THE CABINET OF DOCTOR CALIGARI

Germany, 1920, 79 minutes, Black and white.
Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover.
Directed by Robert Wiene.

This film became the first post World War I German cinema classic. It is based on mediaeval legends about a mad controlling Monk and his somnambulist who murdered on his behalf. The legend is updated and set in contemporary Germany.

Many critics and social commentators have pointed out the almost prophetic presentation of the worth in 1919-20 and its fulfilment with Hitler and the German people. Background reading will supply much detail about the selection of the plot, the craftsmen and technicians who worked on the film and the artists who designed the sets and costumes in the tones of German expressionism. The film was designed to be unreal - its sets and acting look very much stagebound and are further controlled by the early techniques of silent film making.

The producers and director added a postscript to the original updating of the myth - they showed that the whole story was in the mad mind of the narrator and that he was one of many inmates in an asylum. Some interpreted this as the film makers emphasising the need for authority to put things in order. Others commented that Hitler could emerge only from a mad and diseased people. While the film is brief, in certainly stage-bound and dated, it is interesting as a pioneering work showing the potential of cinema, the possibilities of adapting old myths to the contemporary medium and for its insights into the Germany between the wars.

1. The production values of the film? The German film industry after World War I? The defeat of the war, depression, poverty and unemployment?

2. The black and white photography, the use of the iris technique, fixed camera? The expressionist-style of the sets and decor, costumes? Light and darkness, shadows, distortions? The editing for atmosphere? The melodramatic acting style and its stage and theatre, presentation?

3. The reflections of film critics and social commentators at the time and afterwards? Its comment on the spirit of the German people after the defeat of the war? The expression and its being a seed bed for the rise of Hitler and Nazism?

4. The story and the audience responding to the narrator? Seeing everything from his point of view? Judging Caligari and his evil? The irony of the switch in showing that the narrator was insane? That he was in an asylum? Dr. Caligari as the potential healer? The ironic shifts of point of view? The film makers controlling audience understanding and response?

5. The irony that madness in a people can give rise to distortions, projections, misinterpretations? The limitation of madness to an asylum? Its extension to a people and the need for healing?

6. The prophetic aspects of the film? The memories of the past myth and its application and updating? The emergence of Hitler as a Caligari directing the German people?

7. The silent film techniques to communicate in pieces and by tableau the main events of the film? Characters? Themes?

8. The sketch of the city, the carnival, Caligari and his tour, the interview with the Town Clerk and his humiliation. his sinister behaviour, his presentation of his act, his control over the somnambulist, waking him for the prophecy about death?

9. Allan and his death? The somnambulist and the death of the Town Clerk? Caligari’s evil – appearance, expressions, light and darkness, black and white?

10. Francis and his telling of the story, his friendship with Allan, the infatuation with Jane? The visit to the carnival? The prophecy to Allan? His death? Francis and his trying to investigate the murder?

11. The somnambulist and his story, his waking, the prophecy, killing Allan, the Town Clerk, his going to kill Jane but his inability to kill her, his taking her across the roofs of the town? His death?

12. Francis tracing Caligari to the asylum? The medical staff and their investigations? The flashback techniques in reading Caligari’s diaries? The irony of Caligari being taken in , straitjacket - and the later parallel with Francis?

13. Francis bringing his story to a conclusion? The gradual revelation of the inmates of the asylum? Jane and her thinking she was royalty, the somnambulist? The real Caligari and the change in appearance? His understanding Francis’s illness? Francis being put into the straitjacket? (The irony of Francis, insane, under the control of Caligari)? The enigmatic final glimpse of Caligari’s face?

14. The perennial insight of the Caligari myth? Violence, madness, control? Power for evil? The updating of the myths to highlight their relevance for contemporary audiences?