ABSTRACT
This chapter repositions Robert Wiene’s Expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), at the nexus of two sets of developments: the popularization of Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and widespread recognition of the relativist implications of historicist thought; and the rejection of perspectival conventions in the visual arts and the emergence of perspectivism in philosophy. Eliciting comparisons to Einstein’s theory upon its release, Wiene’s film challenges basic tenets of the German historicist tradition, conveying a radical scepticism regarding the possibility of detached, disinterested observation. With its enigmatic narrative and distorted, post-perspectival set design, Caligari dismisses Leopold von Ranke’s ideal of faithfully and impartially reconstructing the past. Instead, the film follows Friedrich Nietzsche’s early writings in suggesting a perspectivist sense of historical reality as the interplay of finite interpretations. Caligari’s legacy thus consists not only in its modernist aesthetics, but also in its engagement with fundamental historical-philosophical questions.
