Old Movie Review : The cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The cabinet of Dr. Caligari was made in 1920’s and directed by Robert Wiene. As “One of the most influential films of the silent era” (Rotten tomatoes, 2013)  it certainly made quite an impression. As it is a silent and black & white film a lot of things were left to the imagination of the audiences, such as the characters voices, and sound effects which in modern films (both CG or live action) would be very useful devices to set the tone and atmosphere of the scenes. Because of the lack of sound it was quite amusing to watch the characters over act emotions and exaggerate their movements. Although the film appears to be shot in black and white it’s really interesting how there is a general colour overlay of the film, 3 colours to be a little more precise black and white for the present time, sepia tones for most of the ‘flashbacks’ and also a blue tone which suggests night time, this feature is really pleasing because it helps set the scene.

“Notable for having introduced the ‘twist ending’ in cinema and for its weird and distorted set design.” ( The public domain, 2011) The twist ending is a very popular device in many different genres of film.The set design was very different, none of the buildings are straight, all the windows and doors are incredibly warped and the expressionist paint strokes on the walls and floors, which seems incredibly mysterious, mad and messy but this creates an incredibly surreal feeling to the majority of the film. “These settings, almost exclusively composed of painted flats shaped into distorted geometric perspectives, abstractly decorated with bent and twisted symbols, shapes and shadowy forms, depict a truly hallucinatory environment, both dizzying and harrowingly claustrophobic, as if conjured by a disturbed mind” (Swain, 2013) This quote expresses that a lot of the sets seemed really small and boxed in creating a trapped feeling, which could be read as Francis being trapped in his mind which creates the series of events. Figure 1 is a great example of the smallness, the colour and the set painting.

Fig.1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari(1920)

The characters from this film are all very strange, and look very sleep deprived, the dark circles under the eyes are very exaggerated, and contrast radically with the pale skin. Many of the main characters seem to dress in dark clothing apart from Jane who is often seen in white, this could show how demonic evilness of the characters and the innocence of others, this device is clear in the scene where Caesar kidnaps Jane, with Jane being a victim she’s dressed in white to show purity and innocence.

“Caligari has been cited as an influence to film noir, one of the earliest horror films, and a model for many decades.”(Cipher, s.d). The quote suggests that the film was very influential for many decades, for example it inspired the works of Tim Burton. Many characters from Tim Burtons work show a similar styling to the make-up and the characteristics. For example:

Fig. 2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 

Fig. 3. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Fig. 4. Batman Returns (1992)

Figure 2 shows the make-up of Caesar the somnambulist from The cabinet of Dr Caligari, and figure 3 is Edward Scissorhands and Figure 4 is Penguin from Batman returns both from a Tim Burton film as you can see they both have characteristic traits in their appearance that is similar to Caesar, specifically the paleness of the skin and their eyes, they all have dark or noticeable circles under the eyes and the eyes are wide and look as if they are staring. Figure 3 which is Edward Scissorhands mimics the overall style of Caesar with his gothic like dress sense and his general character and movement. There is also similar clothing choices between penguin and Dr Caligari himself were rather similar and give off that ‘classic villain’ look.

So overall the film was rather enjoyable, it was slow at times but the set design, character design, the different devices used like the subtitles, the colour filters, and the story plot all together really made the film enjoyable to see.