The 1919 movie The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari by Robert Wiene is known to many as a classic in terms of film history, but it is known even more so for being one of the first and most recognized films of the German expressionist era. This era of expressionism is an influential part of cinematic history that grew in a time of post war turmoil. With this movement, the artist, or in this instance filmmaker, communicated in an expressive form to its audience by focusing on feelings and perceptions. Extreme visuals are used to express the creative mind’s emotion while also trying to elicit an emotional response form the viewer. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari exemplified the movements core aspects nearly perfectly, which led the film to its reputation …show more content…
There is a clear reason as to why The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has become synonymous with cinematic expressionism. The film illustrates many aspects of expressionistic filmmaking. The story relies heavily on costumes and setting to exemplify its expressionist influences. It is told in a near fairy tale manner, with a heavy emphasis on the visual style of the film. It is clear when viewing the film that is told abstractly as seen in the handmade scenery and the lacking description about psychological motivations of the characters. A smaller emphasis is put on the development of plot and characterization, but rather on symbolism and the possibilities that lay beneath the surface of each piece within the movie. Reality is created through the use of obscure objects that renders events in a distorted way. Everything in the background is off center and in disarray, using sharp angles and odd shapes to showcase beauty in imbalanced proportions- fitting the ideals of German expressionism perfectly. The film’s setting includes all kinds of unnatural shapes and asymmetric visuals, while also manipulating light for extreme contrasts in light and shadows. This film uses its supreme expressionistic qualities to do as German expression art is
Calhoon, Kenneth S. “Horror vacui.” Peripheral Visions: The Hidden Stages of Weimar Cinema. Wayne State University Press: Detroit, 2001.
Revolutionary forms of art have dominated much of Germany, apparently as a reaction to the First World War. The era in which the First World War took place – throughout the 1910s, featured artists coming together against what they think the pointless aggression said major conflict brought. German artists, in particular, protested against the social structures prevalent during the 1910s, within which the social structures of the Second Reich were prevalent. German society initially saw film, in particular, as quite an inelegant alternative to the bourgeoisie-associated theater. Such is due to the inability of the domestic film industry in Germany to develop films due to two reasons – the mass importation of foreign films from other nations with more advanced film industries and the consequent notion that films are associated with the lower classes (Kellner 3-39). Such impressions, however, changed with the rise of German expressionist film, with the seminal example being The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari by Robert Wiene.
The German Expressionism was a period that came following the devastation of World War I, it came when the people of Germany needed something to claim as their own. The expressionism movement gave Germany just that; it helped them not only in the filmmaking industry, but also in their personal lives. The German Expressionism changed the way we look at and view films. The German Expressionism altered, for the better, the way that films were made back then and the way that they are made today.
The film illustrates the common social and sexual anxieties that the Germans were undergoing at that period of time. It also employs cinematic aesthetics alongside with new technology to create what would be considered as one of Germany’s first sound-supported films. Furthermore, it was the film that popularized its star Marlene Dietrich. The film is also known for combining elements of earlier expressionist works into its setting without becoming an expressionist film itself. It is important also to point out that the visual element has helped to balance the film easily against the backdrop the nightclub lifestyle that Lola leads the professor to fall into.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
Specific techniques of German expressionism, such as dark vs. light, religious themes and spirituality, and the use
The German Expressionist movement was a number of movements that began in Germany during the start of the 20th century. It mainly dealt with poetry, painting, art and cinema. The success of expressionist films helped Germany seen as the most technically advanced in the world. The expressionist style can be...
When audiences think of Lang's Metropolis they almost unanimously think of the same image: that of a golden, mechanical being brought to life. It is one of the most recognizable images in German expressionist cinema, on par with the spidery shadow of Max Schrek's Nosferatu creeping up the stairs in Murnau's vampire film, or that of Cesare the somnambulist sleeping upright in Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, yet what separates this i...
In the presented essay I will compare the style of work of selected artists in the montage of the film. I will try to point out some general regularities and features of Soviet cinema. At the same time I will try to capture especially what is common in their systems and similar or conversely what differ. For my analysis, I will draw on the feature films of the Soviet avantgarde, namely these are the movies - The Battleship Potemkin (S. Eisenstein, 1925), Mother (V. Pudovkin, 1926) and The Man with a movie camera (D. Vertov, 1929).
When a person feels sad, they sit by a rainy windowsill, bathe in despondency, and belt along to Celine Dion’s 1996 hit, “All By Myself”; when they turn terrified by the circumstances surrounding them in the post-WWi era, wrought with unemployment and economic ruin, they invent art-house, pastiche horrors that influences large-scale branches of cinema. In Robert Wiene’s ground-breaking German Expressionist, Das Cabinet des Dr.Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari) (1922), and F.W. Murnau’s Expressionistic-Kammerspielfilm, Der letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) (1924), a range of audience-broadening experiments are taken within silent film; rooted in the up rise of German expressionism, socio-political horrors of post-war Germany are exploited in
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the first film by Germany to be an Expressionist film. Authorities of an avant-garde movement believed that by using Expressionism in films (as they did in paintings, theater, literature, and architecture) this might be a selling point in the international market. The film proved that to be true and because of its success other films in the Expressionist style soon followed.
The Impact of German Expressionist Films Upon the Modern Film Industry. N. p. n.p ., n.d., n.d., n.d., German Expressionism and Its Influence on Alfred Hitchcock. Filmhistoryf13.wordpress.com - "Filmhistoryf13.wordpress.com N.p., 8 Dec. 2013. Web.
... the viewer and the artist. Munch’s “The Scream,” portrays a figure so lost in life that he feels the haunting scream of nature building within him. While this may seem like such a personal moment that it is nearly provocative, the painting captures the essence of the absoluteness that is the human condition. Fritz Lang similarly portrays expressive feeling in his film, “Metropolis” through the composition of cinematography, stylistic choices of design and character development. In an exaggerated form, the film scrutinizes a powerful dystopian society and discovers the true essence of being human. No matter the medium, viewers are strongly taken aback by how personal and emotional the pieces are. Both Fritz Lang’s film, “Metropolis,” and Munich’s painting, “The Scream,” the Expressionist movement is effectively reflected due to the intense focus on personal emotion.
Therefore, it is possible to notice how the cinematography, the mise-en-scene and the editing are used to resemble the peculiarities of the space in which the actions are taking place. For instance, the first part is characterized by long pan or tilt shots, the camera is steady but still manages to follow the characters actions. The editing points to the linear occurring of the events. Also, the characters and the objects are usually methodically placed in the scene. All of the elements are used to convey the rigid organization, efficiency and control typical of the military environment. On the other hand, in the second part, there are usually shorter shots and steadicam shots. The camera is free to investigate the space of action. Here, the editing is used to create a dynamic perception of the events. In this way Kubrick is able to bring in the spectators’ minds the chaotic reality of the war. Moreover, colors become another tool to communicate to the audience this sort of split within the film. In fact, after Pyle’s death the viewer can notice how those metallic and cold colors, that are present at the beginning of the film, shift into wormer colors. It is actually through Pyle’s suicide that the the spectator gets this switch. In that scene the dark red blood stains, and ideologically violates, the cold white tiles of the bathroom. This film is also different on
The expressionist movement in German art and cinema was very sensitive to the current state of the country after a huge worldwide conflict. Prior to the rise of the next Nazi Regime, German filmmakers incorporated many aspects to their films that had never been used together before this period of time. M is no exception to