The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the first and major examples of the German Expressionism film movement, which features a dark and twisted style of film making. The plots and stories of the Expressionist movement films often deal with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other sinister topics.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is known for its particular and unusual settings. All the scenes are distorted and the objects in them changed in odd ways. For example, a normal window has an abnormal shape. Lines and other shapes are not regular even though the viewer can still understand what they are. Moreover, the lighting including the shadowing is drawn on the background screen directly, which makes the picture look unnatural. The subtitles and its background are also odd and bent. All of these techniques were used to make people recognize everyday objects but understand that it is part of the characters’ imaginations (or the director’s imagination). The director is leading people into his imagination, buried in the mazy town, fragmented frame, the twisted mirror, sloping walls, lopsided doors, the rough road, exaggerated tree branches, etc.
One interesting note is the scenes where Alan, who seems the most “normal” of all the characters, is introduced. He is in a room with a chair that looks normal—it has straight lines and is the right size. But he looks out the window, which is itself a twisted rectangle, and the audience can then understand that outside it is a dark fantasy world.
The make-up is an another important component part of this film’s mise en scene. Characters’ costumes look like the precursors to costumes found in modern horror films. There are sooty rings around dark eyes, pale complexions, and high-contrast lipstick on all of the actors. Make-up is also used to make some characters look sympathetic and others look detestable, to help viewers understand the drama. For example, Dr. Caligari and the director of the mental hospital are roles performed by the same actor in this film. But each role had different make-up so that it would give the audience a different feeling. Dr. Caligari wears a medieval black gown, has an elaborate hairstyle and flat eyebrow and dreadful glasses. The director of the mental hospital has a simple black one-piece dress, the pale face as if out of a painting, and inanimate long hair. This helps to display the characters’ different psychologies: for example, the disorderly hairstyle and big frightening eyes of Dr. Caligari suggest that he is insane.
Music is also a key part of the movie’s mise en scene. The background music is jazz piano, which meshes with the setting smoothly. For example, the staircase of the police station looks like the keyboards of the piano. The scene of the staircase appears three times in this film. Every time a character steps down the stairs, the audience hears one tone for him. In line with the scene, when more than one character steps down the stairs, the music has multiple notes for that.
Because all the objects are distorted in this abnormal world, the characters often appear uncoordinated. In addition to wearing grotesque costumes and exaggerated make-up, the actors also exaggerate their postures. There are some astonishing sights: the prisoner squats on the peak of triangular wooden stake; the robber stands above the roof where chimneys stand in great numbers; a sleepwalker's black and lanky shadow pauses against a gloomy and distorted high wall, then appears in the centre of one white circle; a stool is so tall that one must bend at the waist to sit on it and avoid bumping the ceiling. Furthermore, the film uses the masking frame frequently to focus in on one particular character or act. It not only uses circular or elliptical masking frames, but also uses the angular diamond; their positions also change along with the plot.
If “art is the distillation of life,” the film can be understood in the historical context of post-World War I Germany. The exaggerated and distorted settings, the mysterious visual angles, the dim lighting and abnormal shapes may have reflected Germany’s frustration and loss of spirit after their defeat. Of course, the plot itself is dark and sinister.
Through the distortion, the strange shapes and the freakish use of light and shadow, this film reflects a kind of depressed tone that is separated from a happier, earlier reality. This psychology stems from the ruinous cost of World War I, for which Germany had to pay severe reparations. Film makers at that time shared in the nation’s nervousness, apprehension, and loss of control. Thus, the characters’ strong make-up, exaggerated postures, and halting movements were accurately reflecting German’s mental state at that time. For perhaps the first time since coming together as a nation, Germans felt vulnerable, and their thoughts were in disarray, not sure whether to terrify or be terrified. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has utilized each element of mise en scene to display this depression, uncertainty, and suppressed violence from the war, ultimately resulting in a revolt to a despot.
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