German Golden Age

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German Golden Age

• Expressionism
• Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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• Read pgs 22-23 in Course Reader

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Edvard Munch The Scream1893. Early
Expressionism
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The Movie
ART
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• 1920
• UFA-during WWI, Germany combined studios into a
  single, large film-making unit whose purpose was
  to make morale building movies
• after war this studio gave birth to German Golden
  Age

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• 1919-Cabinet of Dr. Caligari filmed
• 1933-Nazis absorbed German film industry, Golden
  Age ends
• refined and developed the use of atmosphere in a
  film
• the aura, the mood, the tone of the silent film
  stronger than words/titles

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• Camera could function as a window into the mind
• could mirror the perceptions, thoughts, and
  feelings of a character experiencing an event
• boundary between subjective (characters
  perception) and objective (viewers idea of
  reality) blurred

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Expressionism

• World might look crazy because it is, or because
  the character is crazy
• the look or style of the visible, external
  universe can take its shape, color, and texture
  from the artists intuition of its essential
  inner being or from internal human sensations

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• Completely unnatural universe created in a studio
• graphic in inspiration and boldly disturbing, on
  and beneath the surface

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• mise-en-scene the atmosphere, setting , décor
  and texture of a shot. Also, the way a scene has
  been designed and staged for the camera
• totally controlled by studio shooting

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Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

• Released in 1920
• fantasy and horror with a psychological twist
• Dr. Caligari opens a stall at a fai in
  Holstenwall
• his act demonstrates control over a sleepwalker
  who has apparently been hypnotized (Cesare)

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• Rash of murders breaks out in town
• narrator-protagonist Franz suspects Caligari,
  shadows him, and discovers that he forces his
  slave Cesar to murder victims while Caligari
  substitutes a life-sized dummy resembling Cesar
  in the coffin-like box (cabinet) to fool the
  police

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• Franz follows Caligari and discovers he is really
  the director of an insane asylum who is himself
  insane
• the director has discovered the ancient formula
  for mind control
• Franz exposes the mad director, and Caligari is
  himself put in a straightjacket and locked up

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Except.

• Story is a story within a story, the frame that
  begins the story starts with Franz telling us
  (audience) that he a dreadful tale to tell (which
  he does). Park-like setting, but a strange woman
  walks by, something seems odd...

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• Only at end of film does frame reappear, Franz is
  really the patient, Cesar is still alive and a
  gentle patient, and the so called Dr. Caligari is
  the director of the insane asylum Franz is in
  Franz ends up in the straightjacket
• surprise end of film is that the tale we assumed
  to be true is a paranoids fantasy

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• Disease of the narrators brain shows the
  principle of the films unnatural décor
• grotesque painted shadows on streets and stairs
• irregular, non-perpendicular chimneys, doors,
  windows
• exaggerated heights of the furniture
• boldly painted make-up

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• No sunlight
• where sunlight should be, shafts of light are
  painted on the sets
• seems to be a drawing brought to life

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• The grotesque mise-en-scene is the way the mad
  Franz sees the world
• original story exposed the insane world that
  could tyrannically send an innocent (Cesar-or a
  soldier -WWI) to kill against his will
• new twist implies world is fine, just Franz is
  nuts, Caligari knows best

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• Why doesnt asylum look normal in last frame,
  though, if it is the true reality?
• Why does Caligari still sound creepy at end?
• Contradictions and ambiguities enrich the
  expressionistic style
• Caligari started the Expressionistic film movement