Cabinet of Dr Caligari
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THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
(Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari)
the film was directed in 1919 by Robert Wiene and released in Germany in 1920. Director Robert Wiene would make several other horror films during the 1920s, including the lost Gothic horror Genuine (1920) and the original version of The Hands of Orlac (1924). Conrad Veidt emigrated to the US during the late 1930s where he maintained a career in movies, most famously in The Thief of Baghdad (1940) and Casablanca (1942).
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari became extremely influential and also did amazingly well in its time. Its influence being seen in the likes of the Communist film Aelita (1924); other German silents such as The Golem (1920) and Nosferatu (1922) and the films of Fritz Lang such as Dr Mabuse(1922) and Metropolis (1927); and the Universal horrors of the 1930s, especially The Bat Whispers (1930), Frankenstein (1931), Murders in the Rue Morgue(1932) and Son of Frankenstein (1939).
It is said that film noir, literally translated as "black film", is the end result of German expressionism. German expressionism was a style of film that manipulated light and shadow in new and inventive ways. Although expressionism only lasted from 1919 to about the mid-twenties, it has had a lasting impact on film. Caligari is a definitive example of the play on shadows and light...