1. German Expressionism:The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Lecture 12

2. German National Film Context: 1913-1919 • 1916 ban on film imports • Boom in national wartime production • 1913: 30 production companies • 1919: 250 production companies • 1917: Universum Film A.G. (or Ufa) formed with 1/3 of funding provided by the state. • 1918—Ufa privatized (purchased by Deutsches Bank) • 1920: Reich Film Act

3. Context for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari • Cabinet unlike French Impressionist films emerges from an industrial, commercial filmmaking context • Expressionism was in vogue at the time. • KasimirEdschmid in 1919: “[Expressionism] today affords titillation and edification to clergymen’s daughters and factory-owners’ wives… What once seemed a daring gesture has now become routine. The thrust forward of the day before yesterday has become the gimmick of yesterday and the big yawn of today.” (quoted in Robinson)

4. Expressionism • Pre-cursors: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch • Rejection against realism • Two phases: • Pre-war artists: 1905-1915 • Developed by two groups • Die Brucke “The Bridge” (1906) • Ernst Kirchner • Erich Heckel • DerBlaue Reiter “The Blue Rider” (1911) • Franz Marc • Wassili Kandinsky • Post-war, second generation artists: 1915-1925 • More politicized • Deeply affected by war-time experience • Associated with “Der Sturm” (The Storm)

5. We start from the idea that the artist, beyond impressions which he receives from the exterior world, from nature, continually accumulates experience in his inner world, and is in quest of artistic forms which must be liberated from all irrelevant elements, so as to express only the necessary… (Kandinsky, 1909) Wassili Kandinsky, “Winter” 1909

6. Contemporaneous Reception • World premiere at the Marmorhaus in February 1920 • German critics were universally enthusiastic • U.S. premiere: April 1921 at the Capitol Cinema in NYC

8. Marcel Duchamp, 1912

9. Is Kracauer’s critique of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari so different from the French Impressionists critique of the film?

10. The Opening:From Outside the Frame

11. From Inside the Frame

12. The Asylum Inside the framing-story Outside the framing-story

13. From outside the Framing Story

14. The Fair: A merry-go-round