When someone thinks of German expressionism, one might think of famous paintings made in the early 1920’s. It was also very prominent in movies at the time as well. Although it is the same concept as it is in the famous paintings, it is the basis for many films that started a whole new genre, horror. The very idea of German Expressionism allowed for many new ideas in what film could portray, as well as how the settings, and actors would look in the films.
One of the first films portraying German Expressionism, was The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Throughout the story we follow Dr. Caligari a man working at a fair , and Cesare, who is Dr. Caligari’s act. Cesare is able to tell the future, while most of the fortunes he tells include the person dying the next day, and it seems to always come true. We also meet two friends who go see the act, and one of them is told that they will die the next morning, and unfortunately the fortune came true. The friend that remained alive, noticed other strange deaths and decided to investigate, only for us to find out that Cesare can be in two places at once, as he is “asleep” in his box while the friend looks, and also kidnapping a woman at the same time. Thankfully, by the end of the story we find that Dr. Caligari is arrested and put into an insane asylum, and Cesare is supposedly dead. In the last scene we learn that Francis, the friend that remained alive, was insane the whole time and we saw the story as he recalled it, and that none of the story had happened at all.
The story was very dark in nature, with there being death, kidnapping, and supernatural powers being involved, it helped birth the horror genre as we know it today. The settings of every scene were literally dark as we viewed them, giving each minute of the story a dark and mysterious feeling to it, and it helped the viewers know about how the story would continue on the eerie path. The film also used black makeup to help make Cesare even scarier with seemingly sunken in eyes, which in turn made him look as if he hadn’t slept in years, it also gave him this look of being an empty soul with nothing behind his eyes.
Another film that helped influence modern horror was Nosferatu. Nosferatu is a name many will recognize, as it is mentioned in pop culture, and it was the first adaption of the story of Dracula, as we know him today. The story followed a man who is a real estate agent for the very Nosferatu. He quickly sees who Nosferatu is and we then follow Nosferatu throughout the film and we see his ways of being able to seemingly hypnotize, and then kill his victims and eventually we see his weakness, the sun, kill him.
The most striking part of Nosferatu were the physical details added to his character. In one scene we see him rise from a coffin with his unbelievably long pointy fingers, his misshapen bad head, his pointy ears and dead eyes. While for modern horror films it seems tame, however it still strikes fear into the viewers to this day. The scene almost gives you the same feeling as modern horror films where there’s a jumpscare revealing the villain, but with Nosferatu it’s a much longer more in depth scene, which gives it much more emotion.
As a fan of modern scary movies, I was able to see how much the German Expressionism in the two films have influenced the genre. The dark scenery, the quick cuts, the suspense and the amazing makeup and physical sets were very advanced for their time. The characters in the film not only looked scary, but they almost gave an eerie feeling as if they could be in the room with you as you were watching the movie. It is amazing to see that I am able to get the same scared, nervous feeling from a film with a blurry picture and without sound, as I am with any modern horror that I could see today.
Autumn's Film History Blog 