The film will be introduced by Dr. Anita Raghunath, lecturer in English Literature at the Faculty of Humanities (VU, Amsterdam).
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
Initially, the producer had approached director Fritz Lang (Metropolis) for this film, but he was busy working on another film, after which the choice fell on Robert Wiene, a director who had been active since 1912. Most of his films have been forgotten, but with Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari he made a monumental classic, a absolute hightlight of German Expressionism in film. Told largely in flashbacks, this film is considered by many to be the very first horror film ever made.
In the German mountain village of Holstenwall, Franzis and his friend Alan visit a fair, which also features Dr Caligari, a bizarre scientist, and his regular companion Cesare, a sleepwalker in a permanent trance. Caligari boasts that Cesare has an answer to every question. Alan wants to know when he will die and Cesare replies: “the next morning”. That prediction comes true. Franzis and his girlfriend Jane want to know who this Caligari and Cesare really are and make shocking discoveries with dire consequences.
A film from the holdings of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Wiesbaden.
