THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919)

This film is usually discussed as an example of Expressionism in the cinema.
Expressionism was first used in 1911 at an art exhibition in Berlin.
It uses exaggeration and distortion to express ideas and emotions.
Its sympathies are with pre-industrial society.
It is anti-naturalistic, fantastic, and open to impulses that are anti-rational (i.e. the unconscious)
In other words, Expressionism is the kind of art that might threaten authorities.

Take CALIGARI as an example: the basic plot concerns control and power, the control of a father figure over a son. Obviously, I speak metaphorically here, but the film brings us into metaphor in the first shot. We see two men, one younger than the other, seated in what looks like a bower, a garden, with strands and wisps of plant life draped over their bodies like webbing. We have an insistent use of the iris. These ‘signs’ inform us that we are entering a space in which things might not be what they appear to be. In short, what we see is metaphoric. If this is true, then what follows will most likely extend the metaphoric aspect of the film. In the world of metaphor, fathers and sons may represent various things (superego and ego, for example). Here the father may represent a number of things: the past controlling the present (Caligari is, we learn, a historical figure), the fatherland controlling its citizens by keeping them in a somnambulant state, the madman controlling the psyche and driving it to carry out unspeakable acts, the director controlling the inmates of an institution, the director manipulating actors and technicians in film making.

Let’s stop here for a second. The film makes it clear that Caligari is a mountebank, a charlatan, someone who proffers quack medicines from a platform, a conman. In other words, he is not a simple representative of the controlling power of the state. In fact, he is an outsider, someone associated with a traveling carnival. He objects to the way the state, through its petty clerks and bureaucrats, deals with people like him. And so the town clerk ends up dead. From a social and political perspective, Caligari represents something threatening and criminal. He works in silence, at night, in sinister and covert ways. In short, he has someone else do the dirty work for him. And who is this someone? Who is Cesare? Where does he come from? Why is he somnambulant? Why won’t someone find him a cure? Clearly the film does not take an interest in such questions. Cesare just is the way he is, and in some ways he is representative of the rest of us. He sleepwalks through life. But he does have a heart or conscience as his reaction to the girl indicates. His facial makeup with the dark eyes reminds me of the Pierrot, although a sad Pierrot and not a comic figure. He is the fool, the clown, the set upon, the madman. At the end of the film when things seem to have turned around, and after he is supposed to have died, we see him in the institution holding a posy and looking wistful and melancholy.

Where does this take us? Back to Caligari. He comes to us through the story of Francis, In Francis’s story, Caligari is the mad scientist, the evil force that threatens to shatter innocence and drive people insane through his machinations. In other words, the story begins as Francis’s narration, but we quickly see (literally) that the story we are receiving is not Francis’s, in the sense that it is what Francis actually experienced. For one thing, the story contains too many things that Francis could not have known – Caligari’s trip to the town clerk, for example, or his knowledge of Cesare’s reaction to Jane. And by the end, we come to see that the whole narrative has been contained within the confines of a mental institution, Francis is a troubled patient in the asylum, and the Caligari figure turns out not to be Caligari but rather the kindly (apparently) director of the asylum. And so the film ends (or just about ends) with the revelation that the entire story has been the figment of a deranged mind. Francis, whatever his problem, is paranoid and libidinous. We might reflect that in the story he tells, Cesare represents his own libidinous impulses, his desire for Jane. This might explain Cesare’s costume with the slinky black leotards that do not leave much for the imagination, and Cesare’s obvious libidinous attraction to Jane.

But we might remember that this is a film in which things are not what they seem to be. The final iris moving in to the good doctor as he tells us that he can cure Francis leaves us with a question: how will he effect this cure? All we have seen during the film are images of insane people either confined by straight jackets or isolated in cells where they are bound or chained or people allowed to walk in a confined space, along streets that look like corridors, or in the institution where they meander like prisoners in their daily exercise. Can we be sure that what we have seen at the end is any more actual than what Francis’s story has told?

But we can go back to “things are not what they seem to be.” From another perspective, things are exactly as they seem to be. This film is most famous for its sets, those strangely abstract and twisted views of streets or rooms or the circus or the asylum. And we notice little things such as how the twisted designs, the sharp angles, and abstract lines become stronger and more insistent as the film goes along. In other words, we notice more derangement, more hysteria, more paranoia reflected in the sets as the film moves toward its conclusion. We notice that the rooms of the two students, Alan and Francis, differ in the degree of their loopiness. Francis’s room is far more rounded and out of kilter, perhaps even resembling something of the crookedness of Caligari’s own little shack. In other words, the sets signal the emotional turmoil and the psychic disorder that characters who are mentally unstable manifest in their actions. And if I am right to see that the intensity of the derangement of the sets increases as the story goes along, then we might see the story as reflecting the disintegration of a mind, a descent into madness. The floor of the institution courtyard is a stylized mandala, a symbol of the integrated mind, only here off kilter, like the minds of the inmates.

The idea of descent brings me to the carnival. Before I focus on carnival, I note the opening shot of the town. The artist’s conception of the town is reminiscent of medieval conceptions of the pyramidal design of the cosmos, with the top standing for heaven, the middle for purgatory, and the bottom as Hell. I am thinking of the kind of otherworld cosmology we see in Dante. So let’s take this observation to the set designed to show the entrance to the carnival. Here we see the backdrop of various carnival tents and rides, the rides being of the carousel kind reflecting the circular movement of a mind stuck in constant return of the repressed. In front of this is the pathway that descends into the carnival, a pathway whose direction is accentuated by the railing in the middle ground that moves decidedly upward and the people on the path move downward. Then on the right of the frame we have an organ grinder with his monkey. At one point early in the film, we see Caligari stop and watch people give money to the organ grinder. One person in particular catches Caligari’s attention – a very short person. The very next shot shows a dwarf in the circus grounds carrying a standard. What is this all about? Anyhow, the way into the carnival is down, a descent -- into hell?

The obvious contrast to this descent into the carnival is the ascent to the police station. The stairway into the police station is unnaturally steep, and once inside we see ridiculously tall chairs upon which the two policemen sit, reminding us of the even more absurdly tall chair the town clerk sits upon in an earlier scene. The message seems to be that the city bureaucracy is removed from the reality of people’s lives. In other words, we have the top of the social order where city officials work and we have the bottom of the social order where carnival barkers and circus people make a living. In between, we have the students and shopkeepers and landladies and business people of the town. From another perspective, of course, the tall chairs and steep stairs keep reminding us that what we are seeing is not “real.” The absurdity of the sets reflects the unbalanced nature of the mind conceiving this story.

But let’s consider the carnival a bit more. This film inaugurates something of a genre: the circus film. We have many examples from Chaplin’s CIRCUS to W.C. Field’s YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, and CIRCUS WORLD. Perhaps the most bizarre example is Tod Browning’s FREAKS. In general, the circus presents us with another world, a sort of heterotopia that may represent the world as “greatest show on earth” or as “nightmare” or something in between. In other words, the circus is a space where normal reality is exaggerated. Circus has something similar in it to “carnival,” that festival that turns everything upside down. In carnival, he or she who would be last is first, he or she who is on the bottom is now on the top. Carnival, like the circus, offers a space where we are free of the usual social constraints. This is probably why the town clerk in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI is so dismissive and disapproving of Caligari’s request for a permit. He perceives the circus act—the display of a somnambulist -- as of dubious value and honesty. The clerk hands him off to minions. Carnival is leveling. It breaks down social class divisions. In this film, however, the circus is a space that threatens to overwhelm that which lies outside this space. It is the locus of horror. Not only does Caligari display a somnambulist, but he also presents his somnambulist as a fortuneteller. Our young friend Alan has the temerity (stupidity?) to ask how long he will live, and Cesare portentously tells him that he will die at dawn. The circus, then, is the source for the insanity that overruns the town. Does this film make a connection between circus and asylum? Does this film have anything to say about abnormality? The circus is a place for performance as the organ grinder and his monkey demonstrate, and in the scenes of the asylum we see that this too is a place for performance. The patients (inmates) are seen performing in various ways, one man obviously expounding or speechifying. Cesare performs, but we see that his performance is a command performance in that he performs at the command of his master, the sinister Dr. Caligari. We might extrapolate from this and note that everyone “performs” in some way. The town clerk performs his duties as town clerk. The two young men perform the way young men are supposed to perform, reading books, longing for experience, and lusting after women. Everyone performs in some way. When does performance become unacceptable? Well obviously Cesare’s performance is socially unacceptable; we don't like people to go around murdering other people. Caligari’s actions are also unacceptable and they get him certified and placed in an institution bound by a straight jacket. Francis’s performance has also been deemed unacceptable and we find him confined in an institution. This is a film about socially unacceptable people. Like circus films generally, Caligari focuses on people who do not fit nicely into the social norm. Society commands and demands normalcy; society places those who deviate from the norm in confinement.

An aside: I wonder if the circus is also the place where desire finds temporary satisfaction. We know that both Alan and Francis love the same woman, and after they walk her home Francis acknowledges that both he and Alan love Jane. He then urges that no matter which man she chooses, the two men will remain friends. Earlier at the circus, after Alan has asked his question concerning how long he will live, and after he has received his answer, we have two close-up shots, one of Alan whose face registers fear and trembling, and one of Francis whose face registers ecstasy as if he has just heard sweet words. Now right after the two men say goodnight we cut to the scene of Alan’s murder. We never do see who kills him; we just see the shadow of the death scene on the wall. Alan’s face registers horror and disbelief just before he dies. Who is the murderer? It is fitting that we see the death only as a shadow since this is a film that deals with reality only as a shadow world, a world of unreality. Reality has little or no substance in this film.

The great thing about this film is that it drives directly to the source of deviance – it takes us down into the mind and its desires. In other words, this film acknowledges (especially through its sets) the unconscious. If Freud lies behind the psychology of this film, then we might find the id, ego, and superego working (and I note the three openings before the stairs in the institution courtyard). We might also guess that everything from the opening frames until at least the revelation of Caligari’s ‘’true’ identity are an out issue of Francis’s mind. In other words, everything in the narrative he tells is an aspect of his own mind. We might have a clue to this at the beginning when Jane floats through the garden and Francis tells the man sitting with him that she is his “betrothed.” She appears oblivious to the two men. Here’s a prospective bride who does not even acknowledge the existence of her prospective groom. She is, in effect, his ideal-I, his fantasy. Then within his narrative we can see his desire at work, his desire to come out from the confines of his room, get rid of a rival, confront the father figure, defeat him, and claim his bride. Within his fantasy, however, the superego and id are at war; his desire for Jane is reflected in Cesare’s abduction of her and his fear of his own desire is reflected in the bizarre superego figure of Caligari. What chance does a poor ego have when such powerful forces of repression and un-repression are at work? This film is about the return of the repressed, the driving force of desire that will have its sway even unto destruction and dissolution.

But what of the good doctor’s “cabinet.” The cabinet is the coffin-like container that closes over Cesare when his master puts him to rest. (Cesare is, by the way, a puppet, a manikin, a rag-doll, as in the scene in which Caligari sits by him while his alter-ego is out stalking Jane.) The cabinet itself is a closet, a coffin, a bed, a crib, a container. It might represent the mind opening and closing. We see Caligari slyly open it on more than one occasion; for example, he opens it for Jane when she makes her way into he circus looking for her father; Cesare awakes, stares at her, and scares her away. The opening and closing of the doors of this cabinet draw our attention to just how many doors we have in this film: doorways in and out. The door to Caligari’s shack. The doorway into the town clerk’s office. The doorways in the asylum. The elongated and tapered door to the Director of the Institution’s office. Doors are thresholds indicating movement either inward or outward, either to confinement or to liberation. They indicate passage, the passage from one place or state to another. The mind is a doorway leading, in this film, to lunacy, to a paranoid release of repressed desire. The only way to keep anti-social desire repressed and safe is either by having a healthy and balanced psyche or by going insane. The insistent emphasis on doors reminds us of ways in and of ways out. The mind is a threshold between inner and outer. The psyche must negotiate its balance and health by locating an equilibrium of self and other. What we see in CALIGARI is an imbalance; the self is incapable of equilibrium.

Another point to make about the “cabinet” is that it represents masculine space. I especially like the scene in which the Dr. first “wakes” Cesare, and Cesare emerges from the upright cabinet. The scene reminds me of the emergence of the Mummy from its casket in Karl Freund’s THE MUMMY (1932). But I also note the phallic aspect of this cabinet and of Cesare. Cesare is a walking phallus; his weapon of choice (a long knife) accentuates the phallic implications. Compare this phallic space with the feminine space of Jane’s home, a place in the one location we see aside from her bedroom that looks like a large blossom or bowl with petals in the background, reminding us of the female equivalent of the male phallus. When Cesare enters Jane’s bedroom, he finds easy entrance through a window whose bars offer little impediment to him. These two spaces – the cabinet and Jane’s sitting room – give us spatial conventions for masculine and feminine that continue to our own day. We might also compare the rooms of the two men with Jane’s bedroom.

And what of this film’s influences? Comments on Blackboard have done a great job of tracing this film’s influence all the way from James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN to films by Tim Burton (EDWARD SCISSORHANDS comes to mind). Many of the conventions of the horror film turn up in this film from the woman threatened by a monster, to a mad scientist, to ghoulish sets, to the use of shadows. The film owes much to Gothic tradition and to German Romanticism, especially the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann (see his story, “The Sandman” that Freud analyses in his famous essay on “The Uncanny”). It contains the Gothic sense of dissolution, a darkness drawing down, a place where the terrifying monsters of the mind become actualized. It contains the Gothic sense of a world in which innocence is under threat and the forces of order are undermined. It contains the familiar fear of the young that an older generation will stifle them, control them to the point of degeneration.

Finally, the film uses flashback near the end to trace Caligari’s obsession with power. While Francis and the doctors and orderlies of the Institution read about the historical Caligari and then read the Director’s Cases and Notes, the film flashes back to the Director’s interest in Caligari, and then the arrival at the Institution of the somnambulist, and the Director’s temptation. Then we see the Director become Caligari as the screen shows us how his obsession with the historical Caligari overwhelms him. Then we return to the frame – the scene of Francis sitting in the bower narrating his story to the other man who had earlier told a story about spirits. The film seems neat enough: a madman narrates a story in which he explains his deranged sense of what has happened to himself and his “betrothed,” and then we discover that this story is a fantasy. Or is it?

Eisenstein refers to CALIGARI as “this barbaric carnival of the destruction of the healthy infancy of our art, this common grave for normal cinema origins, this combination of silent hysteria, particolored canvases, daubed flats, painted faces, and the unnatural broken gestures and actions of monstrous chimaeras.” And yes, CALIGARI does wrench film into another dimension, one we should celebrate. Yippee.