The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Jean Epstein called «The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari» a still life in which everything alive is destroyed; Eisenstein called it a fraternal tomb of healthy cinematographic principles. This ambivalent thriller, in which events can be interpreted as both a real nightmare and the delusions of a mentally ill person, was started by Fritz Lang and completed in 1920 by Robert Wiene. «Caligari,» with its painted canvas, cardboard broken sets, and monstrous acts of characters, is a true emblem of expressionism.

The film marked the beginning of German expressionism in cinema, being the first film in history to portray altered states of human consciousness on screen, and had a significant influence on the further development of world art.