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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Collectors Edition (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Collectors Edition (1920)

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Released 1-Dec-2008

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Horror Short Film-Genuine:The Tale of a Vampire (1920): 43:59
Audio Commentary-Feature Length by Film Scholar Mike Budd
Gallery-40 X Photos, posters and artwork .
Booklet-12 page booklet on story and making
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1920
Running Time 71:38
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Robert Wiene
Studio
Distributor
Decla Film-Gsllschft
Beyond Home Entertainment
Starring Werner Krauss
Conrad Veidt
Friedrich Feher
Lil Dagover
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski
Rudolf Lettinger
Case Custom Packaging
RPI $29.95 Music Alfredo Antonini
Giuseppe Becce
Timothy Brock


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Auto Pan & Scan Encoded Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures Yes
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

Evidently Beyond Home Entertainment found a market for their Recent release of D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms, for now we have a release of an even more famous silent milestone in cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Produced in Germany in 1919,Caligari has been one of the most influential movies over the past ninety years. Although not restored - maybe the one hundredth anniversary will see that happen - this is still an extremely valuable edition to the library of anyone who purports to take cinema seriously.

The original script, by Cary Meyer based on idea by co-author Hans Janowitz, is told from the point of view of a student, Francis (Friedrich Feher). In a little village on the Dutch border a fairground magician Caligari (Werner Krauss) exhibits a somnambulist - a sleepwalker - called Cesare (Conrad Veidt - Casablanca's chief nasty). At night, dressed in black and with ghostly white face, Cesare murders townsfolk on Caligari's orders, beginning with the town clerk whose bureaucracy has frustrated Caligari. Alan, a friend of Francis, is next found murdered and Francis, playing detective,suspects Caligari. Cesare is ordered by Caligari to kill Francis's fiance, Joan (Lil Dagover) but is stirred by her beauty and instead abducts her. The pursued Cesare flees across the rooftops and, exhausted, drops dead. Caligari is then discovered to be actually the evil director of a local asylum. Confronted with the body of his dead somnambulist, Caligari goes mad, is straight-jacketed, and locked in a cell in the asylum.

WWI had only ended a year earlier, and producer Erich Pommer had doubts regarding the acceptance of a script that suggested that those in charge were insane criminals who ordered blindly obedient underlings to commit murder. The political commentary of the screenplay was obvious. Fritz Lang had been approached to direct Caligari, but other commitments prevented that happening. Lang did, however, suggest the addition of a prologue and epilogue to frame the original screenplay. The prologue would have Francis sitting in a courtyard relating the story of Caligari to a friend. At the end of his tale we would return to the courtyard conversation, and subsequently discover that the courtyard is situated within the asylum and that Francis is actually an inmate of the asylum, along with Cesare and Joan, all being under the supervision of the benign - or is he? - director. This, of course, reverses the political meaning of the movie. The finished film creates the impression that only strong authoritarian institutions, ruled by benign dictators, can contain the insane fantasies of intellectuals.

Everything that I have said is covered, along with a whole lot more, in the totally absorbing feature length commentary by American accented "Film Scholar" Mike Budd. This commentary also is featured on the Image US release. I won't use all the cliches about audio commentaries, simply put this man knows it all and has the rare ability to deliver an incredible amount of content and make it intelligible and interesting. Nothing is stilted or pretentious, as Mr Budd explains the political and artistic significance of the film. He appears to break his "lecture" into four sections, alternating between generalised discussion and on-screen specific commentary. Listen, enjoy and learn.

What to say about the film itself. Everything has already been said, from the expressionistic sets, the stylised acting, the beauty of Conrad Veidt's physicality. (I wonder how many times Johnny Depp has watched this performance.) When all come together, such as in the rooftop abduction sequence, there has never been finer art on the cinema screen. Admittedly the photography is stolid, but that was necessitated by the stagey sets, constructed and painted to be photographed from one angle. The story unfolds with incredible pace and grips from beginning until the final frame - with the iris closing on Krauss's ambiguous expression.

It appears that this is the same tinted print as utilised by Image for their LD release, and for the US DVD releases by Kino and Image. Surely there is a major restoration planned for the one hundredth birthday, but until then this is fairly good. The film had been adjusted to the correct number of frames per second, and tinting appears to be correct, with no major damage to the footage. There is the occasional "jump" where frames appear to have gone, but there is nothing drastic. Actually, the disc gives a very clean and enjoyable viewing experience.

The score is a bit of a problem. The film's credits state that the "music (is) composed by Timothy Bock" and copyrighted 1996. This is the score credited on the US Image DVD release. However, the Main Menu of the Beyond release indicates that the music is "composed and performed by Donald Sosin". This information is repeated on the back cover.
The score is performed on an electric keyboard and is very "stringy". At first adding nicely to the visuals, it eventually becomes repetitive and grating. The intertitles were off-putting at first, with their expressionistic shapes and lettering. However these have been created in an attempt to replicate the original intertitles, and after a few minutes became part of the overall design. In fact, when I watched the extra short feature, Genuine, the starkly printed titles seemed oddly anachronistic and jarring.

This disc is housed in a sturdy three-fold cardboard packaging, with a pocket for the twelve-page booklet insert. The design is arresting and makes excellent use of images from the film. While we must wait and hope for a fully restored Caligari, this release from Beyond is a very handsome record of one of the truly landmark films. The comprehensive extras make the purchase even more attractive.

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Transfer Quality

Video

Comment has already been made about the source of this release, and it does appear that the print used is that used for the Image DVD release. As with these public domain classics, there are very poor quality versions which have surfaced on some less reputable labels, but it does seem that Beyond have given us the best version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that is currently available.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.33:1. The image has been slightly reduced, letterboxed if you like, to ensure that none of the original image is lost due to overscanning.
Given the age of the film, the transfer is remarkably fine. The image has clarity and depth, although some of the tinting at times lends to a soft, murky quality. Detail is often surprisingly good, and even darker scenes retain a pleasing degree of detail. Low level noise is minimal.
The colour tinting at times seemed a little garish - possibly because we have over the years become accustomed to the numerous stills from the film reproduced in books, usually in ultra stark black and white.
MPEG artefacts were not a problem.
As you would expect from an unrestored print of a ninety year old film, film artefacts are countless - but there is nothing that impedes the drama of the film. There are scratches, flecks galore, a small amount of telecine wobble and the occasional "jump" due to lost frames. None of this really matters. There is one other film flaw that should be mentioned. That is a not-so-faint horizontal line that appears near the top of the screen in a number of scenes. According to the sleeve of the Image laser disc release, this is due to a misplaced "frame line" on the film negative.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

The feature has two audio streams :Musical Score in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo encoded at 192 Kbps and English Commentary in Dolby Digital 2.0 encoded at 192 Kbps.

The extra shorter film, Genuine, has one audio track, the score in Dolby Digital stereo encoded at 192 Kbps.

The music is reproduced quite efficiently with limited directionality. The sound is a little thin, and lacking in any bass impact, but this derives basically from the string emphasised orchestrations.
There are no glitches. No pops, crackles, hiss or dropouts.
The audio commentary is very nicely recorded, with quite an intimate feel. Every syllable is crystal clear, without any glitches. The commentary is virtually non-stop, and the score is heard extremely softly under the voice of the commentator.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

The extras on this release make its purchase extremely attractive.
Main MenuThe main menu is extremely simple, with a close-up still from the film plus a snatch of Sosin's "score". There is no animation.
The options presented are : Play Movie
Chapter Selection :
Selection brings up two separate screens, each with four tinted thumbnails and music from the film.
Extras : See below.

Extras :

Genuine : The Tale of a Vampire (1920) : 43:59
As a very welcome extra we are given director Robert Weine's follow-up film to Caligari. With writing credits again going to Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, this film had nowhere near the success of its predecessor. With acting that is much more stagey, and without the inspiration and artistic cohesion of Caligari's design, this is more an oddity of the era. Genuine, herself, is not so much a vampire as we understand from today's films and teenage literature, but more a "vamp", a Theda Bara, luring men to their ultimate destruction with her feminine wiles. For forty minutes this is hammy fun - and the performance of Fern Handra in the title role just may remind you of Lucille Ball in one of her Mata Hari sketches.
The sequences are tinted appropriately, and the condition of the film is a little worse that that of Caligari, but very watchable.


Soundtrack :
Music composed and performed by Donald Sosin
This is an odd "option" as there are only two audio streams - the film with Sosin's music track, and the commentary. There are alternate scores on the R 1 Kino release. Could this be the source of this "error"? The score is suitably eerie at times, but it becomes very repetitive, without adding anything to the visuals on screen. The reproduction is OK, but very limited stereo.
Audio Commentary by Film Scholar, Mike Budd
This is an excellent feature length commentary. Mr Budd covers just about everything, beginning with an examination of the historical and conceptual framework of the film, which he says is necessary for any real understanding of the film. He examines the two traditions operating in cinema at the time : the popular commercial tradition and the artistic non-commercial tradition. We examine the expressionistic aspects of the film, with its distorted world to which only two characters, Caligari and Cesare, really belong. The importance of the "framing" of the original story is explored, before Budd sets the film historically in post WWI Germany. The film is discussed as an early horror film, as a thriller and as a detective story. There is so much contained here, including history, politics, economics and art. The amazing thing is that Mike Budd's commentary makes everything so easy to follow. This is no upstart University "expert", but a man who absolutely knows what he is talking about, and knows how to get it across lucidly. An enjoyable learning experience.

Twelve Page Illustrated Booklet :
Housed in the fold-out case is this attractively presented little booklet. With approximately half of its space taken by text and half by artistically integrated stills, we are given The Story of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari followed by Behind the Story of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The text nicely complements the disc's commentary, and there is a page of welcome biographical information on key cast and crew members.

Poster and Photo Gallery :
Here we have approximately forty stills, posters and artwork from and for the film. All are very good quality and presented 16x9 enhanced.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

It is a bit of a maze attempting to sort out the versions available overseas. As far as I can determine, we have the best of what is available - except maybe for the score.

Summary

An absolute landmark film, and one that should be seen by any person who has an interest in movies. A combination of horror, thriller and detective yarn, for seventy two minutes we inhabit a crazy, expressionistic world with at least two characters you will never forget. The movie cries out for major restoration, and maybe we will get that in ten years time for its centenary. For now, this is about as good as you will get, and no flaws can diminish the power of the story and its images. The extras are a mini banquet.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Garry Armstrong (BioGarry)
Monday, November 02, 2009
Review Equipment
DVDSONY BLU RAY BDP-S350, using HDMI output
DisplaySamsung LA55A950D1F : 55 inch LCD HD. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to DVD player. Calibrated with THX Optimizer.
AmplificationOnkyo TX-DS777
SpeakersVAF DC-X fronts; VAF DC-6 center; VAF DC-2 rears; LFE-07subwoofer (80W X 2)

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