348 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1920)

After years of talking about it, we are finally discussing perhaps the most influential film of all time: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari! We talk about the historical context of the Weimar Republic, the aspects of expressionism seen on screen, whether this movie trusts authority, face acting, action figures, and more!

I Love This You Should Too is hosted by Samantha & Indy Randhawa

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky32ti4M9Ls

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The quintessential work of early German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of a hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark, twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms; oblique, curving lines; structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles; and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets. The set design is "anti-realistic, claustrophobic" and "harsh" which is "coupled with feverish anxiety [that] entered the vocabulary of filmmakers and film viewers" particularly during the Weimar Republic, when this film was made.