The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari Analysis

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Recommended: Expressionism

The German expressionism was an avant-garde movement that was more than just a style of creating art or film but it was more of a socio-cultural mindset of people. Expressionism can be seen as a way of approaching or tackling life changes.
In this essay about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), I will explore the nature of the narrative structure in the film; I will look at how the conflict between the frame and narrative mutually contradict each other. I will also discuss the representation of madness and illusion in the film looking at the mise-en-scène. I will be looking at some scenes in the film to illustrate and reveal the significance and contradictory nature of the film.
Narrative Structure
The film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent film directed by Robert Wiene. The film is about Francis who narrates his story to an elderly companion after seeing a distracted young woman, Jane (whom he calls his fiancé), pass by. Francis’ story is about a psychotic killer, Dr. Caligari, who hypnotises a somnambulist (a person who is perpetually asleep but who can be awakened briefly) to perform grisly murders at his choosing. Two friends, Alan and Francis, see Caligari at a village fair exhibiting his somnambulist patient. After Alan is later murdered (by the somnambulist), Francis suspects that the real culprit is Caligari, and he sets out to expose Caligari as the evil mastermind (Film Sufi, 2008).
The film employs a framing technique so that the chief action of this film is a story being told within a story, whereby an introductory narrative is introduced (for setting the stage or to lead into the other story) and a second narrative follows. The film does not seem ...

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...lly being transformed into interior elements and psychic events are exteriorized’ (Eisner, 1973:15). This can be seen in the film where the set is a self-contained construct of the subjective perception of a character that challenges our normal perception of reality. The set is an alteration of reality and it is infused with life and expresses the insanity, disorientation and illusions of a world detached from the everyday.
In conclusion the integration of all elements of mise-en-scène work together to create an overall composition of a paradoxical story that has a contradictory narrative structure. The visual style of the film shows that not only are the characters dislocated but the world itself is out of place; the world is an illusion and it prevents you from distinguishing the truth from illusion and madness and this results in an uncertain ending for the film.

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