Watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an interesting experience. The set reminded me of Sesame street and other children's shows with elaborate, exaggerated design. Nothing else felt familiar, from the fantastical plot to the language, and I can tell I am going to struggle with my attention span being finely tuned to media that follows current conventions. But I think it makes a lot of sense that nostalgia and things from the past are often the subject matter of these films. With the birth of new invention the instinct typically is to re-create or re-imagine something old to see it differently or experience it again with this new capability.
Somnambulation came up not only in this film but also in Nosferatu, for the horror cinema class. This was interesting to me and I wonder if this was commonly a scary thing to audiences in the 1920s or a coincidence that is quite revealing about the themes about both of these films, presumptuously I imagine it is both. Sleep is classically between life and death, and both of the somnambulates in these films are quite ghost-like, just as early film was to Maxim Gorky.
I'm glad I don't have to continually pronounce somnambulates aloud.
The contrast between Edison's Kinetograph and the Lumiere brothers projected film creates a lot to be discussed that I have not thought of before. What are the benefits/drawbacks of a film for one versus a crowd? Should different films be exclusive to each format, such as education to Edison's Kinetograph and entertainment on projections? That makes me think about things like discourse around education being a social or individual venture or the implications of a private peepshow versus theaters showing porn.
Watching films in solitude is so different than with others and I'm curious about what that difference means to the films and to how the viewers respond. I don't think we have such a drastic difference anymore, as anyone's screen can be shared with any viewer through screensharing and internet connection. It seems like everyone now has a device with both capabilities, the intimacy of a Kinetograph and sharing potential of projection have outlived both those technologies' popularity.
It reminds me of the first zoom session we had when most people don't really look at sleepwalking or illnesses as such as a 'criminal' thing. I also found the set very intriguing and dramatic in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
ReplyDeleteI think these films get easier to watch the more that you watch them. Caligari is more about mood and feeling than really about plot. Its a classic of German Expressionism and I always get caught up in the eerie feeling of it all. I've seen it a million times but I always find it quite creepy. I think that you make really interesting observations but early projection techniques and our contemporary moment with a multiplicity of viewing possibilities. I hope we can talk about this at more length during one of our zoom sessions!
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