As a part of a year-long project
Wunderbar: A Celebration of German Film, the Goethe-Institut Washington has selected twelve iconic films that trace the richness of German film history. Together with Landmark's West End Cinema, we present German Cinema 101, a series that guides viewers through this history, paired with expert-led discussions.
Not able to make it to the cinema? No worries! You can also stream this film and 48 films in total (see link at right).
THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
An introduction to the film will be provided by Dr. Peter Pfeiffer, Professor of German and Director of the European Studies Certificate Program at Georgetown University. A discussion will follow the screening.
Weimar Republic (Germany), 1920, 75 min., Director: Robert Wiene, Screenplay: Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz
Widely regarded as the film that most fully embodies German Expressionist cinema during the early 20th century (Weimar Republic),
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is quite possibly the first “horror movie” ever made. Wrought with bizarre characters, otherworldly set design, and a dark, graphic, angular aesthetic, Robert Wiene’s silent film tells the tale of a sinister hypnotist who reanimates a corpse and compels the “sleepwalker” to do his murderous bidding. When it is revealed that the hypnotist is actually a doctor who runs an insane asylum — the same asylum in which the film’s protagonist is a patient — we realize the extent to which we cannot even trust the film’s main character. Or anybody else in the story, for that matter.
Robert Wiene was one of the most renowned filmmakers of German silent cinema. Especially known for his expressionist films – marked by striking visuals, sharp contrasts between light and shadow, and sharp-edged shapes – Wiene’s style set precedents for film noir, avant-garde film, and horror, which still can be traced in popular cinema today. His deeply influential films
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and
Raskolnikow (1923) highlighted the illustrious career he enjoyed throughout the 1910s and 1920s. However, as a Jewish person from the Province of Silesia, Eastern Prussia (present-day Poland), Wiene fell out of favor as the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s. In 1933, his film
Taifun was banned, and Wiene left Germany, never to return. Throughout the 1930s, he moved through Budapest and London before settling in Paris, where he made a few more films. His final film was
Ultimatum (1938), a spy film that he barely finished before passing away of cancer at 65.
Buy Tickets
Are you currently enrolled in a German course at the Goethe-Institut Washington? If so, pick up your free ticket from the front desk today!
This event is part of the
German Cinema 101 film series. German Cinema 101 is part of the project
Wunderbar: A Celebration of German Film. From
Beloved Sisters to
A Coffee in Berlin and
Young Goethe in Love, from
The Blue Angel to
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — we are celebrating German-American friendship with our partner Kanopy by bringing 48 German films to your screens. Goethe-Instituts and Goethe Pop-Ups across the U.S. will take part in the celebration by showing films, organizing film festivals, and inviting German filmmakers to speak.
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