The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’s Sequence Analysis

Carlo Rebaza
Intro to Film Studies 101
July 5, 2011
Assignment #5
In “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, the people in Francis' story are all fictional characters and produced by the condensation of two or more people. For example: Jane, Cesare, and Dr. Caligari. Many of the physical features of these characters are derived from patients and staff at the hospital and they received many traits of people from his past. These fellow patients, who are encountered later at the end of the film, were nothing like Francis' description. Cesare is awake, proving that somnambulism was drawn from another source. Supporting this even further, Cesare was found dead at the end of the fantasy, yet is still alive in the hospital. The character of Dr. Caligari was formed through the condensation of stories Francis had heard about a famous criminal and the director of the mental hospital.
Mise-en-Scene
The scene that I am analyzing starts at the 0:40:00 min. mark as the character of Cesare approaches the sleeping Jane, culminating in her abduction at the 0:45:00 min. mark. The mise-en-scene is quite interesting. The acting is very overdone in the movie, which I could understand as it is a silent one. The actors/actress have been well dressed and prepared to fit into the characters role accordingly. The room in which the main plot of this scene takes place is set accordingly and sets the mood and setting. The lighting is the correct one. Dark when trying to be suspenseful and bright when doing wide shots to be able to shown the whole setting in which it is taking place. This is obviously a black and white film, but they seem to have tinted the filmstrip in 3 different colors for 3 different scenes in order to give some color and set the mood perhaps?
Cinematography
We see one of the characters (Cesare) approaching the room in which Jane is sleeping. Shown by doing a wide shot of the hallway in which Cesare will be coming through and then a shot of the room in which Jane is sleeping. The film is focused on the character and his face expressions, as he is about to kill someone. The camera at some point reduces the viewing area to a diagonal square-like figure in order to make focus directly on Cesare. I do not understand why this was needed when by simply focusing on him would have been enough, perhaps in that era focus was not an option therefore cutting the viewing are to a certain selection would do the same effect. Then with a wide shot, both characters are shown in the room. Once Cesare attacks and kidnaps Jane then after her scream is heard, the camera focuses on a different shot but this time is at the 2 individuals that were in the adjacent room sleeping. As the storyline continues we see more and more wide shots of the Cesare taking Jane somewhere back but then he fails, drops Jane and escapes. We then change scene and now focus on another character looking through a window, he seems thoughtful about what is going on, perhaps what he is seeing. Then the camera flips back to Jane being played on a chair so she can rest and recuperate from what has happened to her.
Editing
During this short clip the editing was great. There were no white frames to separate the different shots, but it was instead cut directly into the other shot filmed. It goes from a wide-angle shot to a focused quickly but there is not pause of film in between. The average shot length varies from 3 seconds to 10 seconds or more. The significant part perhaps is the good use of focus shots to depict certain actions that need to be seen so the viewer has a good understand of the character doing them. It is important to say as well here that in this section of the film there was no addition of spoken text in between dialogues as it was pretty silent the whole time, even when the people from the room next to Jane came out and started to talk and explain what was going on.
Sound
The music remains in a very suspenseful tone all along the short clip, thanks to the high notes from the violin and soundtrack added later on during the compiling and editing of the film.