Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		5.0

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 23, 2024

Robert Wiene's "Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari" a.k.a. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include Rudiger Suchsland's documentary film "Caligari: How Horror Came to the Cinema"; restoration comparisons; and new audio commentary by composer Jeff Beal. With German intertitles and optional English subtitles. Region-Free.

The film has a rather puzzling plot. It begins with a fascinating conversation between two men who seem to be recalling their past. In the middle of their conversation, a beautiful woman in a white gown emerges from the shadows and slowly approaches them.

Rather abruptly, the action now moves to a small German town. At the local fair, Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) introduces to the excited crowd his somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), who sleeps in a coffin and can predict the future. Cesare has a long, unusually pale, and genuinely unsettling face.

Amongst the spectators are Francis (Friedrich Feher) and his good friend Alain (Hans Heinz von Twardowski), who wants to know when he will die. Cesare indifferently announces that he will die later that night. Soon after the two friends leave the fair, Alain is found dead.

Convinced that Dr. Caligari is somehow responsible for Alan’s death, Francis and his friend, Jane (Lil Dagover), begin monitoring him. When Dr. Caligari accidentally discovers that he is being followed, he asks Cesare to kill Jane.

The film is broken into six acts, each expanding its story in ways that keep redefining its identity. Indeed, there are different tonal shifts and strange subplots that eventually make it virtually impossible to tell with absolute certainty whether everything that takes place in it is in fact real. The end result is a magnificent but truly bizarre film, one that feels like a very long dream that makes sense only while one is experiencing it. After it ends, it is hard to accurately recall various parts of it, let alone properly align them.

Based on stories by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, the film’s biggest strength is its pure atmosphere. It is difficult to explain with simple words precisely why, but there is something about the employment of light and shadow and the astonishing sets that give the film a certain vibe that very few other silent films have -- it is very dark, genuinely spooky, and it triggers something in the viewer’s mind that makes the viewing experience quite unusual.

There is a very curious study (From Caligari to Hitler) produced by German sociologist and theorist Siegfried Kracauer in which he argues that Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari was directly responsible for the rise of Nazism. It is difficult to tell with absolute certainty if the film really was that influential, but it is very easy to see that it profoundly changed cinema. Its aesthetics are replicated in many of the greatest silent era films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and M (1931), F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, Joe May's Asphalt (1929), and Henrik Galeen's The Man Who Cheated Life (1926).

Robert Wiene completed Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari in 1920. He was assisted by cinematographer Willy Hameister (Dimitri Buchowetzki's Peter the Great), artistic designer Hermann Warm (Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr), and expressionist artists Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray is Region-Free. However, the Blu-ray is Region-A "locked".

Please note that all screencaptures included with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc.

The combo pack offers a native 4K presentation of the excellent 4K restoration of the film that Kino Lorber introduced with this Blu-ray release in 2014. In native 4K, the 4K restoration cannot be viewed with Dolby Vision or HDR grades.

I already have a 4K Blu-ray release of the 4K restoration in my library and know how good the entire film looks in native 4K. So, earlier today, while revisiting it with this release, I did not feel the need to do any direct comparisons with the 1080p presentation of it on the Blu-ray release.

What should you expect to see on your system if you choose to upgrade your Blu-ray release? First, the native 4K presentation does not exacerbate the inherited imperfections -- they look as they do on the 1080p presentation. There are minor but easy to appreciate improvements in terms of delineation and depth. I would say that close-ups tend to reveal the best improvements in quality, which usually affect delineation, but there are other areas that benefit from the increased resolution too. Because there are plenty of density fluctuations, the improvements that affect depth are not as consistent. Still, on my system, a lot of the darker footage with the greenish tint where the most atmospheric shadows are looked really good. However, the all-around best looking material is the one with the yellow tint. I think that it is because it has the healthiest footage, but the tint also helps details appear sharper, and in native 4K this is something that is easy to appreciate. The fluidity of the visuals is very good, or at least given the age and condition of the film. Ultimately, I still think that the combo pack should be on the radar of folks who have big TVs, or like to project. The 4K restoration already looks terrific on Blu-ray, so a big screen makes it easier to appreciate the minor and big upgrades that the native 4K presentation offers.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

On the 4K Blu-ray, you will find the following tracks: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0, for a music score composed by Jeff Beal, and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, for the orchestral score that was created in 2014. DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 descriptive track is included as well.

On the Blu-ray, you will find the following tracks: Dolby Digital 2.0, for the alternate score composed by DJ Spooky, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0, for a music score composed by Jeff Beal, and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, for the orchestral score that was created in 2014. DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 descriptive track is included as well.

I like the orchestral score quite a lot, so it is great to have it on the 4K Blu-ray. However, it would not have been a bad idea to transfer the DJ Spooky score, as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, which is very modern and very interesting. Obviously, these are studio recordings, so they all sound great.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - in this new audio commentary, composer Jeff Beal, who scored The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 2021, discusses in great detail what he attempted to accomplish with his music and some specific ways in which he wanted to emphasize different qualities of the film.

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - in this new audio commentary, composer Jeff Beal, who scored The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 2021, discusses in great detail what he attempted to accomplish with his music and some specific ways in which he wanted to emphasize different qualities of the film.

• Caligari: How Horror Came to the Cinema - this outstanding German documentary film, produced by Rudiger Suchsland, takes a closer look at the socio-political environment in Germany at the time when Robert Wiene directed Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari, the tremendous impact the film had on German cinema, and the evolution of German cinema before and after Hitler's rise to power. Included in the film are clips from different interviews with various German film scholars, as well as plenty of archival footage. This documentary film also appears on Eureka Entertainment's release. In German, with optional English subtitles. (53 min).

• Restoration Demonstration 1 - before-and-after demonstrations. Without sound. (2 min).

• Restoration Demonstration 2 - before-and-after demonstrations highlighting key differences between the 1984 and 2014 restorations of Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari. Without sound. (3 min).

• Cover - reverisble cover.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even though Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release offers a fantastic presentation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this new combo pack release is incredibly easy to recommend. The film is phenomenal, so to be able to see the beautiful 4K restoration that was prepared for it in native resolution is a treat. However, if you enjoy the electronic score DJ Spooky created for the film a decade ago, keep the original Blu-ray release in your library. On this release, it is presented only with a lossy track. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.