TITLE: 'Mr. Director! Drop your pose. You are Caligari.'
Caligari glares evilly at Francis. Francis turns from the desk and calls to
the men waiting outside to bring in Cesare's body. The men set the body down
on the floor and then move to positions on both sides of the office. Caligari
is framed between the two groups of men as he stands at his desk, aghast at
the sight of the black-draped body in front of him, to which Francis points
triumphantly. Caligari walks slowly forward with his stiff, turkey-toed gait.
Francis looks at him accusingly and then springs forward and whips the cloth
back from the face of the dead Cesare. Caligari staggers towards the body,
spreading his arms to signify his grief, and collapses over it.
There is a pause before Caligari slowly, terribly, rises to his feet again,
glowering murderously at the group of doctors and attendants. This, we sense,
is the lull before the storm. He hurls himself furiously at the older
doctor's throat; the attendants manage to drag him back, but then he frees
himself and leaps again at the doctor. Again the attendants manage to
overpower and drag him back. An attendant rushes in with a straitjacket which
he succeeds in passing over Caligari's head and shoulders while he is
restrained by the other attendants.
Finally Caligari is forced out of the room and Francis follows, his right arm
extended above his head.
Caligari, strait-jacketed, is dragged into a cell by four attendants. The
cell is seen through an archway in a wall painted with light and dark
patches; there are two high windows in the rear wall of the cell, which is
painted with amoeboid shapes.
In spite of his straitjacket, Caligari is still managing to put up a
considerable struggle with his attendants. He sinks to his knees and forces
the four men to drag him through the arch to the back of the cell, where they
push him down on to a bunk bed. When they have succeeded in getting him into
a sitting position, the four attendants leave the cell as two doctors enter
and walk over to look at Caligari writhing on the bed. Francis follows them
into the cell. We see the face and shoulders of Caligari as he writhes
impotently in the grip of the straitjacket; he is mouthing horribly as he
becomes progressively more and more exhausted.
The doctors leave the cell and close a great triangular door behind them
which swings shut slowly and inexorably, entirely fitting the archway which
leads into the cell. Francis is left standing by the wall outside the door,
very bewildered.
Iris in on Francis and the older man sitting on a bench by a wall, as in the
opening scene of the film. Francis leans confidentially towards his companion
and speaks to him.
TITLE: 'And since that day the madman has never left
his cell.'