The first film to be labeled Expressionist as well as become emblematic of Weimar Cinema was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It was able to "critique society while also taking up the tools of Expressionist yearnings… in [the] wake of defeat of WWI."[i] The film captured Expressionism’s increasingly pessimistic and anxious tone that began with artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) and continued on with Otto Dix (1891-1969). Through its examination of Interwar German pathology and the search for reality behind the superficial world that surrounded society, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari became a film about a "people [who] were infected with conflicts, crime, instability and delusion.”[ii] The tale told upon the screen was one of madness and chaos amidst a demoniac landscape of acute angles, stark light and lurking shadows. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is about a man named Francis and how his life was altered by events that transpired in the small town of Holstenwall. During the town’s annual fair, a mystical and mysterious man named Dr. Caligari arrives and plans on showcasing his somnambulist (sleepwalker), Cesare. Francis and his friend, Alan, decide to attend the fair and visit Dr. Caligari’s exhibit. The doctor states that when his somnambulist awakens, one can ask him any question “for he knows the past and sees the future.”[iii] Shortly thereafter, the town descends into chaos—struck with two murders, including Alan’s, and the kidnapping of Francis’ love, Jane, by Cesare. As all of Holstenwall pursues Dr. Caligari and Cesare, it is soon discovered that the mystical doctor is none other than the director of the local insane asylum; Cesare is his patient. Francis concludes his tale by stating that the evil doctor was locked away for good and order was restored. Nevertheless, it is soon revealed that Francis is not the film’s hero. Rather, he, Jane and Cesare are all members of the insane asylum and the man he believes to be Dr. Caligari is indeed the director of that very institution. The final scene concludes with Francis, not Dr. Caligari, as the madman locked up forever within the confines of his cell. After finishing the film, the viewer realizes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari blurs the lines between sanity and insanity. Staying true to the Expressionist ideals of the time, the film reveals the inner truths behind the superficiality of German society while also questioning the authority of those in power. Following the destruction of World War I, the questioning of authority, its abuse of power and the chaos it created, came to the forefront of Expressionist commentary. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari explores how people of influence and their ability to exploit others result in societal decay through the characters of Dr. Caligari and Cesare. The doctor “ruthlessly violates all human rights and values”[iv] when he uses Cesare as a mere puppet for murder and the furthering his diabolical agenda. Cesare can be viewed as the metaphorical WWI soldier, forced to kill for the powers that be.[v] In addition to highlighting the ever-present madness in authority, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also served to examine the truth behind humanity’s perceived existence. Representative of the German people during the Interwar period, the main characters of the film are not as they appear. Despite their human form, Dr. Caligari, Francis, Cesare and Jane are “scarcely convincing as living creatures than the true monsters”[vi] they are revealed to be. This transcendence from human to creature is captured as a result of distinctive, yet precise application of character make-up that recalls the inhuman mask-like faces of Kirchner’s Streetwalkers series [Figure 1] and his face in Self-Portrait as an Invalid [Figure 2]. These are not faces of men and women, but caricatures of the monsters within. Their features are exaggerated and distorted. Faces are lightened to a ghostly white while eyes and lips are demonically blackened [Figure 3]. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’s facial treatment of these particular subjects reminds the viewer that the character’s full psychology is not entirely revealed. Just like world around them, they are not what they seem, thus, explaining the emphasis on the eyes in particular. As seen most visibly on Cesare, the make-up application is heaviest surrounding the character’s eyes. Once again, reiterating that what the character is seeing with their eyes may not be the reality they perceive. Similar to the characters within the film, many German citizens felt they, too, wavered between sanity and madness. World War I turned many, especially its soldiers, into monsters, forcing people to see and do unfathomable things. Furthermore, the German people grew jaded and no longer understood their identity: were they fallen war heroes or monsters that created the destruction of The Great War? The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comments on this internal struggle through the way it constructs its characters and reveals their true natures. Another theme of Interwar German society that the film comments on is that of concealed danger. Encroaching shadows and piercing light create “an intangible threat existing nowhere, but felt everywhere.”[vii] Evil lurks within those shadows. The film employs several German and Scandinavian lighting techniques, one of which is Dämmerung.[viii] The technique creates a “world of twilight in which the inanimate can readily become alive with no warning.”[ix]Darkness consumes large expanses of the screen and shadows become otherworldly as they are contrasted against sharp whites [Figure 4]). This sense of living shadows possessed by evil is a direct comment on the pervasive mindset of post-WWI Germans citizens as many believed they had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by an internal enemy following the war. Further emphasis on light and shadow in the film comes from a practice known as “masking.” Shapes are arranged on-screen, framing the intended subject while those outside of the masked frame are blacked-out.[x]The effect is unsettling and claustrophobic. Characters become trapped within their environment as the darkness closes in around them. No sense of joy is conveyed in the lighting techniques employed in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Rather, the film captures the pessimism so distinctive of both Interwar Germany and Expressionism as anxieties “about the future developed into extremes of utter despair and wild expectation.”[xi] German citizens were slowly descending into madness as they felt closed off and trapped within their menacing environments. Through its use of lighting, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari poignantly comments on the dominant attitudes concerning the very real, but intangible threats affecting the German people during the Interwar period. It further explores and comments on this post-war mentality through its definitive Expressionistic set design. Angles composed of razor blades pierce the eyes and dizzying labyrinths confuse the senses, as the viewer becomes lost within the quintessentially German Expressionist set designs of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The film's architecture is the keystone that transforms the overall mood and atmosphere, allowing it to enter into the realm of Expressionism.[xii] Although highly stylized and distorted, the film’s ominous ambiance is highly symbolic of life within Interwar German cities, especially Berlin. Set designers, Herrman Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig were members of a German Expressionist movement known as Der Sturm (The Storm) that emerged from Berlin in 1912.[xiii] Der Sturm fought "against the type of humanity characteristic of the departing age,"[xiv]the type that led to the depravity of the Great War and the destruction of the German people. These artistic ideologies were then made tangible through Warm, Röhrig and Reimann's stylized set design of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Sets were constructed with only four components: paper, plaster, paint and cardboard.[xv] Paint application is flat and scrawled or slashed onto the cardboard with bold outlines mapping the buildings' stylized form [Figure 5]. An overall asymmetry dominates the design, reminding the viewer this is an altered reality. The inherently flat surfaces found within The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari emphasize the two-dimensionality existing within the context of a three-dimensional world. Senses are disoriented as shapes are stylized—distorted from their natural form. Windows appear as mere slashes within a wall. Streets lead nowhere, zigzagging without a purpose. Buildings are tilted, looming over the city's inhabitants as if preparing to pounce upon its next unsuspecting victim. "Rooms and enclosed spaces, too, bear in on the human beings with a claustrophobia all their own."[xvi] Such an effect is achieved from the designers' extensive use of acute angles and extreme diagonals. The result is unsettling and emphasizes the anxieties felt by the German people during this time. Furthermore, the abstraction of the buildings serves to highlight the sinister world that lurks beneath the perceived reality. Ultimately, the visible world within The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is transformed into an angular "axis of uncertainty"[xvii] that best reflects the condition of Interwar Germany. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari confronts lucidity and reason by forcing the viewer to stare into the face of madness and insanity. These juxtapositions serve to distort one's perceptions into an incoherent reality. By means of estranging the viewer’s mental perceptions of reality through these contrasts, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reveals the demons and disturbed inner world that existed within the minds of German citizens during this time. Like Francis, Germany was still trying to identify itself as a proud hero. Yet, lurking deep within the "Gothic labyrinthine settings"[xviii] of their disillusioned souls was a figure like Dr. Caligari, waiting to pursue his destructive, maniacal passions.The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari made it clear thatGermany was not what it appeared to be, and neither were its citizens. As a result, the German people were forced to look within themselves and confront their true nature while trying to understand what it truly meant to be a hero. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
i Ward, Weimar Surfaces, 143. ii Ashmore, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Fine Art,” 418. iii Weine, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, film. iv Scheunemann, Expressionist Films, 128. v Ibid., 129. vi Titford, “Object-Subject Relationships,” 19. vii Ibid. viii Ibid., 21. ix Ibid. x Ibid., 24. xi Miesel, Voices of German Expressionism, 6. xii Scheunemann, Expressionist Films, 136. xiii Schreyer, “What is Der Sturm?,” The Era of German Expressionism, 194. xiv Raabe, The Era of German Expressionism, 11. xv Hake, “Expressionism and Cinema,” Companion to Literature of German Expressionism, 328. xvi Titford, “Object-Subject Relationships,” 19. xvii Ashmore, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Fine Art,” 414. xviii Schaal, “Space of the Psyche,” 12.
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