Opening the Cabinet: Composing a Score for Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari
Reece Goodall, University of 糖心TV
Figure 1: Caligari and Cesare 漏 Das Cabinet des Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
By day, I鈥檓 a PhD student studying European horror cinema. By night, I write new scores for silent films for performance. I鈥檝e now scored ten films, two of which saw my interests meet in slices of iconic Weimar Expressionist horror cinema. I provided a new score for F. W. Murnau鈥檚 Nosferatu (1922), but my most interesting score to date 鈥� in terms of the writing process and in music produced 鈥� was for Robert Wiene鈥檚 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). In this post, I want to talk a little about the writing process, and how you produce music that suits and enhances such a complex film.
In a framing narrative, Caligari sees a young man called Francis (Friedrich Feh茅r) recount an ordeal he and his 鈥榝ianc茅e鈥� Jane (Lil Dagover) suffered in the town of Holstenwall. A mysterious man named Dr Caligari (Werner Krauss) seeks a permit to present a spectacle at the local fair: a somnambulist called Cesare (Conrad Veidt). Cesare and Caligari are connected to a number of murders in the town. Cesare dies after attempting to kidnap Jane, and Francis follows Caligari to an insane asylum. Francis learns Caligari is the asylum鈥檚 director, and has become obsessed with a monk called Caligari who also committed murders with a somnambulist 鈥� working with the asylum staff, Caligari is subdued and confined as an inmate. In a twist ending, it is revealed that Francis, Jane and Cesare are actually the patients in the insane asylum, and the events we鈥檝e witnessed are the products of Francis鈥� fractured mind. The man Francis believes to be Caligari is the asylum director seeking to cure him of his mental illness, a task he believes to be possible now he understands the delusion.
Music is a vital component of horror cinema 鈥� the soundtrack goes a long way to creating those feelings of unease, revulsion, tension and, of course, fear because the listener reacts instinctively to it. We know if something sounds happy or sad, and we know if something sounds scary, so even a short musical phrase can tell us a lot about the type of film we鈥檙e watching and how we should feel about what we鈥檙e seeing on screen. For this reason, one approach to scoring horror films is simply to play dissonant and discordant music, notes that don鈥檛 sit too well together to convey that primal feeling of something being not quite right 鈥� in the genre, some of the most famous examples of this include the shower scene in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and the main theme to Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978). Although this is a technique I used to a certain extent, I felt that there was so much more that could be done with this most unusual of films.
Although the film is now 100 years old, it remains so visually distinct, and so narratively interesting (in terms of both its twist and the considerable ground it covers in 70 minutes), and a traditional horror score would have done the film a disservice. Like so many Expressionist films of the period, Caligari features landscapes and buildings that twist in unusual angles and help convey a feeling of unease to the viewer. There is a sense throughout the film that this world is unreal 鈥� that the characters, to paraphrase John Barlow, are existing within a 鈥榥ightmare鈥� 鈥� and that does turn out to be the case after the end twist. The question, then, as a composer is how to convey this musically. How do I write a score that matches the twisted emotional and physical landscape of the film, and that reflects both the events we witness and the later revelation that they are in fact unreal? How do I also reflect some of the underlying ideological messages in the film?
Figure 2: Cesare kidnaps Jane - the image also highlights the twisted aesthetic of the film 漏 Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
I began with character themes, and the most important was Caligari鈥檚. I wrote a five-note musical phrase that is either played in 5/4 or as a quintuplet (five notes performed in the time of four), both of which sound unnatural to the listener. It has a vague sense of a march, alluding to Caligari鈥檚 power and authority, and it鈥檚 circular by design, starting and finishing on the same note as if it could move in perpetuity 鈥� it seems to indicate that Caligari is forever. The music implies that everything leads back to Caligari, and his theme continues to infiltrate the soundscape, evolving from a carnival-esque melody in 鈥楾he Holstenwall Fair鈥� to an authoritative statement outside the asylum in 鈥楾he Pursuit of Dr. Caligari鈥�. The score begins and ends with this theme because, in Francis鈥� diseased mind, everything is linked to the doctor 鈥� his obsession drives the film, and so it had to drive my score.
In relation to this theme, I also employed another five-note piece 鈥� a heavy march movement 鈥� to connote institutions in the film. It first appears when Caligari is belittled at the town clerk鈥檚 office (鈥楥aligari Seeks a Permit鈥�), but it reappears in relation to the town鈥檚 police, and the orderlies at the asylum (it comes back in full force in 鈥榃e Queens Are Not Free鈥� as an institutionalised Francis attacks Caligari and is restrained). This way, I imply the threat and the power of authority and, by employing a similar structure to Caligari鈥檚 theme, subtly define him in this way too. Much of the scholarship on this film reads it in relation to authority 鈥� in his famous discussion of Caligari, Siegfried Kracauer states that the character of Caligari 鈥榮tands for an unlimited authority鈥� and he is symptomatic of a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, making him in effect a premonition of Adolf Hitler. Kracauer then argues that Cesare is representative of the common man, lacking in individuality and conditioned to follow orders. The spectre of authority, then, permeates The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and I knew that my score had to reflect some of these subconscious desires.
As Francis sees himself as the hero of this story, it made sense that his theme should be vaguely heroic, but I also had to reflect the fact that something was wrong with what we were seeing. Thus, his theme builds heroically but finishes on what sounds like the wrong note, a half-step below the note our ears expect. This was a conscious choice to hint at the eventual end of the film, and the fact that Francis鈥� hero鈥檚 journey cannot resolve as he imagines because it is not real. Jane鈥檚 theme is a romantic one, reflecting how Francis sees her, but it flits between a waltz movement in 6/8 and a few chords in 4/4, implying there is something more complex to their romance. As the film progresses, the theme is heard and tails off into other notes (this happens a lot in 鈥楥esare Attacks Jane鈥�), suggesting an unhappy or unexpected end to their relationship, as indeed turns out to be the case. Jane too is insane, believing she is a queen, and she doesn鈥檛 share Francis鈥� affections at all. The final significant character piece was for Cesare. I use the motif of a half-step upwards 鈥� to me, it symbolises the in-between states of awake and asleep, alive and dead (and, as we learn later, sane and insane), unhappy dichotomies in between which the somnambulist sits. The deliberate choice of half-steps again was designed to link Cesare with Francis, signifying certain commonalities between the two of them 鈥� they both exist in a liminal state, and they are both unknowingly subject to the control of Caligari.
With this basic framework in place, I approached the score. In order to reflect the exaggerated, unusual and striking mise-en-sc猫ne, I realised that the music would have to exaggerate itself 鈥� it would have to be a character in its own right. I leap about a lot, shifting between time signatures fairly regularly and turning to irregular signatures 鈥� my use of 7/4 in 鈥楾he Pursuit of Dr. Caligari鈥� is a good example, which also reflects the distress Francis feels as he first encounters the asylum in the narrative. I packed the melodies with unexpected tuplets and notes, and bounce around the piano 鈥� there鈥檚 a lot of recourse to high and low notes here. This approach, I decided, really captured the spirit of the film in two ways: as a horror film, such inherent unpredictably inevitably unsettles the viewer, depriving them of formal structures to hold onto, and employing dissonant and unexpected notes has the same effect. But then, that same lack of formal structure 鈥� the kind of looseness that coming with shifting tempos and melodic structures is, in my mind, evocative of a dream. My score, then, invites the listener and the viewer to share the nightmare with Francis, subtly encouraging them to be unsettled as it eventually transpires our lead character is.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is such a fascinating film, and I hope this post explains just a few of the musical considerations in my mind as I attempted to write a new score for it. As I see it, good modern silent scores reflect what is happening on the screen, but they also channel the sub-text, carefully and subtly suggesting it to the listener 鈥� in the absence of sound, music can do so much to complement the silent image. In a film as dense and as stylised as Caligari, there鈥檚 so much to work with that the composer is essentially forced to write character-filled music just to match. It was a challenging task to undertake, but being able to get under the skin of Caligari has increased my appreciation of this film significantly 鈥� it has lived on in the cultural imagination for more than a century for a very good reason.
You can listen to the score here:
Works Consulted
Barlow, John D., German Expressionist Film (Indianapolis: Twayne Publishers, 1982)
Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (Princeton, New Jersey/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004)