Foredoomed failure of dr. caligari essay

The prediction come true and it turns out Cesar murders Alan that night. On the other hand, Dry. Calamari also orders Cesar to kill Jane, a young girl in the town. However, Cesar is captivated by Cane’s beauty and fails in the murder. Dry. Calamari ends his evil experiment and goes back to asylum.

In my paper, I’ll argue that crimes committed by hypnotists, as those tried by Dry. Calamari in the movie, have obvious limitations and are foredoomed to failure. According to Stefan Indianapolis in his “ Suggestion, Hypnosis, and Crime”, hypnosis is a state when people lose their own consciousness. As subjects are under hypnosis, hypnotist can easily influence them by offering suggestions, leaving instructions and even controlling their behavior. Some devotees, however, focuses on obtaining the unlimited power from those hypnotized individuals: “ As Beriberi and numerous other physicians affirmed, the hypnotized subject functioned as a sort of medium who could even be compelled to commit crimes against his or her own will. ” (Indianapolis 14) In the movie, Dry. Calamari is the one that perform the experiment in reality and ends with failure.

Even though he successfully ordered the death of Alan, Dry. Calamari failed in killing Jane. The problems behind shows hypnotism’s limitations are essential and cannot be easily solved. First of all, one problem that directly caused the failure of murdering Jane is that her beauty distracts Cesar. In other words, even though Cesar shows complete obedience while he killed Alan, he could still retain his own conscious in certain circumstances. While Cesar is trying to kill Alan, the movie use a medium shot to show Élan’s scary face as well as body movement. At the same time, Curare’s shadow is on the wall so that audience can see him move towards Alan slowly but steadily.

The film then cuts to a scene with only two shadows on the wall. The fighting between two men is short: by using one hand to hold Alan, Cesar thrusts his knife to his bosom neatly. (Wienie 22: 37) This scene suggests that Cesar is a professional and proficient killer. Also, since his steps do not show any sign of hesitation even when Alan is so scary, Cesar is more likely a cold-blood person or at least he lose sympathy under hypnosis.

Then why would such a professional and cold-blood killer fail to kill Jane? When Cesar is trying to kill Jane, the film shows he walks towards her slowly exactly as what he did before murdering Alan. As he raised his knife, the film outs to a close up to show his facial expression: he is staring at somewhere far away rather than looking at Jane. (Wienie 41 : 31) This scene shows that Cesar is under Dry. Calamari’s hypnosis because he clearly loses his own consciousness. However, as he looks down, it seems he is so shocked by the girl in front of him that he drops his knife. Again, the film switches back to close-up shot, we can see that Cesar is breathing heavily and his eyeballs’ movement shows that he retains consciousness.

(Wienie 41 : 45) This scene suggests that Jane has something different from Alan that makes Cesar drops his weapon. One thing noticeable is that, Jane is wearing a delicate white dress and sleeping on a white bed, while Cesar is in black. The scene implies that Jane is a symbol of innocence and beautiful compare to Curare’s evil and immorality. The angel-like girl will definitely shock Cesar who sleeps in the dark cabinet for so many years. Moreover, Cesar is obviously captured by her beauty and stops murdering, which can also be proved by Cesar trying to kidnap Jane afterwards. Encounter between Cesar and Jane points out that Dry.

Calamari’s hypnotism clearly has its limitation: in certain environment, the hypnotized subjects an retrieve their consciousness, which is disaster for committing crimes. Furthermore, Dry. Calamari’s hypnotic crime is severely limited by it’s lack of timely control, especially when Dry. Calamari is not around Cesar. When Cesar comes out of the cabinet for the first time, Dry.

Calamari precisely controls every single steps of him: by using a long shot to fit two people in the same frame, the film demonstrates that the two poles in Dry. Calamari’s hands controls all of Curare’s movement, including his walk and hand movement. (Wienie 16: 56) This scene implies that as a hypnotized subject of Dry. Calamari, Cesar needs instructions from his master for all moves in order to have better performance.

Therefore, the failure in murdering Jane can be interpreted as lack of correct instruction from Dry. Calamari. In the movie, Cesar kidnaps Jane after she wakes up. Cane’s scream attracts two bodyguards as well as a group of police run after Cesar. There is a long shot in the movie shows Cesar carries Jane pass a corner; it’s clear that he is super tired. In the end, Cesar exhausts himself and fell down because he has carried Jane running for a long time. (Wienie 44: 20) Since Dry. Calamari cannot be present to give Cesar proper instructions, Cesar has made two obvious mistakes: one is that he should kill Jane instead of kidnaps her; the other is that he should drop Jane in order to escape.

However, as a hypnotized person, Cesar barely has consciousness and therefore cannot make decision himself, As things get complicated, it’s reasonable for Cesar to make mistakes without Dry. Calamari. However, Dry.

Calamari can never be present in any criminal, otherwise there’s no sense to use a somnambulist as a medium. Therefore, the paradox suggests as long as Dry. Calamari uses hypnotized person to commit crime, the limitation caused by lack of instructions cannot be solved. Many researchers devoted in designing real life experiments for simulating hypnotic crimes.