THE CABINET OF Dr. CALIGARI

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an eye-opening film of 1920's imagination and filming capabilities. This is one of the few films I have seen in black and white and contrastingly to the other's; Robert Wiene (The Director) was able film so effectively, through the continued use of warm and cold light. This technique massively impacted the overall feel of the films' scenes, although I'm not too sure what the effect was trying to portray - good and evil - day and night - happy and sad - or just general tension and mood. Furthermore, black and white cinematography allowed for drastic staging, making it easy to create dynamics between all elements of filming. Whilst it was simple for things to blend into the background; highlighted elements are so much stronger. Hence, in a lot of the scenes there are fake stairs or pillars or paths ways, that seem abnormal and floating, however it's just an extremely effective use of positive and negative spacing. ​

Linking to light and dark, it's so clever how the villain was portrayed, mainly using looming shadows of distorted reality; effectively projected onto surfaces surrounding its victim. Over the whole production, this technique must have saved a lot of time and money on makeup, prosthetics and SPFX. Also, I have seen this idea be reused countless times and carried through as way of portraying a horrific character without actually creating the scary facade (just by merely using shadows!). 

During the film - when the 'Dr.' wasn't the main focus - his character was still present (to build tension and bring suspense) via him 'lurking' in and out of frame. This staging choice was often helped out via a smaller camera lense, creating a blackened screen with a small off-centred circular image. This limits the availability for multiple elements within the frame, causing your focus to be drawn towards the man constantly popping his head in and out. Similarly, this continued to build the story lines tension and suspense.

Close ups were used to show emotion within the characters, also allowing the actors to express what was happening behind the camera e.g. sign posting an important visual or what's coming towards them. In my opinion, this ended up with the 'Dr.' constantly looking scared, as there was no music to help emote to scene. Resulting in the characters seeming quite 'extra', rendering them somewhat unrelatable.

Along the theme of 'extra', the whole production seemed very theatrical; from its costumes to set to makeup. The horror films surroundings were 'distorted', 'wonky' and 'unrealistic', conceptually designed in a 'fine artsy' sort of way, making sure to question normality (the makeup not being far off). Contrastingly, the costume design was hyper realistic and stereotypical. However, I believe this was a good design choice - although not innkeeping with the theme - it allowed the audience to know exactly who each character was supposed to be. This made sure to create a strong, easier to follow, story line.

Overall, this film was enjoyable to analyse because of its historical maker qualities (shadow villains - warm and cold cinematography) and set design aspects. It was really interesting to see how people perceived horror at that time and how much the film industry has progressed since the 20's. Finally, I believe the main method of storytelling throughout this film was close up (emotion) shots and light and shadow play, both simultaneously providing questioning intrigue and tension for the audience.