Screening and live performance: The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari // Freud Museum London

LOCATION

Join us for a screening of ‘The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari’ accompanied by a live performance by composer, Matt Harding.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is considered a quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema. The characters inhabit a jagged landscape of sharp angles and tilted walls and windows, staircases climbing crazy diagonals, trees with spiky leaves, grass that looks like knives. These radical distortions immediately set the film apart from all earlier silent films, which were based on the camera’s innate tendency to record reality.

At a carnival in Germany, Francis (Friedrich Feher) and his friend Alan (Rudolf Lettinger) encounter the crazed Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss). The men see Caligari showing off his somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), a hypnotized man who the doctor claims can see into the future. Shockingly, Cesare then predicts Alan’s death, and by morning his chilling prophecy has come true, making Cesare the prime suspect. However, is Cesare guilty, or is the doctor controlling him?

Directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer.

Commissioned as part of the ‘Cut’ exhibition at the Old Operating Theatre in London Bridge, Matt Harding’s score for ‘The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari’ is minimal and modern in style, combining samples and sparse electronics with guitar and field recordings to create a layered textured sound. The film retains a surprisingly contemporary aesthetic and Matt wanted to create an intimate and emotive score to accompany the evocative images.

Matt Harding is a composer/ artist who has released 5 albums with Moshi Moshi and Heavenly Records . In 2015 he composed the soundtrack to British independent film ‘High Tide ‘ and was also commissioned to write and perform a score for ‘The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari’ which he has played at venues such as the Old Operating Theater in London Bridge and the Platform Theater in Kings Cross. Matt is currently studying a Sound Arts MA at LCC university in Elephant and Castle. Most recently performed he performed at the Serpentine’s Miracle Marathon weekend with poet Bhanu Kapil.