Watch F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu and compare and contrast it with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Read Roger Ebert's essay on Murnau's masterpiece as well as his essay on Caligari and use at least one quote from each. Your response should be at least 2 well-developed paragraphs.
If you want to re-watch Caligari, go here. Nosferatu can be found here. This is due by next Wednesay, 11/22.
Both F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" are similar in the way that both films are silent, horror genre, Include a killer/monster, both tint the shots, both main characters have an exaggerated expression when they are scared, and cinematically both of these films look very similar (possibly due to the fact that they were made during the same time period).
ReplyDeleteAlthough both of these films are quite similar, they have many differences between them. "Nosferatu"'s mise-en-scène is more realistic and looks more like the 'real world'. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", on the other hand, is much more exaggerated, unrealistic, and expressionistic. It gives a very discomforting, dangerous, and chaotic feeling. There is no sense of normality or safety. There was no escaping. Also, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" used a lot more iris shots than "Nosferatu". This disrupts the movies continuity, because this edit calls attention to itself, but this represents the chaos going on in Germany at the time. "Nosferatu" had a better sense of continuity, although the situation at hand (a vampire spreading the plague) was a chaotic one. "Nosferatu"'s story took place on a larger scale (Hutter traveled from one country to another) than "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (took place in a town). Also, "Nosferatu" used a lot more special effects than "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". The most major difference between these two films are their implied meanings. "Nosferatu"'s ".....buried message of Dracula might be that unlicensed sex is dangerous to society. The Victorians feared venereal disease the way we fear AIDS, and vampirism may be a metaphor; the predator vampire lives without a mate, stalking his victims or seducing them with promises of bliss--like a rapist, or a pickup artist. The cure for vampirism is obviously not a stake through the heart, but nuclear families and bourgeois values". While "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"'s implied meaning could be argued that "......the rise of Nazism was foretold by the preceding years of German films, which reflected a world at wrong angles and lost values. In this reading, Caligari was Hitler and the German people were sleepwalkers under his spell".
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ReplyDeleteIs Murnau's ``Nosferatu'' scary in the modern sense? Not for me. I admire it more for its artistry and ideas, its atmosphere and images, than for its ability to manipulate my emotions like a skillful modern horror film. It knows none of the later tricks of the trade, like sudden threats that pop in from the side of the screen. But ``Nosferatu'' remains effective: It doesn't scare us, but it haunts us. It shows not that vampires can jump out of shadows, but that evil can grow there, nourished on death.
ReplyDelete-Roger Ebert
An important common quality of Nosferatu and Caligari is their reliance on atmosphere over thrill. Ebert’s quote on Nosferatu could just as well refer to Caligari with only slight modifications.
The key to Nosferatu (and Caligari’s) effect upon the viewer is in Ebert’s assertion that “it haunts us.” It doesn’t frighten the viewer in the way we may typically think of a horror movie, such as Halloween or Alien, films that make use of sudden scares. Certainly, it could be argued that these films, or others like it, rely dually on atmosphere and thrills; but in Nosferatu’s utter dependence upon ambiance there is a certain purity. The films don’t incorporate ephemeral ghosts-jumping-out-of-the-closet type thrills, which climax quickly and are ineluctably followed by a descending return to normality-or at least, something comparatively unexciting. Thrills, by their very nature, are transient; in Caligari and Nosferatu there’s indelibility, a malaise both during the film and afterwards, almost a subliminal suggestion of evil, disorder, and horror. Neither work to be scary in a conventional sense; a more appropriate term would be “perturbing.”
The antagonists of both are also, accordingly, quite similar. Their movements appear paced, with an implicit sort of drowsiness. The scene in which Caesare approaches the woman’s bed recalls a scene in Nosferatu in which the villain does the same. Their somnolent demeanor suggests mechanized motions, as the monsters are not people but involuntary slaves to something beyond their control: Nosferatu to his hunger for blood, Cesare to his master. At the same time their lethargy works to set the film’s atmosphere. The monsters don’t jump out at us but linger immediately in our view, gazing out blankly, unblinking, promising something sinister and fulfilling that promise in their mere presence.
The sets are presented, as they must be, in mostly longer shots, establishing their spiky and ragged points and edges. The visual environment plays like a wilderness of blades; the effect is to deny the characters any place of safety or rest.
-Roger Ebert
The most significant, and probably the most memorable, supplement to these films’ atmosphere is setting. Caligari, most obviously, is a land of expressionistic points and distortions. Nosferatu, working in a way that is decidedly disparate in method but analogous in effect, presents a life where grim church steeples, forbidding edifices, and dismal castle walls tower over characters adorning dull black garb. One works as an expressionistic nightmare while the other is Gothic (nightmare-recalling the somnolence of the villains).
The chief difference lies in the figurative implications of the films; or perhaps, rather, the literal inspirations. Nosferatu most likely mirrors plague scares of the day. Caligari is said to have presaged the rise of Nazi Germany.
Both "Nosferatu" and "Dr. Caligari" are early psychological horror films. Both films are, today, more notable for their "atmosphere and images," as Ebert says, than any shock value or terror. The two films also feature inhuman monsters as the antagonists.
ReplyDeleteThe two films are also quite different. One example of the differences between the two is the use of colors. In "Nosferatu," the colors are more naturalistic, using shades of blacks, whites, and grays that one would see in regular black and white photography. But in "Dr. Caligari," the use of black and white is much more stark. Objects are either black or white, with very little gray in between. This disconcerting use of these colors adds to the nightmarish atmosphere of the film. The films also have very different settings, as "Nosferatu" uses the German countryside and regular buildings, whereas "Dr. Caligari" makes use of a "jagged landscape of sharp angles" that does not seem natural at all. Also, in "Nosferatu," the antagonist, Count Orlok, is motivated by his need for blood, whereas Cesare in "Caligari" only performs his evil acts because his master, Dr. Caligari forces him to.
"Nosferatu" and "the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" are German horror films made in the 1920s. They both have striking, iconic characters ("Nosferatu"'s eponymous character and "Dr. Caligari"'s Somnambulist are instantly recognizable cinematic figures), and allusions to and symbolism related to German life in the 1920s. "Caligari" is an extended metaphor for the control the German government had over its people; "Nosferatu" is implicitly of the mentality that "unlicensed sex is dangerous to society", according to The cure for vampirism is obviously not a stake through the heart, but nuclear families and bourgeois values", according to Roger Ebert. Both films are silent and in black and white.
ReplyDeleteThe two are different in terms of art direction and style, however. "Nosferatu" opts for a more realistic look, which differs greatly from "Caligari"'s surreal, dreamlike look. "Nosferatu" strives for a realistic look, with few cuts and an antagonist who looked hauntingly lifelike in a warped way. "Caligari", however, was inspired by the relatively new Surrealist movement, a movement "which cut loose from order and propriety, rejected common values, scorned tradition and sought to overthrow society with anarchy". In that vein, the look of "Caligari" is one inspired by paintings and childrens' books, with twisting, cardboard sets that looked lavish but not in any way realistic.