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Today I am going to explain the world's first hit horror movie called Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Before we jump into the plot of this movie, we must understand its origin. Because this movie altered the course of film making, it introduced new things which are still an inspiration. Horror films originated with the German Expressionism movement of the 20th century. The industrialization of the 19th century changed the old Europe. Modern inventions like telephones, personal cars, trains, electricity, gramophone, machine guns, cameras changed the lives of people. All the painters, poets, writers left their traditional thinking and started experimenting to reflect the modern world. When there could be innovation and experimentation in science, then why not in the arts? Some artists started calling this experimentation in arts as Expressionism. In the previous centuries, painters used to paint as they saw. Meaning, if the sky is blue, then they paint it blue. The tree leaves are green, then they paint them green. Most of their paintings were based on historical and religious themes. These are some examples of them.
The 20th-century artists saw these paintings as a reflection of reality. These paintings were reflecting the emotions of the subject, not of the painter. So they started a new art form where the emotions of the subject and the painter had their importance. The feelings of the painter were given more importance compared to the reality of the subject. Here the sky may be dark, the leaves of the tree may also be purple. Artwork interpretation depended on the beholder. These are some examples of expressionism art form.
A variant of this expressionism invented by the great painter Pablo Picasso is called Cubism. Cubism is an art form where all geometric shapes such as triangles, circles, squares, pentagons are used to make a painting. When you see it as it is, you won't understand a thing. But when you start interpreting it, then the whole story will emerge. This is a famous painting of Picasso. What do you see in this? Do you understand anything? This is a painting of three musicians playing music. The one on the left is the clarinet player, the one in the middle is the guitar player, and the one on the right is holding a sheet music. There is also a dog next to everyone. Hence, this form of art is called Cubism. This is a 1500-year-old painting of three Egyptian musicians where you can clearly see three clean women. This is an ancient art form.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari film is great because its entire set design is based on this idea of expressionism. No building is normal, windows are triangles, mountains are triangles, roads are inclined, they all express different emotions, the interpretation of each scene is different. This was the first commercially successful film when reality was replaced by fiction in films. This was a silent film. First, the dialogues of the film were shown on the screen, after that, the video played. This was the first time when stylish fonts were used in a film. The story of the film is divided into 6 parts.
Act 1
The Act 1 begins with two men, Francis and an old man whose name has not been disclosed. Francis says that spirits are all around us, they affect us. Then we see Jane walking in a state of trance. Francis points at her and says she is my girlfriend, I will tell you what happened with her. Now the film plays in flashback. Dr. Caligari comes to one town, he wanted to show his spectacle at the town's fair. Here you will see the expressionist set design that symbolises the town's dark and twisted reality. Here every road has been made inclined. Dr. Caligari has also been given shaky movement. Now Dr. Caligari goes to the city hall to obtain a permit from the city clerk. There he was asked to wait, and the clerk misbehaves with him. Here you will notice that the table height of the city clerk is higher than Dr. Caligari's body height. Symbolizing the might of authority, government or bureaucracy is above all. Now Dr. Caligari has got a permit, he rents a house in the city. He had a somnambulist named Cesaar. Somnambulist is a man who could walk in sleep.
Act 2
Act 2 begins with two police officers. They found the murdered body of the city clerk. Now at the town fair, Dr. Caligari was preparing everything for his spectacle. Francis and his friend Alan arrive at the fair. They decide to watch Dr. Caligari's spectacle. Dr Caligari begins his show and says, this is Ceasaar, he knows both the past and the future, whoever wants to know their future comes forward. Now Alan comes forward and asks how long I live. On which the Ceasaar says till the morning. It was creepy. Allen and Francis were spooked, they left the show immediately. On the way, they see a poster which states about a murder in the town. While the killer was absconding, a 1000-marks cash price was also announced for the clue giver. Marks was the currency of Germany at that time. Then Jane arrives there with whom both of these guys were in love. Now both leave it to Jane to decide whom she will marry. Act 2 ends in Alan's room where someone stabs him to death with a knife. This is an iconic scene, here for the first time a murder was shown on the big screen.
Act 3.
Now Francis knows about Alan’s murder. He was shocked. He gets a permit from Jane’s father, who was a police officer, to conduct an investigation. Francis starts with Ceasaar as he was the one who predicted Alan’s death by morning. Francis thought Ceasaar was the killer, but Dr. Caligari defends Ceasaar, he says Ceasaar was with him the whole night. Here the director has used filters of three different colors for the first time. For the day light yellowish orange color filter, for night scenes blueish green filters and for the inside of Jane’s house the filter was pink. Here for the first time colors other than black and white were used in a film. We can say this as an experimental color film.
Act 4.
Now the investigation was taking too long, Jane was searching for her father and Francis. She arrives at Dr. Caligari’s house and asks whether or not they have seen them. Ceasaar here stares at Jane with his big eyes, which naturally spooks Jane. She runs away from here. Late that night Francis was snooping on Dr. Caligari at his house. There he saw Dr Caligari and Ceasaar sleeping besides one another. But we see Ceasaar at Jane’s house too, he had a knife in his hand. We were seeing two Ceasaar at the same time. Ceasaar was slowly moving towards Jane who was sleeping peacefully.
He was about to stab Jane but got distracted by her beauty. Instead of killing her, he kidnaps her. Jane starts shouting and her family members were now running behind Ceasaar. In panic, Ceasaar drops Jane near a hill and later jumps from it. He commits suicide and dies.
Now, Jane narrates everything to Francis. Francis was confused as he saw Ceasaar sleeping besides Dr Caligari the whole night.
Act 5.
The city police have arrested one guy in connection with one old lady's murder. That guy accepts the murder charge but refuses his involvement in Alan or the city clerk’s murder. He was hoping that the police won’t catch him. Francis again arrives at Dr. Caligari’s house. There he asks about Ceasaar to Dr. Caligari. Dr. Caligari shows him Ceasaar’s sleeping cabinet where he had kept the full size puppet of Ceasaar. It was this fake Ceasaar which Francis saw while snooping on Dr Caligari. Upon this revelation, Dr. Caligari runs from them and hides at a mental asylum. Francis follows him there and asks the staff of the asylum about Dr. Caligari. The staff tells him to contact the director.
Fraancis was stunned when he entered the director’s cabin. Their stood Dr. Caligari, the director of mental asylum. Francis runs back and narrates the story to the staff doctors. He tells them about his killings. At night when the director was sleeping, Francis and the staff started checking his cabin. Here Francis finds a diary where the story runs in a flashback again. Remember, this whole story was running in a flashback, we are seeing another flashback in a flashback. Asylum’s director was fascinated by one 18th-century character known as Dr Caligari. Dr. Caligari was an artist, he had a somnambulist with him, he used to conduct spectacles at the fair. On 12th March some people brought a man to the asylum who was a somnambulist. The director was happy after seeing this man, he wanted to test Dr Caligari’s story, so he changed his name.
Act 6.
Now the news of Ceasaar’s death reaches Francis and the rest of the doctors. Jane’s relative brings his body to the asylum. The director was furious after seeing this, he started to attack everyone. Later Francis locks him up in his asylum. Now coming back to the first scene where Francis was narrating this story. We see Francis moving around, he was actually locked up in the same asylum which he just narrated. Meaning he was the real patient, here we see Jane and Ceasaar too, they were also the patients here. Ceasaar was not creepy here, he was absolutely normal. Francis asks that old man not to go near Ceasaar. Later he asks Jane if she will marry him.
Jane answers in a cryptic way, saying we are not free to adhere to our hearts. We are not free. Just then we see the real director of this mental asylum who looked like Dr. Caligari. Francis shouts at him as caligari. Director orders his staff to lock Franics as now he understood his illusion. Francis was assuming the director as Dr. Caligari. This film has been interpreted by many scholars in different ways. The films writer’s Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz were military officers in World War One. They wanted to convey their horrifying experience. Here the war time German government is equated with Dr. Caligari who in their nationalism went crazy. Ceasaar is equated with that German army soldiers who jumped into this war without thinking much. There were in sleep with the intoxication of nationalism.Francis, Jane and Alan were equated with ordinary German folks of that era who suffered due to the ugly war. Germany was poor after World War 1. More than 8 million people have died of starvation, hyperinflation. Record unemployment caused a sense of hopelessness. This paved the foundation for the rise of Hitler.
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was a commercial hit. Next horror films like The Golem, Nsferratu, Metropolis took inspiration from this film. With the rise of Hitler, many artists, directors, fled Germany. Later they were employed in Hollywood where we see this type of expressionism. Example include Dracula, Frankinstein and The Mummy. Overall, art has been interpreted by many scholars in different ways.
