Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari (1920) Movie Review
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, also known as Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari (1920), is a German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. The Film tells the story a hypnotist who uses a somnambulist, a sleep walker, to commit murders. The contorted sets, contrasting areas of light and dark lighting, and unique set design all feed into the films story within a story narrative. The use of the angular buildings within the city fuel the idea that the story is an expression of a lunatic’s perception of his own reality in which nothing that he is telling us is in fact true but rather a figment of his imagination. If we at look at what we believe to be the main antagonist; Dr. Caligari we can see major changes in his character progression near the end of the film starting of as a sideshow hypnotist. Caligari then goes to an insane asylum director trying to replicate the experiments of an 18th century mystic named Caligari to a madman who must...
Hey George, my only feeling about the 'building as rotting flesh' is that it's a bit of a 'fancy dress' response. The trick is to ask not 'how can I turn these paintings into buildings' but rather 'if Ernst turned his attention to city-planning, architecture and commissioning special sorts of buildings, what would Ernst do?'. My advice would be to look at his various approaches to image-making (quite literally the practical methods he used to make his work / collage/frottage etc) but also the conceptual methods - so dream imagery, the subconscious, free association and so on. Also, in terms of thinking about which bit of this metropolis you're going to showcase in particular - are there any clues as to what this should be by looking at things Ernst thought were particularly important - for example, let's say you've got a What If artist who was preoccupied with themes of chaos and conflict, it might make sense that he/she might focus on build some enormous stadium, or if you had an artist who was horrified by war, maybe the building we'd focus on would be somekind of massive war memorial or similar? I suggest you look at what issues were close to Ernst for some additional ideas about 'why' and 'where' you're building this city together...
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil this is exactly why I made my last slide as I'm not 100% set on my idea yet. As for the 'rotting flesh that was an aspect for the city that I envisioned. When I look at Ernst's paintings I imagine Hell quite vividly as an asect, another plane filled with chaos and destruction the worst imaginable place; a place that we'd only possibly conceive in our worst of nightmares. As another example his work is quite biblical as in the fireside angel painting the title itself almost confuses the viewer caused by the figure being shown, which is far from an angelic being more monstrous and demonic going back to the idea that the devil himself was once an angel cast out by god and turned into what he is now a demonic being, a fallen angel some would say.
DeleteI would really appreciate any more feedback on this as it would definitely help. I'd like to be able to talk to you in person as well to possibly develop any more ideas that I have.
Thanks Phil.
Get your OGR up, George - then I can see where you're at now and I can seek to be super useful!
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