The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Critical Reception Over Time

Introduction

The film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari — known in English as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — echoes the psychological warfare that had been waged against the German people, and throughout the film runs the theme of tyranny and psychological manipulation of the human soul. Over time, critical reception of this silent film has noticeably experienced shifts in perception and in the judgments of critics.

The basis of the story is a fictitious German town near the Dutch border named Holstenwall. A traveling fair moves into the town and, along with a traditional merry-go-round and typical sideshow attractions, brings Dr. Caligari — described as a "weird bespectacled man advertising a somnambulist named Cesare." Dr. Caligari travels to the town hall, where an arrogant official treats him in a condescending manner. The next morning, that official is found murdered in his room. The townspeople, largely unaware, continue enjoying the fair.

Two students who are both in love with a girl named Jane — whose father is a physician — enter Dr. Caligari's tent. Cesare is seen stepping out of a box resembling a coffin, and Caligari informs the audience that the somnambulist will answer questions about the future. One of the students, Alan, asks how long he has to live. Cesare answers: "Until dawn." Francis learns at dawn that his friend has been murdered in the same manner as the arrogant official — stabbed to death. Francis grows suspicious of Caligari and, together with Jane's father, begins investigating. However, they are called to the police station to examine a criminal caught in the act of killing a woman, who denies being the serial murderer.

While Francis investigates, Cesare breaks into Jane's room, stands over her with a dagger, then abducts her and flees with her father in pursuit. Cesare eventually drops Jane. Jane tells Francis that she recognized Cesare. The story continues: the coffin box is searched and only a dummy is found inside, while Caligari escapes. He hides in a lunatic asylum, and Francis's investigation reveals that Cesare and Caligari are the same man. It emerges that there was once a man named Caligari in an earlier era, and the director's clinical records show that he desired to verify accounts of Caligari's hypnotic abilities — a desire that grew into an obsession. The director ultimately adopted Caligari's identity. This horror tale is said to be in the spirit of E.T.A. Hoffmann and representative of the horrors of the German system. The character of Caligari is described as one who "embodies these tendencies; he stands for an unlimited authority that idolizes power as such, and to satisfy his lust for domination." Dr. Caligari is eventually found in the insane asylum and finally admits to the killings, confessing that he had assumed the identity of an earlier man named Caligari and of Cesare as well.

Hypnosis as a Symbol of Authoritarian Control

The German film theorist Siegfried Kracauer viewed the power of hypnosis possessed by Caligari as symbolic of the "manipulation of the soul which Hitler was the first to practice on a gigantic scale." The entire film is representative of mass hypnosis. The story is told "via a framing device, wherein Francis relates his tale to a nameless stranger. At the end, it turns out that Francis is an inmate in an insane asylum, and the doctor in charge is none other than Caligari himself" (Ebiri, 2002, p. 1).

This framing device was not approved of by the film's original writers, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, because they believed it suggested that Francis was the madman and Caligari "the noble physician, thereby diluting the anti-authoritarian thrust of their original work" (Ebiri, 2002, p. 1).

The Off-Kilter World and Expressionist Sets

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari preceded and helped spark a wave of horror films in Germany in the years that followed its release. It was uniquely successful in presenting sustained supernatural terror through the medium of film. The sets are described as "wildly surreal and bravely presented for the whole length of the story." The film is not merely a story of murder and madness — "everything about it looks psychotic. The whole film takes place on angular expressionist sets." The acting, too, is described as deliberately "exaggerated."