The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

David Lee Fisher

Writers:

David Lee Fisher (writer)
Hans Janowitz (story)

Release Date:

January 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

What force drives a man insane?

Plot:

English-language sound remake of _Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das (1920)_ . |

Plot Keywords:

Remake | Character Name In Title

Awards:

4 wins

Cast

Judson Pearce Morgan	...	Francis Geist
Daamen J. Krall	...	Dr. Daamen Caligari
Doug Jones	...	Cesare
Lauren Birkell	...	Jane Stern
Neil Hopkins	...	Alan
William Gregory Lee	...	Joseph Stern
Randy Mulkey	...	Inspector
Time Winters	...	Dr. Gabriel Stern
Richard Herd	...	Commissioner Hans Raab
Scott Lincoln	...	Criminal
Tim Russ	...	Town Clerk
John Bigham	...	Asylum Doctor
Alan Altshuld	...	Clerk's Assistant
Ernest Misko	...	Old Man
Darren Joel	...	Policeman #1

Runtime:

USA:76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Filming Locations:

Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Highlander Films

Trivia:

Shot entirely on green screen. Some exact shots from the original Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (1920) were superimposed to properly replicate the original.

Movie Connections:

Remake of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari. (1920)

fascinating and insightful remake

As a huge fan of the original—which I have seen more than a dozen times—I greeted Fisher's remake with great enthusiasm. I too attended the screening and Q & A at Two Boots Pioneer Theater, and came away with a deep impression of a director obsessed with this extraordinary and legendary film. While the dialogue at times seems insipid, it is precisely the American diction and its quirkiness that gives meaning to this silent film re-shot on the green screen, who breathe new life into the two-dimensional expressionist sets that wildly zig and zag. Precisely because it seems so utterly improbably to hear a bunch of tongue-twisted Americans speak the rephrased German silent titles does Fisher achieve success. I relished this fresh new- millennium perspective of the world of a madman seen in various contexts ranging from the insane asylum to the carnival with hurdy gurdy player. And in re-reading theorists such as Lotte Eisner and Siegfried Kracauer, it makes all the more sense that Americans are reprising these Weimar-era roles. Recall Decla's original release "You must become Caligari" posters of 1920; that's precisely what Daamen Kraal so vividly achieves.