Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari)
1920

Robert Wiene, director

Before the film

Horror is a genre which is typified by:

Although it often crosses with science fiction, the latter films are generally more involved with world catastrophy than individual problems. Alfred Hitchock's Psycho is often considered a classic horror film in these respects. What kinds of sub-genres are there in horror?

Are monster movies "horror" films?
Psycho is a kind of psychological horror.
Are there are supernatural horror films? Consider films like The Exorcist. How Would you classify films such as Curse of the Demon or Cat People where there is some question as to whether the events are real or imagined?
Are the three films we are about to see similar? How similar are they? Consider the structure of the film. How is it put together? Would a different structure alter the film's meaning - that is would we read it differently?

I. Variables in film:

1. tells you something about where, when or who made the object. “In the style of the people of the Pacific” in the style of the 1800’s”, “in the style of Shakespere”.

2. Some styles are named: modernism, postmodernism, impressionism, expressionism. This last is awkward since almost all art expresses something, but in this case it is an internal state of the artist (often) that is being expressed. The result in film is that expressionist films do not look like the real world.

3. Germany in the 1920’s experimented with an expressionist style which we see in the two short films today “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “Nosferatu”. Since many German film makers fled Germany for the US shortly after this, the style has some impact on American on American film in a somewhat diluted version. Americans by and large have been growing away from this style of film making, looking for more and more reality in the films. No matter how fantastical the film, it should LOOK real. These films do not.

4. Expressionism can not use the real world to film in. All the scenes are shot in doors where directors have complete control over all aspects of the film making process.

5. Expressionism is important for films which lie outside the “real world” in some way. The are usable for fantasy, supernatural and supernatural horror and other films of that sort.

Cabinet of Caligari:

What is the structure of the film?

Who is mad? If the scenes with the mad man in them are equally distorted who is the narrator?

In the end section (the second half of the frame story) do the sets appear naturalistic or expressionistic?

Are there times when the film appears to link Caligari and ? There are moments when both are positioned in the same way in the frame relative to others.
When goes and sits behind Dr. Caligari's desk.
When he is put in the strait jacket
Are there people in the asylum who resemble (or are) those in the enclosed narrative?

Some questions to ponder

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