An Introduction to Film

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Inside The Cabinet of Dr. CaligariIn Robert Wiene’s

eerie, foreboding movie (1920), Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss)

operates a carnival attraction featuring a somnambulist

(sleepwalker) named Cesare (Conrad Veidt); the “cabinet” in

the title refers not only to the type of early freak show called

a “cabinet of curiosities” but also to the coffinlike box in

which Cesare “sleeps” until Caligari awakens him and orders

him to commit murders. The title card shown here [1], written

in exaggerated letters, speaks in a folksy tone while echoing

the graphics of the movie’s painted settings. The power of

these settings is evident when we see [2] Dr. Caligari (left)

attempting to rouse Cesare (right), who is presumably

“asleep” while standing upright in Caligari’s cabinet.

(^9) Gerald Mast and Bruce F. Kawin, A Short History of the
Movies, 10th ed. (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008), p. 193.
ten years of its establishment. There are aesthetic,
political, economic, and social reasons for this.
Even though it gave birth to the horror-film genre,
in terms of aesthetics German audiences did not
crave a steady diet of such films. As far as politics
goes, because it emphasized the inner rather than
the outer world, Hitler (now rising to power) saw it
as a revolt against the traditional values that he
sought to preserve. With their lavish studio set-
tings, expressionist films were expensive to make.
Furthermore, foreign films were taking an increas-
ing share of the German market, prompting the
German film industry to copy them in order to hold
its market share. When the government tightened
control of UFA, it became clear that Hitler would
curtail freedom of expression when he came to
power in 1933. Thus, many great German filmmak-
ers were lured to the United States, stimulating the
aesthetics of Hollywood production for decades to
come. Soon, certain tendencies of the expressionist
look became evident in Hollywood’s psychological
dramas, horror movies, and most notably, the film
noir. To quote film historians Gerald Mast and
Bruce F. Kawin, “It is difficult to imagine the his-
tory of American cinema without this infusion of
both visual imagery and thematic commentary
from Weimar Germany.”^9

1918—1930: French Avant-Garde

Filmmaking

In the 1920s, Paris was the world’s center of avant-

garde experimentation in painting, literature,

drama, music, and film. It was a time when the

philosophical approaches of surrealism, cubism,

dadaism, and expressionism led to an explosion of

artistic styles and movements. The French Avant-

Garde film movement included both intellectuals

and artists who took their inspiration not only from

Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, but also from the

experimental French filmmakers who preceded

them in the earliest years of the movies: Georges

Méliès, Ferdinand Zecca, Max Linder, Émile Cohl,

Jean Durand, and Louis Feuillade, pioneering

A SHORT OVERVIEW OF FILM HISTORY 445