Theoretical Models, Technical Aspects, and Historical Conditions:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
This essay will examine Robert Wiene’s 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the ways in which certain theoretical models and historical conditions are reflected in the technical aspects of the film in addition to being evident in the narrative content. As Mike Budd contends that this film is a particularly useful text for the study of reception history in a socially critical context, “[w]ith its Expressionist stylization and contradictory frame story, the text itself produces a fascinating range of interpretations, questions and confusions” (3).
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is considered the most famous of all German films, and is the best-known example of German Expressionism. Worland describes the film as a “weirdly atmospheric horror drama” which helped to make German cinema world-famous (44). The cultural movement known as German Expressionism developed in the 1920s in Germany, after the Great War of 1914-1918. Expressionism aimed to “break decisively from the past traditions in both form and content, and was strongly anti-naturalistic, exploding the smooth linear perspective of post Renaissance art” (Worland, 46). The movement was committed to externalizing the internal, attempting to visualize interior psychological states and emotions. Wiene’s film “sought to make its settings, décor, and acting reflect no reality other than its characters’ anxious psychological states” (Worland, 46). “In late 1917, as the war began to turn against Germany after fresh US troops entered the fighting, the Kaiser’s government consolidated most commercial film production companies into a single government-controlled entity charged with producing propaganda films”, which was called “Universumfilm Aktiengesellschaft”, or Ufa. When the war was over, Ufa “returned to private hands, fully capitalized and employing much of the country’s finest film-making talent. Despite major social upheaval and a devastated economy, German producers also benefited from a 1916 ban on the importation of foreign films, a restriction not lifted until 1921. Throughout the period of postwar Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-32), Ufa represented Hollywood’s greatest competition in Europe” (Worland, 44).
Caligari had “originated in the mass carnage and despair that four years of trench warfare had spread across Europe” (Worland, 46). Some twenty million people had died, millions more “wounded and maimed physically and emotionally”, and thus the subsequent impacts on film, “the decade following the war was crucial to the development of the modern horror film” (Worland, 43).
The film was designed by Hermann Warm, who claims that “Erich Pommer was not actually the producer of Caligari, although he was in charge of production at Decla, the firm that produced the film” (Barlow, 33). According to Warm, Robert Meinert was the actual producer of the film. He was the one who thought that a “naturalistic set would not be right for the film” and recommended “a fantastic, graphic structure”. Warm and his two friends, Walter Reiman, and Walter Rohrig, who were associated with a Berlin expressionist journal, “all agreed that they should create something fantastic and nightmarish, without any real structural elements”, and it was Reimann who had suggested an expressionist approach to the styling of Caligari. Director Robert Wiene agreed. Barlow reflects on the expressionist movement and its status during the time of the film’s creation, “…it is significant that at this point in history expressionism as a rebellious movement had passed its peak and was now becoming fashionable, having become ‘the natural style even for younger, relatively unformed men to adopt for portraying their traumatic surroundings’” (33).
John Barlow utilizes the term “Caligarism” and explains that it refers to a particular style introduced by Wiene’s 1920 film. The term also refers to films which were either influenced by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or were made in the same spirit, “a spirit that conjures up notions of bizarre madness and obsession” (29). Barlow discusses the difficulties theoreticians have accepting this film of the “bizarre and outrageously conceived set that makes no attempt to disguise the fact that it is a set” (29). Moreover, Barlow notes Eisenstein’s criticality of the film, as he feels that it was the “ultimate form of repulsion”; “the total opposite of the montage he felt to be the essence of cinema” (29).
Scandal surrounding its production further complicates its reputation. Barlow considers the changes between the original screenplay and the final product, explaining that these changes were “symptomatic of the rise of fascism in Germany”, constituting the film as a reactionary and authoritarian movie (30). “The controversy surrounding Caligari stems from various claims about the intentions of the original screenplay and their supposed subversion in the production of the film” (Barlow, 31). “Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, two pacifistic young writers from Prague, were supposed to have prepared a screenplay that would denounce arbitrary authority as insane and brutal…they set to work on a screenplay that would bring [their] diverse experiences together”, including Mayer’s feigned madness to avoid military service, and subsequently being subjected to an authoritarian military psychiatrist; as well as Janowitz’s believing that he had witnessed a rape and murder of a young girl near a carnival; and lastly, a sideshow the two saw together in which a hypnotized man performed incredible feats of strength (Barlow, 32). Earlier cinematic experiences, feelings about life in the early Weimar Republic, and these personal experiences coalesced “to produce, in the hands of Wiene and his designers, the film through which the German silent cinema first became internationally known” (Prawer, 167).
Siegfried Kracauer, who has written on the psychological history of German film, boldly comparing Caligari to Hitler, argues that “there was originally no frame story, that the film consisted only of Francis’ story, beginning when the fair came to town and ending when the mad director was put into the straitjacket”. He insists that the original concept was to “see the director as an example of the voracious power and authority that had plagued Germany for so long, particularly during the war, while Cesare was the stand for the common man of unconditional obedience. Francis was to personify reason and enlightenment, triumphing over irrational tyranny” (Barlow, 32). “According to Kracauer, the frame story was added during the production under Robert Wiene’s direction to turn a ‘revolutionary’ movie into a ‘conformist’ one” (Barlow, 32). The frame story in the film, reveals Francis to be a patient in the mental institution, subverting the entire story he tells, and apparently “denying the viewer the possibility of clearly understanding the story’s implications” (Barlow, 32).
Kracauer claims to have drawn his data from “an interesting manuscript Mr. Hans Janowitz has written about the genesis of this film” (Kracauer, 61). Kracauer boldly states that he is thus “in a position to base [his] interpretation of Caligari on the true inside story, up to now unknown” (61). He then delves deep into a narrative-like story behind Caligari’s creators and the film’s origin, “the war was over, Janowitz, who from its outbreak had been an officer in an infantry regiment, returned as a convinced pacifist, animated by hatred of an authority which had sent millions of men to death”. After settling in Berlin, Janowitz met Carl Mayer and soon discovered that they shared the same revolutionary views. “This horror tale…was an outspoken revolutionary story. In it, as Janowitz indicates, he and Carl Mayer half-intentionally stigmatized the omnipotence of a state authority manifesting itself in universal conscription and declarations of war” (Kracauer, 64). “The character of Caligari embodies these…fatal tendencies inherent in the German system, he stands for an unlimited authority that idolizes power as such, and to satisfy its lust for domination, ruthlessly violates all human rights and values…They had created Cesare with the dim design of portraying the common man who, under the pressure of compulsory military service, is drilled to kill and to be killed” (65).
Meanwhile, claims elsewhere state that Janowitz was opposed to the alterations being made to the collaborative screenplay he and Mayer had written. Janowitz believed that by altering the final version, the film is deprived of its “revolutionary and political significance”. Meanwhile, Mayer apparently had “no political intentions” in making the film (Barlow, 33).
Kracauer declares that “Wiene suggested…an essential change to the original story- a change against which the two authors violently protested (66). Kracauer provides a synopsis of the final version of the film, concluding with a questionable reading of the film’s ending, casually stating that the film leaves the audience on a positive note: “with this cheerful message, the audience is dismissed” (66). The film definitely did not conclude with a cheerful message in the least. The ending suggests that the authoritarian control and power continues to defeat and conquer the common man, especially in the case of this particular man, who is not obedient and subservient to the authorities. Kracauer’s analysis of the film’s final scene cannot even be argued to be the slightest bit true, and this misinterpretation puts into question his entire argument, his credibility, and his accuracy.
Barlow states that Kracauer was indeed mistaken in contending that the original screenplay did not include a frame story, and wrong to denounce the completed film as reactionary. The original screenplay did in fact depict a frame story, although it is significantly different from the one in the final version, “Kracauer was at least right in claiming that the final version of the frame story changed the implications of the original one”(Barlow, 32), but not to the same degree and effect as he had stipulated. Kracauer argues that Wiene’s Caligari “glorified authority and convicted its antagonist of madness”, turning an originally “revolutionary film” into a “conformist one” (Kracauer, 67). “If Decla had chosen to leave the original story…as it was, these ‘drawings brought to life’ would have told it perfectly. As expressionist abstractions they were animated by the same revolutionary spirit that impelled the two scriptwriters to accuse authority…of inhuman excesses. However, Wiene’s version disavowed this revolutionary meaning of expressionist staging, or, at least, put it, like the original story itself, in brackets” (Kracauer, 70). Fritz Lang, who had originally been assigned the direction of this film, disagreed with Kracauer. Lang insisted that the framing device actually made the narrative more convincing, and that the frame far from inhibits the film’s revolutionary inclinations (Barlow, 33).
There have been many disputes and discussions surrounding the controversial reception and production of the film, and “the truth about the making of Caligari will probably never be known, it is certain that many hands took part in the conception and production of this strange film, an example of the importance of screen writers and set designers in the German cinema in the Twenties” (Barlow, 34). Even leading actors Werner Krauss (Caligari) and Conrad Veidt (Cesare) “enthusiastically took part in many aspects of the production. The success of this collective studio effort influenced subsequent film production in Germany for many years” (Barlow, 34). Since there were so many contributing individuals and no clearly defined author, there has been much speculation about the original intentions in the making of Caligari. “It is a film that, more than others, resists the assumptions of auteurist criticism” (Barlow, 34). Regardless of the filmmakers’ reasons for deciding upon the particular framing story, and regardless of critical claims pertaining to the film’s original intentions and attitudes, “[t]he significance of Caligari and its frame story must be sought in the film’s relation to its audience rather than in its relation to its makers” (Barlow, 34).
There are three narrative points of view in the film. First, there is the framing story, where Francis tells the story to the old man. The second is the story told by Francis which comprises most of the film. The third is “the brief episode about the director’s past, where the storyteller is the Caligari figure himself, in his diary. The audience discovers how, according to Francis, the director of the insane asylum came to identify himself with ‘the infamous Dr. Caligari’” (Barlow, 36). In the film, the frame story provides an explanation of the distorted images in the story told by Francis. “He is mad and the distortions are the visions of a madman” (Barlow, 35). By integrating a frame story device within the film narrative, the gap between everyday reality of the audience and the inner world of Francis’s vision is accounted for and explained, bridging the two realms in a convincing and effective way.
The visual expressionist style in the film reflects the internalized psychological state of storyteller Francis. Barlow explains that “external reality has been shaped according to an internal mental perception” (37). “According to Kurtz, ‘raging elements’ and ‘uncontrolled passions’ are let loose in the strange set design of expressionist movies” (Barlow, 39). The acting in Caligari is typically expressionistic but is not especially unique. “Expressionist theories of acting had a great influence on the German silent cinema, even in films that bear no other traces of expressionism. The pantomimic aspects of the expressionist theatre played a strong role in developing the style of German silent film acting”. These aspects grew out of the need to “present a message that was a defiantly apocalyptic or rhapsodic expression of the essence of human experience” (Barlow, 41). “Pantomime, with its use of facial expression and gesture, came to be the preferred method of conveying the necessary intensity and immediacy of those abstractions beyond analysis that the expressionists were striving for” (Barlow, 42).
“Whatever the significance of the frame story may be, Francis clearly expresses a resentment of all forms of authority…Francis is trying to say that the authorities in his life are responsible for his misery…Whether he is right or wrong, it is still the viewpoint of someone who feels persecuted…regardless of whether he actually is being persecuted…as the film is structured, we are implicated in his vision, we participate in, and sympathize with him” (Barlow, 50-51). “The feeling of persecution was widely felt in Germany at the time, on all sides of the political spectrum. When Francis tries to blame the authorities for his persecution, he is reflecting a general state of mind in Germany after World War I” (Barlow, 51), “Caligari not only captured this mood, but allowed the viewer to participate in it. The connection between Caligari and Hitler lies in the mood itself, expressed so well in the film, exploited so successfully by the Nazis, and not in Kracauer’s facile assumption that the film somehow glorifies authority just because it has not made a preachy statement against it” (Barlow, 51).
Siegbert.S. Prawer discusses the film’s distinctive style being a result of “product differentiation”, which resulted in a stream of filmmakers adopting the exaggerated, expressionist style, themes, motifs, and characters, still prominent in the genre today. “Without knowing it the audiences of terror-films even today are again and again confronted by images that ultimately derive from the imaginations of Wiene and his gifted team” (165). However, it is important to consider the elements of the horror and gothic genres that came before Caligari which must be accounted for, including “earlier literature, and a great deal of earlier work in the cinema, from Melies onwards” (Prawer, 167).
While considering the theoretical and historical conditions of the films production, distribution, and reception, and its continued study and speculation nearly a century after its release, it is evident that Wiene’s 1920 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a film of heavy influence, not only in theoretical discourses, but primarily in filming practices and styles that is still used to this day. The technical aspects of the film were so innovative and powerful at the time of the film’s production, provoking discussion and debate for decades. The film offers a rich text for analyses surrounding its historical conditions, theoretical issues, and technical aspects. All of these aspects, as well as narrative content, still have the ability to engage with contemporary audiences.
Works Cited
Barlow, John D. “Caligari and ‘Caligarism’.” German Expressionist Film. Boston: Twayne Publishers, (1982): 29-57.
Budd, Mike. “The National Board of Review and the Early Art Cinema in New York: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Affirmative Culture.” Cinema Journal 26.1 (1986): 3-18.
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. 1st Ed. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947.
Prawer, Siegbert S. “The Iconography of the Terror-film: Wiene’s Caligari.” Caligari’s Children: The Film as Tale of Terror. Oxford; New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., (1980): 164-200.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Dir. Robert Wiene. Perf. Conrad Veidt. Decla, 1920.
Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: An Introduction. 1st Ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2007.
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