I think the actual quote is "We Queens are not free to answer the call of the heart". Her delusion is she believes she is a Queen. Hence the throne like chair and why she actually said that.

Somnnabulist is just another word for sleepwalker. Dr. Caligari isn't the somnambulist, Cesare is.

I want to talk about Werner Krauss as Caligari. he is without a doubt, the best actor in this movie. outside of the set design, the isolated shots of Caligari smiling are in my opinion are the most unsettling and surreal parts of the film. his expressions are very exaggerated, very detailed. the light emphasizing his wide, unblinking eyes, the shadows contrasting with his devilish grin, and the heavy texture on his face bringing out his more subtle facial features adds to dreamlike creepiness of the character of Caligari. that is silent film acting at its absolute best.

@claude3429

8 ай бұрын

I'm just going to sit in a corner and excuse how incredibly obsessed I am with Veidt's role as Cesare because my bias is super heavy

Hello from germany. The „cabinet“ in the title doesn't mean the box. The cabinet is his booth on the fair, an old name for an exhibition. The word remains in german in „Gruselkabinett“ (written nowadays with k and double-t), that means „horror chamber“.

@hotelroom404

Жыл бұрын

So would a proper translation of the name be The Horrifying Exhibition of Dr. Caligari?

@magadag

Жыл бұрын

@@hotelroom404 I like the translation. Horrifying Exhibition is a very good translation of Gruselkabinett (old: Grusel-Cabinet). Grusel means horror, but since there’s no horror mentioned in the title, maybe the best translation would be „The Exhibition of Dr. Caligari“. Wait, Cabinet is not really an Exhibition itself, it’s more the room, where an Exhibition takes place. Unlike a museum it’s a single room… 🤔 Anyway, your translation is on point 👍

@hotelroom404

Жыл бұрын

@@magadag Using Google Translate, gruselkabinett comes back as ‘chamber of horrors’, so it would make sense to call it something along the lines of Dr. Caligari’s Chamber of Terror

@magadag

Жыл бұрын

@@hotelroom404 That’s a very good translation 👍 I never asked myself, why they didn’t translate the word, I thought it was the same in english until I came to this video. And I have learned that it can be so misunderstood. Maybe there was a forgotten different meaning of Cabinet in english in the 1920s?

@hotelroom404

Жыл бұрын

@@magadag I looked it up and apparently the word cabinet used to refer to any small, private room

As for the look of the film - they were given the smallest studio the film company had to shoot the film. A lot of the forced perspective came about from the physical restrictions they were working under. They were also only given 1/2 the money they had asked for to make the film. In being after the war, silver nitrate was very expensive and hard to procure. They cut the film development time down in order to stretch the material they had. This led to a lot of the look of the film. It is amazing that such a (now) classic film was made with such restrictions. I think it led to a lot of why this film is the film it is today.

You guys make extremely high quality and informative videos.... Now all you guys need, is a viral video and you'll be all set.... But seriously... Hats off to your content and you guys..... 👌🏻

@WhyItsGreat

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! I appreciate that. 😀

Vignettes were often used in the era for close-ups (and sometimes to establish POV). Really early on it started as a side-effect of the lense type and the distance of the lens from the film slate (particularly in photography) but became a stylistic device. It was a preferred method for portrait photography so maybe it came to be a sort of shorthand for intimacy, directing your eye to the centre of the frame and involving the spectator with the character as if they were a loved in a locket etc.

Great review! Important to note, though, is that what Jane actually says is, "Us QUEENS are not free to answer the call of our hearts". It's important to note this since it adds an extra layer of delusion to Jane's character and explains the her sitting on the throne. Why she was provided with a throne is a "who knows?" moment. I think it's also important to note the Queen aspect because it does slightly punch a hole in the totalitarian government theory, since it is not "we are not free" where the "we" signifies the normal people, but rather "we Queens are not free" which is far removed from the populist notion of "we the people". Like I said though, great vid!

@overdrive_tennis

3 жыл бұрын

Excellent observation. I also disagree with the totalitarian interpretation.

@sophiatalksmusic3588

7 ай бұрын

Old comment, but I think this quote is really interesting because it emphasizes the fact that Jane is continuously faced with the illusion of choice and lack of autonomy throughout the film. She's offered a choice between Francis and Alan, but Alan dies- and we never even see her express any preference for anyone in the story. Francis calls her his "fiancee," but she never actually agrees to this. Within the narrative, she's allowed some agency when she goes to investigate her father's disappearance, but then is punished for it by being kidnapped. I think the most fascinating thing about her is that she's actually a very similar character to Cesare- both are objectified, both by the other characters and by the camera. We see them both try to diverge from their respective narrative roles of "damsel" and "monster", only to be punished by having to act out those roles upon each other, harming each other in the process. They are spectacles who are made to look and be looked at. Most interestingly, they share the theme of the connection between names and identity- Caligari forces Cesare's role upon him through renaming him, defining who "Cesare" is through his relationship to "Caligari". And Francis wants to marry Jane, and would therefore be changing her last name to his- and her role in the story as the object of desire. However, Jane rejects him in the end, subverting the narrative idea that the "hero" "gets the girl." One can argue that we perceive Francis as "insane" in the end because Jane and Cesare are shown acting in ways outside of how he perceives them, therefore reframing the narrative.

Helped with my cinema homework!

My favorite film!

5:08 note that even though the film (together with Nosferatu) set the standard for this kind of shadow-murder imagery, it was not inventing it as there were similar set ups used in stage plays for ages already. It was merely the first time they transferred it from stage to film, I wouldn't necessarily call it 'ahead of its time' for that reason. On the timeline of just cinema it stands out because Hollywood horror took a much more conservative approach in imagery and thus delayed the adaption of this trope a lot (basically until Hitch' took it upon himself to reintroduce much of these in his neo-Horror work).

I love staring at the backgrounds and sets

I find the naming if Cesare to be interesting. Julius Caesar, one of the most powerful men to ever live, so powerful that his name has become almost synonymous with Emperor and Empires; the Russian Tsars were named after him and more importantly so were the German kings, the Kaisers. Hence I believe Cesare from the cabinet (coffin) is a metaphor of the authority (Dr Caligari is the establishment) is using the death of the Kaisers to tell the future to the public. "Come one, come all, ask the dead king what the future has in store for us."

this movie reminded me of shutter island

I think that one important detail that, at the very beginning, can tell us that the main protagonist is actually a madman is his companion who sits besides him - he tells him that he sees spirits. After that we see a main protagonist's girlfriend walking in a disturbed, sleepwalking matter (brilliant scene itself). So we can assume that a place where they are speaking is not really a common, everyday place. And if a main protagonist is in company with two strange people, we can guess that he is somehow strange too. Also, main protagonists is overdoing with his reactions, he is always at a very intense state of mind, he lacks control. Usually, main characters are the stable ones. At the beginning of a movie i thought that he is probably just acting by popular standards of that time. But at the end, i thought that his constant exciteness actually tells us about some sort of nerve disorder, paranoia...

I 100% agree, one of the best films ever made. Even today, there's nothing like it, and nothing that tops it. An important film that should not be overlooked. Very cool review, man. Bob. G

Came back to watch this video in its entirety. I watched the film years ago and i absolutely loved it, I adore seeing how much horror films have changed throughout the decades and this was truly the first horror film. I like German silent films but don't watch them a lot, this one I did. My family think I'm weird for watching these types of films haha but to each their own.

Excellent analysis! Greetings and appreciation from Germany!

Very interesting, thank you! But for myself I found another interpretation of this story: Francis is a shizophrenic man, who is living in a lunatic asylum, because he murdered some people (for example Alan and Janes father). Cesare is not a real existing person, he is the "other personality" Francis created in is shizophrenic mind. Dr. Caligary really is the director of the lunatic asylum and a harmless and honest man - its just Francis` mad fantasy, thats creates the story and made himself really belief in this. About Jane I`m not absolutely sure. There are 2 possibilities: 1: She`s just another patient in this asylum, Francis never had seen her before, fall "in love" with her and imaginated the hole story. Or 2: He really knewed her before, was fallen in his brainsick "love" and terrorised her as a stalker - and so he made her going crazy. But at the end he had been sucessfull: His "bride" is captured at him. For the rest of her life she will live "together" with him! Please pardon my not elegant english - but I think it is good enough, for you to understand what I want to say. I would be very happy when you send me an answer! "Caligari" is one of the best films I`ve ever seen - and these are not many! I never found someone for really discussing about! You give me new hope for this!

One of the best films. Love Conrad Veidt 🖤🖤🖤🖤👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

While this video itself is now two years old, I came seeking some food for thought after viewing the film. Tonight, I watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for the first time. I was incredibly fortunate to see this film with a live accompaniment from the Pipe Organ performed by Dr. Filip Presseisen, who expertly improvised his score for the entirety of the film. I cannot express how much I enjoyed the experience and how much I now love this film. It was beyond a doubt revolutionary for its time, and I have been eager to hear what others thought of it. Thank you very much for this review and additional context. This is a film that is going to be in my mind for a long time. Even today, it's still very effective and suspenseful; A testament to the talents involved in its production.

seeing this after seeing the film. wow so true.

No mention of the fact that the ending described here is actually one imposed on the filmmakers by the production company. The original ending shows the Director as insane, obsessed with Caligari and somnambulism. At the time, Germany being what it was, the production company didn’t want to show an authority figure behaving this way, so they instead depicted Francis as the person who is deluded. And the Director as his salvation, so to speak. I like the Director as an insane whackjob much better, personally!

@Blackbird357

3 жыл бұрын

Citation needed.

@barbarogenije

2 жыл бұрын

This seems like something made up after the fact to fit in a neat narrative, I'm sorry but how is Weimar Germany and especially its film and art industry at all being influenced by an authoritarian regime that ruled some 10 years later? Not to mention this makes zero sense when juxtaposed with the beginning which clearly portrays all three persons in it as whack jobs.

I’ve read where Der Golem (1915) was the first true horror movie.

Went down an internet rabbit hole and ended up here. I’m glad I did!

Vignettes were used by Griffith in BIRTH OF A NATION, (1915) and showing violent behavior with shadows was used by Cecil B. DeMille in THE CHEAT (1915). So both of these concept had been used for at least four years.

You got a new subscriber for being so spot on in your review. Never seen this movie, but even knowing now the end, I’m still gonna watch it.

This is fantastic. Thank you for producing and sharing.

Great analysis 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 deep description and good intuitions

ive seen several videos on Caligari, and youve really done an excellent job of highlighting how beautiful it really is

We were assigned to watch this movie for my film class and I'm really glad I came across this video and your channel to help me! Thank you for this! I'll be sure to watch more of your videos soon

How do you not have more views and subscribers? You’re making amazing content, keep it up man.

@WhyItsGreat

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much. I don’t really know, honestly. YT algorithm just hasn’t “hit” yet. But I’m going to keep making videos.

It's Such a Great Movie, i want Batman TAS to make an Episode like this Movie and use these Technic of this Movie.

Amazing review and analysis!!!

Thanks a bunch for the explanation

What an amazing analysis!👏🏻

Such a cool analysis. The last 5 minutes are great.

great video essay. liked and subscribed.

Som- nam- byu- list and Chez- array are how you pronounce somnambulist and Cesare.

This was so helpful......Big up!

I saw this in an Honorable Mentions section of a Demented Pictures video on movies with twist endings. Thought I might check it out.

Conrad Veidt, an absolute legend in cinema: just check out "The Man Who Laughs" or his role as Jaffar in "The Thief of Bagdad", and yes, Disney's Jaffar is an homage to him.

I watched it last night not knowing it was the first horror film! It was absolutely and amazing movie! 🖤 truely thrilling! thanks for the video!

Very great video. I hople you'll get the well-deserved recognition.

@WhyItsGreat

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Thanks bro cuz I haven’t had the chance to embrace the movie 🤘🏻😎

I love this movie. Amazing masterpiece. The story, set, the atmosphere is so delicately woven together than any other movie ever. That's why this movie and Metropolis has a special place in my heart.

What a masterpiece that also at that time

The footage you used is beautiful. Where can I find it? I love this film but I can really only find a very low quality version of it.

One of the best analysis. Great 👌

Very cool!

I don't get the totalitarianism bent that many analysees of the movie apply. It's too shady for my taste. After all, the whole Caligari-persona was dreamt up by Francis in his manic state because he is a mental patient that sees a threat in the staff of the asylum. He projects all these things onto his doctor, dreaming up this tale in which he also places other patients like Caesar and Jane. Also, in 1920, Germany was not and had not been a totalitarian society and, although the Weimar republic faced enormous issues at the time, no one knew for certain where it was headed and certainly no one could have forseen the horrors that were to come a decade later. Remember, mustache-man was still pretty much a nobody that held speeches in the backrooms of cheap bars in Munich at the time. I know interpretation is a free for all and there is some symbolism with the towns clerk on that high chair for example... But I really think the whole totalitarian angle just came into it because it's a good movie BUT from Germany in 1920 so it HAD TO have some form of favorable political message. I don't know. As I said, it's too far reaching for me. I see it as more of a psychological thing than a sociological or political thing going on in the film. Sort of like the french surrealists that were obsessed with dream interpretations and Freud.

@sabinal17

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much. I teach history and this is exactly what I thought.

@skyhager5953

2 жыл бұрын

I agree, I feel like people are digging too deep into something simply because of when and where it comes from and because of the artsy presentation. To me, it seems more about perception and identity.

Great video! Also, where are you watching this film, it looks so crisp in this video!

@nekron.666

Жыл бұрын

Looks like a blu ray rip to me, Eureka released a restored blu ray as part of their masters of cinema series a few years ago :)

It's almost 100 years for this film

How did this film survive through the ages?

@WhyItsGreat

4 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure exactly how copies survived this long. But this video talks a little bit about the restoration process. kzread.info/dash/bejne/pGSNsNF8ldHMlbg.html

personally, I think Francis and Alan letting Jane pick who she wants to marry, is much more decent of them than, say, demanding she marry one or the other with force.

The shadows during the murder were necesscary because the day's morality wouldn't allow such a visual brutal murder to be seen on screen

Can you do a video about Tim Burton and his use of German expressionism?

12:45 To re-visit (Note to myself)

The sheer masterpiece

Interesting. I enjoyed your comments about early film making. Be aware however that the totalitarian interpretation of this movie comes from over 20 years in the future. The first theories of totalitarianism are still 3 years in the future in 1920. Cults of personality have not started yet. Lenin was in power but even he didn't cultivate a cult of personality at this point. The Italian fascists were still a tiny left wing party that had not started it's swing to the right yet. The nazi party was only founded the month the movie came out and it's predecessor still had under 100 members. Hitler was still a nobody giving his very first speeches while this movie was being filmed. This movie is more likely about the dehumanization of WW1 as the screenwriters were pacifists drafted into the German army. The depiction of the police and officials on high chairs are more likely a look back at the Prussian civil and military bureaucracy of the war and prewar years rather then a look forward. You are correct however that the seeds of totalitarianism were already there as totalitarianism grew out of a wistful look back at the rapid economic "progress" that was made under war communism during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922) vs the supposed loss of revolutionary zeal of the Soviet NEP program of 1921-8. In Western Europe the romantic look back to the early mobilization of nations for WW1 was also already present. To say the the screen writers in 1918 and 1919 had already deduced a totalitarian future appears premature to me. If you are commenting on how a true work of art can and does get reinterpreted by succeeding generations then you are absolutely correct. It is perfectly valid. I just find it hard to believe anyone in this period of euphoria for socialism and communism among German working class would already be predicting the 1930s. I would have to spend a lot more time thinking about it.

@MichaelPfaff

3 жыл бұрын

M.J. C. thinking “the left” is the problem when the president just abolished the CDC publishing data about the ongoing pandemic is rich.

@rorschach1985ify

3 жыл бұрын

@@MichaelPfaff Thinking the CDC, who have been caught lying about information related to covid(along with ties to the CCP who are an actual authoritarian regime), being denounced by the President as a bad thing is rich.

@danieldietrich9969

3 жыл бұрын

@@MichaelPfaff The Left is the problem. And the CDC is still publishing data about the pandemic. They just posted new data on their website today Nov 11th 2020. Maybe you should stop listening to propaganda networks that tell you false information.

Preach

D W Griffith also used vignettes, before this movie was released.

So it's Shutter Island,,, cool...

❤my favorite❤

MICHAEL MYERS'S LONG LOST DISTANT RELATIVE

Anyone here after watching "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"?

I believe it's pronounced 'Cheh-sah-ray"

@philleslie4344

2 жыл бұрын

Correct. Caligari and Cesare are Italian names.

@LokiWinchester92

2 жыл бұрын

That's what I thought.

Cesare is pronounced 'che-sa-rey'

Nah,it was preceded in Germany by The Student of Prague (1913) and the 1st version of Der Gollem (1915)

One quibble. Cesare is not pronounced Caesar. It is pronounced Chesaray.

5:43 ah come on, a bit of research would have told you that these colors were chosen by the restoration team, based on the convention used for most restored silent movies. The original colors varied across all kinds of regions and production houses (often just decided by the printer themselves, not the original creators). If the print was colored at all, as it was seen as more of a tech gimmick close to 3D or Dolby Atmos is seen today.

Big set design like Citizen Kane..🤔

pov ur watching this for film class tmrw

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was doing Citizen Kane before Citizen Kane

Great review, I dont wanna be one of those Im smarter than u people, I hate that lol, but its pronounced chess-uh-ri, cesare, ceaser is a completely different name, easy mistake to make they are very similar, figured u may wanna kno, the video was very well said I enjoyed it

Now the same thing is happening in the RF. It's really terrible.

At what kind of totalitarism are you thinking of ? In 1919, when the movie has been shot, nobody was talking about totalitarism. The word did not even exist. In 1919 the russian revolution had just began (white Russians are fighting against red Russians to try to restaure the tsar power lost in 1917). Mussolini and Hitler are not even known. Germany is under a democratic republic, called Republic of Weimar, that had replaced the Empire. Italia is a parliament monarchy. I think we should definitely forget any comparaison of the film with the totalitarism. It is anachronistic. We should rather think about the profound influence of the post-first world war psychological effects on the society. This twisted world looks more like the ruined Europe and all those battle fields (take a look to pictures of the battle fields of Verdun after 1916). It has more to do with the disbelief in progress, and humanity, which are the main immediate consequence of this war. It is a movie about madness. The human being madness ! The war (and especially this war in the mind of the people in 1919) wasn't it's best expression ?

I actually believe that it was Francis who killed his friend Allan over jealousy regarding Jane. This is the brilliant thing about this film's plot, bringing the unreliable narrative style to Cinema early in its days.

I compliment this narrator's ability to DECIPHER this absurd film. I watched it a dozen times, and failed. (I am NO Amateur film watcher and historian. With a private collection of 10,000 VHS & DVD's.) I am also Not German, living through WW-1 and a totalitarian state. I am an America, born in the middle 20th century. I enjoy films which make sense to my sensibilities. I am remarkably enlightened and tolerant of other cultures. But, I despise this film style much like everyone hates the taste of certain foods. As a stage performer of 50 years, I feel the cardinal rule of ALL entertainment, journalism, and advertising / selling is to "Reach" your Audience. Where THEY are at, not the creator's private flights of fancy (or descent into madness). Again, I respect this narator's skill in un-raveling the Gordian Knot. But, Any form of presentation (such as an Ad, or a film) which requires the audience to "decipher" it, like the Enigma code machine, is sheer folly. I still reserve the right to say I would Not study this film to learn the art of film making. I would look for examples which "resonate" with my target audience. Both consciously AND sub-consciously. EX: The greatest works of English language literature. -- the Scrooge story, and King Arthur legend, as in "Camelot". The up-lifting "Yankee Doodle Dandy", starring America's favorite star, James Cagney. Inspirational Role-model TV shows such as "The Lone Ranger", "The Rifleman", "Daniel Boone", "Little House". And, the single greatest, most beloved film of ALL time. -- seen by more people than Any other object on earth. -- "The Wizard of Oz".

Germany in the 20's was not a totalitarian state, it was a liberal democracy. Do your homework.

@rickl2834

Ай бұрын

You should also consider it later became a dictarship due to the hardship in Germany of the 1920s. What made them change....

If you don't know something about your videos, such as the frequency of vignette use, it would be a good idea, particularly if this is something you intend to do seriously, to spend a couple of minutes googling the answer. Not difficult, kid. Also, this is a very light and shallow exploration of the movie. C-. Must try harder.

somehow BigTop Burger got me here

@WhyItsGreat

2 жыл бұрын

Whatever it takes 🤷‍♂️ lol

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ BROTHER this is not fantasy, mistry or horror film.. it's a psychological expression of a particular person's thought as narration. You can say phycological film. This type of films birth from German Expressionism art movement....

I beg to differ. Nosferatu was the 1st.

@saldzbob9972

2 жыл бұрын

Nosferatu was released in 1922

Your analysis is brilliant ! But, that's the whole problem. It exposes the stupidly in-effective and in-comprehensible aspect of the "plot twists". The film is too too ! What good is any piece of communication if the audience can't understand it? I dilligently watched this movie several times, and couldn't unravel its story line. And, I am not exactly stupid. Owning a vast library of 5,000 DVD's. All of which I work to "reverse engineer". So I can understand, and explain them on a deep level. But this one always resisted my efforts. Its "clever" far-ahead-of-their-time techniques are excessively bizarre. That, plus it being both silent and the title-cards in German, obscure too much. They make it too difficult to follow. By contrast, "Citizen Kane" is just as innovative, yet is fully comprehensible. In other words, I am saying F. W. Murnau is Not as ingenius as this video would have me to believe.