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The cabinet of dr caligari film essay
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920’s German silent-horror film. Robert Weine, the director, collaborated with the German cinematographer, Willy Hameister to create this German Expressionist masterpiece. The idea was taken from the screenplay written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Meyer. It is also considered one of the greatest horror films during the silent period. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and its historical context in terms of the German Expressionist movement will be discussed further in the essay.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released right after World War I. During this period of 1920’s, after the German forces had been defeated in the World War I, the nation had been taken over by the U.S government. This lead to the loss of many lives and the economy was a complete disaster and at a very low point. The citizens were greatly traumatized by the war and to face the truth about their economic depression. This great nation once used to be called the world’s major country. The screenplay written for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari immediately caught the attention of the film industry. Carl Mayer came up with the story when he witnessed a murder and a figure was at the scene of the murder. He then saw the same figure again at the funeral. It represents the troubled and social anxiety that was rampant in Germany at a time of great horror. It was then labeled as a film that portrayed the artistic style of German Expressionism.
The German Expressionist movement was a number of movements that began in Germany during the start of the 20th century. It mainly dealt with poetry, painting, art and cinema. The success of expressionist films helped Germany seen as the most technically advanced in the world. The expressionist style can be...
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...soldiers. So many people died for no reason and the writers tried to express that in the screenplay. It can be seen in the film where Alan and Francis are in the fair. Alan persuades Francis to go see Dr. Caligari’s Somnambulist, where his fortune is told. Alan, very curious asks Cesare, “How long do I have to live?” and Cesare replies, “Until dawn, tomorrow”. This scene in particular links to the people of Germany. Their family, friends and loved ones were all being killed around them. The question Alan asks signifies how the people were feeling at that time and wondering when it will be their time to die. It can also be interpreted as Alan’s tormenting doom, who wishes to know when he will die, reflects the worry of many people that Germany might lead to another war. It genuinely exposes the confused, desperate and suffering that took place in the German society.
Gunning, Tom., “Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (1922) in Weimar Cinema, ed. Noah Isenberg, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009
Calhoon, Kenneth S. “Horror vacui.” Peripheral Visions: The Hidden Stages of Weimar Cinema. Wayne State University Press: Detroit, 2001.
Where Schlondorff, Wenders, Herzog, Fassbinder and Kluge once investigated the extremities of the German character and the Americana that infested West German culture through the New German Cinema of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s, the Germany of today has through its cinema acknowledged past hardships but with a more positive emphasis placed on the possibilities of forgiveness, redemption and hope for what can be made of tomorrow. Bibliography A Reversal of Fortunes? Women, work and change in East Germany. Rachel Alsop.
When audiences think of Lang's Metropolis they almost unanimously think of the same image: that of a golden, mechanical being brought to life. It is one of the most recognizable images in German expressionist cinema, on par with the spidery shadow of Max Schrek's Nosferatu creeping up the stairs in Murnau's vampire film, or that of Cesare the somnambulist sleeping upright in Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, yet what separates this i...
Mr. Schnabel chose to engage in the Neo Expressionism method of art, that style of art dominated the art market from the 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. The fascination with this type of art satisfied a hunger for something different, and touched the public in several ways (Brenson).
the end of the Second World War. The play is set in 1912, just before
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
violence and change. Artists who worked in traditional media such as painting and sculpture, and in an eclectic range of styles. Some people went with the movement while others opposed it. I enjoy the different types of eclectic movement in art such as the paintings, drawings and the designs. It was not until 1911 that a distinctive futurist style emerged and then it was a product of Cubist influence. Futurism was not immediately identified with a distinctive style. Futurists were fascinated by the problems of representing modern experience, and strived to have their paintings evoke all kinds of sensations and not merely those visible to the eye. Futurist art brings to mind noise, heat, and even smell of the metropolis.
Specific techniques of German expressionism, such as dark vs. light, religious themes and spirituality, and the use
The link between expressionism and horror quickly became a dominant feature in many films and continues to be prominent in contemporary films mainly due to the German expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari. Wiene’s 1920 Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari utilized a distinctive creepiness and the uncanny throughout the film that became one the most distinctive features of externalising inner mental and emotional states of protagonists through various expressionist methods. Its revolutionary and innovative new art was heavily influenced by the German state and its populace in conjunction with their experience of war; Caligari took a clear cue from what was happening in Germany at the time. It was this film that set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later Hollywood film noir genre as well as the psychological thrillers that has led several film audiences to engage with a film, its character, its plot and anticipate its outcome, only to question whether the entire movie was a dream, a story of a crazy man, or an elaborate role play. This concept of the familiar and the strange, the reality, the illusion and the dream developed in Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari, is once again present in Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island.
Sokel, Walter H. The Writer in Extremis, Expressionism in Twentieth-Century German Literature. 1st ed. California: Stanford University Press, 1969.
It was not until the mid 1930s that the brutish dictator truly recognized the potential power of media, where in 1935 a special funding was given to the production of Italian films which was used to open up film institutions like the ‘Centro Sperimenale di Cinematografia’ (CSC) film school, and ‘Cinecitta’ (Cinema City) studios in 1937 (Ruberto and Wilson, 2007). The development of these institutions sparked the appearance of early sound cinema, specializing in genres such as comedies, melodramas, musicals and historical films, but were all categorized as ‘propaganda’ and ‘white telephone’ films by many critics due...
Horror is one of the major genres for silent movie produced under Hollywood studio system during 1920s. American filmmakers had gone on exploring the classical Hollywood style, linking technique to clear storytelling because many foreign audiences had been cut off from the Hollywood product during the war (Thompson 58). The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) exemplifies the classical Hollywood style and represents the class differences characterized by a beautiful woman and an ugly “phantom” in the movie. In this paper, I will particularly analyze one of the famous scenes from the phantom of The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) – the “unmasking” scene.
People decided to rebel against the political and social rules of their time and started a new trend of art. It conveyed dramatic subjects perceived with strong feelings and imagination.
One of the most prevalent examples of German modernism was their newfound attitude towards art. Ekstein...