Film Archive
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, Das)
Dr. Caligari, a demonic doctor and murderer, untouchable by the arm of the law (through the exploitation and use of a somnambulist), is traced by his antagonist, whom he has robbed of both friend and lover, to a mental hospital where he lives as its director. The vengeful young antagonist uncovers the keeper of madmen as a madman himself; as a madman for whom the example of faded criminal memoirs has become an obsession. And then all these events, reproduced as the youth's story, finally reveal themselves to be the fantasies of an equally sick mind, and therefore a well-disposed audience can make friendly allowances for them, along with the offensive décor; all the more so, since the director - actually a most upright fellow - now also gives the young patient hope for recovery. After all, he has been in the madhouse ...
Robert Wiene was born in 1881 in Breslau and died in 1938 in Paris. The son of an actor, he too studied Acting and later became a story editor at the Lessing Theater in Berlin. His first works were for Sascha-Film in Vienna and Bioscop and Messter Film in Berlin. After cooperation on Satanas with Friedrich-Wilhelm Murnau, he directed Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, considered to be his most important film. His other films include: Genuine (1920), Raskolnikoff (1923), Orlacs Haende (1924), the passion play I.N.R.I. (1923), Ultimatum (1938), and many more.Category Feature Film Cinema, Silent
Year of Production 1919
Director Robert Wiene
Screenplay Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer
Director of Photography Willi Hameister
Music by Giuseppe Becce, Lothar Prox, Rainer Viertlboeck
Production Design Walter Reimann, Walter Roehrig, Hermann Warm
Producer Rudolf Meinert
Production Company Decla-Film, Berlin
Principal Cast Lil Dagover, Friedrich Fehoer, Werner Krauss, Hans Lanser-Ludolff, Rudolf Lettinger, Henri Peters-Arnolds, Ludwig Rex, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Conrad Veidt, Elsa Wagner
Length 62 min, 1,509 m
Format 35 mm, b&w, 1:1.33
Original Version German
German Distributor Transit Film/Munich
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