“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" at The Last Picture House -- September 4.
Wednesday, September 4, 6 p.m.
The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA
A revolutionary work that Roger Ebert said was arguably "the first true horror film," director Robert Wiene's 1920 landmark The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari serves as the first presentation in the German American Heritage Center's German Expressionist Film Series, its September 4 screening at Davenport venue The Last Picture House treating audiences to the silent classic that helped draw worldwide attention to the artistic merit of German cinema.
Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a brainwashed somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark, twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique, curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. Its script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of screenwriters Haris Janowitz and Carl Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World War I. The authors' and Wiene's film makes use of a frame story, with a prologue and epilogue combined with a twist ending, though Janowitz later said this device was forced upon the writers against their will.
Since its 1920 release, writers and scholars have argued that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, and is an example of Germany's obedience to authority and unwillingness to rebel against deranged authority. Some critics have interpreted the work as representing the German war government, with Cesare symbolic of the common man conditioned, like soldiers, to kill. Other themes of the film include the destabilized contrast between insanity and sanity, the subjective perception of reality, and the duality of human nature.
Wiene's masterpiece was released when foreign film industries were easing restrictions on the import of German films after World War I, so it was screened internationally. Accounts differ as to its financial and critical success upon release, but modern film critics and historians have largely praised it as a revolutionary film. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was voted number 12 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. The film helped draw worldwide attention to the artistic merit of German cinema, and had a major influence on American films, particularly in the genres of horror and film noir.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be presented at The Last Picture House at 6 p.m. on September 4, and $15 admission includes a medium popcorn. For more information on the screening and the German American Heritage Center's German Expressionist Film Series, call (563)322-9944 and visit GAHC.org.
