The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Millie Charlotte Sam

Historical Context – The Cabinet of Dr Caligari Released in 1920 by the Director Robert Wiene. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema.  Features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. Dr. Caligari represents the German war government, and Cesare is symbolic of the common man conditioned, like soldiers, to kill. In his influential book From Caligari to Hitler, Siegfried Kracauer says the film reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, and that the film is a premonition of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released just as foreign film industries were easing restrictions on the import of German films following World War I, so it was screened internationally. At the beginning of World War I, the German film industry was dominated by imported films. To combat the competition, the German government and military set up the UFA (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft) to support the local film industry (and propaganda creation). The borders had been closed to import, so all entertainment had to be internally produced. Many film production houses opened, and the industry boomed with a new strength - but this alone did not generate the Expressionist movement. The people of Germany were hurting. The economy was in depression and the war had been lost. There was little to make the people happy about the world around them. Things were not good. It was this social state in conjunction with the booming film production environment that gave rise to a film genre that reflected the mood of the people - through design as well as subject matter. German Expressionism was born. ​