Tonight I watched "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari" (1920), the legendary Silent masterpiece of German Expressionism. It's funny because you would think that I - a huge fan of horror and cinema in general - would have already seen "Caligari" by now, and multiple times at that. But I saw the dvd at Northridge Libe yesterday (when I also checked out "To Be Or Not To Be"), and I thought, "y'know....I'm not sure if I've actually seen 'Dr Caligari' ". I knew I'd seen parts of it over the years, maybe on TCM or PBS, but as I thought about it I came to the conclusion that I'd never seen it from start to finish.
"Gotta remedy that", I thought, and I did this evening. If you have heard of the movie or are aware of German Expressionism, you have probably seen images of the famous sets for this movie, which are set up on small stages and painted to look like a warped version of reality. Windows are tilted and curved, doorframes are canted. Building facades are painted on walls and are two dimensional. The film is staged as a play, but it plays like a film because the sets are so unusual and varied, and because the editor cuts away between scenes or fades to black, as if you were changing locations in real life.
Conrad Veidt plays "Caesare", a Somnabulist (sleepwalker) who, according to his caretaker, has been asleep for the entirety of his 23 years of life. The caretaker is a circus barker who takes Caesare to country fairs in order to exhibit him to make money. Patrons are told that Caesare can be wakened for brief periods, to answer questions from the audience and also make predictions like a fortune teller.
Right off the bat, a young man asks him "how long am I going to live"? Caesare replies that he will not live to see the morning. So there you have one hell of a setup that plays great, even as a silent movie. "Cabinet" is 75 minutes long and it staged in six parts, so each part is apprx. 12 minutes long give or take. Caesare lives in a box (the "Cabinet" of the title) inside Dr. Calgari's tiny little shack at the dead end of a street. The doctor himself is the head of an Insane Asylum.
But now I've told you too much. :)
The main reason to see "Dr. Caligari" is because of the art direction and the sets because they are part of film history and they still have the power 98 years later to make quite an impression on the viewer. They are simple sets, but they were created as psychological art, to describe the madness that has overtaken the life of the protagonist Francis, a nice young man whose fiance has been abducted by Caesare, who is in turn being manipulated by the evil and mesmeric Caligari.
But the sets are not the only reason to see this film. Conrad Veidt made his name playing "Caesare", who is scary even though he's asleep, and Veidt went on to become a movie star in Hollywood, even having a major role in "Casablanca", one of the most famous films of all time. The other actors, though not as well known, all came out of the German theater of the early 20th century and represented the experimentation that was encouraged during the Weimar Republic before Hitler took over. He would have hated this film, which is another great reason to see it. :)
Mostly, though, just see it because it is "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari". It is beyond legendary.
Yeah, it's Silent, but don't let that stop you. You might discover that you like Silent films, and "Caligari" is only an hour and fifteen minutes, so it's a piece of cake. Watch it around Halloween.
Me, I'll be moving on to "The Man Who Laughs" by Paul Leni. If you ever wanna see a creepy face, Google "The Man Who Laughs". He was the inspiration for "The Joker" from "Batman". ////
Good singing in church this morn. Afterward I drove to Burbank to take Sophie shopping out at the apocalyptically enormous Burbank Mall. The entire population was there, but we had a good time and got the job done.
I am reading, in my Dr. Farrell book "Microcosm and Medium" about the Baroque musical principle of Affektenlerhe, which has to do with intervals and ratios of notes on the musical scale and how they relate to universal human feelings.
Google "Affektenlehre" and also the "Anthropic Cosmological Principle" which has to do with the ancient Greek philosophical idea that Man is a Microcosm (a small Universe) in relation to the Macanthropos, the Universe itself.
I won't try to describe it, for it is Sunday night and the Flintstone Toothpicks are in place. So just Google it. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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