5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A successful experiment, February 21, 2009
If you're a fan of the original 1919 horror masterpiece, you may be wondering, is it worth my while to watch this new Caligari? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding "yes." The experiment here was to take the basic plot and digitally-imaged sets from the original silent film classic, and "remix" them with new music, actors, and dialogue. The new film would preserve the spirit of the original or perhaps add something new and exciting. I think it did both.
The original Caligari was a wonderful example of Expressionist cinema. Expressionism displays the emotions of a character or characters by bending the physical reality of what we see on screen. Thus, the streets, staircases, and rooms in both the original Caligari and the remake are twisted and distorted, representing the skewed perspective created by Francis's madness. When David Lee Fisher added sound to the film, he skewed the auditory reality in the same way, with great results.
Eban Schletter's beautifully creepy soundtrack, with echoes of Bernard Herrmann and Krzysztof Penderecki, is everything one could ask for in a horror movie of this type. It puts a fantastic musical spin on Francis's insanity. The dialogue, with its Kubrick-like formalism, also suggests the terrifying obsessions that exist in the madhouse Francis inhabits. But it is the weird sound effects that really frost the cake. When Caligari first appears on screen, the music is accompanied by an eldritch cawing of crows, representing Francis's own fear and disgust of him. And when Alan enters Francis's home, a distant foghorn blows, even though we are apparently nowhere near the ocean. The music, coupled with the creepy sound effects and the visuals (everyone in Francis's narration is wearing eerie white makeup that makes them look dead), creates a dreamlike quality that is perfect for this film.
The performances, for the most part, are very good, and some of them are excellent. Daamen Krall as Caligari is outstanding. Doug Jones is the perfect choice for Cesare the somnambulist--Jones is this generation's Conrad Veidt (the German actor who played the original Cesare). Neil Hopkins brings an expressive vulnerability to his portrayal of Alan, Francis's best friend. And Judson Pierce Morgan does a great and creepy turn as the madman and narrator, Francis Geist.
If you haven't seen the original Caligari, you can still enjoy this very weird and stylish film. But fans of the original may want to give it a spin as well.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who would have thought this would be good?, February 13, 2010
I stayed away from this for quite a while since the original film is such a sacred cow and the thought of doing a remake seemed quite ill conceived. As I started seeing still images from the film I thought it looked pretty good but when I finally watched the trailer I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. David Fisher has done the impossible, making a remake of Caligari that is faithful to the original and still providing something new and exciting. The look of the film is incredible and it gives me an odd feeling to watch actors walking about on the original sets. Its sort of like coming into your own home and finding strangers living there. This film is very faithful looking to the original (as it should be since the sets of the original were scanned for the background of this film). When new sets have been constructed they look very much like the original sets. The cast, headed by Judson Pearce Morgan are all very good. The script is intelligent. The music is quite creapy. This new version really works on every level and if you are a fan of the original classic film then you should give this one a try.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
David Lee Fisher's stunning "remix" of the classic silent horror film, June 7, 2007
"
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is considered to be the first great horror film, but I also think that the 1919 silent film from Germany is the first prime example of "cinema," by which I mean simply treating movies as art. With its angular sets and the exaggerated performances by the actors representing the dementia of the title character, director Robert Wiene's film is clearly the best example of German Expressionism with its abstract, expressionists designs provide severely angled corners, crooked lines, and objects highlighted by decorative stripes. If "
Battleship Potemkin" opens us up as students of cinema to the possibilities about montage, then "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" does the same for mise-en-scene. The film also establishes many of the conventions of the horror film (e.g., the mad scientist, beauty and the beast), and when I reviewed it I commented that I was surprised the basic storyline had never been remade.
After watching "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Remix)" that statement is still true, because as the parenthetical part of the title points out this particular movie is a "remix" and not a "remake." This appellation applies because what director David Lee Fisher did was to shoot his actors against a green screen so that he could use digital scans of the original sets from the 1919 film. Then he added dialogue and sound to effectively bring the original silent film to life. Shot in black & white, Fisher's cast eerily resemble their counterparts in the original and I found myself thinking not how a 21st century audience would respond to this film, but what it would have done to one almost a century ago.
Of course the story is exactly the same in Fisher's remix: Daamen J. Krall is the mad doctor, who uses his somnambulist Cesare (Doug Jones, best known for last year's "
El Laberinto del fauno") from his carnival sideshow to so his evil deeds, with Lauren Birkell as the damsel in distress. The film is framed by a rather clever plot device that turns the narrative upside down in the end, as a young man (Neil Hopkins) tells the story of Dr. Caligari's visit to the small German town of Holstenwall to an older one, as they sit together on a park bench. The cast also features Judson Pearce Morgan, William Gregory Lee, Richard Herd, and Tim Russ. There is a concerted effort to act in the style appropriate to the time of the original, albeit with much more physical restraint than was required in the silent era. The results are certainly uneven, but consistent with the atmosphere of the production, which is a fancy of way of saying on balance it works well within the framework of Fisher's remix.
The only thing you can really compare this 2005 film to would be Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of "
Psycho" in 1998, which is not fair because you do not even need to see both films to know who comes out ahead: Fisher wins as soon as you hear the two concepts, because while also following the original shot-for-shot he has added a significant new dimension with sound and dialogue. The original music by Eban Schletter deserves special mention because after the incorporation of the original backgrounds I thought the music was the most important element in making this remix work.
If you have not seen the original, then I doubt that checking out this remix is going to be worth the effort because you it is pretty difficult to appreciate an homage without knowing the homagee. But that does not mean you should go out and view them back-to-back. I did that with "La Femme Nikita" and "Point of No Return," which was a mistake. You need to fully come to terms with the original before you see a different version. In the end I was tempted not to round up on this remix for two reasons: the first was simply that the original is a classic and as much as I admired this effort it is not on the same level as the classic. The second reason was that I felt a bit short changed by the extras on the DVD since this time I really did want to know a lot more about how they did it.. However, the bottom line is that Fisher took a big risk with this remix idea and he carried it off big time, so I have to round up.
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