Two of the most compelling factors people want to see in a movie are an interesting storyline and fascinating movie features. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, arguable the first horror movie, emulates both of those factors while additionally undermining and playing with people’s understanding of reality and truth in film. Robert Wiene, director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, impressed his audience with features such as the film’s storyline, music, acting, costume and makeup, lighting and scenery. The film is about a man’s journey to find the truth behind a set of mysterious events that happens to his best friend and fiancé.
It is a silent film that is interrupted with minor and fierce music keys. For majority of the film, Wiene uses rest, no sound, as a powerful form of music to create creepy and intense scenes.
The music is one of the many intense features in the film, another one being the acting. Acting is not a prominent part in how the film further complexes my understanding of reality and truth in film. However, I thought the actors did a tremendous job communicating most of the complex storyline through their exaggerated movements and facial expressions.
I paid particular detail to the characters costume and makeup because this film really set the stage for horror movies. Although the film was limited to black and white, I thought the costumer and makeup designer of the film did an amazing job contrasting dark and white colors to scare the audience. For example, Dr. Caligari’s black hat and jacket with his white hair and glasses.
Another technique Wiene used through contrast so effectively was the manipulation of lighting. The lighting was exaggerated while creating eerie shadows.
The set design was one of the most noticeably fascinating features in the film. The architecture of the set was imbalanced and peculiarly angular. It set an uneasy tone especially with the shadows on the set. Additionally, there were scenes filmed by a perplexing perspective, for example, when Cesare, while holding Jane on his back, crosses over a range of pointed rooftops.
These absurd connections within the oddly sunless town occupied by buildings constructed at angles defying all sorts of reason and physics create the context within the plot that looks to be real, which conversely, is the expression of an insane person’s perception of reality. The embellished sets create a reality that is a paradox: an identifiable yet unfamiliar reality. When answering the question of whether films constitute as a medium for truth and reality, viewers of the film have to ask themselves how the somnambulist can appear in two places at the same time.
If I were to create a murder-mystery silent film set in present day New York City I would utilize the city’s unique places to film: the subway system, the graveyards alongside apartment building and possibly use Central Park to contrast beauty with horror. This heavy populated place serves to trick the public into thinking my horror film is realistic.
Side note: I have been brainstorming and one of the scenes in the film will be a person chasing another person with the intention of murder and the one being chased falls into a storm cellar door.
Andrew Langer
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari title
Odd angular setting
Cesare’s costume and make-up
Cesare, while holding Jane on his back, crosses over a range of pointed rooftops
Manipulation of light and shadows in the oddly shaped town
