An Introduction to Film

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ExpressionismHighly stylized sets and intertitles (insert
titles)added to the radical look of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,
as in the following examples taken from the 1996 release
of the restored movie. Image [1] is an abstract graphic
intertitle——“The Annual Fair in Holstenwall”——tinted in beige,
white, and brown; it immediately precedes image [2], an icy
blue-tinted drawing that exaggerates the shape and height of
the mountain town. Image [3] is also an abstract graphic——
“Night”——tinted white, gray, and green, which precedes [4],
another icy blue-tinted shot of a man asleep in his bed. In a
convention used throughout the movie, the walls behind his
bed are not actual walls but a painted image of them in a
distorted perspective tinted in black, white, and gray. Rose-
colored tints are used in other images. Such conventions
ushered in an era of expressionist cinematography, design,
and mise-en-scène in the United States and elsewhere. That
influence is clear in, for example, Charles D. Hall’s designs for
James Whale’s Frankenstein(1931) and Bride of Frankenstein
(1935), Jack Otterson’s designs for Rowland V. Lee’s Son of
Frankenstein(1939), Van Nest Polglase and Perry Ferguson’s
designs for Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane(1941), and the
designs of countless film noirs.
DESIGN 195