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beccaelizabethGermany had entered the First World War as a conservative country dominated by military, aristocratic and bureaucratic elites. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles involved Germany admitting 'war guilt' and making financially ruinous reparations. The Weimar Republic was established as a liberal, democratic, constitutional state, but the time was characterised by social unrest and political divisions. [Aitken, 2001, pp50-51] In 1920 Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari was written by Janowitz and Mayer, and directed by Wiene. The story of a psychiatrist obsessed with a mythical doctor, directing a somnambulist to do murder, it was filmed using a highly stylised Expressionist mise en scene, and became a classic of German Expressionist film. Later Kracauer saw in the film symptoms of the German national soul, tendencies that led to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War. His 1947 book From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film made Caligari part of an explanatory myth about a people torn between tyranny and chaos. Elsaesser (2000) calls it a historical imaginary, an explanation for German history woven from symbols. Kracauer saw in one early horror film a collection of themes that reflected all the tensions of the time. He also believed that the potentially revolutionary message of the film, revealing and overthrowing the tyrant, was defused and contained by the frame story that portrayed the narrator as insane. But a more ambiguous reading is possible, especially if you focus on Dr Caligari’s glasses.
There are many competing claims about Caligari’s most distinctive features, and many competing readings. Kracauer’s theory was that “The character of Caligari […] stands for an unlimited authority that idolizes power as such, and, to satisfy its lust for domination, ruthlessly violates all human rights and values.” [Kracauer, 2004, p65] Kracauer drew on Janowitz’s account of the making, but where Janowitz saw the film as responding to the First World War, Kracauer portrayed it as leading up to the second. It is obviously easier to see how it might be responding to the war fresh in the memory of those involved in its production. Janowitz claimed that Mayer had spent the war pretending to be mad so he would not have to fight an insane war, and that this was the inspiration for Caligari, bringing the pressure of authority on a powerless young man. [Robinson, 1997, p9] Janowitz, years after production, claimed it was subconsciously their theme:
the corresponding connection between our Doctor Caligari, and the great authoritative power of a government that we hated, and which had subdued us into an oath, forcing conscription on those in opposition to its official war aims, compelling us to murder and to be murdered. [Janowitz in Robinson, 1997, p32]
This interpretation expresses war guilt, and displaces it to higher authorities. Whether or not they had this in mind at the time of writing it is a plausible reading, and an emotionally powerful explanation.
Janowitz and Mayer wrote the original screenplay, but they were not responsible for one of the key features of the final film, the framing story. The framed story depicts Francis as a detective, seeking out the insane Director, revealing him as Dr Caligari, and confining him to a cell in his own asylum. The frame story however depicts Francis as the insane man, and the Director declares he will cure him. Kracauer believed this changed the whole meaning of the film: “While the original story exposed the madness inherent in authority, Wiene’s glorified authority and convicted its antagonist of madness. A revolutionary film was thus turned into a conformist one”. [Kracauer, 2004, p67]
The first time the audience sees Caligari, his glasses are prominent. His eyes stare out at the audience through those two round lenses and the camera lens, and the fade or iris in focuses all attention on that face. There are two, or perhaps three, points in the film where Caligari does not wear his glasses. The first is when he is asleep in bed, and Francis reads his account of how he became Caligari. The second is when he is stripped of all his props, forced into a straitjacket, and locked in a cell. These are times when Caligari loses his power, as inattention leads to the Director’s unmasking and defeat. The third time may or may not be Caligari. In the framed story the Director of the mental hospital becomes the murderer Dr Caligari. In the framing story the apparently harmless Director informs the hospital workers, and the audience, that Francis is mad and believes him to be Caligari, a belief that he can cure. But as Kracauer notes without follow up, that final scene is visually ambiguous. “The scene is switched over to a sickroom, with the director putting on horn-rimmed spectacles which immediately change his appearance: it seems to be Caligari who examines the exhausted Francis.” [Kracauer, 2004, p66]
The Director, wearing the glasses, turns to stare into Francis’ eyes; Francis lies down, finally stilled. It seems like nothing less than an example of Caligari’s hypnotic power, put on along with his glasses. If the glasses are an important symbol, if they could represent Caligari’s power, then the ambiguity is not simply visual but central to the interpretation of the film and its ideological orientation. If the Director is sane, then Francis is delusional, and the film the audience just watched was only a depiction of his delusion. The glasses simply enable him to see Francis and his problems clearly. But if the Director was insane, obsessed by Caligari, then he had the power to compel minds against their will, even to make a man do murder. He puts on that power as needed. The tyrant’s power then overflowed the ability of the detective to contain it: even after reason reveals his madness, he forces his preferred way of seeing on everyone, so they see him as sane. He has regained total control, dominating even Francis into exhausted submission. And only the audience can see the truth.
Then the Director takes off the glasses and is once again the naturalistic figure of the Director, in contrast to the stylised Caligari. Werner Krauss uses stylised acting to portray Caligari in an Expressionist style, much like the sets, exaggerated and angular. [Eisner, 1973, p25] In Expressionist art “a selective and creative distortion gives the artist a means of representing the complexity of the psyche” [Marzynski in Eisner, 1973, p23]. That complexity is present in every psyche, but some reviews of Caligari read distortions as representing only Francis’ delusional psyche. Kracauer concluded that Expressionism did not depict madness because it continued into the framing story [Kracauer, 2004, p70]. But equally plausibly, because the distorted sets continue into the framing story, the world is still mad.
If the director is not Caligari then the disturbing possibilities are safely contained by the framing story. If he remains Caligari throughout then the framing story is more disturbing and potentially revolutionary, condemning power and warning the threat persists. That leaves the film able to please two distinct audiences, expanding its appeal. But the German marketing campaign did not leave Caligari safely shut away. It spread his hallucinations around the streets.
“In one scene the mad psychiatrist’s desire to imitate Caligari materializes in jittery characters”, ‘Du musst Caligari werden!’ (‘You must become Caligari!’) [Kracauer, 2004, p69 and p310] Those words were used in advertising, appearing on walls in poster form, addressed to the audience. [Robinson, 1997, p46 and Kracauer, 2004, p71] Robinson calls this an enigmatic slogan. They would not know who they were being asked to identify with when they sat down to watch. Strangely it exhorts the viewer not to watch the murderer captured, not to identify with the detective, but simply to become the murderer. The film’s visuals add to this: every character who stares into the camera in wide eyed terror seems to see the killer out among the audience.
Mr Director - drop your mask you are Dr Caligari!
When Francis first sees Caligari he stares out behind the camera. ‘Director’, at least in English, is also the man behind the camera who moved actors around according to his will to act out these murders. Caligari has power when wearing his glass lenses, as the Director has power through the camera lens. Caligari is at first a fairground showman, using his power to amuse the audience, and only later turning that power deadly. This parallels the progress of film and propaganda. But within the film it is not the Director who has ultimate control, or even a person. It is instead a story. The simple equation of the Director with tyranny and the sleepwalker with the helpless victim is upset by the writing on the wall. After reading the story the Director is hounded by a command, “You must become Caligari.” The image of the writing in the air makes it seem like the idea is something from outside that takes him over. If Cesare is the helpless victim of the Director, perhaps the Director is equally helpless under the control of the idea of Caligari.
The advertising told the audience to identify with the Director, the man gone mad from abuse of power. Janowitz and Kracauer identify that power with government, and tyranny. In a democracy each of the audience was part of choosing a government, choosing their authorities. For a democracy to choose war that audience would have to choose it, and thereby become the ones compelling youths to become murderers. Perhaps Caligari expressed an anxiety about democracy, just after a war where propaganda was so persuasive in getting many to murder. The film Caligari can be read as not just being about tyrants, but about the power of a story that promises power. It can be read as a horror story not just about the control tyrants wield, but about falling for the wrong ideas and becoming them. In this way the film expresses anxieties not just about authority but about the power of ideology as shown through a lens.
Bibliography
Aitken, I. (2001) European Film Theory and Cinema: A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: EUP.
Eisner, Lotte H. (1973) The Haunted Screen. London: Thames and Hudson limited.
Elsaesser, T. (2000) Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s historical imaginary. London & New York: Routledge.
Kracauer, Siegfried. (2004) From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press.
Robinson, David (1997) BFI Film Classics: Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari. London: BFI Publishing.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Directed by Robert Wiene.
On Youtube
Openflix (2010) The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALqnSUMHPrA (Accessed: 18th May 2012)
/Essay as handed in.
Making up the essay question was part of the assignment. So I decided the topic was Caligari's glasses, because I wanted to pick a fight with Kracauer, despite that being really quite a lot easy.
Putting this online lost the illustrations. Copy pasting into a word document is simples, but I couldn't figure out how to get the things out again to go anywhere else. I put a quick [description in brackets] instead.
I haven't read these pages
http://kelleycartledgephotography.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/inspiration-the-cabinet-of-dr-caligari/
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/dvdcompare/comparisons/c_d/caligari/default.htm
http://thereisalight-jv.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/du-musst-caligari-werden-cabinet-of-dr.html
but the pictures include Caligari in his glasses, and some of the writing on the walls.
Most units I watch films and then try and forget them, possibly wishing for brain bleach.
This semester we watched Caligari, Nosferatu and Metropolis, three films I'd happily recommend to anyone who can sit through black and white silent movies at all. The amount of influence on subsequent goth and science fiction aesthetics is substantial.
All three are available in full on YouTube, but beware the different versions. They're different qualities and translations, and some are half an hour shorter than others (possibly due to edits, and possibly due to just speeding the whole thing up).