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Screenplay - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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Author Topic: Screenplay - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari  (Read 238 times)
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Aphrodite
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« on: October 06, 2007, 02:20:42 am »



TITLE:   'The Director came back only today. Perhaps you
      would like to talk to him yourself.'
 
Francis nods, signifying that he would like to see the Director, and he turns
to follow the older doctor through the archway. The younger man digs his
hands deeply into the pockets of his white coat and goes out right.

The old doctor appears on the left leading Francis down a hallway towards a
door on right. The floor of the hallway is painted with black tendril forms.
The doctor turns to Francis and opens the door in the wall of the hall and
then waits for Francis to precede him through it. Francis removes his hat as
he passes through the doorway, while the doctor remains in the hall and
closes the door after Francis and turns to retrace his steps down the hall.

Francis enters a strangely chaotic room. The walls are very irregular and
painted with curved shapes; the floor is painted with dark wavy lines. There
is a standing skeleton on left and at rear of room is a large irregularly
curved desk. In front of the desk are several high piles of books and there
are a further two piles on the desk. Between these two piles can be seen the
bent head of the Director as he works at his desk; we can see that he has
white, straggling hair. Francis advances slowly towards him.

Behind the head of the Director is the heavily upholstered leather back of
his armchair. Slowly the Director raises his head to reveal the madly staring
eyes, round spectacles and long white hair of Dr. Caligari.

Francis, unable to control his shock, stumbles over one of the piles of
books, then starts backwards under the basilisk gaze of Caligari. He spins
round as quickly as he can and flees to the door.

Francis backs out through the door into the hall, staring wildly into the
room he has just left. He manages, however, to gather himself together
sufficiently to slam the door shut before lurching unsteadily away down the
hall.
 
Still staggering, Francis appears coming down a flight of stairs and through
the central arch of the facade into the courtyard. Three men in white coats
rush after him through the arch and together half lift him, half drag him,
into one of the leather armchairs on right of the courtyard.

Francis's face has turned a chalky-white with shock and contrasts sharply
with the more normal flesh tones of the faces of the three doctors who gather
in a semi-circle round his chair, bending forward eagerly to catch his words;
they exchange concerned glances. Francis speaks rapidly, turning from one to
another of the men.
 
TITLE:    'He -- he alone and none other -- is Caligari.'
 
The three doctors look at one another, then bend forward towards Francis,
listening intently. Francis talks on, clasping his hands together, imploring
them to believe him. He raises his hands to his brow in utter despair at
their apparent disbelief. Fade out.
 
TITLE:    While the Doctor is asleep at his house,
      investigations are made.
 
High angle shot of a man lying asleep on a brightly lit bed; the room around
the bed is partly lost in shadow. The bedclothes are very disordered and the
head of the man tosses uneasily in his sleep, revealing the features of
Caligari.

Fade into an exterior scene: Francis is just approaching a door in an outside
wall of the Institution. A winding path leads away towards rear past a
silhouette tree with thorny branches. As Francis reaches the door, a doctor
dressed in a long coat comes out. He stops and speaks to Francis who seems
about to push his way past the man and go through the door.
 
TITLE:    'He is asleep.'
 
The doctor and Francis move away from the door and walk away from camera down
the winding path.

Francis and three doctors in long white coats come down the hall towards the
door of the Director's office. One of the men opens it and all four disappear
inside.

Once inside the Director's office, the four men rush towards the large desk
at the rear and begin to examine excitedly the books which are piled on it,
looking closely at the titles. The older doctor towards the standing
skeleton, moves it aside and reaches behind it. The others look on curiously.

Francis and the other two doctors stare intently right. Behind the skeleton
is a small cupboard set deeply in the wall, from which the older man removes
two weighty-looking tomes. His triumphant expression plainly shows that he
has found what he has been looking for. He opens the first and smiles
affirmatively. The older doctor has rejoined the other three men who are
grouped around the desk. Francis opens the upper of the two volumes and the
other three gather round to read over his shoulder as he bends forwards over
the desk.
 
INSERT (printed in black-letter type):

      Somnambulism.
      A Compendium of the University of Uppsala.
      Published in the year 1726.
 
Francis looks up at the other men, the light of understanding dawning in his
eyes.
 
TITLE:   'This has always been his special study.'
 
Francis looks at the other men, then down at the book again, which he begins
to leaf through excitedly, turning the pages with great rapidity.

Caligari, seen from a high angle, is still sleeping restlessly in his
disordered bed.

The four men are now bent very closely over one of the pages in the book.
Francis's nose is only about a foot from the page.
 
INSERT (printed in black-letter type):

      The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
      In the year 1703, a mystic by the name of Dr.
      Caligari, together with a somnambulist called
      Cesare, used to frequent the fairgrounds ...
 
The doctor on left looks intently at the book over Francis's shoulder. Camera
pans right over Francis's face as he reads eagerly.
 
INSERT (in upper part of screen, the lower third being blacked out; text
continues from the preceding insert):

      ... and for months he kept town after town in a
      state of panic by a series of murders, all of
      them perpetrated in similar circumstances ...
 
Camera pans from left to right over the men's faces, fascinated by what they
read.

The men continued to pore over the same page. Francis traces each line with
his right hand as he reads.
 
INSERT (black-letter type, following on from preceding insert):

      ... for he caused a somnambulist, whom he had
      entirely subjected to his will, to carry out
      his fantastic plans. By means of a puppet
      figure, modeled in the exact likeness of
      Cesare, which he laid in the chest when Cesare
      was away, Dr. Caligari was able to allay any
      suspicion which might fall on the somnambulist.
 
Francis leafs swiftly through the rest of the first book, then turns to the
second, which is lying on the desk.
 
INSERT (written in longhand on white; borders of screen are blacked out):

      My Diary.

Francis looks round excitedly at his companions and opens the diary at what
must be an important passage, for he immediately crouches over it, chin
supported on hands. The other three men gather round again to read over his
shoulder.
 
INSERT (written in longhand on white in the same angular hand as the words
'My Diary' on the cover; the borders of the screen left and right blacked
out):

      March 12th,
      At last -- at last! Today I have been notified
      of the case of a somnambulist.

INSERT (hand-written on white; left and right borders blacked out):

      Now I shall be able to prove whether a
      somnambulist can be compelled to do things of
      which he knows nothing, things he would never
      do himself and would abhor doing-- whether it
      is true that one in a trance can be driven to
      murder.
 
Iris in on the four men reading the book in lower half of screen. Iris in at
the same time in upper right half of screen on Caligari sitting at his desk
in the Institution; iris widens to show the whole of Caligari's office.
Caligari's head is once again framed by the two piles of books on the desk;
on the top of the two piles his hands are tensed, claw-like.

A doctor in a long white coat enters from the left and marches quickly up to
Caligari's desk, turning and gesturing in the direction from which he has
just come, Caligari rises imperiously from his chair, raises an autocratic
right hand and motions to the man, who turns towards camera and advances as
three other doctors, among whom we can recognize the men who have read
Caligari's private books with Francis, wheel a bath-chair into the room
containing Cesare, deadly-pale and slumped to one side.

They stop the bath-chair in the center of the room; Caligari struts forward
turkey-toed from his desk, hands folded behind his back. He peers over Cesare
and brushes the somnambulist's untidy hair back from his brow, bending right
over him and gazing almost lovingly into his face. With his other hand he
grasps Cesare's wrist as though to feel his pulse. The four doctors gather
round the back of the chair as Caligari continues to gaze tenderly at the
sleeping form of Cesare. Finally he pulls himself up to his full height,
glares malevolently at the doctors and waves his hands about to dismiss them;
they troop out obediently.

After they have left he crouches over Cesare again, the very picture of
solicitous tenderness. Then he springs upright again, grinning wildly; his
head jerks back and he raises his left hand in a gesture of triumph. He whips
round and dashes back to his desk, picks up a book and begins leafing through
it feverishly. He carries the book towards Cesare, still thumbing through it
violently. He slaps the book when he finds the passage he wants, puts two
fingers on to the page, looks at Cesare again, flips through a few more
pages, then throws his head back, laughing hysterically. He holds the book
high above his head and rips it in half, still laughing, and drops the torn
sections on the floor and falls on his knees, grasping hold of Cesare's head.

Iris in on Francis and the three doctors poring over Caligari's diary.
Caligari stirs uneasily in his bed; his chest rises and falls heavily as 
though he were fighting for breath.

The four men are still engrossed in reading the diary; iris out in lower left
of screen.

INSERT (written in longhand on white):

      Afternoon.
       The desire of my life is fulfilled.
      Now, at last can I unravel the secrets of this
      Caligari.

Iris out in lower left of the four men still reading avidly. At the same time
iris in upper right on Caligari facing left, bent over his desk and reading
intently. He is wearing a heavy dark coat. Behind him is an untidily arranged
pile of books. He rises from his desk and glares towards camera.

TITLE:    In the grip of hallucination.

Caligari, still standing at his desk, raises his left hand which is bunched
like a claw, above his head, then brings it down again behind his back as he
turns towards his book. He thrusts his nose between the pages and tucks his
left arm behind his back. There is a sudden, puppet-like quality about these
movements. He draws himself stiffly upright again, jerking horribly as though
in the grip of forces which he cannot control, clutching the book to his
chest and staring upward.

TITLE:    'I must know everything ... I must penetrate
      into his innermost secrets ... I must myself
      become Caligari.'

Still holding the book tightly under his left arm, Caligari raises his other
hand to his brow and staggers from the room.

Iris in on the path outside the wall of the Institution. Caligari comes down
the path towards camera, lurching from side to side and still clasping his
precious book to his chest. He pauses and waves his hand wildly in the air,
before turning back and staggering a little way down the path in the
direction from which he has come. Then he turns again and walks back stiffly,
turkey-toed. Suddenly a line of white writing appears on the Institution wall: 

      'DU MUSST CALIGARI WERDEN.' 

Caligari stops dead. He lurches towards the writing, which promptly
disappears as he stretches out his hand to touch it. Shocked, he leaps back
on to the path. As he turns away from the wall the word 'CALIGARI' appears in
enormous letters above his head. 'DU MUSST' appears again on the wall and
'CALIGARI' is written twice in the branches of the bramble which stands next
to the wall. The words disappear and reappear with confusing rapidity, ending
again with the sentence, 'DU MUSST CALIGARI WERDEN', written in the air at
Caligari's side.

At the sight of this last apparition, Caligari turns and flees down the path
and disappears from sight.

Iris in on Francis and the doctors of the Institution still reading the
diary. They look up and stare blankly at one another, stunned by what they
have just read. Francis looks up and begins to speak. While Francis and the
three doctors are conferring behind the director's desk, a man dressed as a
peasant, with boots and cap, enters from the right. He respectfully removes
his cap as he enters and then marches quickly up to the desk and gestures
towards the left. What he says makes Francis rise swiftly up to his feet.
 
TITLE:   'We have found the sleep-walker out in the
      fields.'
 
The peasant talks quickly for a moment to the four men behind the desk, then
turns and leaves the office. Francis comes out from behind the desk and leads
the three doctors after the man. Iris out.

Iris in on a hillside scene, with the gaunt silhouette of a tree on the left.
A group of men are standing over Cesare's prostrate body. The peasant we have
just seen at the Institution joins the group, followed immediately by
Francis, who darts forward and bends down to examine Cesare's body. After a
careful examination, he rises slowly to his feet, lost in thought. Then he
turns to the other members and indicates that he has finished with the body
and that they can remove it. The men hoist Cesare on to their shoulders and
follow Francis away down the hillside.

Francis enters the hall outside the Director's office, followed by four
attendants bearing Cesare's body on a stretcher. Behind them come the three
doctors in long white coats. Francis halts by the door to the office and
signals to the attendants to put down the body. He opens the office door,
pauses a moment, removes his hat and enters.
 
Inside the office Caligari is standing back to camera, his hands folded
behind him. Francis walks towards the desk and stands waiting for Caligari to
turn round.

As Caligari turns towards camera he seems to glare more intently than ever
through his round spectacles. He is very heavily made up, with a broad white
line over each brow. The wall behind him is covered with angular Cubist
designs.

Francis stands facing Caligari as the latter completes his turn towards
camera.
 
TITLE:   'Mr. Director! Drop your pose. You are Caligari.'
 
Caligari glares evilly at Francis. Francis turns from the desk and calls to
the men waiting outside to bring in Cesare's body. The men set the body down
on the floor and then move to positions on both sides of the office. Caligari
is framed between the two groups of men as he stands at his desk, aghast at
the sight of the black-draped body in front of him, to which Francis points
triumphantly. Caligari walks slowly forward with his stiff, turkey-toed gait.

Francis looks at him accusingly and then springs forward and whips the cloth
back from the face of the dead Cesare. Caligari staggers towards the body,
spreading his arms to signify his grief, and collapses over it.

There is a pause before Caligari slowly, terribly, rises to his feet again,
glowering murderously at the group of doctors and attendants. This, we sense,
is the lull before the storm. He hurls himself furiously at the older
doctor's throat; the attendants manage to drag him back, but then he frees
himself and leaps again at the doctor. Again the attendants manage to
overpower and drag him back. An attendant rushes in with a straitjacket which
he succeeds in passing over Caligari's head and shoulders while he is
restrained by the other attendants.

Finally Caligari is forced out of the room and Francis follows, his right arm
extended above his head.

Caligari, strait-jacketed, is dragged into a cell by four attendants. The
cell is seen through an archway in a wall painted with light and dark
patches; there are two high windows in the rear wall of the cell, which is
painted with amoeboid shapes.

In spite of his straitjacket, Caligari is still managing to put up a
considerable struggle with his attendants. He sinks to his knees and forces
the four men to drag him through the arch to the back of the cell, where they
push him down on to a bunk bed. When they have succeeded in getting him into
a sitting position, the four attendants leave the cell as two doctors enter
and walk over to look at Caligari writhing on the bed. Francis follows them
into the cell. We see the face and shoulders of Caligari as he writhes
impotently in the grip of the straitjacket; he is mouthing horribly as he
becomes progressively more and more exhausted.

The doctors leave the cell and close a great triangular door behind them
which swings shut slowly and inexorably, entirely fitting the archway which
leads into the cell. Francis is left standing by the wall outside the door,
very bewildered.

Iris in on Francis and the older man sitting on a bench by a wall, as in the
opening scene of the film. Francis leans confidentially towards his companion
and speaks to him.
 
TITLE:    'And since that day the madman has never left
      his cell.'
 
Francis looks down thoughtfully. The older man looks blankly in front of him,
then makes as though to rise, drawing his cloak tightly about him. He finally
rises completely and starts to move off, inviting Francis to come with him.
Francis gets up from the bench slowly and the two men walk away down the path.

Jane, wearing a flowing white gown, is sitting on the left of the courtyard
of the Institution, which looks exactly as it did during the previous
sequences: radial lines painted on the ground and the arched facade to the
rear. Now, however, numbers of people are moving about randomly and among a
group sitting in the leather armchairs on the right of the courtyard we
recognize the dark slim figure of Cesare, in the act of rising from his chair.

Jane, her long black hair surmounted by a tiara, sits absolutely immobile;
her lips are slightly pursed.

A woman in black enters the courtyard and curtsies respectfully to Jane, who
turns her head towards her in brief acknowledgement. Cesare slowly wanders
over from right; he is holding a white flower, the petals of which he is
gently stroking.

An old man with a mane of white hair and a thick beard orates and
gesticulates; he is dressed in a pin-stripe suit with a bright watch chain
across his middle.

The face of the old man, as he shouts dramatically, is creased with deep
lines; his eyes are almost Mongoloid.

The old man continues his passionate oration, waving his right arm up and
down dramatically.

In the meantime, Cesare, still engrossed in examining his flower, has moved
nearer camera. A man dressed in black scuttles furtively left to right across
the yard.

In one of the large leather armchairs, a woman in her late thirties, wearing
very heavy eye make-up, is playing an imaginary piano, her arms stretched out
in front of her.

Meanwhile, the woman in black has concluded her bow to Jane and Cesare has
turned away from camera. The older doctor -- the one attacked by Caligari --
talks to a well-dressed young lady in the center of the courtyard, before
turning and leaving. Francis and his older companion enter right.

Suddenly Francis notices Cesare -- leaning against the wall of the courtyard
behind the chairs and still engrossed in his flower -- and recoils, falling
backwards against his friend.

Cesare's face looks sad and melancholy as he gazes tenderly at his flower;
his hair is now tidily brushed back from his brow. Francis recovers his
balance and pulls his companion away from Cesare; he points towards the
latter across the older man and whispers urgently. Francis's expression
throughout this exchange is wild and staring; he is not at all the bright,
intense young man of former scenes.
 
TITLE:    'Look! There is Cesare. Never ask him to tell
      your fortune; it will mean death for you.'
 
Francis continues to confide in the older man who has turned to stare at
Cesare.

Cesare, gaunt and melancholy, continues his examination of the flower,
supporting the bloom with his hand.
 
The older man stares in astonishment at Francis, then backs away, alarmed, 
and hurries from the courtyard. Francis, shoulders bowed, remains, a hang-dog
expression on his face. Suddenly, however, his face breaks into a childish
grin as he sees someone off left. He stretches his arms in front of him and
totters towards whoever he has seen.

Francis comes up to Jane, who is still sitting down and staring blankly in
front of her; as he approaches her, his childish grin intensifies. He
advances on her with his arms outspread as though about to clasp her in a
passionate embrace. She, however, shows absolutely no response to his
advances and Francis is obliged to content himself with gripping the back of
her chair from which position he speaks passionately to her.
 
TITLE:    'Jane! I love you. Won't you ever marry me?'
 
Francis pleads with the girl.
 
His passionate entreaties elicit little response from Jane, who, bored and
condescending, turns her head slowly away from him.
 
TITLE:    'We queens -- we may never choose as our hearts
      dictate.'
 
The girl slowly turns her head back again until she is facing camera, staring
blankly ahead.

Francis looks deeply hurt as he draws back from Jane's chair. The girl
freezes into immobility and Francis turns to face the rear of the courtyard.

The inmates of the Institution are still milling about the courtyard; in one
corner, near the facade of the building at the rear of the courtyard, two
young women are deep in argument. Francis, moving away from Jane's chair,
suddenly notices something under one of the arches which causes him to lurch
wildly across the yard to get a better view of what he has seen, before
dashing towards the arches.

The Director of the Institution, a neat, benevolent-looking man, walks down
the steps and under the arch into the courtyard. He is meticulously dressed
in a frock-coat, waistcoat and light-colored trousers. His face bears a very
vague resemblance to Caligari's. The Director enters the courtyard through
the center arch. Francis, meanwhile, stands with the two young women who have
been arguing. They are restraining him from advancing closer to the Director.

The Director's face bears a kindly smile.
 
The Director stops for a moment to talk to the bearded old man who has
previously been seen delivering a speech to an imaginary audience. Francis is
still being restrained by the two young women. The Director leaves the old
man and walks forward into the courtyard, hands still folded behind his back.
Francis jerks himself free from the restraining hands of the two young women.
Francis screams something out through clenched teeth. The two women on either
side of him draw back, their hands raised in fear.
 
TITLE:   'You all believe I am mad. That is not true. It
      is the Director who is mad.'
 
Francis clenches his fists above his head, screams and lurches forward.

The Director is continuing his walk forward, oblivious that Francis is
rushing towards him from behind. Francis grasps hold of the Director's
shoulders, shouting loudly.
 
TITLE:    'He is Caligari, Caligari, Caligari.'
 
A furious struggle develops in the courtyard. The older doctor rushes in to
the Director's aid, while another attendant comes from another side of the
courtyard and grabs Francis round the waist. The two women who have held
Francis look on with extreme alarm.

Francis is surrounded by a crowd of attendants, one of whom is brandishing a
straitjacket. They succeed in subduing him and slip the straitjacket over
him, bundling him away out of the courtyard.

Francis is dragged into the same cell in which Caligari was earlier
incarcerated. The group of attendants around Francis is followed into the
cell by the Director and two white-coated doctors, who bend inquisitively
over Francis after he has been deposited on the bunk bed at the back of the
cell. The attendants leave the Director with Francis.
 
Francis is now half-sitting on the bed as the three men bend over him. The
Director straightens up and turns towards camera, fumbling in the inside
pocket of his frock coat from which he produces a pair of round spectacles.
He slowly pulls the spectacles over his ears, giving him an extraordinary
resemblance to Caligari. Francis, seeing this, stares at the Director like a
terrified child. The Director, however, takes his head gently in both hands
and lays it on the pillow. He turns towards camera, thoughtfully removes his
glasses and speaks.
 
TITLE:   'At last I understand the nature of his madness.
      He thinks I am that mystic Caligari. Now I see
      how, he can be brought back to sanity again.'
 
The Director turns slightly right, brushes back a few stray wisps of hair,
and, looking well-pleased with himself, replaces his spectacles in his coat
pocket. Iris out on the Director's face, a thoughtful, pleased expression on
it.

Fade in.
 
TITLE:    THE END.
 
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"He who controls others maybe powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” - Lao Tsu


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