Caligari wouldn’t be Caligari without Walter Reimann. No, I know he wasn’t the director, that would be Robert Wiene. What Reimann did was the graphic design.
Walter Reimann (1887 – 1936) was a German painter. He was an Expressionist and member of the group of artists associated with the magazine Der Sturm. He worked on the production design of a number of films during his career, the most important of which was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Along with fellow members of the Der Sturm group, Walter Röhrig and Hermann Warm, Reimann created skewed, dreamlike sets that distorted geometry and indicated the interior states of mind of the characters. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was an international success and the production design has had a lasting influence on other movies - especially in the horror and film noir genres - since then.
Reimann continued his work as an art director in Germany until his death, but his subsequent designs had not the impact of Caligari.
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| A design by Reimann for Algol, another film. |
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| Architekturskizze, 1920, by Hermann Warm |
Wonderful images, i knew only a few of them. Caligari was the first silent film i saw in a theater and it left me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteThe last image is by Hermann Warm, the last name is on it.
You are right about Warm. Thank you.
DeleteLast month I was in Berlin and saw the Marmorhaus, the cinema were Caligari's première took place. The building is still there, on Kurfürstendamm, close to the Gedächtniskirche, but movies are no longer shown there, only clothes...