Set Design & Kinetics as Metaphor of Social Chaos: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
Robert Wiene’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, (1919) is a metaphor for the chaos of Germany in the aftermath of World War I. The film is an offspring of an art movement called Expressionism and can be seen as a premonition of the Nazi disaster to come. Set design, lighting and kinetics help to achieve the metaphor. The nightmare of early 20th century is symbolized by the madness of Dr. Caligari. The somnambulist state of Cesare is like the somnambulist state of the German people who permitted, by their blind obedience, a madman like Hitler to come to power. Weine’s film is expressionist art on celluloid at its best.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first German film to utilize expressionist art in its design. It was to influence many other German filmmakers to utilize the same expressionistic style of sets, dramatic lighting and makeup.
In his book “Understanding Movies”, Louis Giannetti defines the purpose of settings as more that “backdrops for the action, but symbolic extensions of the theme and characterization”. The world of Dr. Caligari is abstract and distorted. The set designers, Walter Rohrig and Walter Reimann aimed to create “a nightmare atmosphere to arouse anxiety and terror”. How was this achieved? The backdrops to the story are obviously painted, flat and artificial. Doors, such as the door to Caligari’s office in the asylum, are not regular 90 degree angles but rather, open outwards on angles. Rooms are narrow and confined. The walls are painted with abstract shapes, illuminated by garish lighting, or only dimly lit. The angles of buildings and rooms lean diagonally off centre as if this confined and oppressive world will topple at any moment. Nothing in the set design is harmoniously balanced. Its purpose, like the goal of Expressionism, is to unsettle the viewer, to reveal the inner landscape rather than an outer realism.
Germany in 1918-19 was in chaos. After World War I, the army was demoralized and there were political assassinations, communist uprisings, high unemployment; the country’s economy was moving towards total collapse. Art reflect this chaos. Before Expressionism, the Dadaist movement emerged, rebelling against classical art and the middle class rationalism. Expressionism followed, its art representing interior rather than external reality with broad brush strokes and outlines, the extremes of light and dark and the emphasis on ugliness. Even the painted trees are unnatural, with twisted black branches adding to the sense of foreboding. This abstract art is seen in all the sets of Dr. Caligari.
The goal of expressionist art was to produce a sense of fear and the unknown to the viewer. Dr. Caligari deals with the dark and unknown, the madness of Caligari and Francis, and the somnambulistic state of the murderer Cesare.
Harsh lighting and also the lack of lighting on the sets add to the effect created by the set design and makeup used in Dr. Caligari. Dramatic and unrealistic makeup on the faces of the actors lends a grotesque quality to their faces and the plat. Francis’ girlfriend’s face is whitened, her lips small and bud-like, her large eyes vague and dark for she, too, we lean in the end is also an inmate of the asylum. Dr. Caligari’s face is bespectacled and evil. Cesare’s face is whitened, the eyes are darkened with exaggerate makeup and the lighting of his face adds to his monstrous appearance. Like expressionistic art, this film is not made to reflect reality, but is a more subjective interpretation of that reality.
Kinetics refers to movement in film and is more often used to describe movement in dance. Movement can be natural to reflect realism or abstract as in ballet or mime. The movement of the characters here symbolizes the grotesque nightmarish aspect of the film. When Cesare is freed from his coffin, he walks stiffly because of his somnambulist state. Francis’ girlfriend suffering from the shock of being carried off by Cesare, walks through the film as if in a trance, giving her an other-worldliness and unreality. Dr. Caligari is bent over and his gait is erratic to reflect his madness.
“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” succeeds in its goal to express the innter world of the asylum, of the madness of Francis and Caligari. Weine achieves his goal, through the use of Expressionist art in his set design , unnatural lighting, the kinetic movement of the actors and their makeup to reveal the inner world of madness. However, underlying these elements of mise-en-scene, he creates a metaphor for social chaos of 20th century Germany.
Fine descriptive details. Thoughtful, articulate, polished and entirely convincing; this is an excellent examination of Weine’s cinematic technique in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 92.
Thank you GD.