#hans janowitz

[lisystrata]

Ernst Deutsch — actor who was supposed to play the somnambulist in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"

Before Conrad Veidt was cast, screenwriter Hans Janowitz intended the part of Cesare to go to his friend, actor Ernst Deutsch.

In the end, Deutsch did not get to participate in the filming, and the film was created as we know it now, a hundred years later.

(whispers to the side) On my own behalf, I will add that in the case with the participation of Deutsch, it is unlikely that Cesare would have made such an impression on me as Cesare performed by Veidt. Conrad was like created for this role. This is my opinion, I do not impose it on anyone!

[celluloidchronicles]

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

🇩🇪 | Feb 27, 1920

directed by Robert Wiene

story by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer

produced by Decla Film Gesellschaft Holz

starring Werner Krauẞ, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski

1h18 | Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller

𐄂 not watched

Browse through collections

German Movies | director Robert Wiene | writer Hans Janowitz | writer Carl Mayer | studio Decla Film Gesellschaft Holz | actor Werner Krauẞ | actor Conrad Veidt | actor Friedrich Feher | actress Lil Dagover | actor Hans Heinrich von Twardowski

Browse through genres

Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Links

trakt.tv | letterboxd

[schlock-luster-video]

On February 26, 1920, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered in Berlin, Germany.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Although it doesn’t contain the types of scares modern-day audiences are used to, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has a haunting, eerily chilling quality. This movie is over a hundred years old. Everyone who starred in it, who was behind the camera when it was made, who saw it upon its initial release is dead and gone. All that’s left of them are these strange images in this imaginary story. No one involved could’ve imagined that a century later, their work would still be influential. Made before sound recordings or colour cinema was possible and before modern-day cinematic techniques were established, it looks unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Combined with its subject matter, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari feels less like a movie from long ago and more like a glimpse into another reality.

Told in flashback, the story takes places in Holstenwall, where the town fair is in full swing. Francis (Friedrich Fehér) and his friend Alan (Hans Heinz v. Twardowski) attend a new attraction presented by Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss). He commands a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt) to tell audiences about the future. Cesare’s predictions of death prove to be true: there is a serial killer in Holstenwall.

The most striking aspect of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the art direction. Buildings lean unnaturally, doorways, stairs, and streets twist like something out of a madman’s notebook. Pieces of furniture are disproportionate to the people who use them. Trees are hardly recognizable as living things. The architecture's angles, curves, and spirals are such that you might not notice a broken window in the background despite it being intact in the previous scene. The shadows are painted, which means people can move through them without disturbing the light. It’s like these places and people are merely fragments of an un-reality, or (appropriately enough) ghosts reliving their actions as best they can considering their life is over. More than an experiment in style, these visuals emphasize the panic Francis and his sweetheart Jane (Lil Dagover) experience as the murders continue. They also employ excellent graphic design techniques. Your eye is naturally drawn to important objects or characters as they follow the bold lines on-screen.

To casual moviegoers, the performances in old films tend to feel over-the-top. We’re used to natural performances, realistic dialogue and sets that mimic our world. Nothing you see in Caligari resembles real life but that’s the point. Even the title cards use a font reminiscent of insane asylum scribbles. The performances turn out to be just about perfect because of how they exaggerated they are. Rather than feel dated, this 1920 film is immediate and mesmerizing.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the kind of movie you could watch a hundred times and still feel like you haven't seen it all. You can tell why it had an impact on filmmakers like Tim Burton and is very much the sort of movie that makes you repeatedly go "Oh! That's where that's from!" It’s so different from what we’re used to that you cannot forget the way it looks or feels. (On Blu-ray, January 15, 2021)

[brokehorrorfan]

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on October 22 via Kino Lorber. Known in its native German as Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, the 1920 silent horror classic has been restored in 4K.

Robert Wiene directs from a script by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Rudolf Lettinger star.

Three audio options are included: 2024 orchestral score by Jeff Beal (House of Cards), 2014 orchestral score by Studio for Film Music at the University of Music Freiburg, and 2014 electronic score by DJ Spooky.

Read on for the special features.

Special features:

Audio commentary by composer Jeff Beal

Caligari: How Horror Came to the Cinema

Restoration Demonstration

A demented doctor and a carnival sleepwalker perpetrate a series of ghastly murders in a small community.

Pre-order The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

[virgocurator]

The First Horror Movie

The Cabinet of Dr.Calligari

Director and German Expressionist Robert Wiene makes use of expressionist architecture and narrative through extreme distortion of both the physical set of the movie and it’s plot. The Cabinet of Dr.Calligari is famously recognized as the very first horror movie made in 1920 written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The Story follows Cesar, a sleepwalker and his keeper, Dr.Calligari. Cesar is said to be all knowing and is later revealed as a murderer.

[technicolorfamiliar]

D O U B L E F E A T U R E !

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Dir. Robert Weine 1920 // Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) Dir. Robert Wiene 1924

I recently watched both, Caligari specifically because I was invited on a friend's podcast to talk about the film (I was totally normal about it and definitely didn't make color coded note cards about the making of the movie… I did, I did make color coded note cards). So I figured I would lump these two in one post to switch things up.

--- Even though we talked about the movie for an hour and change, the conversation we recorded for the pod easily could have gone longer. There's so much to unpack about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Between its historical, cinematic, artistic, and cultural significance and legacy, but also the various players on and off camera, not to mention the film's genesis from concept to page to screen -- there's no shortage of rabbit holes to go down.

Something I wish I had brought up during the recording was the score: The score matters! These updated silent film scores really do affect the viewer experience, and they're so often hit or miss. Of course, the original score for Caligari has been lost to time, but I read that the premier of in New York had classical music (Prokofiev, Stravinsky, etc) played along to the screening; part of me thinks this would be fun to try to recreate. I have no memory of the music when I first saw the film in 2009, but when I rewatched Caligari about a year ago, early in my Conrad Veidt journey, I chose a version on Internet Archive (which is, as of late October, sadly still out of commission *cries in nerd*) and the updated score was almost entirely minimal strings, which created a suitably eerie effect. I couldn't find that exact version elsewhere, so I this time opted for the 2014 restoration that's on Kanopy. The 2014 score is… fine. It’s very busy, trying too hard to sound like a traditional movie soundtrack. There's another version with a really painfully bad guitar-heavy score that I couldn't sit through even 5 minutes of, and still another that's entirely synths. Apparently the new 4K UHD/Blu-Ray that was just released has two new options for the score -- hopefully at least one of them doesn't totally suck!

I noticed deep into my third time viewing the film that I hadn't reached for my phone once. These days, I'll occasionally pick it up and mindlessly scroll through social media while watching a movie. But I think Caligari and a few other silent films require closer attention since they're a purely visual medium. I found myself greedily devouring every frame of Caligari. No shot or scene feels wasted. Honestly, I feel like every movie should be 90 minutes long or less. Anything longer should be turned into a miniseries. But in all seriousness, Caligari is another film I want to physically walk into. It would be pretty easy to recreate these sets, life size in grayscale black and white. The more I think about this, the more I need it. So, so bad.

I also came away this time with a lot of questions, mostly about the main part of the narrative, the story Franzis is telling. But the framing device makes the questions pointless. If the main story is just Franzis's delusion, then the absurdity of the script is totally fine I guess? Except the script that Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer wrote didn't have Franzis as a patient at the asylum, they hated the framing story twist that was forced on their movie, so all those weird parts of the script and character choices that I'm overthinking and reading too much into are rendered meaningless. It's all in Franzis's head! The story and the characters in it don't matter! Or else are just part of his subconscious! Face palm. Eye roll.

Does the movie even work without the framing device? It would be interesting to show an edited version of the movie without the first and last scenes to someone who's never seen it. And if the twist ending was supposed to dumb down the anti-authoritarian message of the script, I don't know that it's successful. In the end, I still have empathy for Franzis. And we still have an ambiguous ending: Caligari/The Asylum Director looks at Mad Franzis and says, "I know just how to cure him," and there's a creepy iris wipe in on Werner Krauss's face that maybe leads us to think Franzis isn't as delusional as we think he is. So like… even if the whole Dr. Caligari with his sleepy twink in a box story is fake, whatever is happening at the asylum is probably just as messed up if not worse.

Speaking of the twink in a box, I love that Conrad Veidt's German Expressionism is totally different from Werner Krauss's German Expressionism. They both trained and performed with Max Reinhardt, so their foundations as theater actors in the 1910s and 1920s were likely similar. But, regardless or in spite of that shared experience, they are diametrically different human beings and that comes across in their performances in this movie. These two actors are like the textbook definition of "showing" your art vs. "being" your art. Krauss as Caligari is like "ooOOOoo look how ooky spooky and evil I am!", whereas Connie's performance as Cesare, even though it's hyper-stylized, is infused with something deeper, something primal that feels believable in the context of the film.

If Cesare has been asleep his whole life, waking only to be fed Chunky Campbell's Soup and commit murder at Caligari's bidding, then no wonder he reacts the way he does when sleeping Jane finally brings him out of his trance. When she freaks out, he freaks out too because he's had no opportunity to learn how to behave like a human or how to filter his primal emotions in a socially acceptable way. He hasn't lived his life except to be a madman's puppet. He reacts to Jane's panic on instinct and impulse, his desire and fear feel feral, like he's more creature or an animal than a human man. He may not actually want to hurt Jane, but he reacts violently because fight or flight is a basic human stress response! He runs away and eventually collapses because his body can't handle the sudden onslaught of stress and emotion he's never before experienced! And this internal, instinctual tendency to violence is subtly alluded to in the final scene when Asylum Cesare both caresses and slowly picks apart the flowers he's holding. Ahhhhh, I have so many FEELINGS.

And that said… Connie's performance here is wild, but it's real in a way that Werner Krauss's work could never be because Connie was a spiritual humanist who cared deeply for others and Krauss was an anti-semitic piece of shit who therefore could NEVER dig deep enough into his soul or into the collective unconscious the way Connie did to breathe life into his characters. So everything Krauss is doing here and in The Student of Prague is all surface, it's "showing" the audience his training and his actor toolbox rather than bringing a level of honesty and in-the-moment groundedness to these roles.

This is not to say Connie's intense commitment to his work couldn't be, uh, excessive. I really hope Lil Dagover was being serious when she said he would lurk around the studio in character when off camera. Can you imagine? You go up to the craft services table for a snack. Suddenly you feel like you're being watched. You look up and he's looming over you in the shadows, his unblinking glazed eyes boring into your soul. God, I hope this happened and I hope whoever it happened to peed themselves a little.

I also wish we had a behind the scenes photo of Connie in costume with the Cesare dummy. I can't believe someone actually had to make that prop. It'll haunt me forever. (The 1920 Cesare Dummy isn't real, the 1920 Cesare Dummy can't hurt me.)

Bottom line: It's an important film, I appreciate it for both its timelessness and timefullness. But it's not a movie I need to revisit often, regardless of how enchanting Connie's nostril acting may be.

---

The first time I watched The Hands of Orlac, I was floored by the visuals, the staging, and the heavy eroticism. Up until that point, I hadn't seen very many silent films, certainly few as visually striking. I think my initial impressions of this film were somewhat muted on a second watch, but that may just because I knew what to expect.

This time, I wasn't as swept up in the magic of silent era German Expressionist cinema, although stylistically I'm still absolutely 100% obsessed. Art direction wise, this is my favorite between the surviving Wiene-Veidt films (I haven't seen Furcht and I don’t plan to). Orlac is like the darker, sexier, more grown up sister to Caligari's mall goth teen. It's Vampira vs Lydia Deetz.

Orlac is just as much if not more of a cinematic feat than Caligari. The production design and art direction alone feels more mature and in itself tells more of a story.

Very early in the film, we're thrown into a very impressive, very realistic train crash. Opening the movie this way was a really interesting choice -- we don't get to meet the characters before the accident that starts Paul and Yvonne Orlac on their doomed and bizarre trajectory. There is a brief establishing scene of Yvonne reading a really horny letter from her husband, and one of pianist Paul at his final concert before returning home. Then there's a very long sequence of the aftermath of the train crash that almost kills Paul, and this scene brings a level of realism you don't really get in other films of this genre/done in this style. The set construction looks expensive; the mangled train cars piled up in heaps may have been fabricated in the studio, but because of the lighting in the night scene, the billowing smoke from passing locomotives and fires from the crash, it looks pretty damn real for 1924. It's extremely effective and harrowing, especially as Yvonne races to the site of the crash and climbs through the wreckage to try to find her husband. The chaos of the scene, made all the more disorienting by the movement of search lights and the haze of smoke and steam, feels true to life. People are running around, pulling bodies from the ruined train cars, carrying them away on stretchers. Survivors look around dazed, clutching their belongings in shock. It's such a well directed moment in the film, but maybe not the first thing people remember about it. And I think it's inclusion is important because it offsets how weird the movie's about to get.

And boy, does it get weird. However, the doctor does say Paul suffered a skull fracture, so it's not a huge stretch to think he also has some kind of brain injury. So I wonder if that has something to do with how the filmmakers chose to show Paul's intense fear and paranoia, as well as the movie's shift in tone and style after his accident. The nightmarishness of the film, from the exaggerated performances to the set design, feels like an extension of whatever might be going on in Paul's head as a result of his injury.

Regardless, I love the choices the art director made. The set, especially the Art Deco mausoleum the Orlacs have for a home, is so perfect. The huge, cavernous rooms are completely unnecessary, but they make the characters look and feel so helpless, like dolls in a doll house. The lines of the walls and the furnishings draw the eye through the frame with just as much intention as the painted sets of Caligari. Even places outside their house become symbolic and iconographic. The news stand is just a window cut out of a massive wall of loose sheets of newspaper that takes up the entire frame. The interior of Orlac Sr.'s house is like a old, drafty castle, looking more like the home of an evil, miserly king. The tavern where Paul is confronted by Nera feels dank and subterranean, just a lamp or two removed from literal catacombs. The outer world is fully a reflection of poor Paul Orlac's inner torment and despair and I AM LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

The new music composed by Paul Mercer is perfect, too. It's all skronky violins and cellos, ominous percussion and piano. It's just atmospheric enough, creating moments of soundscapes, echoing footsteps, aural suggestions of the oppressive cave-like rooms where the story unfolds. There aren't really any memorable themes like in the updated score for The Student of Prague, but that works for this movie. I would buy this soundtrack and actually listen to it on its own, it's that good.

Everyone in the ensemble is basically on the same page in terms of acting style, no one feels out of place or miscast. Connie of course steals the show, but Alexandra Sorina as Yvonne gives him a run for his money. She's a good match for him, delivering an appropriately desperate and hysterical (and deeply, deeply horny) performance as the touch-starved wife. Their scenes together are maybe some of the best on screen romantic moments of Connie's silent film work because these two are wildly hungry for each other. This movie is so funny, it tells you immediately how horny it is; in the first 30 seconds of the movie, Yvonne gets a letter from Paul that says, "I will feel your body beneath my hands," like they're telling you straight up this is going to Horn Town. And the way she grabs at him, presses her open mouth to him, hovers over him in his hospital bed, she is DTF anywhere any time. And no shame, no shade, good for her. This is a sex positive film, and we love to see it. But she's not just the sexy wife, she's also totally ride or die for Paul. She truly trusts him and believes his absolutely buck wild story about being blackmailed by a dead psycho killer. What a gal.

Then there's Paul, aka Eraserhead Baby… because when he wakes up from surgery covered in bandages, he looks like the Eraserhead Baby. Connie is doing some of his finest nostril acting in this role, I have to say. As always, I am fascinated by his physicality and the choices he's making with movement and gesture. When his bandages are finally removed, he reacts as though drugged, his movements slow as though underwater or in a dream. And when he confronts his surgeon after discovering the original owner of his newly transplanted hands, he holds them out and away from his body as if they were coated in something dirty or disgusting. As Paul's life and sanity unravel, his hands and fingers are in almost constant motion, curling, twitching, clutching; his body language becomes more creature-like, moving in a way that calls up Cesare the sleepwalker -- interestingly, the two characters both seemingly at the mercy of forces outside their control.

We don’t get to know what Paul was like before the accident, how much this traumatic event changed him. There's something this movie is trying to say about trauma and how it affects people. The doctor tells Paul, "Nature and a strong will can overcome anything." But if Paul sustained any kind of serious brain damage, who’s to say his personality wasn't affected, or that he wasn't fragile and suggestible to begin with? Either way, in the wake of the accident, Paul's vulnerability and circumstance makes him a perfect target for Nera's grift.

Even without being targeted by a sick weirdo con artist, it's no wonder Paul's really going through it. He tortures and punishes himself relentlessly for something that wasn't his fault! (Been there.) He puts on a recording of one of his old concerts and crumples in grief for having lost not only his livelihood but also his outlet for creative expression -- not being able to do what you used to creatively because of trauma is REAL. He's trapped in his misery. Even his handwriting is different, now a violent scrawl he imagines is due to the murderous acts his hands supposedly committed. He secretly retrieves the planted murder weapon in order to further convince himself he's somehow become evil, wielding it as through he committed the crimes of the dead man whose hands now belong to him. And the scenes where Yvonne comes to him, wanting to both devour and comfort him, he cannot bring himself to touch her. Clearly they love each other very much and their relationship was very physical, so the agony and yearning in his face when she embraces him is UGH IT'S SO GOOD. It's heartbreaking. There's a lot to unravel here about trauma, body dysmorphia, and intimacy that I'm interested to dig into during subsequent viewings.

Final thoughts: There's an annoying part of my brain that wants the movie to make sense, for the timeline to be clearer, for loose ends to be tied up. But I know that none of that really matters because this movie is better received as a dream or a nightmare. And by that logic, it doesn't have to make sense. The Expressionist beats are being hit particularly hard, but the surreal quality allows the filmmakers and cast to get away with it. For fans of Conrad Veidt, this is a must-watch, even before Caligari -- he gets more screen time in this film, gets to play with his silent film artist's palette, and gets to do pathos like he's the king of tragic, pathetic characters. He's gangly, glassy-eyed, and trembling like a small wet dog the whole time and it's superb. Despite not really getting a chance to know the Orlacs before they're thrown into their own personal hell of body horror and credit debt, they're both pretty sympathetic. From psychological commentary to the erotic visuals and tension, it's all very ahead of its time.

[thebrideofreanimator]

what are some facts about the cabinet of dr caligari that u know

• the writers very much disliked the plot twist at the end and stated it was forced on them

• The story took inspiration from a real life events the writers witnessed. hans janowitz believed he witnessed a murder at a fair. he saw a girl disappear with a man and learned she was murdered at the fair the next day.

• a lot of the details of the production of the film are unknown because there are a lot of conflicting stories

• one french theater played it for 7 years straight

• before the films release, posters were hung all around that read “du musst caligari werden” with no further explanation

• conrad veidt stayed in character the whole time and would scare the other cast members lol

• don’t know much about this but i remember reading something about there being deleted scene with alan’s ghost at one point

• the most popular interpretations of this movie include it being meant to be a commentary on war or the state of germany at the time, with caligari representing the government/authority and cesare representing the common man blindly following orders. Janowitz has stated cesare represents a common man being conditioned to kill (like soldiers in war training) and caligari the government sending them off to war/death

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

👻 You can support me on Ko-fi ❤️

★★★★½

Plot: When a carnival comes to town, its somnambulist begins predicting people's deaths.

Review: Tense, layered, and stylistically gorgeous, this movie's status as a cornerstone of horror cinema is more than deserved.

English Title: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Year: 1920 Genre: Psychological Horror Country: Germany Language: Silent Runtime: 1 hour 14 minutes

Director: Robert Wiene Writers: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz Cinematographer: Willy Hameister Composer: Giuseppe Becce Cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Fehér, Lil Dagover

------

Story: 3/5 - While interesting and unpredictable, it grows somewhat muddled towards the end and falls into ableist tropes.

Performances: 4.5/5 - Krauss plays Dr. Caligari in the most delightfully maniacal way, and Veidt is unsettling as the clairvoyant Cesar.

Cinematography: 5/5 - Eerily beautiful, with unique framing and lighting. There isn't a single shot in this film that isn't striking.

Music: 4/5 - Wonderfully weird.

Sets: 5/5 - From the cityscapes to the carnival, all of the sets are distorted and angular, giving every shot an unsettling, dream-like quality.

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 4/5 - Very solid. Dr. Caligari's outfit and make-up are iconic.

Trigger Warnings:

Mild violence

Ableism against mentally ill people (uncritical)

[sixty-silver-wishes]

thinking about caligari production ✨lore✨ again

so

this is german actress gilda langer

(she was the one who encouraged hans janowitz and carl mayer to write a film together, which would end up being “caligari.” everyone say, “danke schön, gilda langer.”)

when mayer and janowitz were writing “caligari,” they initially wrote the role of jane for langer. however, langer unexpectedly died of spanish flu before they could begin filming, so the role went to lil dagover.

so uh. this happened:

(before she died, langer was also engaged to director paul czinner.)

so, as for the film itself, in the original draft of “caligari,” the frame story element still exists, but francis and jane are a married couple telling the story to their guests at a dinner party years after it happened. however, in the final film, while the characters are friends in the frame story, they are both revealed to be asylum patients at the end. francis asks jane to marry him, but she rejects him, seemingly lost in her own delusion.

so I have a lot of questions. I have to wonder if, considering langer’s untimely death and the fact that she didn’t return mayer’s feelings for her, the way jane’s character was written changed. we know janowitz and mayer did not want the asylum ending, which was added to distill the film’s anti-authority themes. but as for jane rejecting francis, this element stands out to me because we hardly ever see the “damsel” character reject the male protagonist, especially in older works of fiction. what’s also fascinating is that while francis and alan appear to compete for jane’s affection, alan dies, but this doesn’t mean jane chooses francis. what’s curious as well is that even in francis’ own narrative which he controls, he could tell the story so that jane is attracted to him, but he doesn’t.

furthermore, while I’ve touched on this before, even in his own story, francis sort of fucks up his own friendship with jane. after she’s kidnapped, he immediately denies her (correct) account of what happened, leading both her and her father to appear angry with him. francis never apologizes for this mistake, but the fact that we see the olsens upset with him suggests that we’re supposed to see this as a fault on his behalf.

so, between the “love triangle” element in which the “rival” is killed, the fact that francis is rejected and jane remains single, and the fact that their friendship is presented as flawed, I have to wonder how much of the story of the final film may have been impacted by langer’s engagement and death. this is not to suggest that mayer may have had resentment for czinner or langer, or to make any assumptions on his personal life and thoughts towards these people, but it’s curious that while francis and jane started out as a couple in the original draft, francis’ feelings turn out to be unrequited in the final film. could jane’s refusal of him be a projection of mayer’s own unrequited feelings for langer? I have no idea, but I have to wonder

[princesssarisa]

The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 4 (#31 through #40)

A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances, with English subtitles whenever possible.

Donizetti's Don Pasquale

Another comedy of manners with a melodic bel canto score.

Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, 2003 (Alessandro Corbelli, Eva Mei, Antonino Siragusa, Roberto de Candia; conducted by Gérard Korsrten)

Verdi's Macbeth

The first of Verdi's great Shakespearean operas.

Zürich Opera, 2001 (Thomas Hampson, Paoletta Marrocu, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Luis Lima; conducted by Franz Welser-Möst)

Beethoven's Fidelio

Beethoven's only opera, a drama of love, courage, and idealism in the face of political corruption.

Vienna State Opera, 1979 (Gundula Janowitz, René Kollo, Hans Sotin, Manfred Jungwirth, Lucia Popp; conducted by Leonard Bernstein)

Gounod's Faust

One of the most wildly popular operas in the 19th and early 20th centuries: a melodic French interpretation of the Faust legend.

Vienna State Opera, 1985 (Francisco Araiza, Gabriela Benacková, Ruggero Raimondi; conducted by Erich Binder)

Richard Strauss's Salome

Strauss's one-act operatic translation Oscar Wilde's erotic and powerful Biblically-inspired play.

Teatro Comunale di Bologna, 2010 (Erika Sunnegårdh, Mark S. Doss, Robert Brubaker, Dalia Schaechter, Mark Milhofer; conducted by Nicola Luisotti)

Puccini's Gianni Schicchi

Puccini's only comic opera, a rollicking one-act farce inspired by a passage from Dante's Divine Comedy.

Teatro alla Scala, 2008 (Leo Nucci, Nino Machiadze, Vittorio Grigolo, Cinzia De Mola; conducted by Riccardo Chailly)

Verdi's Don Carlo

A grand, tragic historical drama of politics, love vs. duty, intergenerational conflict, friendship (of the vaguely homoerotic variety), and abuse of power.

Metropolitan Opera, 1983 (Plácido Domingo, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Louis Quilico, Grace Bumbry, Ferruccio Furlanetto; conducted by James Levine)

Bellini's Norma

A great bel canto soprano vehicle, depicting a tragic love triangle amid the Roman conquest of Gaul.

Sydney Opera House, 1978 (Joan Sutherland, Margareta Elkins, Ron Stevens, Clifford Grant; conducted by Richard Bonynge)

Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos

A unique "opera within an opera" that explores the themes of comedy vs. drama and "low art" vs. "high art."

Salzburg Festival, 1965 (Hildegard Hillebrecht, Sena Jurinac, Reri Grist, Jess Thomas; conducted by Karl Böhm)

Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice)

A groundbreaking early Classical interpretation of the Orpheus myth, replacing the pageantry of Baroque opera with "noble simplicity."

Feature film, 2014 (Bejun Mehta, Eva Liebau, Regula Mühlemann; conducted by Vaclav Luks) (no subtitles; read the libretto in English translation here)

[byneddiedingo]

Conrad Veidt and Werner Krauss in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

Cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Rudolf Lettinger. Screenplay: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz. Cinematography: Willy Hameister. Production design: Walter Reimann, Walter Röhrig, Herrmann Warm.

I don't know how many years ago I first saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on television or in some university film series, but I remember finding it rather silly and quaint. In the meantime I have grown more serious-minded about movies and the film has been carefully restored: The flickering black-and-white images I must have seen have been replaced by smooth digitalized projection and the appropriate color filters, as well as the original hand-painted intertitles, and an appropriately spiky modern score by John Zorn has been added to some prints. It's clearly a classic, both of its time and enduring into future times. The film has been endlessly analyzed, most notoriously by Siegfried Kracauer in his 1947 book From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, in which Kracauer posits that the film reveals post-World War I Germany's subconscious desire for an authoritarian leader. In other words, Caligari equals Hitler. Considering that in the film Caligari, played by Werner Krauss, looks both sinister and absurd, something like an elderly owl in a top hat, I find the argument hard to swallow. But this is one film that will probably never exhaust interpretation. I think it's best just to enjoy it as a tremendous artistic experience.

[schlock-luster-video]

On March 22, 2017, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released on DVD in Australia.

[theharpermovieblog]

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

!!100th MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!

I re-watched The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920)

For the 100th movie this year I wanted to do one of my all time favorite silent films and, in my opinion, one of the greatest films of all time.

A man regales another with his story of an evil doctor who uses a sleepwalking slave to do his killing.

When I was a kid, and KB toy stores were still a thing, a line of silent movie toys came out called Silent Screams. Each film got toys of two exaggerated characters (sold separately) and their respective stands. As a budding film buff and horror nerd, I needed to have them. I saved what little money I could and eventually I bought Nosferatu and Renfield and, despite having never seen the film, I bought the titular Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist slave Cesare. The highly detailed toys blew my mind. What the fuck could this movie be? It was so odd and I had never even heard the word Somnambulist before. I finally got my hands on a copy of the movie and was blown away by it. The artistic sets, the character designs, the strange story, the compelling ending, it all served to deepen my already ravenous love of film and film history and as a bonus It helped me to understand German expressionism.

With The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, German director Robert Wiene is responsible for what is considered by many to be the first true horror film. With it's odd angled hand drawn and hand crafted sets the film is a descent into madness through visual magic and clever storytelling. The movie is filled with creativity caused by budget and electricity restrictions which came about due to WW1. It was simply cheaper to paint shadows than use real lighting for everything. A wildly inventive solution that turned out to be a continuing draw over 100 years later.

What a lot of today's films are missing, due to the overuse of CGI, is the need to get creative within a budget. Most films nowadays just settle for cheaper CGI work, and there's zero creativity in that decision. I might sound like an old soul longing for a bygone era, but I'm a firm believer that heavy CGI use makes filmmaking too easy and ruins many film genres, but none more so than horror films.

In my opinion, writer Hans Janowitz and director Robert Wiene should be credited for the creation of horror as a film genre. Its not just the dark, strange stories and actions that create horror films. It is the mood, atmosphere and style. It is the transportation to another world through a combination of several human senses. A world in which nightmares are real and where one can not tell sanity from madness. That's what is so fantastic about this film. It is in every way true horror cinema and in being so, is one of the greatest films of all time.

[kennamchugh]

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" Fully-Restore Silent Horror Film

I enjoy watching quality silent horror films, particularly those by German Expressionists. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari captures the chilling essence of horror through captivating cinematic perspectives. Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, the 1920 German film centers on a young man named Francis. He remembers a terrible incident at the Holstenwall annual fair…

[sixty-silver-wishes]

that’s weird; it’s spelled differently on the front and back of the cover

some silly things to point out as well-

- did siegfried kracauer write that entire last paragraph lol. the anti-war thing is a common interpretation, but it’s not clear whether or not they were originally intended from the beginning. iirc hans janowitz did say it was an anti-war film, but it’s possible he may have retroactively assigned that meaning to it. it’s also subjective as to whether or not the ending diminishes an anti-authority interpretation

- jane was never francis’ fiancee lmaooooo. like francis says “that’s my fiancee�� in the beginning, but we never see her agree to his proposal. all we see is that alan and francis agree to let her choose between them, but then alan dies. I, uh, don’t think that counts as winning by default 💀

- so many stills they could go for w the cover. and they used That one. I’m not mad I just want to know

- where did 1830 come from??? there’s no concrete time period it’s set in. it could be any time from like, maybe the mid-1880s to 1920 (some buildings have electricity, and google tells me germany got electricity starting in 1885). you can’t just make shit up lol

- “phoney”? caligari may be a horrible person in many different ways, and he does commit malpractice, but there’s nothing to suggest he’s not actually a doctor. he is the head of the holstenwall asylum, and while maybe he acquired that position illegitimately, he clearly has enough expertise for his experiments on cesare to be successful, and his colleagues acknowledge him as a specialist. but then again, victor frankenstein wasn’t technically a doctor. so what do I fucking know

- anyway why does it summarize the entire movie lol. like what’s the point in watching the movie if you know how the whole plot will play out

- the “insane style of the film” has nothing to do with the plot. the set design was robert weine’s decision; there’s nothing in the screenplay that suggests a stylized setting was originally intended

A 1990 GoodTimes VHS tape of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Notice Werner Krauss' name appears to be spelled wrong?