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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Film

    The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is essentially about a man named Francis who is telling an older man the story of how he met his fiancé, Jane. This story starts off at a carnival with Francis, Alan, and Jane and this is where they meet Dr. Caligari and his "attraction" named Cesare that can tell the future. Cesare claims that Alan will die the next night and this does actually happen which sends Francis and Jane into a frenzy. At the end of the story though, the viewer can see that Francis, Jane, and Alan are all people that are in an insane asylum ran by Dr. Caligari. So it was all just a story the whole time. 

    The film tells this story through dialogue, using different film angles, and music to create suspense, sadness, or curiosity of what will happen next. Some conventions of cinematic storytelling would be the fish eye's angle that the film would use on characters that are focused on at the time. I believe this helped viewers a lot that don't understand German so it is easier to see who the film is talking about or who is talking in the film. 

    The final plot twist of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari involves Francis, Jane, and Alan all being alive and are actually inmates in an insane asylum that is ran by Dr. Caligari. This was a big plot twist because everyone watching the film thought that Dr. Caligari was the crazy one the whole time. This comments on cinematic storytelling and the "twist" that most movies will have at the end of their movie. This is the part that is supposed to surprise everyone or make everyone feel some type of strong emotion. The set designs of this film show that early film making did the best with what they had. You can see that the characters would not move from a set much in a scene because there was nowhere to really go. Nowadays, actors may move all around during a single scene/set because they might be in a real house or building while this film was mostly filmed in open rooms and were covered with backgrounds. Set designs can imply what type of mood the viewer is supposed to feel during the film. For example, the set designs in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were mostly dark meaning the movie is more mysterious or gloomy. This shows that the cultural relevance of this film was important because it set the path for films in the future, especially the plot with many new films having a crazy story and then a "dream" ending where everything turns out to be alright in the end. 

    Thinking about a more modern film that would relate to the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is most horror or mystery films nowadays. A recently popular film that I felt was similiar in the emotions connected is the Glass Onion that was recently released on Netflix. This is a murder mystery as well and tries to figure out who the bad guy is the whole time, similarly to the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. When a viewer questions the reliability of the narrator, it can give a mysterious feeling for the viewer and try to make them forecast the rest of the film out themselves. 


     

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