Attn: film students, a brand-new HD restoration of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is streaming for free this weekend on Fandor. The plots premise is fascinating, the final twists great. Its not very long. And above all, its visually astounding. Its the quintessential expressionist film, endlessly imitated by modern expressionists like Tim Burton. Ohio students will remember that we talked about it a bit when we discussed expressionism in the first film weekend, and again when we compared surrealism and expressionism in a short evening course. Well almost certainly talk about it more when we talk about production design and mise-en-scene (which will happen someday, working on it). Look at how little they do with the camera in each scene--remember this film was made AFTER the advances D. W. Griffith made in film editing, but that it uses minimal closeups and goes back to the stagey, frontal-view proscenium style used by Georges Melies and other early directors. Look at how they throw suspension of disbelief right out the window and make you feel like youre watching a stage play. (And think about how this all makes sense by the end,) Look for all the ways they used production design to create the things we usually attribute to lighting or lenses: fisheye-style distortion, manipulated depth cues, deep focus, chiaroscuro splashes of light and dark accomplished with set painting or makeup. Look for how, as in Edvard Munchs painting The Scream, the interior psychological turmoil of the characters spills out into the world they live in. Look at how they move about, dancer-like, in twisted, tangled ways, mimicking and being mimicked by the twisted, tangled angles of the sets. I enthusiastically recommend watching this while you can, alone if you have to, or (the optimal environment for all silent film, I think) in a big rowdy group. You can sign up to watch it using your Facebook account even if you arent paying for a monthly Fandor account (Im not, at the moment at least). I just watched a few minutes and it looks sharp--nice rendering of the original color tinting, good score.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:22:40 +0000
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