The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

com) No other Expressionist film represents this stated distress better than Robert Weine’s 1920 classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The quasi-surrealist set pieces are as jagged and contorted as blades of grass, emblematic of a mind unable to adequately form the proper visual representations for ordinary objects. In the real world no architect would design buildings the way we see in Caligari; simply put: they would serve no functional purpose. But this isn’t the real world, this is the…

actions of the supernatural, while Soviet Dialecticism’s narrative structure was based around social forces. The style of German Expressionism was known for its distortion, high contrast, and was entirely studio made to maintain control. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari a German Expressionism film from 1920 is a great example of…

The first horror movies are mostly surreal, disturbing pieces, owing their visual appearance to some extent to expressionist painting, spirit photography of the 1860s, the story styles of the Grand Guignol Theater Company and Gothic writing. They draw upon the fables and legends of Europe, and render creatures into physical structure. Spirit photography is the act of utilizing double exposures or superimpositions to portray apparitions on film. It was mainstream from the 1860s onwards not just…

Caligari (1919),” definitely subscribes to the modern horror genre aswell. What is ostensibly a tale of crazy authority became the musings of a madman. In fact, the influence of German Expressionism on the Hollywood films of the 1930’s and 1940’s were tremendous…

Throughout history, the public has been entertained by stories written and performed by artists visually. The creation of the moving picture gave an outlet to visual art performers to reach brand new audiences of enormous sizes. The cultural and artistic differences that influenced art prior to the film industry also made an imprint on films from around the Western world. Because of the emphasis on capitalism in America and England, the films of English speaking directors tended to be aimed at…

In Hitchcock’s films there were recurring themes like, suspense, the ordinary person and a staircase, that dominated in most of his films. These themes were able to better the overall storytelling of his films, because they added more depth to his films. One of the first themes that Hitchcock uses is one that he is known for and that is suspense. In his films Hitchcock uses suspense instead of just surprising the audience is because surprise will just assault the audience with some frightening…

and the horror genre started in Germany. Germany has a strong tradition of folklore and as film was being developed towards the end of World War I, Germany had suffered a great loss and was in ruins. One of the original horror films was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), by Robert Wiene, this silent film…

German Expressionism and Soviet Montage are two styles of filmmaking that emerged in the early 1920’s. German Expressionism can be seen as a reactionary art movement to the poverty stricken Germany in the wake of a crushing defeat in WWI. Its stylistic techniques as well as subject matter embodied the tone of the German masses in the post war era. Soviet Montage was also stylized by the current state of the Soviet Union that created it, it was popularly used as a form of propaganda and the…

Why audiences flock to see horror films is a mystery. The question as to why a person would put themselves through the psychological tortures that horror films create does not have a simple answer. However, it is evident that throughout time people have had a morbid attraction to the unknown and unexplainable. The reasons behind a person continuing to seek the thrills of a horror film is subject to the individual. Any film can seem scary to certain people, so the real question is in regards to…

Following the Great Depression, movie studios in the 1930’s were forced to alter their filmmaking practices in order to conserve money and turn a profit. During this period a series of films from Universal Studios dubbed the “Universal Monster Movies” made their way into theaters and began to shape the Horror genre in America. These films, which were based on classic literature, featured foreign stars, had low budgets, and saw influence from German Expressionism, were met with financial…