The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Weine) is a silent horror film that was made in Germany by an independent studio called Decla. At this time in Germany, most film studios were owned by the massive company UFA, but Decla weren’t. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari went on to influence many other films, including the genre of film noir in Hollywood during the 50s and 60s, and some films in modern-day cinema.

In The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, the editing effect of an iris wipe is used frequently. This is done by slowly closing the iris of a camera, before sliding a piece of card over it to make the shot cut to black.

This is an editing technique that was commonly used in silent films such as this one. In this shot, it is being used when Francis tells the story of the fair through a flashback. The iris cut emphasises the fact that it is a flashback, as it creates a sort of dreamlike feel to it. There isn’t a lot of intercutting in this film, which is because to join together scenes, the film had to be manually glued together. This, along with the small sets used, makes the film feel quite like a theater play, rather than a film.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was made entirely on sets, with no outside shots. This means that no natural lighting was used, so they lit the sets artificially. However, as the studio Decla was outside the control of UFA, they had limited resources, such as electricity for lighting. To help with this, they painted strips of light and darkness onto the sets, to create the impression of shadows.

In this scene, it is clear to see where light sections have been painted on the floor. This reflects the genre of the film, as it was made during the period of German Expressionism. One feature of this is distorted landscapes, which is reflected in this shot of the street. In addition, the window and the walls of the set have been slanted, making the set look confusing. This again reflects the context of German Expressionism, but also foreshadows at the twist at the end, where it is revealed that it is all a story of a mental patient. The warped set makes the audience experience the world as the insane Francis does. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari made a cinematographic breakthrough, in terms of introducing the idea of a twist ending and an unreliable narrator.

The makeup in this film is also very detailed, but also very dramatic. As it is a silent film, Weine had to find different ways of expressing characters’ emotions to the audience, as they weren’t able to talk.

This is the scene where Cesare is first revealed to the audience. This close up allows his face to be seen very clearly, and it emphasises the dramatic makeup that he’s wearing. The heavy dark eyes and lips could have been used to reflect Cesare’s thoughts and what is happening in his mind. His makeup and costume is meant to be slightly creepy, establishing him as a main villain for the audience.

Cesare’s character could be referencing some of the soldiers that had come out of World War 1, as they were shell-shocked and unable to carry on life as normal. The creators of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari – Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer – were pacifists, and the script was inspired by some of the events of their lives. They could have intended the film to be showing how traumatic experiences can dramatically change a person, which they have shown in the film through the use of extreme makeup and distorted sets and mise-en-scene. However, eventually, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari went on to set the theme for German cinema throughout the rest of the Weimar period, where mise-en-scene was used in an expressionistic way, rather than realistically.

There are a number of factors in Citizen Kane (1941, dir. Orson Welles) that cause many critics to consider it the greatest film of all time. It has come at the top of the AFI’s Top 100 Movie’s list in both 1998 and 2007. During the production of Citizen Kane, a number of new cinematic ideas were developed and used, for example Gregg Toland’s deep focus lens, which allowed everything in the scene to be in focus all at once. His innovative use of the lens allowed the film to have different impacts on the audience’s perspective of things, for example in this scene:

Here, Kane looks to be the same size as the window, but as he walks towards it he is dwarfed by its immense size. When Welles was designing scenes like these, he wasn’t aware that having everything in focus all at the same time wasn’t really possible yet. As he’d previously worked in theater, he asked Toland to find a way to do this, which led to his invention of the deep focus lens. This is just one use of the lens, and there are many different ways in which the camera was also used innovatively throughout the film.

Another aspect of Citizen Kane that helps it to be considered the greatest film is the use of makeup. It is used in a very clever way through the film, as the actors were playing the same characters but at different stages in their lives. The makeup artist, Maurice Seiderman, uses makeup subtly to show the characters aging, for example in the breakfast table scene with Kane and his first wife Emily.

At the beginning of this scene, both characters look young as it is early in their marriage. As the scene progresses, they start to look older, but the change isn’t really noticeable until the end:

This is a very clever use of makeup, as it quickly condenses years of their marriage into a couple of minutes. At the time that the movie was made, makeup was often unconvincing and unrealistic, but Seiderman managed to make it look natural on all of the characters. He came up with his own makeup and techniques that were more comfortable for the actors to wear, and looked like real life. Sometimes, the actors had to spend five or six hours in the makeup chair, but the end product made up for it. In some ways, Seiderman’s use of makeup influenced other films that followed.

The plot behind Citizen Kane also is a factor that makes it a very popular film. At the time, it was based on the newspaper publisher and politician William Randolph Hearst, which was very controversial. The consequences that the movie faced at the time greatly affected its reception, but now it has grown in popularity. One reason for this could be because of its relevance in today’s society, with the rise of Donald Trump. The character of Charles Foster Kane is very similar to him, and to many other people in positions of power. This could be why Citizen Kane is widely considered the greatest film of all time.