Rent Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari (1920)
3.9 of 5 from 167 ratings
1h 12min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- At a local carnival in a small German town, hypnotist Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) presents the somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who can purportedly predict the future of curious fairgoers. But at night, the doctor wakes Cesare from his sleep to enact his evil bidding...
- Actors:
- Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, Rudolf Lettinger, Elsa Wagner, Ludwig Rex, Henri Peters-Arnolds, Hans Lanser-Rudolf, Rudolf Klein-Rogge
- Directors:
- Robert Wiene
- Producers:
- Rudolf Meinert, Erich Pommer
- Writers:
- Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz
- Aka:
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
- Studio:
- Eureka
- Genres:
- Classics, Horror, Thrillers
- Collections:
- 10 Films to Watch if You Like Citizen Kane, 10 Films to Watch if You Like: EO, 100 Years of German Expressionism, A Brief History of Disney Heroines, A Brief History of Hammer Horror, Film History, Films to Watch If You Like..., Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: James Mason, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Billy Wilder, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Éric Rohmer, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Fritz Lang, The Instant Expert's Guide: to Tim Burton, The Last Laugh: The Film That Changed Cinema, Top 10 European Remakes, Top 10 Films Set in Venice, Top Films, What to Watch Next If You Liked Dracula
- Countries:
- Germany
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 29/09/2014
- Run Time:
- 77 minutes
- Languages:
- German Dolby Digital 5.1, German LPCM Stereo, Silent
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
- Colour:
- Colour and B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- New and exclusive feature-length audio commentary by film scholar and historian David Kalat
- "A New Documentary": "Caligari: The Birth of Horror in the First World War"
- "You Must Become Caligari": A new and exclusive video essay on the feature by filmmaker and critic David Cairns
- "On the Restoration": Three short video pieces about the 2014 restoration
- Trailer for the release of the new restoration of the film
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 05/12/2022
- Run Time:
- 77 minutes
- Languages:
- German DTS 5.1, German LPCM Stereo, Silent
- Subtitles:
- English
- DVD Regions:
- Region 2
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
- Colour:
- Tinted
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Score by Cornelius Schwer (2014)
- Score by Uwe Dierksen and Hermann Kretzschmar (2019)
- Brand new audio commentary by Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby
- Audio commentary by film historian David Kalat
- The Asylum in Film - brand new interview with author/critic Kim Newman
- You Must Become Caligari - video essay by film critic David Cairns
- Caligari: The Birth of Horror in the First World War - 52 minute documentary on the cultural and historical impact of the film
- On the Restoration - three short video pieces on the film's restoration
- Trailer
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Reviews (2) of Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari
Murder In Toytown - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari review by Count Otto Black
This is one of the classics of silent cinema. It's enormously imaginative, it looks like nothing made before and very little made since, and its influence was incredibly long-lasting; "Eraserhead" in particular owes a huge debt to it. Nobody denies that it's a cinematic milestone. But is it a truly great movie?
The answer has to be "not quite". The scenery, along with many of the props and costumes, is outrageously weird throughout, and for once the ludicrous overacting doesn't matter because nothing is even halfway realistic to begin with. The trouble is, once you get over how Surreal the whole movie looks, there's hardly any plot. The obviously bonkers Dr. Caligari arrives in town to exhibit a catatonic mental patient as a fairground freak who can allegedly foresee the future. Murders immediately start happening, one of which is predicted hours in advance to a horrified crowd by Cesare the Somnambulist. Gee, I wonder if Caligari and his pet loony (who looks uncannily like Marc Almond from Soft Cell - remember him?) might possibly have something to do with the mysterious deaths...?
Fortunately the police are as thick as two very thick things nailed together, otherwise this film would be about a tenth as long as it is, so it's down to the hero to solve the mystery by running around overacting while stuff just sort of happens, and the villains give themselves away in even more absurdly obvious ways than they already have, or conveniently self-destruct without anyone having to do anything. And then, thanks to a framing story that wasn't in the shooting script but the production company insisted on adding it at the last minute because they thought the film was just too damn weird, it turns out that none of this bizarreness really happened after all.
It's impossible to dislike a movie in which everyone lives in houses obviously designed by architects who let small children draw the blueprints with crayons for a joke, but in the end it partly falls into the trap of being weird for the sake of being weird, and not quite enough actually happens. By the way, when renting movies this ancient, you may get a pristine digital restoration, or you may get something so cheap and shoddy it's unwatchable; it just depends which copy was on the shelf. The version of this movie I got was somewhere in the middle: allegedly "restored" in an unspecified way by a very obscure company, but judging by the number of serious and sometimes annoying flaws the "restoration" failed to fix, my guess is they just wiped it with a damp cloth. Maybe you'll be luckier.
6 out of 6 members found this review helpful.
Landmark Horror. - Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari review by Steve
From the dawn of German expressionism, this is one of the most influential films ever made; most ostentatiously, the extraordinary set decoration which not only inspired other German silents but Hollywood too. The classic Universal horrors of the early thirties are unmissably produced under its spell. Critics now call this the first ever horror feature.
A travelling circus comes to town, which features a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) primed by a mysterious mentalist (Werner Krauss) to commit murder. But the sideshow svengali is also the governor of a mental hospital. There is a framing devise, with the events told by one of the inmates. This unreliable/mad narrator makes the story fascinatingly ambiguous.
It has stimulated many diverse interpretations. And theories of how it reflects Germany between the wars. Most obviously, it is a subversive, anti-authoritarian fantasy. It expresses a social climate of paranoia and conspiracy. But primarily it is an an imaginative and exciting thriller. The acting is unsubtle... But then, this is a modernist dreamscape.
So who knows how people should act! Krauss doesn't make much of the title role. But Veidt as the hypnotised killer, pale and dressed in black, has become a goth icon. This is the thriller as arthouse, which has stimulated many musicians to write soundtracks to accompany the crazy events. Robert Wiene creates a gateway into a world of a distressed imagination which still beguiles.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.