Lab 5 Instructions: Silent Cinema

Tonight, we will be watching a performance of the German Expressionist science fiction film, CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919), which will be accompanied by pianist and musicologist Martin Marks (MIT).

The first thing that will be clear is that Silent Cinema is a hybrid media -- which links together live performance and filmed narrative. You should think about the interplay between the two.

Do you feel differently watching a film when it is accompanied by live music? How does the live presence of the piano player demand our attention in a way that the recorded sound of a contemporary film often does not? Do you find yourself dividing attention between the two?

What does the live music contribute to our appreciation of the film? To our interpretation of its meanings?

What roles do printed words play in silent cinema? What is the balance the film achieves between telling and showing, between words and images? How does the film adjust for the absence of spoken words, a central feature of the contemporary cinema?

Many filmmakers, film critics, and filmgoers were resistant to the displacement of silent cinema with the talkies. What would be lost in such a transformation of the medium?

As Michael Leja will have explained in class, CALIGARI is an example of German expressionist cinema. German expressionism is an artistic movement that cut across a range of different media. What traits help us define this trans-media phenomenon as a discrete artistic movement? What aspects of German expressionism do we see displayed in CALIGARI? Which aspects of film style are most closely aligned with expressionism? How does the narrative of this film help to shape how we perceive and respond to its expressionist elements?

In Germany, cinema was understood in relation to trends in modern art. In the United States, cinema was understood primarily as an industrial product. What factors might have led to these different national perceptions of cinema as a medium?

Some writers have criticized CALIGARI for being overly "theatrical." What might they mean by such a criticism? What aspects of the film seem "theatrical?" Is it a valid criticism of a work to claim it is too much like works from another medium? What issues might such criticism reveil about the relationship between film and other arts?

German expressionist films such as CALIGARI had an enormous influence on the evolution of the horror film. What aspects of CALIGARI do you recognize as having influenced subsequent films in this genre? Do any moments of the film remind you of more contemporary horror films? Why or why not?

What do we get from watching a horror film which we would not experience reading a horror book? What do we get from written horror that is difficult to achieve in a film?

-Henry Jenkins

mehopper@mit.edu