The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

In 1920, one brilliant movie jolted the postwar masses and catapulted the movement known as German Expressionism into film history. That movie was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a plunge into the mind of insanity that severs all ties with the rational world. Director Robert Wiene and a visionary team of designers crafted a nightmare realm in which light, shadow and substance are abstracted, a world in which a demented doctor and a carnival sleepwalker perpetrate a series of ghastly murders in a small community.

Accompanied with a live score by Frank Pahl and Michael Gould

Silent Films at the Mendelssohn are presented in partnership with the Cinetopia Film Festival and are free and open to the public.