German Expressionism in Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Pan’s Labyrinth

German Expressionism in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Pan’s Labyrinth
Student
Institution
Course
Professor
Date
German Expressionism in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Pan’s Labyrinth
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a German film that tells the story of Dr. Caligari and how he uses a somnambulist to commit murder. The somnambulist, Cesare, was hypnotized by the doctor, who claimed that Cesare could see into the future. When Cesare’s prediction of Alan’s death came true the following morning, everyone pointed fingers at the doctor, saying that he had manipulated Cesare into committing murder. Pan’s Labyrinth, on the other hand, is a film set in Spain during the Second World War. It tells the story of Ofelia and her interaction with a magical world with mythical beings. She was drawn into the magical world after her father and stepmother set out on a mission to flush out rebel forces in the forest. Even though different themes characterize them, the two films have features of German expressionism as they were produced at the height of the twentieth-century German art movement. In the entertainment scene, film directors drew from German expressionism to create content that conveyed emotional states rather than reality.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was meant to express displeasure with how the government handled the world war. Everyone in Germany felt that the government was manipulating everyone, including the soldiers, to partake in its ill motives of going to war. German expressionism was achieved in the film by incorporating Cesare as the somnambulist. A somnambulist is a person who has an abnormal condition of sleep where their motor activities such as walking are still active. From this definition, one can conclude that the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was effectively a horror movie.
The traits of Cesare’s character were consistent with the art that characterized German expressionism. These traits of the somnambulist reflected the reality of soldiers during war as they would be manipulated by the authority to commit heinous crimes, including murdering the innocent. One scene exemplifies German expressionism in where Cesare is sneaking around the circus tiptoeing (Wiene, 1920). Here, one can see the paintings around him depicting a harsh and dangerous condition. Tents are painted as distorted and sharp shapes to reveal a horrific scenario. ...