Dr. Caligari (1989) follows the grandaughter of Dr. Caligari from the original German silent film as she uses hormonal and shock therapy to treat her clients. Not to be confused with the German silent horror, this film is ALL American, an avante-garde depiction of the white-westerners wet dream - a woman brutalized.This film takes two key elements of horror integral to the very foundations of the genre and re-works them into a carnival display of the American desire for pain.
The film opens with a fun, almost circus-like stylization of the asylum billboard. Followed by a tour of the asylum and its wards - all equal in their freakish nature. Drawing from the origins of horror in the west, this retelling of the classic film chooses to accentuate the use of freaks and sideshows as a means of scaring the audience, Mrs. Van Houten even goes so far as to call herself a “sideshow on the way to the abyss”. However, instead of belittling the freak and making them the subject of horror, director Stephen Sayadian dresses them in vibrant colours and places them back into the circus that is Caligari’s asylum. Thus removing any instinct we have to feel fear toward them with the addition of colours our brains are unwilling to associate with fear or danger. And by placing them in an asylum where they are removed from us and from society, an asylum that not only we are safe from, but that in and of itself does not scare us due to the nature of its design. Instead, much like we are with circus, we are intrigued and fascinated by the creatures within its walls. However, while Sayadian alters the use of the sideshow character in his erotic horror, demonstrating progress towards a new vision for the genre, as David J. Skal notes, “progress is not the issue. Very little about the underlying structure of horror images really changes, though our cultural uses for them are as shape-changing as Dracula himself”.
The same can be said for his decision to make Dr. Caligari herself insane, following in the footsteps of the original film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919)) that follows the 1989’s grandfather. In the original 1919 script, Dr. Caligari is not insane, he is simply sadistic, drawing parallels to the German political landscape at the time and the authors opinion that the German people crave, and need an authoritarian system of government and strive toward supporting tyrants. In a time where film was becoming an art form used to express political opinions and critiques of systems of government - so to was horror about to be used in the same way - in much the same way that it is now used today. However, the producers had different ideas, originally making the move to scrap Alfred Kubin (Czech proto-surrealist painter) as the set designer in favour of Hermann Warm. “The authors may have been disappointed over losing Kubin, but they were horrified at the change in their script that producer Erich Pommer and director Robert Wiene dictated. The whole story would now be framed by a prologue and epilogue revealing the narrative to be nothing but the ravings of a madman (the earlier version of the screenplay had Francis, now a prosperous doctor, recounting the story to his friends). Calgari himself was presented as a tragic figure, the victim of mental illness. In a single stroke, the film’s political back was broken, at least in the opinion of the writers” (Skal).
While Sayadian pays homage to Kubin through his set design, he fails in following in the original vision for the story. Instead, falling prey to the same trap and diminishing Caligari to nothing more than a victim of mental illness herself. While this does not completely erase the political undertones of the film, it does minimize them. Where Dr. Caligari could have stood in the place of the American public and held the mirror to their desire for pain and suffering as a means of getting off, she now stands in place for the deranged. She holds a mirror to society that is distorted to fit the audience's idealized version of themselves - the sick and the twisted may find sexual arousal in this grotesque show of violence but not me. However, it is not impossible that Sayadian was unaware of the original script changes, nor that he made the intentional choice to show Dr. Cagliari as insane as a means of holding the mirror up to say look at how crazy and depraved you all are - she is insane but she is you.
I say this because it is evident that Sayadian is telling this story as if to say “you're all sex crazed lunatics who should be locked up”. The dream like feel of the film takes on a journey that fills even the most grotesque scenes with fantastic erotica. Pairing the grotesque with the hyper sexual erotic nature of the film pokes at the horror fans desire for pleasure in self pain and the pain of others that hides behind the disgust and repulsion of gore and guts. This is made plain when Mrs. Van Houten says to the camera “my feelings are like filthy prayers I want to scream in your face”. Yet, while it is Mrs. Van Houten that symbolizes the pleasure and pain narrative, as well as the damnation of the surveillance and policing of women's bodies which I will get to later, it is Gus that symbolizes the audience themselves.
We are first introduced to Gus, a character that is unmistakably American, with a Southern accent all viewers are able to connect to the American people as he is strapped to an electric chair, begging the doc to give him a jolt and get him off. In much the same way the audience experiences pleasure at the adrenaline rush from the classic horror jump scare. He talks about why he cannibalizes people and makes sure that Caligari knows it is not because he hates his victims, but because he loves them. In a voice that imitates American cartoon hunk, Johnny Bravo (a symbol of hyper masculine sexuality), he tells Caligari “I see that face and I’m a love slut, uh huh”. As the scene progresses and he tells the story of his victims we see the picture perfect image of the all American girl, a blonde teacher who loves fully and completely and is overall - good. Gus tells Caligari “nothing makes me happier than American girl patty,” pointing to the American lust to consume the pure all American girl.
But it is not just the audiences desire to consume the pure woman that this film criticizes, it is also the surveillance and policing of women’s bodies. The first hint, or more so slap to the face is the fact that the asylum is called the CIA - an organization renowned for their surveillance of countries that ‘threaten the american dream’ and the American people themselves. This is paired with the constant repetition of the lines “I know you’re watching me” by Mrs. Van Houten - first said when we see her touching herself, then said over and over with each moment of torture and pleasure that she experiences.
Perhaps the most impactful line that speaks to this surveillance and consumption of the female body is the poetic delivery of the following:
Faceless strangers even now devour you
Eyes you never see
Tongues and mouths consuming exposed flesh
Yours
However, it is not simply the surveillance but the policing of women’s bodies that this film dissects. When Mr. Van Houten comes to Dr. Caligari it is because he is disgusted at his wifes high libido and the fact that she self pleasures. He is horrified by the thought of her orgasming to the point that he spits out his coffee at the word. To which Dr. Cagliari replies “I’m beginning to get the impression you don’t know how to satisfy your wife”. This follows the line spoken by Mrs. Van Houten, “the libido control…regulating…you only think you sleep”. Her husband, a reflection of the male half of society, not only controls her sexual pleasure, but is disgusted at the very thought of her enjoying sex in any capacity. He simply “wants his sweet, normal wife back”.
While the film has its faults it does an incredible job of delivering a critique on the ways in which we consume women’s pain for pleasure while simultaneously policing their autonomy to experience pleasure freely. It is not pleasurable to see a woman choosing her sexual experiences, it is only pleasurable to devour her body against her will. Therefore maintaining the illusion that she is nothing more than the pure all American girl doll - a play thing for the enjoyment of the audience.
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