The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari ( Das Kabinett of Doktor Caligari ) is a film German expressionnist of Robert Wiene left in 1920.

Synopsis

In a fun fair, about 1830, Doctor Caligari exhibe Cesare, a sleepwalker. This one predicted with a student, Alan, that he will live to the paddle. He is indeed assassinated in his bed. His/her friend Francis suspects Caligari. The young girl that Alan and Francis coveted is removed by Cesare. Continued, the somnanbule collapses after having given up its burden. Francis continues Caligari which takes refuge in an asylum the insane ones, of which it proves to be the director…

Data sheet

  • Realizer: Robert Wiene

  • Scenario: Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
  • Director of the photography: Willy Hameister
  • Decorations: Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, Walter Rohrig
  • Music: Giuseppe Becce
  • Kind: Fantastic
  • Producing Erich Pommer
  • Production: firm Decla-Bioscop
  • Black and white
  • Dumb
  • Lasted: 72 min
  • Year: 1919
  • First presentation in France: March 1922 with the Movies-Opera (Paris)

Interpretation

  • Werner Krauss: Doctor Caligari

  • Conrad Veidt: Cesare, the sleepwalker
  • Lil Dagover: Jane
  • Friedrich Feher : Franz
  • Hans H. von Twardowski: Alan
  • Rudolf Lettinger : Dr. Olsen, father of Jane
  • Rudolf Klein-Rogge: The burglar

Summary Act by Act

ACT 1: Prolog: Two characters discuss on a bench in a park. Young person, Francis, tells the drama which it has just lived…

Flash back. A fun fair settles in the small town of Holstenwall. Dr. Caligari of passage in this one obtains, after some difficulties, the authorization of the Secretary of Town hall to install a stand in order to introduce a sleepwalker to it.

ACT 2: The following night, the Secretary of Town hall is assassinated. The following day, Francis and its friend Alan go to the fun fair. They attend the spectacle of Dr. Caligari who introduces Cesare the sleepwalker. This one predicted in Alan that he will die before the paddle. Of return of the fun fair, while going in the deserted streets, Francis and Alan meet Jane, which they like each one secretly. Alan is assassinated at his place in the night.

ACT 3: Whereas Francis suspects Dr. Caligari and Cesare to be the authors of the crime, a woman is assassinated the following night and the murderer, a vagrant, is stopped while it tried to flee. In same time, intrigued by the suspicions of Francis, Jane visit returns to Dr. Caligari and in Cesare in their stand of the fun fair. She flees precipitately terrified by the two men.

ACT 4: Questioned by the police force, the vagrant recognizes the murder of the woman, but to in no case that of the Secretary of Town hall nor of Alan. A little later Cesare tries to assassinate Jane whereas she sleeps at her, but fails. Then it tries to remove it, but taken drives out some by the villagers, gives up it. Caligari also flees, continued to him by Francis. It takes refuge in a psychiatric asylum, of which it proves in fact that he is the Director!

ACT 5: The vice is tightened around Caligari, of the documents found in its office attest that it handled Cesare the sleepwalker to lead it to make murders under its control.

ACT 6: Uncovered, Caligari completes to sink in the madness, it is interned with a strait jacket in its own psychiatric asylum.

Epilog: Fine of the flash back and inversion of situation.

Francis completes the account of its adventure. It leaves the park to penetrate in the principal room of the psychiatric asylum which is filled mentally ills. It crosses there Cesare, and Jane which holds of the incoherent remarks… Behind him a man descends the staircases. It is about the director of the asylum which with the features of Caligari. Francis sees it and taken insanity tries empoigner. But it is immediately controlled by male nurses and conduits in a cell of insulation. The director examines it and exclaims: I finally included/understood his insanity, it takes to me for the Caligari mystic! I now know the means of curing it!

The setting in scene

Put aside the preamble, the scene in the park, and the epilog, the film describes in fact is delirious it of insane, in fact Francis. The made decorations of false prospects, of proportions truncated, the writing of the paperboards subtitles, the color application of the different film according to the scenes, and of course the play expressionnist of the actors, are as many elements which contribute to accentuate this impression of unreality.

Fritz Lang, which had been had a presentiment of to put in scene the film, but which had refused because it turned at the same time the Spiders, said in connection with Caligari “Erich Pommer had indicated me at the origin as director for this film. At this time it was a question of turning Caligari, say in style expressionnist. I believe that my only contribution to this film was to say: my children, you cannot do it like that, you go too far. The Expressionnisme so much so that you want it is not possible. Ca will frighten too the public. At this point in time I proposed the action with drawers. One accepted that and one made be held the beginning in a lunatic asylum. If I had put film in scene, I would have simply treated the prolog and the completely realistic epilog in manner, to express that there it is about reality, whereas the central part describes a dream, vision of insane. Moreover, it is a topic which interested me always much and which one also finds in Mabuse” (1)

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