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...
OGR 02/11/2017
ReplyDeleteHey George,
I enjoyed your travelogue - you write engaging and visually. I do think still there is a position I want you to assume that is slightly different to the one you're writing from here. While I think it's true that an Ernst city is likely to be a rather unsettling one, I don't know why there are skulls or indeed dwarfs etc. Some of these elements feel like generic fantasy as opposed to ideas that are drawn up and out of your understanding of Ernst's work and his prevailing ideas. I suggested that you need to think about the sorts of buildings/spaces/places that might particularly be of interest to 'Ernst, the city designer' - and I suggested the gladiatorial stadium as an example of what I meant - a space that embodies conflict - but it was just an example of how you might start thinking like Ernst. At the moment I think you're still creating stories and city-ideas out of the paintings you're looking at, as opposed to thinking about the concept of the city as Ernst might think about the city.
The point about Ernst is that he let his subconscious do the work and used particular techniques to create work in a very direct way. Take a look at this link talking about the experimental techniques of Ernst in terms of his image-making.
https://www.artsy.net/article/jessica-beyond-painting-the-experimental-techniques-of-max
What I'd like to see you do is adopt these techniques yourself - use collage for example - create lots of photocopies of existing buildings or architectural elements and combine them to create new thumbnails - work quickly without over thinking and thus try and get into an Ernst way of working and looking and responding. I don't want you to design buildings and spaces from Ernst's existing paintings, I want you to engage with the design process the way in which Ernst might - do as he does.
It's clear from this painting, that Ernst's view of the city is not a super-positive one, so yes, I think the tone and mood of your travelogue is right, but I don't think we need the dwarves!
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ernst-the-entire-city-n05289
So look at the techniques Ernst used - not at what he's already created - use those techniques in the design and visualisation of buildings and spaces etc - and I think you'll very soon be working in a more exciting and truly Ernst-ian way!