Review : The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari



Review:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – Robert Wiene

a film steeped in darkness and mystery The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has the viewer constantly questioning what would happen next.

Crisis arises when a series of murders are committed in a small unnamed town with no main suspect in sight. The film is designed in a that is constantly questioning the viewer and making them part of the investigations as well. At times I was able to see how this film may have been the influence for man a film noire movie with its use of stark contrasts, bold music, and deep pauses that allow the audience to also try and solve the mystery at hand. The film almost always managed to keep the watcher entertained and was amusing at most times, although this may be due to the desensitisation that the modern film public has gained over the course of the last few decades. The film, originally shot as a horror, didn't employ many of today modern horror queues such as jump scares and little children but instead used an earlier and more mature way of bringing fear into the audience by making them question their own sanity as by the time you have reached the end of the film you must really question yourself if any of the acts happened or if it was all just one big schizophrenic episode. At times though the film seemed stretched out and sluggish especially around ¾ of the way through but it more than made up for that with its well delivered end.

Even with its mistakes Dr Caligari is one of the greats and that becomes clear to anyone who has ever watched it and is earned the right to be called great.

Comments

  1. Hi Tumo,

    Ok, so firstly, well done for getting a review out there :)

    I would draw your attention back to the brief, and what is required in the review-

    'Reviews of the ‘Space Oddities’ Film programme. Please note – in addition to
    and support of your own critique, your reviews must include a minimum of 3
    quotations from 3 different published sources + poster art + supporting stills.
    Please note - Harvard Method must be used for all quotations and all
    illustrations to be referenced correctly. Reviews are to include bibliography
    and illustration list.'

    So, along with your own review, you need to show that you have looked at what other people have written about the film, and include 3 quotes that support your argument or discussion. These quotes should be introduced and then 'unpicked', to show that you understand the significance of using them. You can introduce a quote via the author's name, so for example,

    'As John Smith says in his review,'....blah blah blah' (Smith,2014) From this it could be said that....'

    You need to also include images, labelled Fig.1 etc, and with a short caption. The sources that you use then appear in a bibliography and illustrations list at the end. You can find out how to reference and create the bibliography, here -

    http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/Harvard-Referencing

    It is really important that you get into the habit of using the Harvard method, as all your forthcoming essays will need to written in this way.

    Looking forward to reading the next review :)

    ReplyDelete

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