The Artist & The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Kyle Jones and James King

I feel a bit slighted by The Artist. I'm wondering if the idea (novelly making a throw-back) has carried it this far or if the movie is as much of a stalwart as awards season is making it out to be. The Artist is a movie that is worth your time. However, my approach to the movie, the one I had prior to first viewing, is not recommended. Don't expect an original movie. Expect an original idea to tug-boat along a series of  harangued Hollywood vignettes. Expect a movie that applauds an audience and takes a rest from challenging one. Plan on being entertained as you would by an installation. Enjoy yourself and invite your Grandmother along, she'll be glad you did. Definitely see it, but if you're lucky, that Friday night showing might be sold-out and you can run ahead to catch King and Buddy before they Netflix a game-changer--they'll most likely save you a slice of pie, invite you to an Oscars party, and remind you that silent movies were at once, "everywhere and nowhere."


-KJ

Ich mub Caligari werden!

The other day a buddy and I went to see the Artist.  It was sold out, so we went back to his apt., turned on Netflix streaming, and watched another, classic silent film from 1920s Germany.  According to Wikipedia (back from a successful blackout), Germany in 1920 was a bleak place---marked by crippling debt and territorial losses resulting from losing World War I.  Its citizens were coping with losing 1,796,000 soldiers in the trenches and being 200,000,000,000 marks (or a couple of wheelbarrows full) in debt.  All of this is both nowhere and everywhere in Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Nowhere because the plot is about a mysterious doctor who controls a somnambulist named Cesare who happens to be very open to the suggestion of murder, and everywhere because the world they inhabit is all jagged edges, tilted camera angles, and suffocating spaces.  Streets look like trenches and vines reach out like barbwire.  All the citizens in this Kafkaesque city either look like sleepwalkers or ants panicking.  Even for a black-and-white film, everyone looks alarmingly pale.  All that to say, the atmosphere of foreboding is both an expression of its time and a great reason to see the first, and arguably best, horror movie ever made.  Another reason is the twist at the end that I never saw coming, even though I’ve seen it copied in almost every horror movie since.  (Also, for all of you true nerds out there, Cesare is played by the same actor who portrayed Major Strasser in Casablanca! Following cinematic logic, it makes total sense that Cesare would grow up to be the Nazi getting zotzed by Humphrey Bogart!)

If you’ve never seen a silent film, the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a good place to start.  It’s fun, will not lose your interest, and is easy to follow.  It also makes you realize how a silent movie like the Artist could be successful in this day and age.  A good story transcends sound and the lack of noise forces us to look closer at visuals, expressions, and other critical, often overlooked details.

-JK