The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Is 1920's THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI the first bona fide cult film? Certainly one whose reputation endures to this day.  It's rather depressing to think that perhaps thousands of other strips of celluloid from that era and earlier have disintegrated and will never be appreciated.  Some could have also been potential classics, ones that may have surprised later audiences in their form and content.  What did Scorsese conjecture, that 50% of all films made before 1950 are lost? I read that Hollywood films from the early twentieth century were often tossed into the Pacific after they exhausted their theatrical runs. There was no other medium through which money could be made.  Perhaps we should get James Cameron to do another deep sea expedition before he makes another AVATAR movie.

Director Robert Wiene's film, which I would describe as "horror", set so many standards, influenced just about everything that came after.  It really has the best of all possible elements.  Fascinating screenplay by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz.  Shadowy cinematography by Willy Harmeister. Surreal sets highlighted by curves and unusually shaped doors and other common structures.  Often, everything appears as if in a painting.  Certainly many set designers for the theater took notes.

The story is a flashback recalling the mysterious Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist named Cesare.  Our narrator Francis describes his visit with a friend to the local fair.  His friend will be dead by dawn, just as Cesare predicted when asked to foretell the future.  There will be other murders in town.  A suspect is caught hovering a knife; it is not Cesare.  Will Francis' fiancee Jane become another victim of whomever the real murderer is? And who (or what) is Caligari? Is the story Francis is telling accurate?

I saw the Kino Lorber version which in its prologue describes the meticulous process through which this cut was produced.  The earliest surviving prints came from Latin America; a German distribution print does not exist.  Dialogue titles were taken from the "flashtitles in the camera negative and a 16mm print from 1935 from the Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum fur Film und Fernsehen in Berlin".  The beautiful color tinting (green, yellow, pink)  is per the original instructions.  Restoration was done in Bologna.

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI is an undebatable staple in world cinema.  German Expressionism at its most vintage.  The film is a perfect nightmare that still has shock and chill power, if only for Cesare's terrifying eyes.  All the mimes and goths owe a lot to him.