The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari movie review

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a silent German expressionist movie from 1920. The movie is about a mad scientist Dr. Caligari who controls a somnambulist (sleep-walker) and uses him to commit murders. The story is told through the point of view of a man whose best friend was murdered by the somnambulist, and then his fiance was kidnapped by the somnambulist. However there is an amazing twist at the end of the movie that will make you question everything that you have just seen. This movie is more than this simple story though, it is said that this movie is an analogy for authoritative government, and that Dr Caligari represents the authoritative government in Germany, where as the somnambulist represents the common man, who is forced to commit atrocities by their government, which makes since as this movie was written right after World War 1 in Germany, by someone who served in the military and who holds very anti-authoritarian views. So this movie has more to say than just being a simple horror movie. This movie is a silent movie, and for a movie of its era still looks really good, and the picture quality of the copy that I have is really well preserved. The sets are amazing and done in the German Expressionist art style, with sharp angles and tilted buildings and there is no such thing as a rectangular door in this movie, and the painted back drops are all beautiful almost abstract. I love the make-up work in silent movies, because often time it is exaggerated giving people bigger than life expressions and features, and this works and looks beautiful in this movie. This movie is a work of art, from the sets to the character designs, it is all a beautiful work of art. The story too is more complex than just a simple horror story with an ending that will leave you wondering, what was actually real. I fell that classic horror movies like this, and the classic silent movies starring Lon Cheney Sr, and the Universal horror movies that would come after about 10 years later were really the golden age of cinema, and that at this time period movies had more magic, they had more art and beauty to them. Not everything is spelled out for you, a lot of the horror is left to the imagination of the viewer rather than being spilled out in gory details, I really appreciate that. I feel with a black and white movie, that there is more horror created through shadows and suggestions, rather than the need to show you. Like Stephen King suggested in the book Danse Macabre, there is more fear in the monster you can't see than in the one you can. That is what these movies do really well, do you need to see the knife stab in, do you need to see the blood spray out, to know that the knife stabbed in and the blood spilled out? I feel that over the years movie audiences have gotten lazy, and they need to see the blood and guts, and part of it is because the filmmakers have gotten away for going for real terror and have opted to go the easy route by going straight for the gross out. Let's face it, it is a lot easier to make an audience scream with a jump scare, it is a lot easier to make the audience uneasy by showing them uncomfortable images on the big screen, it is easier to make the audience sick and scared if you show them all of the gory details. But does that make a horror movie better? I like those kinds of movies, don't get me wrong, but I feel that these older movies were a higher, more pure form of art. But I think I've gone off on a tangent here, so let us return to the review, shall we? Would I recommend this movie? Yes, EVERYONE needs to see this movie, if you love cinema, especially horror movies, this is a must see, it is important to know your roots, and to understand where the movies that you love came from. Not only that, but this i a really beautiful movie, and a true work of art, the story is well done, and beautifully told. I would definitely rank this movie among the greatest movies of all time, and will always recommend it to everyone.