The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
Directed by Robert Wiene, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is one of the first horror films, but more importantly, the design was key, as it showcases the elements that would be the hallmark of Geman Expressionism, which in turn would influence Hollywood, especially in what became known as film noir.
The film is structured as a frame story, in that there is a set-up with two men on a bench. An older man talks about how he can not be free of spirits. A woman in white, appearing to sleepwalk, strolls by. The younger man (Friedrich Fehir) tells the older man that she is his fiancee. He then tells the story.
He and a friend vie for the woman's attention (she's played by Lil Dagover, who made films up until 1979). A carnival comes to town, and one of the exhibits is of Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss, who is iconic is a stovepipe hat and round spectacles), who has a somnambulist, that is a person who is perpetually asleep, that he keeps in a cabinet. At night, the good doctor sends out Cesare, as the somnambulist is called, to murder. The first victim is the town clerk who gave the doctor a hard time in getting a permit.
Cesare answers questions from the audience. Fehir's friend asks how long he will live--Cesare says not past the break of dawn, which of course gives the man a start. Later, Cesare will murder him, fulfilling his own, or the doctor's, prophecy.
Just who the doctor is and what his game is unfolds in a flashback within a flashback (it also has the uncinematic gimmick of us reading the notes in a book) and also has a twist ending, and even after one-hundred years I'm reluctant to give it away.
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari has many of the elements we see in silent films, such as irising (some times it is in a diamond shape rather than a circle), but it is most notable for the design. There are no right angles in the town. There are no squares. Streets meander between buildings that have oblique angles. Windows are irregular. Even the title cards use a font with letters that look like they've been cut out of magazines. This gives the impression that the place is not real, and increases the feeling that it's all something out of a dream, or more accurately a nightmare.
The story itself was written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, who were pacifists. This was right after World War I, and the notion that a sinister scientist could control another person was not coincidental. Some have seen it as a metaphor for the state controlling the population, or even that Germany has always secretly longed for dictatorship (the long tenure of Angela Merkel would suggest that it is no longer the case).
The film has a long-lasting legacy, often taught in introductory film classes. German directors such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau were influenced by it, as were American directors of the 1940s, as the use of shadow and skewed angles became a staple of crime films that would later be tabbed as film noir.
Above all, The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is a good horror film, even by today's standards. It is entertaining, even a hundred years later.
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