The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari story
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.
15 total · 6 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| how to murder someone and get away with it | major | One gathers that Dr. Caligari using of a somnambulist to commit the killings was his way to get away away with murder. |
| human mental condition | major | In Franzis' delusion, the lunatic asylum director went dangerously insane and had to be forcibly restrained. In reality, Franzis was himself a patient in the asylum. He suffered from the delusion that the director was an insane murderer. |
| obsession | major | The lunatic asylum director was obsessed with learning the secrets of the notorious mystic Dr. Caligari. |
| psychology | major | The lunatic asylum director was revealed to have had a live long desire to learn whether a somnambulist could be made to perform vile acts that they would never commit while in a waking state. |
| serial murder | major | The story centered around a sequence of murders in the town of Holstenwall. |
| what it is like in a psychiatric institution | major | The viewer is shown stereotypical lunatics in an asylum and learned that the entire story was narrated by an inmate. There were two occasions of someone being forced into a straitjacket. |
| coping with the death of a friend | minor | Franzis could not control his grief upon being informed of the death of his friend, Alan. |
| delusion of grandeur | minor | Jane thought she was a queen. |
| engaged couple | minor | Franzis claimed that Jane was his fiancée. |
| friendship | minor | Alan and Franzis were fast friends. |