The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Kevin Brownlow, in his exhaustive history of the silent film era, quotes a 1921 essay by James Quirk, who talks at length about filmÆs ôrarest and subtlest beauty: silenceö (654). Quirk goes on to argue, ôThe value of silence in art is its stimulation of the imagination, and the imaginative quality is artÆs highest appealö (Brownlow 654). To the modern audience, accustomed to THX sound, complex films scores, and movies as reliant on dialogue as on the visual image to tell a story, a film which uses only one sense to convey its meaning can seem simplistic and stunted, particularly when confronted with the series of striking images that make up The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Yet Weine and his contemporaries did not look at their inability to add dialogue, sound effects, and a synchronized score as a liability. Painters, poets, novelists, and many other kinds of artists have historically used their ability to capture, craft, and selectively present visual images to influence and engage their audiences. As Brownlow himself contends, ôThe audience respond[s] to suggestion, supplie[s] the

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 811
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page)

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