The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Capsule by Jonathan Rosenbaum
From the Chicago Reader

Robert Wiene's groundbreaking 1919 silent, the most famous and influential work of the German expressionist cinema, involves a mad doctor (Werner Krauss) and the somnambulist who does his bidding (Conrad Veidt). Aided and abetted by one of Carl Mayer's best scripts and remarkable, distorted sets painted by Hermann Warm, Walter Röhrig, and Walter Reimann, this is more than just a textbook classic; the narrative frame creates ambiguities that hold certain elements of the story in disturbing suspension. A one-of-a-kind masterpiece. 69 min.

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