THE ARTS IN NEW YORK CITY Fall 2017 | Baruch College | Macaulay Honors

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

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has a great plot which contains both interesting and mysterious features. It portrays reality in a way which you have to question your own reality and have to think of the truth of how we are influenced and portray our current reality. Everyone’s reality and is different and, therefore, could create a different distinction from what they got out of the film and how different or similar the films is to their own reality. This short film has a very chaotic and skewed version of reality but then again it is placed in an asylum which the people themselves have a skewed view. This, at least is how I thought of them initially.

In a way, the scenery is very twisted and makes a very claustrophobic movement area. The jagged blades of grass, the weird stairs, the swirly hallways, and the literal lens which we see through the movie all have signs of terror. The lens on the screen is just a little circle which makes it seem that the film is always consistently focusing in on whatever is happening as opposed to showing the full screen which contains several movements occurring simultaneously. This allows me to see in the mind of a mentally dysfunctional person of their OWN reality and how they perceive reality. But, it is one thing to understand another’s reality and it’s another thing to live in it. I doubt a person in an asylum created this film which means that this movie was influenced by the subjective view of the producer of how mentally ill people view the world. Furthermore, by relaying the movie as a constant skewed world, there is somewhat of normalcy after the film has ended. I become familiar with their reality. The first thing that came to mind was the lighting which is displayed. The bright lights are important because they depict a reality in which too much light is identified with crazy and delusional. Furthermore, when a person sees many bright lights it seems that a certain amount of the light is distorting their own view of reality by not allowing them to see the full picture leaving blank spots in certain areas. This is relatable to me not in a physical sense but more metaphoric. Like any other person, I don’t see the full picture in many situations and don’t understand ideas to their full potential.

The first thing that came to mind was the lighting which is displayed. The bright lights are important because they depict a reality in which too much light is identified with crazy and delusional. Furthermore, when a person sees many bright lights it seems that a certain amount of the light is distorting their own view of reality by not allowing them to see the full picture leaving blank spots in certain areas. This is relatable to me not in a physical sense but more of a metaphorical sense. Like any other person, I don’t see the full picture in many situations and don’t understand ideas to their full potential making me one of these people in a small way.

Sound, in movies, might not have been popular at that time OR maybe it was, but, the fact that there is no sound further depicts the insanity of people who can’t communicate with others and this is especially important in todays world where there is so many types of communication. But, in a sense, this shows that the reality that we live in displays not talking as insanity. I have been influenced by such a view which changes my reality to a whole new view on the “crazy” which aren’t so crazy after all. Additionally, this is somewhat of a horror movie and is displayed as such because of the building up of tension throughout the movie. The movie silence of the lambs displays such silence as being terrorizing, scary, and extremely powerful. The music replaces the silence of communication creates more tension and the fact that there are little headers which are displayed between certain scenes makes human emotion come out.

If I were to create my own film in NYC I would use the color to display the movie to make it more gory and memorable. Furthermore, I would use the NYC skyscrapers and famous monuments as a background in order to familiarize certain viewers with the scenery. Familiarity with something causes a back lash of emotion to come gushing out which will make the film and its scenes connectable to the viewers which is somehing which words dont have the power to do. I would use the docks of the hudson river and darkness in order to portray the murder as well as showinf the breath of a person making it cold and  frightening. This would change the reality of the viewer by veiwing New York as a place without any lights even though it is always lit up as well as a place where if a person see the skyscrapers or the river of the area which the films is set in, there will be a negative identification as oppose to the positive portrayal of NY which, to me, is the reality.

Film has certainly evolved since its inception. Its purpose, however, has remained the same over the century: to conjure emotion and thought. Of course, emotions people feel vary across a wide spectrum, from hope and joy to bordering on fear and terror. This margin often evokes emotions that raise questions about what we are seeing. Is film, with images of real people living and moving, an accurate depiction of reality, or is it reinterpreting and distorting our view of it? I tend to find psychological thrillers and horror movies a distorted lens in which people view reality, but somehow, they contain some element of truth, although it is quite difficult to pinpoint. Evidence of this, though, is seen in one of the earliest films in the aforementioned genre: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

One of the most notable aspects of the film is its silence, filled in only by brooding, and often foreboding, musical score. Words and sounds, be it a scream or a gasp, have a way that connects the mind of a viewer to the events happening on a screen. Without them, how can a powerful response or emotion be evoked. Throughout the film, the actors have made up for the words with exaggerated facial expressions and gross motor movements that border on histrionic. The eyes of the actors are horribly defined and their actions border a grotesque dance. In this way, the film is playing with how one interprets reactions that are normally evident in reality. Yet, it also speaks volumes of the importance of facial expression and movement and how they alone can tell a story that words may not be able to.

The lighting is also an interesting element of this film. The set is made of exaggerated lines and curves with jagged light painted directly on to the forms of buildings and scenery. This, perhaps, mirrors the deranged thoughts and views of the “mentally insane” that are evident throughout the film. Everything about the scenery is exaggerated and grotesque, something that translates to many of the characters, especially Dr. Caligari and Cesare. They seem like the only characters that actually fit in with the film while all the others seem out of place in a twisted world. This almost created a reality for me that gave me a glimpse into the mind of a madman and an unprecedented understanding on how he views reality. At the end of the film, there is an understanding that it was narrated by the madman, thus the reality he depicted can’t be accepted as a truth.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a work of genius that challenges the notions of sanity, insanity, and the thin line that divides them. It’s cinematic elements would be quite difficult to recreate in a modern setting, most notably the silence and distortion, for we are living in a society where sound and accuracy in film is prevalent. However, if I were to try to create a film set in the modern-era Manhattan, I would be afforded great opportunities to convey messages and ideas. The city is unique in a way that it is both old and new, both decrepit and gleaming. Manhattan is also illuminated by bright lights and has been deemed the city that never sleeps. Wouldn’t it be eerie to see it soulless in complete darkness? The reality of the city as the public knows it instantly becomes distorted. Like Dr. Caligari, I would also choose to end the film in a way that contrasts everything the viewer has seen, perhaps leaving it unsolved, a reality that humankind tends to shy away from. In the silence of the film, acting and raw human emotion, along with scenery and cinematography, perceptions of reality will be shouted.

Grace