The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) The Noir Style Template

Directed by Robert Wiene. 

Written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz. Cinematography by Willy Hameister, Production Design by Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig, and Hermann Warm, Set Decoration by Hermann Warm

For this 2016 restoration that I screened I heard the electroacoustic score by the Edison Studio, a collective of composers under the Artistic Direction of Cornelius Schwehr -  Pablo Beltran Martin Bergande, Carlos Cardenas, Stephan Dick, Vasiliki Kourti-Papamouslou, Hong Ting Lai, Seongmin Lee, Cornelius Schwehr, Carlo Phillip Thomsen.

The film stars Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari, Conrad Veidt as Cesare, Friedrich Feher as Franzis, Lil Dagover as Jane Olsen, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski as Alan, Rudolf Lettinger as Dr. Olsen. 

Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari

Conrad Veidt as Cesare

Friedrich Feheras as Franzis,

 Lil Dagover as Jane Olsen

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski as Alan

I'm not a film historian, but this film is most probably the first where the Noir Visual Style, we all love, was originally depicted in the moving image. 

The roots of the style are in Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism with World War I injecting a mass insanity element that expressed itself aka German Expressionism. This was realized and depicted on film, "on the cheap," by incorporating all four of the above into innovated three dimensional set designs by Production Designers Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Röhrig. 

"The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of lavish budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd angles, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal and other "intellectual" topics triggered by the experiences of World War I. (as opposed to standard action-adventure and romantic films)." (Thompson, Kristin. Bordwell, David. Film History: An Introduction, Third Edition. McGraw Hill. 2010, p.91)

The innovated camera work enhances these three dimensional sets by the use of different shaped kinetic vignettes, fuzzy edged squares, diamonds, circles, and even uneven slits or tears, these give us, the audience, the impression of almost peeping on the various sequences. The vignettes are also used to emphasize things within frames, cut between scenes, and the various Acts and intertitles (dialog cards).

Even the title cards even have weird, twisted, letters that have not quite right quality. They all seem to be printed over stylistic shapes that suggest broken shards of glass.

The title cards even have a weird, twisted, not quite right quality. They all seem to be printed over stylistic shapes that suggest broken shards of glass.

Act title card

Intertitle card

Intertitle card

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari also uses themes of Obsession and Alienation and also uses the Flashback, all major staples of Film Noir. (There's a serial killer involved also, lol.)

All the original German prints of the premier release were lost. So the restoration was constructed from surviving elements collected world wide. The restored print has tinted color. I do not know if this was so originally or was added later. Teal green representing Night and amber yellow to represent the Day. The title cards and intertitles (dialog cards) also use teal green. 

Only two or three sequences are filmed in traditional style. 

Story

Franzis is sitting on a stone bench along a wall with another man. Thin leafless branches stretch out and over, and hang downward, like spider webs. They throw fine shadows. Franzis complains that "spirits" are the problem. A dazed woman in a white gown appears and parts the branches walking through the scene. 

Franzis explains that she is Jane his fiancée. Franzis then tells his companion that it all started in his home town of Holstenwall 

Holstenwall 

Vignetted Holstenwall, we see as a strange medieval hilltop village. The churches spiers are slightly hooked, the streets spiral, and the buildings of the town are crooked, leaning haphazardly. Everything is distorted in three dimensions. This distortion open the door to the fourth dimension. That sounds familiar...

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination." (Rod Serling) 

The story Franzis tells his companion is that Franzis and his friend Alan were both infatuated by a young beauty named Jane. 

Franziz, Alan, and Jane.

At that time of the year the town holds its annual fair. A mysterious showman who calls himself Dr. Caligari, applies at the town hall for a midway permit so that he can put on his act. 

The disrespectful town clerk makes Caligari wait

Apparently Caligari is some sort of mesmerizer / hypnotist. His act is Caesar a prophesizing somnambulist who has been asleep for twenty some odd years. The clerk is rude and insulting. Later that night the clerk is coincidentally murdered. 

The next day Franzis and Alan visit the fair. On the midway we see Caligari barking his own show. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." 

He is drawing a crowd. They go inside and Caligari gives his spiel. The cabinet is a coffin like box that holds Caesar the somnambulist. 

When Caligari awakens Caesar he answers questions from the audience. Alan volunteers and asks Caesar "how long will I live?" Caesar answers that his time is short "you die at dawn." 

Alan at fist is appalled at the prophecy, but then doesn't believe it. The friends head back into town and go their separate ways to their homes.

But in the night a shadowy figure creeps into Alan's room.

After Alan is found stabbed in his bed Franzis begins to investigate Caligari and Caesar. Jane is also curious and she also pays a call to Caligari's side show where she sees Caesar.

Unknown to Franzis, the police capture a man who tried to murder an old woman with a knife. They believe him to be the serial killer and try and get him to confess. 

Circular vignette

Serial killer?

The following night, while Franzis has Caligari's carnival trailer under surveillance, Jane is attacked by Caesar who looses his knife in the struggle. 

Diamond vignette

Jane screams and that attracts people. Jane feints and Caesar carries her away out through a broken window across rooftops with a crowd of rescuers after him.

Irregular vignette

 He finally drops the unconscious  Jane and runs off across the fields into the hills.  

\

When Franzis finds out that Jane was attacked he goes at once to her house. He is sitting by her side when she regains her senses she tells Franzis that it was Caesar who attacked her. But Franzis watched Caesar sleeping in his "cabinet" all the while she was being attacked. 

Who was it that attacked you?

If you don't know this story, stop reading here because there are spoilers below the screencaps.

German Expressionist origins of Noir Visual Style 

Double vignettes simultaneously opening on new frame left and closing on old frame on right

"That's Caesar!"

"You must become Caligari."

"Princess Jane"

<spoilers below>

It's all a big twist. Sorta like in The Woman In the Window where it's all a dream, here it's all a hallucination, a  madman's delusion. None of the above actually happens its all in Franzis' head, he is crazy and Dr. Caligari is the director of the mental institution aka "cabinet." Bravo! 10/10