the then-new film medium as a revolutionary form of artistic expression – visual storytelling that necessitated collaboration between writers and painters, cameramen, actors, directors. They felt that film was the ideal medium through which to both call attention to the emerging pacifism in postwar Germany and exhibit the radical anti-bourgeois art.
Although neither had connections to any Berlin film company, they decided to develop a plot. As both were enthusiastic about Paul Wegener's works, they chose to write a horror film. The duo drew from past experiences – Janowitz had disturbing memories of a night in 1913, in Hamburg: After leaving a fair he'd walked into a park bordering the Holstenwall and glimpsed a stranger as he disappeared into the shadows after having mysteriously emerged from the bushes. The next morning, a young woman's ravaged body was found. Mayer was still embittered about his sessions during the war with an autocratic, highly ranked, military psychiatrist.
Responses
Critics worldwide have praised the film for its
Expressionist style, complete with wild, distorted set design.
Caligari has been cited as an influence on
film noir, one of the earliest
horror films, and a model for directors for many decades.
Siegfried Kracauer's (1947) postulates that the film can be read as an allegory for German social attitudes in the period preceding
World War II. He argues that the character of Caligari represents a tyrannical figure, to whom the only alternative is social chaos (represented by the fairground). However, Kracauer's work has been largely discredited by contemporary scholars of German cinema, including Thomas Elsaesser in
Weimar Cinema and After, who describes the legacy of Kracauer's work as a "historical imaginary". Elsaesser claims that Kracauer studied too few films to make his
thesis about the social mindset of Germany legitimate and that the discovery and publication of the original screenplay of
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari undermines his argument about the
revolutionary intent of its writers. Elsaesser's alternative thesis is that the filmmakers adopted an Expressionist style as a method of product differentiation, establishing a distinct national product against the increasing
import of American films. Dietrich Scheunemann, somewhat in defense of Kracauer, noted that he didn't have "the full range of materials at (his) disposal". However, that fact "has clearly and adversely affected the discussion of the film", referring to the fact that the script of
Caligari wasn't rediscovered until 1977 and that Kracauer hadn't seen the film in around 20 years when he wrote the work.
Adaptations and musical works inspired by the film
The film was adapted into an opera in 1997 by composer
John Moran.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the
American Repertory Theatre in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, directed by
Robert McGrath.
Numerous musicians have composed new
musical scores to accompany the film. In 1994,
jazz bassist
Mark Dresser led pianist
Denman Maroney and trumpeter
Dave Douglas in his compositions for the film, which they performed live at the
Knitting Factory and released on CD in 1994. The
British electronica band
In The Nursery created an
ambient soundtrack for the film, released on CD in 1996. In 2002, British musician and composer
Geoff Smith composed a new soundtrack to the film for the hammered dulcimer, which he performed live as an accompaniment to the film.
In 2006,
Peruvian rock group Kinder composed a soundtrack to the film, performing it live during the screenings. The venue was "El Cinematógrafo", a film club in the district of
Barranco.
A radio version is published by Blackstone Audio featuring
John de Lancie, written and produced by
Yuri Rasovsky.
In 2005, the
Chicago-based
Redmoon Theater performed a
Bunraku adaptation of the film. The only dialogue throughout the 80 minute production was the thoughts of Cesare as played through a
Victor Talking Machine at the base of the stage. The stage was made up of many small stages with a dominant large stage, each being a drawer or cupboard in a large cabinet.
A movie with a very similar title,
The Cabinet of Caligari, written by
Robert Bloch, was made in 1962, claiming to be inspired by the original film.
A sound remake was released in 2005 and won several awards at horror film festivals. It attempted to reproduce the look of the original film as closely as possible.
Comic books
Jean-Marc Lofficier wrote
Superman's Metropolis, a
trilogy of
graphic novels for
DC Comics illustrated by
Ted McKeever, the second of which was entitled, most of the plot derived from
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Caligari himself appears as a member of Die Zwielichthelden (The Twilight Heroes), a German
mercenary group in by
Alan Moore and
Kevin O'Neill. The group (which includes
Dr. Mabuse and
Rotwang) will be featured in the forthcoming fourth volume,
Century, to be published in 2008 by
Top Shelf Productions.
Musical references
The band named "Das Kabinette" had it's name inspired by this film and in 1983 they released their E.P. called "The Cabinet" in which the lyrics actually tell the story of the movie.
The name 'Caligari' has been used extensively in popular music. There is a
Spanish pop/rock band called Gabinete Caligari, as well a
Japanese rock band called
Cali Gari. A
Los Angeles-based
heavy metal band called Caligari was formed in 2006 featuring former members of
Five Finger Death Punch and Tryptycon. However, no album has yet been released.
Ghost of Maine
, a band from Indiana, recorded a song called "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". The band Janitor's Jacket has a song called "Dr. Caligari", and
Pere Ubu has a song entitled "Caligari's Mirror".
Suede used clips from the movie as the background for their song "Heroine" as seen in the live "Introducing the Band" dvd. The 1998
music video for
Rob Zombie single "
Living Dead Girl" restaged several scenes from the film, with Zombie in the role of Caligari beckoning to the fair attendees. In addition to artificially imitating the poor image quality of aged film, the video also made use of the expressionistic sepia, aqua, and violet tinting used in
Caligari. The film also inspired imagery in the video for "Forsaken" (2002), from the soundtrack for the motion picture
Queen of the Damned.
The
goth group
Bauhaus used a still of Cesare from the film on early t-shirts for their popular single "
Bela Lugosi's Dead".
Further Information
Get more info on 'The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari'.
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