THE CABINET OF DR.CALIGARI

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari uses the style of German Expressionism to depict a deranged and skewed world. The dark and overdone facial makeup and expression of characters in addition to the jagged and twisted set design produces a disturbing reality that the framing story describes. Only later will the viewer realize the reason for its insane space and depiction. When the asylum's expressionist form is later seen in its 'real' form (as is the cell), the contrast between the distorted and undistorted settings depict the vision of the insane versus sane mind. In the same way that these two sets have been distorted, film essentially works in a similar fashion. The eye of the director is exposed to the viewer to depict a biased reality, whilst the actual reality of the filmed subject can be entirely different.