The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Rare card · No. 21354

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of a hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark, twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms; oblique, curving lines; structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles; and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. The set design is "anti-realistic, claustrophobic" and "harsh" which is "coupled with feverish anxiety [that] entered the vocabulary of filmmakers and film viewers" particularly during the Weimar Republic, when this film was made. The script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Rudolf Ledl / Fritz Bernhard, Public domain