Expressionism: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

SCREEN
The screen that caught my attention is when "Caligari display his attractions, the somnambulist(sleepwalker) Cesare". Caligari was showing his audience that Cesare has been sleeping for several weeks and he can wake him up and at this same time he can tell a fortune of anybody. Then Alan ask him that, how long did he have to live?  He told him that he would died at dawn. And at night time Alan was murdered. I like this part because it shows Caligari's hypnotics power over Cesare. How he can manipulate him to obey his wishes such as murdered. This part also shows how the Nazis manipulate the Germans into killing machines.

1) The symbolism of Caligari's power over Cesare was a tyranny and anarchy one, in which he can hypnotize him to obey his wishes.

2)The profit motive affect the cultural production in the modern age by producing the film that will entertain people instead of passing information across to them. It is on a basis of the profit motive and not artistic integrity of the products.

3) I can evaluate the Frankfurt Schools of Elitism regarding mass culture as one that does not actually believe in common people theory, but only the elite. They believe that the elite should be the one dictating to the mass and not the other way round.

4)The three aspect of the film that relate to the attributes of the culture industry are;
      a) It was not product of individual but a collective process that utilizes industrial forms of organization. It  was base on division of labor. The screen-play was written by Hans Janowitz & Carl Mayer, produce by Erich Pommer, directed by Robert Reine, and with  different actors and actress taking part.
       b) The film, "the Cabinet Dr. Caligari",  was produced because of profit motive especially international    trade. The ending was twisted to sooth the audience by transforming the message of the film and not to offend anybody especially the authority.
       c) The film was produced in a monopolies way by the Decla-Bioscop film studio, who merge with the largest film studio in German, Universum film (AG) due to financial crisis.

5) Kracauer interprete the film  as a choice between tyranny and chaos because he said, "the desire to express freedom as the carnival is really the desire to go back to the pre-industrial past." During the pre industrial period, people were able to carry out their normal business without the interference from the government. And the "circulars movement of the merry-go-round and the organ grinders arm as he plays his music box are supposed to symbolizes chaos, with the organ grinder, you are reminded that someone is working even while others are at leisure."

6)There was increased pressure to develop the Germany film industry after the first world war because Germany economy was struggling to survive and had to partially "deindustrialize" large segments of its economy. Films was seen as a very important export for Germany's economy.

7) The claim that evaluate that expressionism breeds excessive inwardness and  withdrawal is that it expects you to turn away from the external world and depicts the external world as expressions of internal states. You have to raise subjective feelings above objective observations. You have to withdraw yourself from your surroundings and focus on your inner-self to interpret the pictures and makes your own meaning out of it.

8) According to Kracauer, the film foreshadow the Nazi regime by relating Caligari tyranny as Hitler, who is seen as foreign element invading the peaceful land.

9)Praxis is the fusion of theory and practice. It is practical action guided by theory, which at the same time rescue theory from being obsolete and out of touch. With praxis, the theory, lesson or skills has to be practice or realized , while the cultural criticism criticize a culture as a whole or part to give the public choice to choose.