Watching this film had many complexities. You have to watch from begin to end to understand what is happening and to fully grasp the idea of the film or what the protagonist is trying to convey to its audiences. This film is all over the place, it's from scene to scene with nothing really connecting....as it relates to Nihilism I can tell this film is an illusion of the mind- where we might imagine things and think it's actually happening in real life.. Nothing is real...
The scene I chose was to the end when Francis came to the realization that he was probably just dreaming and all that he thought was happening was actually in his head. This scene gave me a clearer understanding of what was happening all along that and Francis was somewhere in an asylum and he only had been dreaming and that all the characters were made up, nothing was actually real. The scene was full of chaos and confusion.
I chose the last scene because it gave me a clearer and more concise version of what was happening all along. The last scene tells that the story was always in the mind of the protagonist, he seemed crazy yet he had a very creative mind, it shows how the mind works and if we aren't careful what we think is real and what we think happened, how they can actually become our reality. This somewhat confusing yet creative film shows just how potent the mind is and how the lines between reality, actually and fiction/fantasies are thin.
Kimberly, thanks for your post. I enjoyed reading it. I wanted to begin by saying that I really agree with the movie being difficult to understand without paying very close attention. The fact that it was a silent and older film only added on to the "all over the place" scenario going on there. I agree with the scene you selected being the scene to give a clearer understanding of what was going on. The scene that you wrote about depicts nihilism, also. Given that it was a dream, it can also be assumed that it did not have much meaning behind it.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Stephanie.
Thank you Stephanie for your feedback! I really had to watch it all the way through to understand what was going on.
ReplyDeleteGreat Response Kimberly!
ReplyDeleteFor me the film was so weird and abstract. I felt sucked into all the chaos and creepiness of the carnival. It wasn't until Cesare awakes and has this look of horror that I really got the sense of nihilism from the film. At that moment his look of terror to me meant that the audience was in fact a monstrosity and I tie that into the fact that humans are so self destructive. This film was post WWI so the fact that people are seen as monsters for killing each other in a senseless war seems to make some sense. Of course Cesare was under the control of Dr. Caligari but I feel like he had some control of his emotions and not really over his actions, he was always just following orders.
Thanks for that feedback Aileen I definitely agree with you. The film was so abstract and thats how nihilism somewhat is too
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