Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

At the behest of the shady Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauß), an enervated sleepwalker (Conrad Veidt) turns the world upside down at the fair of attractions. In Robert Wiene's key work of German silent film (for which Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz provided the screenplay), the protagonists are on shaky ground and look at grotesque proportions from distorted perspectives. The unease of modernity permeates bodies and architecture alike, and the delusion of gaining complete power over others inevitably leads via a detour into the human psyche. In the end, the film itself turns out to be hypnosis and sketches a paranoid society that resembles the labyrinth of a sanatorium. Siegfried Kracauer drew a parallel between Caligari and the rise of National Socialism, which had banned the film and declared it "degenerate art". The dark shadow of the First World War had fallen on the flammable nitrocellulose of expressionist film. (Tom Waibel)

At the piano: Elaine Loebenstein

Photo: Austrian Film Museum