The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Spoilers!)

    The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a very interesting film. This film is a silent German film created in 1920 and directed by Robert Wine. The story starts off with the character Franzis talking to a man and telling a story. He tells the story of Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist, Cesare. Dr. Caligari has a place in the fair where people can watch him wake Cesare to then ask him questions about the past or future. When Alan, Franzis’ friend, asks when he will die, Cesare responds with, the next dawn. His friend Alan is then murdered that night. Franzis then spends his time trying to prove that it is Dr. Caligari and Cesare behind the murders. When people go to investigate Dr. Caligari, they find a doll in place of Cesare. They then realize Cesare and Dr. Caligari are behind the murders and get ahold of them. The story then ends with Franzis finishing the story and the whole time he is in an insane asylum making up a story about the other inmates. 

     I loved this film. I thought it was slow-paced, but worth the wait. I didn't expect the ending, however, it didn't surprise me. Instead, it was an "a-ha" moment. I then understood the beginning of the film, where Franzis is telling the story of the insane asylum. We can see this type of twist ending in other films made more currently such as Shutter Island directed by Martin Scorsese and Fractured by Brad Anderson. This type of film where the idea is "it was all just a Dream" or "it never even happened" can be traced back to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This movie was one of its kind which many people adopted and made their own. Which we can see in the films I listed. I loved the film and recommend watching it, even though it is silent, I found it expressed its emotions through other aspects such as facial expressions, body expressions, and lighting. 

     The film tells the story with a lot of body language and the sets. Since there is no dialogue in this film, they use cut scenes with words so that we can follow along and read if something important is happening. We can see them use a lot of exaggerated body language so the person watching can understand what is happening through the actors’ expressions. They also told us when the start and end of the acts were so we could follow along and know when they were moving on to the next scene or a different time in the timeline. The plot twist was that Franzis was the crazy one and made up the whole story. At the end of the film, we realize it was all a made-up story by Franzis, who is in an insane asylum. This was really good storytelling because the viewer wouldn’t expect it, but when looking back to the beginning where Franzis starts telling the story, we know he is at the insane asylum. The set shows how much work went into them because they were all handmade. There was a lot of darkness and an eerie feel in the town and inside Dr. Caligari’s tent at the fairgrounds. This and the music had an eerie creepy feel to it that followed throughout the film. Overall, I thought the film was very fun to watch especially knowing it was the first of its kind.