Caligari Revisited: Circles, Cycles and Counter‐Revolution in Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari

For a decade the cinema industry of the Weimar Republic dominated European cinema, and seriously challenged Hollywood for pre‐eminence. Perhaps best known of all Weimar films was the visually unique Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920). This Expressionist work, however, has long been considered a triumph of form over content. Many still subscribe to the theory, first proposed by the film's screenwriters and enthusiastically echoed by Siegfried Kracauer in From Caligari to Hitler (1947), that Wiene's directorial interference emasculated the film's anti‐authoritarian plot. Since a copy of the original script came to light some critics have begun to overturn the prevailing reading and have identified the chilling nature of the ending furnished by Wiene. But even these have concentrated on the most obviously Expressionist elements in the film, ignoring Wiene's consistent use of circular motifs to highlight the cyclical, counter‐revolutionary nature of history. Against a backdrop of street‐fighting, short‐lived uprisings and brutal repression in the young democracy, if these elements are taken into account, the film's emphasis on the cyclical demands a reassessment of its conclusion to demonstrate that Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari in fact delivers both in style and substance.