The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
00:39:16
About
And so we conclude our festive season of ‘Silent Nights’ by going back even further, for the magnificent “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”. A film in which we witness possibly the worst interior design for a psychiatric hospital; the best (and only correct) response to petty local bureaucracy and we all empathise with a man who sleeps for 23 years and still wakes up knackered. If the point of German Expressionism was to emphasise and represent the internal emotional state over a depiction of actual reality - “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” is an absolute blueprint of how to do it. A triumph of ingenuity and flair over budgetary restrictions, “… Caligari” creates its own complete world that immerses the audience. However, this is not mere style over substance, with a convoluted plot featuring many a twist, making for a film that feels fresher and more modern than a lot of what would come after it. A perennial influence to this day, from Tim Burton to Rob Zombie and the Laika animation studio, this unique film may have its homages and imitators; but the original is never diminished, retaining its power over a century later. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 103 year-old spoilers and join us.
Until tomorrow's dawn.
Famous lines
- "You fools, this man is plotting our doom! We die at dawn! He is Caligari!" — Francis
- "I must become Caligari!" — Dr. Caligari
- "The most amazing story ever screened."
Quotes verified against Wikiquote.
Transcript
Show full transcript
Lee Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
Chris I'm Chris.
Adam I'm Adam.
Lee And Merry Christmas if I had some bells, I would ring them right now, but I don't, so instead we're going to replace that with horror, information and swearing and spoilers.
Adam So, please be ready for that.
Lee Is there anything more festive than swearing and spoilers?
Lee as promised, we are back now to cover, 1920.
Adam 1920.
Lee So, 103 years old now, we've gone back in time, Caligari, yes, even further back into the creepy shit.
Lee I think this is the oldest film we've covered, isn't it, so far?
Adam It's got to be, yeah.
Lee yes, so, this again is part of our Silent Night series for Christmas.
Lee and I'm very keen to hear what Chris would have thought of this film because it's, it's just, not for R2 as we said before, with the last one is a fantastic film and still plays well after all these years, but is a pretty straightforward narrative.
Lee This is full of twist and it feels like a fucking M. Night Shyamalan.
Chris Yeah, that's what I said, like I said last episode, yeah, this could absolutely be ruined by someone giving out spoilers, and it feels strangely modern.
Lee Yes.
Chris In, in that, and also, is this the first, like, big horror movie then?
Adam It's, there's, there's debate but it seems to me considered like one of the earliest or possibly the earliest horror movie or horror feature maybe, I don't know.
Adam there's, there've people made like little shorts that Edison made a show of Frankenstein that was like seven minutes long or something like that.
Adam which you can still see, but yeah, it's, I, I think it's certainly the oldest we've covered, it's probably one of the earliest examples of ones that you can probably still see.
Adam As I say, there was a lot of, a lot of stuff got lost.
Adam
Chris So, was there another one that could have got lost?
Adam I don't think this was successful at its time and I think they, it was pretty much running, there was no, it was that legal action that really was the scuppering point for Nosferatu more than.
Adam Yeah, but, you know, if you your film was successful, which this was, you know, it sort of, and again we're back to that thing of this, this was internationally successful because anyone could go and see anyone could go and see it.
Adam And, yeah, I mean, as, I mean, even it's just so extraordinarily its own world.
Lee There's nothing like this film, it's just, it's so weird and, and, and that's the thing it's taken the German expressionism although Nosferatu was obviously first.
Lee oh no, it wasn't, this was first, but.
Adam No, this is first.
Lee Yeah, this is like pushed that, like all the, the weird angles.
Chris Yeah, so, so that's.
Lee Yeah.
Chris So, so I got to check about that, right? So, so that's why I thought this is German impressionism because it's, it's not like it, it's, yeah, it's it's strange.
Chris It's not accurate representation, it's almost like what's in the mind more than, so I, but, but we call this expressionism.
Adam That, I mean, that was the term for it but it was sort of,
Adam I mean, it's Caligari is the sort of progenitor of it.
Adam And you still see it, I mean, obviously you still see it in Tim Burton.
Chris Yeah.
Adam yeah, very much so.
Adam You see it in the sort of stop motion stuff like, Coraline.
Chris Okay.
Adam I can't remember what that company Laika, the animation studio Laika who did that and, the, oh, James and the Giant Peach stop animation that was out a few years back.
Adam And.
Adam Yeah, it's, I think again, I was watching because I especially sort of like the this sort of more unusual stuff.
Adam I really love watching it with Claire because I get her take on it.
Adam And as she said it feels like that film, that film would look like that if you made it now.
Chris Like yeah, yeah.
Lee Absolutely.
Adam You know, it's so its own world and so and so deliberate.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Lee You know, because you've got stuff in there like.
Lee The chairs they're sitting on.
Chris Yeah.
Lee And the sort of school.
Chris Yeah, especially the one who's the the clerk or the town clerk, yeah, who's sitting up really high.
Chris Like just it's almost he's like cartoon or so exaggerated.
Adam Well, Caligari's wearing Mickey Mouse gloves, isn't he?
Adam He's got big white gloves with the black lines on the back.
Lee Like every it feel and it feels harder to make than a standard square room, you know, like when you see his office in the sanitarium, like it's just so like it doesn't look anything like it.
Lee It'd be easy to make it look like an actual office, but they haven't, they've gone for this weird, crazy angles and strange painting on everything and it's, it just creates such a a nightmareish impression because everything's half real and half surreal.
Chris Yeah.
Lee Yeah, it's such an unusual choice, but it works fantastic, especially for the, you know, once you the further you get into this story, the more everything you've seen till that point makes sense, kind of preempting you for.
Lee It's incredibly intelligent.
Chris I thought the way they used color as well throughout for the different kind of environments.
Chris Which was strange.
Adam I've, I mean, that's the thing, I mean, are you getting better in that sanitarium, because, you know, you've got triangular doors that peel off into the ceiling and swirls over everything.
Adam You know, it's it doesn't feel like it would stitch a damaged mind back together.
Lee It feels like a stoner's house, is what it feels like.
Lee A stoner architect.
Adam I said it's like a crooked house at the fair.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And again, it's something that's definitely sort of, it, it, it's weird because this is one of those things where Nosferatu is quite influential but in sort of story terms and things like that.
Adam Whereas this, you can see this in things.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Like I say, you can really see it in Tim Burton, you can see it in sort of some other films as well.
Adam But I was flabbergasted with this.
Adam So, all the sets are this was done on a pretty.
Adam You know, this was done on a pretty low budget.
Adam And all the sets are made from card and paper essentially.
Lee Wow.
Adam Right.
Adam And in 1920, in Germany, electricity was heavily rationed.
Adam It was still on the ration after the First World War.
Adam And all the light and all the shadow that you see in this film is painted on.
Lee What?
Adam And when you watch it with that knowledge, it's mind-boggling.
Adam The the the thought, the detail and the it's, it's like someone's fever dream.
Chris Yeah.
Lee Holy shit, I'm just I'm just looking at images now, there's a picture of the somnambulist when he's standing there and he's got the light behind him.
Lee And you're right, I can see it in the still that it's, it's painted on the wall and they've placed his head in exactly where it would be.
Lee If the light were around it, but yeah.
Lee You can, you can, now you've said it, I'd never have picked up on that, but now you've said it you can totally see it.
Lee That's incredible.
Adam It's like there's a bit where there's they keep doing a staircase which is obviously meant to be lit through it's got like a huge shadow of some bars that go up the stairs and when you actually look at it, those shadows are painted.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam But it's shot in such a way and the way the characters are dressed and things like that means that it's sort of.
Chris It all just.
Adam It doesn't stand out except the sort of it really is a total trick of the eye.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And it's and you know, like I say, when I found that out, I was just like fucking flabbergasted because it's just so.
Adam You, you know, it's like this it feels like it's made by an obsessive.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Where actually it's made by a series of obsessives, but it sort of has that sort of, yeah.
Lee But it lends back to that pre, because obviously theatre was, you know, a theatre was it was it had been going on for a long time previous to this and this is a new medium that they were bringing that to.
Lee But yeah, it is, it's that set painting and stuff that you see at live productions in the theatre and it's bringing that onto a big screen.
Lee Where now we assume, oh, that's how they do it now, that was how they did it back then.
Lee But they didn't, you're quite right, they'd taken the old styles and given it this whole new lavish.
Lee And this probably led to a lot of the way that stuff was lit and things because of how they'd not lit it but made it look as if it were.
Lee It's incredible.
Lee It's just.
Adam And and this is the thing, although, and I, I hope that it qualifies my statement on Nosferatu about, oh, it's a moving photograph.
Adam is that this is a moving illustration.
Lee Yeah.
Adam But not in the sense of a cartoon, this is just, you know, it, it, it feels like an like Edmond Gory or something like that.
Adam It feels like illustrations from a collected works of Edgar Allan Poe or something like that.
Adam And it's sort of just so mind-boggling that it's sort of, you know.
Adam And.
Chris They even use like effects at one point with the text at different angles and, and, and the amount they use a lot of the, like vignetting and darkening parts.
Lee Yeah.
Chris And, yeah, but again, like you'd think potentially like it could have been done too much, too wrong and some, but yeah, just the whole thing, every element, all of that just comes together to work perfectly.
Adam And and it is and it is out of necessity, it's out of financial necessity essentially.
Adam You know, they couldn't afford to have lights burning to do, like set up like these huge shadows.
Adam So it's like.
Lee Especially if you've got cardboard sets, you don't want too much hot lighting going on or you're just asking for a massive disaster really.
Adam But that the bit where he's running along and it's Dr. Caligari and keeps appearing.
Adam And that was the that was the publish the publicity for this film was they just put up posters with just that written on it.
Chris
Adam Didn't say didn't say it was a film, didn't say it was.
Adam It didn't tell you anything, it was just posters with you have to become Caligari posted all over fucking Berlin, you know.
Adam And it's like.
Adam So, in a weird way you're like, there's that sort of thing where it's like, oh well, you know, if it's a silent film, probably if you like arthouse, you'll probably be able to deal with watching silent or whatever like that.
Adam And it's like, I, I feel this was, this was arthouse at the time.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know what I mean, this, this sort of was.
Adam This was like the a 4AD, not 4AD, that's a record label.
Lee A.
Adam 24.
Adam That's why I think.
Adam To be honest, 4AD, very much in the same sort of wheelhouse, the Gothic wheelhouse there, I would say, so I was probably on the right on the right lines.
Adam But it's also really interesting because you've got, so Cesare, the somnambulist is played by an actor called Conrad Veidt.
Adam And.
Adam Conrad Veidt is fucking brilliant.
Adam And apart from the fact of of the that effect of just his like heavily made up eyes.
Chris
Adam But when he opens them gradually and then just stares and you're like, that's that that is not a special effect, that is not.
Adam Do you know what I mean, that is just an actor with just the right look and the right level of intensity and everything else like that that it just comes through.
Adam Yeah.
Adam And.
Adam but Conrad Veidt was, this was like one of the films that sort of really made him a household name.
Adam
Adam And so he, he did lots of, he was in a silent anthology horror which I've got to see now called Waxworks.
Adam he's in a film called The Hands of Orlac which is the classic tale of when someone gets their hands cut off and replaced with those of a murderer.
Adam
Adam The
Adam Student of Prague.
Adam But he's in a film called The Man Who Laughs and that the character he plays in that is someone who's had a smile carved into their face.
Chris
Adam Because that's the thing is this is all pre-code as well, like sort of, you know.
Adam Before, again, like we were saying about early days, there were no standards and practices at this point, they just happened to not, I don't know.
Adam I have like live fucking on camera or whatever.
Adam Do you know what I mean, there wasn't any law saying you couldn't do that sort of shit.
Adam So all the stuff that they would imply would be pretty sort of like heavy duty like Caligari is, you know.
Adam It's like murder and mental illness and things like that.
Adam but yeah, so The Man Who Laughs, he plays this character who's had a grin cut into his face.
Adam And he is that image is the inspiration for the Joker, the Batman villain.
Chris Yeah.
Adam
Adam And I sent you guys that on the WhatsApp.
Lee That's what it was.
Adam The picture of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs.
Chris
Adam And he's just the fucking Joker, isn't it?
Adam It's just that comic book Joker.
Adam
Adam But he was, like, so he, he started life he wanted to be a surgeon.
Adam And found out that he was absolutely no aptitude for it.
Adam and then.
Chris Probably lucky he didn't continue with that then.
Adam Yes, very much so, otherwise he wouldn't have been Conrad Veidt.
Adam The amazing actor and philanthropist, it would have been Conrad Veidt.
Adam The the Berlin mass murderer of Berlin who fucked up more operations than anyone.
Adam But,
Adam And then he sort of, he looked into he was in a play at school and really enjoyed it and got some good notices and so he was like, oh, maybe I'll try acting.
Adam And apparently his dad fucking hated the idea.
Adam But his mum quietly encouraged him.
Adam And bunged him a few quid, you know, she sort of like financed him and encouraged him to keep going.
Adam And he became part of a theater troupe and was doing quite well, then World War I breaks out and he's in he ends up in the German army at the Eastern front.
Adam And gets sent evacuated home with the jaundice and pneumonia and his was declared unfit for service.
Adam
Adam And then he went back to the theatre, got some really rave reviews and then just became this figure in German silent films.
Adam He was doing and playing a lot of like, obviously, like villainous roles and stuff like that.
Adam And.
Adam In the 20s he went to Hollywood and was doing quite well there.
Adam but he, because obviously he was still doing silent initially been doing silent films,
Adam He didn't have a great grasp of English, so when talkies came in, he went back to Germany.
Adam
Adam But then, he obviously you then get to the point where the Nazis come in.
Adam To the to the story, as usual.
Adam And,
Adam When they took power, one of the things that Joseph Goebbels did was they they went through the film industry and like the entertainment industry.
Adam And they were, I mean, they were closing down anything that they considered decadent and everything and they went through the film industry and basically,
Adam Everyone there, they were trying to get rid of anyone, obviously anyone Jewish, anyone politically opposed to them and it was just like a sort of mass clearing out.
Adam And.
Adam he had this racial questionnaire that everyone involved in the film industry had to fill out.
Adam
Adam And Conrad Veidt put his race down as Jewish, he wasn't Jewish but his wife was.
Adam And it was and basically they'd said to him, oh, well, if you, you know, if you, if you get divorced and declare your support for the Nazi party, you can keep working.
Adam Because he was that big a star.
Adam And he basically told them to fuck off.
Adam And it was like, no, that's my wife.
Lee What are you talking?
Adam Yeah.
Adam And he was, you know, and out of solidarity with the Jewish people, he was it was also because he he'd already been quite a vocal opponent to the Nazis as they got to the point where they took power.
Adam So, basically, yeah, he was like, no, that's we're not doing that.
Adam So, him and his wife emigrated to England in 1933.
Adam And he started appearing in British films and obviously he was living in England, so his his English had improved.
Adam And he worked with, like did a few films with Michael Powell, like during the 1940s and stuff.
Adam You know, and it was, you know, he was doing quite well over there, then he went to Hollywood.
Adam And basically, it was he did it because he was, he did it to assist the British war effort by trying to appear in films that would encourage America who weren't in the war.
Adam To join in, you know, so essentially, you know, anti-Nazi propaganda for want of a better word.
Adam But, so so he went to America and was doing that and he said that he realized that he was going to get type cast as Nazis anyway because he because of his accent.
Adam So his contract stipulated, yeah, I'll play a Nazi but they've always got to be the villain.
Adam You know, there was no sort of soft soaping it or anything as far as he was concerned.
Lee I mean that's, I mean that's a ridiculous thing, isn't it?
Lee Will you turn on your wife, basically accept her terrible fate.
Lee But yeah, and say you love us.
Lee But you get to keep your job.
Lee Who in the world do they think would do that?
Chris You got to be pretty selfish, aren't you?
Adam Yeah, no.
Adam Yeah.
Adam I know.
Adam This is, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, well not only that, but also, but, I mean, this is something that I just thought was incredible.
Adam
Adam So, as I say, he moved to America in 1941, but he was he just was worried about the like the kids in the Blitz.
Adam So, he got his lawyer in London, like he got his lawyer in London to buy on his behalf, 2000 large chocolate bars, 2000 envelopes with, cash in them and 2000 one tin one pound tins of sweets.
Adam And got them sent to all the bomb shelters in, London to be given to needy kids.
Adam Like if, you know, just sort of like that was the the thing.
Adam And it was like, you know, he I think it was a genuine, you know, he genuinely seemed to have a.
Chris So, cinema villain, real life hero.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam Very much so, and he just sort of and that's the thing, he ended up I think his.
Adam Like his big American film was he's like the villain in Casa or one of the villains in Casablanca.
Chris
Adam And it's,
Chris And funnily enough though, I was going to say in Doctor Caligari, he's not actually a villain, he's kind of a victim.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Yeah, exactly.
Adam Really.
Adam And it's just, but I was just, you know, I was just astounded by the fact that this guy was like, you know.
Adam It's just like, and it's also, I mean, when you compare it to,
Adam Werner Kraus, who plays Caligari, was a Nazi supporter.
Chris He does a great job.
Adam Oh, he was a Nazi supporter.
Chris
Adam and actually he ended up he ended up getting tried for war crimes because a minor war criminal in so much as collaboration, not like not as possible as you could think war crimes could go.
Adam But he was, yeah, because he was basically, he got declared, what was it, an act an actor of the state, he really didn't have any trouble with keeping his job.
Adam
Adam But, and.
Adam And yeah, he ended up like after the war he got like exiled from Austria and just, yeah.
Adam He's sort of I mean it was it's it's weird to actually read about someone, you know, actually being held accountable for things they've done.
Adam Because just don't happen anymore, really.
Adam But, you know, in this sort of but in this sense, I mean, he was like sort of, he was.
Adam Ostracized for like five years or whatever it was and, you know, and and never worked again, basically because at the time he was very much, yep, I'm a Nazi.
Adam And then tried to but then did try to say afterwards, oh, no, I was coerced.
Adam And.
Adam Yeah, I don't.
Lee By.
Adam By the sounds of it, I don't think many people believed him.
Lee No.
Adam who were actually sort of aware of him.
Adam But but like I saying, Conrad Veidt just seemed like this sort of like amazing guy and like you say.
Adam It's it's hell of a fucking thing to turn around and tell the Nazi party to go fuck yourselves.
Chris
Adam You know, it's not easily done.
Adam and then to actually sort of like, you know, I mean, like I say, I mean, apparently the chief air raid warden wrote him.
Adam Who was like, do you know, you're the only person who's done anything.
Adam Like like any charitable thing for these kids.
Chris
Lee So.
Adam And it was like and and he was basically it was like and you're not you know, you're not even English.
Lee Yeah.
Adam And but you're, you know.
Lee You're the one putting yourself out there and spending your own money to to to look after people who, yeah, are falling through the cracks and I mean.
Adam And it was just, yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee I mean, government in time of war, obviously, have got their hands full.
Lee They they you know, they can't look after everyone and without philanthropists like this.
Adam Yeah.
Lee I mean.
Lee Yeah, and it makes all the difference to somebody, you know, like a.
Lee Like you say, the kids.
Adam Oh yeah, they must have been, that must have been like a fucking such a startling moment.
Adam And like I say, it's just a weird thing that you you'd sort of think that it was because I know the name Conrad Veidt, but it was only sort of like when I'm reading into it, it's like this sort like just got this guy just seemed like this very amazing person, you know.
Adam
Adam He did, he did die of a heart attack whilst playing golf with his doctor.
Adam And a singer called Arthur Fields as well.
Adam So, you know.
Adam And that golfing in LA, so it wouldn't, it weren't it weren't too bad an exit, I think.
Lee He was doing all right, really.
Lee And to be fair, if you die on a golf course and you've got a doctor at hand and you still die.
Lee I don't think there's much can be done for you, really, it's.
Adam No, it's very true.
Adam It's very true, I don't think that anyone was sort of.
Adam Yeah, I don't think no suspicious circumstances there certainly, you know, it's like.
Adam Well.
Adam I mean, something, I don't know what the score was like on the version you, you guys were watching.
Adam I watched the Eureka Blu-ray and it was, a guy called Cornelius Schwerk.
Adam And I actually preferred it to, because the one on Nosferatu was actually the one I watched was the original score.
Adam They've recreated the original score that was given out with it.
Adam But, yeah, this this one seemed pretty good, but Caligari's been like a real, both Nosferatu and Caligari because they're silent.
Adam They've had so many people do.
Chris Yeah.
Adam music for them, like sort of redone the score and stuff like that.
Adam But like John Zorn and In The Nursery have done Caligari and,
Adam Just you know, it's it's just an it's just a no-brainer, I suppose, it's like, well, it hasn't got any sound, so.
Lee And that's what I love as well with these public domain, films.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Is that anybody can just get a copy and just have a crack at it.
Lee And you get such a a totally different experience, you know, as I said with Nosferatu when I saw it live and it was one guy.
Lee Basically with a whole, you know, like he had loads of different instruments and he was sort of flitting in between them and at first I found it a little bit distracting because I was, because I knew the film, so I kept kind of watching what he was doing.
Lee But he did such a good job that I just got immersed in the film.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee And.
Lee Yeah, and it it sounds and it didn't feel at all distracting.
Lee But it is great that, you know, you can watch the film with one soundtrack and then watch it with a different and it has a whole different feel to it.
Lee And and.
Chris That is really interesting.
Lee And you've got that ability to do it because it's public domain and it's silent, so literally you can just get it.
Lee Turn the sound off, chuck a mixing desk in it and just put your own stuff on it and it's it's a beautiful way to.
Lee To to to experiment with sounds and yeah.
Adam And again, I think Caligari's pretty special because of because it's it's own thing, it's own world almost like that.
Adam You don't whatever you put on it doesn't necessarily feel inappropriate in the sense of, you know, oh, well, they wouldn't have had they wouldn't have had an electric guitar then.
Adam They might have put a little.
Adam Or something like you.
Adam Do you know what I mean?
Lee It sort of.
Lee Yeah.
Adam It's so crazy just because it's such a fucking bizarre little entity on its own.
Adam Yeah.
Adam and like Robert Robert Wiene who was the who directed it.
Adam he also directed Hands of Orlac, the Conrad Veidt film that I mentioned earlier.
Adam
Adam But,
Adam He,
Adam He also was.
Adam Where are we?
Adam Oh, I completely lost my thing.
Lee It is Christmas and we are celebrating, just to let everybody know.
Adam But, yeah, he was, he, he was another one who got a brush with the,
Adam With the Nazi authorities because his last film in Germany was a film called Typhoon.
Adam And it got banned on the basis that they showed Asian characters in a more favorable light to European ones.
Chris
Lee And.
Lee I suppose, to be fair, that probably isn't the most petty thing.
Chris Not the worst thing.
Adam Not by not by a long shot.
Chris They did a lot.
Adam Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee
Lee Really vexed, apparently.
Adam Oh my God, but it was just so, but again, you just sort of like.
Adam Oh, that was it as well, and the implication that the authorities.
Adam Because the film's set in France and like they were like, well, you show the authorities are competent.
Adam Yeah, in France.
Lee Yeah.
Adam But still they're like, yeah, but people can mistake it for Germany.
Lee Yeah.
Adam But so quite rightly, I think, he, he quite rightly got the fuck out of Dodge as well.
Adam You know.
Adam I think it just seemed to be, it's, it's weird the because it comes from such a weird little period of German.
Adam History where you've got sort of like post-World between the World Wars, but you have got these sort of like flourishes.
Adam And basically, I mean, as I say, I mean, it it went both ways in terms of the main cast of this film.
Adam Of whether they were sort of in or out.
Adam After 1933.
Lee Yeah.
Adam You know.
Adam And it's sort of.
Chris So, so I was going to ask, so did you say this is was from a book?
Adam No, this is purely, this was basically.
Adam This was.
Chris No, it was written for.
Adam It was written by two guys called Carl, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz.
Adam
Chris And not as a play, it was.
Adam No, this was always written as a film.
Lee It was actually been quite unusual at the time really.
Lee Yeah.
Lee So.
Adam
Lee Because it's.
Lee It's a new thing, it's a whole new technology.
Chris Like seem.
Lee People are going to.
Chris To come up with ideas, like seem ahead of the time.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Oh yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Adam Absolutely.
Adam And I mean, this is because, they they'd written quite a few sort of like separately, they they wrote quite a few films, but this is the only one I think they wrote together.
Adam
Adam But they both of them worked with Murnau and, Hans Janowitz said that it was basically the inspiration came when they went to to a carnival.
Adam And there was just an odd looking man in the shadows.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And then the next day there was a report that a girl had been murdered and it was like in his head, it was like it was that guy.
Chris And he started to add all these details in.
Adam And it all sort of yeah, and it all sort of turned into.
Chris Cuz I mean I suppose a lot of it would have worked as a play.
Chris And that so some of the story aspects like it starts off, the like the early frame is off the end of the film.
Chris Isn't it and and so calling back to that.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Lee Yeah.
Chris And and then all of the twists.
Lee Yeah, so reusing sets and.
Adam
Adam Interestingly enough, though.
Adam That was the the script writers didn't write that bit.
Chris Oh.
Adam That was an addition because they, I think they actually said at one point Fritz Lang was meant to direct.
Adam Or was possibly going to direct Caligari, Fritz Lang who did like, Metropolis and, just.
Lee
Adam Yeah, he's just such a again an amazing,
Adam Like director of like German silent and, talking pictures.
Adam but they were like, oh, but basically, yeah, so they think it might have been something he suggested or the producers suggested or something like that.
Adam But basically, yeah, the script writers were really anti that.
Adam So it's one of the first, there you go, already there's a dispute over.
Chris Yeah.
Adam Yeah.
Adam You know, there's creative differences, it's 1920.
Adam And, there's still a couple of disgruntled script writers who are getting shoved by a producer, it's like, yeah, but can we make it a bit nicer, Rob?
Adam Because, because that's the thing is I it's a weird one though, because you've got.
Adam There's like the implication of that final twist and I, I saw that they said, oh, the producers felt that it would be.
Adam To to lighten the the mood of the film, it's to give it almost like a sort of, well, not a happy ending but like a sort of up, more upbeat ending.
Chris Yeah.
Adam And I don't know about you, but the fact that the guy puts the Caligari glasses on.
Adam And then takes them off and says, I know exactly what's wrong with him, he thinks I'm Caligari and I know how to cure him.
Adam
Adam That does not does not come over as.
Chris Yeah.
Chris Doesn't sound happy.
Adam That's not it's.
Adam Yeah.
Adam It came over as like the third twist.
Lee Yeah.
Adam But it's like, oh, now I fucking is him.
Adam And he's going to brutally do murder him in his bed.
Chris Yeah.
Adam I know the cure for him thinking I'm Caligari.
Lee It's funny, I.
Lee You saying about, you know, sort of making it more palatable, recently I saw the the newest, Murder in Venice, the Nero one.
Lee Yeah.
Lee And I didn't realize at the time when I watched it that it was actually based on an older, story, the Halloween party, in which the the victim is a a young girl.
Lee yeah, and basically she's drowned while bobbing for apples.
Chris But yeah, it's a mainstream audience you can't murder an eight-year-old girl in the first 10 minutes and and I was like, well, if you're going to scream off at that point.
