Review of The Cabinet of Caligari (1962) by Michael H — 29 Oct 2014
The differences between this movie and its silent film inspiration are significant. Here Caligari is a controlling Freudian madman, keeping Jane against her will and taunting her with scarcely glimpsed perversities.
 Kay and Bloch do away with the somnambulist Cesar and the carnival setting, focusing instead on the implications of the earlier film's ending. But while the majority of the action seems much more "real world"than in Weine's film, the climax in which Jane descends fully into madness is a real stunner.
One particular sequence in which Jane sees a baker pulling loaves of bread shaped like infants out of a blazing oven even seems to prefigure David Lynch's Eraserhead in both theme and imagery--in fact, I would not be surprised to learn this film was a direct influence on that one.
This review of The Cabinet of Caligari (1962) was written by Michael H on 29 Oct 2014.
The Cabinet of Caligari has generally received mixed reviews.
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