The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Until now, I've avoided reviewing most of the older films I've watched, simply because I didn't think I'd be able to write anything new or particularly insightful about them. Honestly, does the internet really need another mediocre analysis of La Notte or Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy? To be frank, I didn't think I'd write a review of Robert Weine's 1920 horror masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, when I watched it the other day. It's among the most beloved and widely discussed silent films (with good reason), but I thought of something when I was done that will allow me to turn this into a good mix of review and rant. I'll start with the review. As the film opens, we see Francis, our protagonist, sitting in a park, preparing to tell his story to the other man sitting on his bench. This use of a framing device was unique at the time, and the film's legendary twist (which I will not divulge for those who have not had the opportunity to see it) would not work without it. Francis' story begins as his small village is visited by a traveling show featuring the mysterious Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist, Ceasar. Ceasar predicts the death of Francis' friend Alan, and, of course, his prediction comes true. The villagers become suspicious, and the woman that both Francis and Alan pined after appears to become the next target. I could go on, but it is a short film, and I don't want to give too much away. As many of you presumably already know, the film is best remembered for it's genius, German expressionism-influenced set design and it's innovative, still-shocking twist. The warped sets perfectly capture the madness of the characters and the situation, and they fill one of the most unique towns ever filmed. I want to avoid discussion of the twist, as I really don't want any of you to miss the pure shock of the film's final moments. This is one of the greatest horror films ever made, and I'd recomend it to anyone who loves film.

Now for the promised mini-rant. I understand that it is difficult to release silent films on DVD. The original prints have degraded and large sections may be missing (a la Metropolis until recent findings that will hopefully allow a fully restored version), but that isn't really the case with Caligari. In 1997, Image entertainment released a special edition (that I haven't seen) that allegedly has very high picture quality, plenty of interesting features and runs 76 minutes, which, at least according to IMDB, was the film's original runtime. Unfortunately, I do not have the Image edition, I have the Alpha Video edition. First, despite the box claiming that the film runs for 82 minutes, it was 66 minutes long, which means that I missed at least ten minutes of the film; because of this, I don't think I should give the film a real rating at the bottom of this review. At least most DVD's of Metropolis have title cards explaining what the viewer is missing. This DVD was released in 2002, which means that the picture quality should have been better than that of the Image version, unfortunately, this appears to be untrue. The quality of the image on this DVD was unbearable, and, at least according to various user reviews, far below the Image release. So what I'm tyring to say is this: DVD companies, please stop throwing out shit releases of great films to make a quick buck off of the poor film buffs of the world. I know you can't all be Criterion, but at least try to give a shit about quality. That's all.