and convicted its antagonist of madness” (Kracauer, 351).Robert Weine hired three Expressionist artists to design and paint the sets for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. They are Hermann Warm, Walter Rohrig, and Walter Reiman. The sets created by these three artists embody the tortured state of the narrator’s psyche. German Expressionism depends heavily on mise-en-scene. The lighting, costume and make-up, staging, set design, and performance are all included in mise-en-scene. Weine uses distortion of angles to provide a correlation with the narrator’s insanity. Through chiaroscuro lighting Weine expresses the disturbed mental and emotional state he wants to portray. In an Expressionist film like Caligari the shapes are distorted and exaggerated unrealistically for expressive purposes. The actors often wear a lot of make-up and move fast or slowly in winding patterns. All the elements of the mise-en-scene interact graphically to create an overall composition. The characters do not exist within a setting but they form part of the visual element that combine with the setting. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari the Expressionist stylization is used to show the world within the film as Francis sees it, as the point of view of a lunatic. For instance, the scene of Cesare escaping with Jane on the rooftops created from jagged peaks and slanted chimneys. This scene does not agree with our conception of normal reality. In the film, Cesare is shown in a manner to blend in with the graphic elements of the settings around him. An example, in the scene when Cesare is in the forest his body resembles that of the tree trunks and his arms and hands that of the tree’s branches and leaves.The iris, a stylistic film technique, is used in the film in various occasions. It is used to demonstrate change between scenes, to work with distance, to focus attention, and to tell a story. The black area within the iris can show ins...
