Our viewing of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the second time I'd watched the film. I wasn't excited to watch it again, as sitting through it in 272 (over two years ago) was a total bore, but I actually let go and rode with the experience this time, in a way that I previously resisted. There is one theme that especially stuck with me: the emphasis on sleep, and similarly what I can only think to describe as the "heaviness" of the several scenes showing characters in their beds. Kracauer wrote of the heightened architecture of the film in relation to tyrannical authority, as in the towering furniture in the police station and the asylum, but didn't mention this concept in the domestic setting. To me, at least, there's something so dense about the architecture of their rooms; the blankets looked heavy and all-enveloping, emphasizing a false sense of safety that actually leads to entrapment. The rooms themselves heavily contrasted in light and shadow, even in, supposedly, the middle of the night. This lighting visually carves out the irony of these character's faux sanctuaries, in spirit of Kracauer's note, and general knowledge, of the light and set-dressing in expressionism representing the internal state.
On the other hand, Cesare sleeps in a coffin, which furthers this representation, and also furthers Kracauer's note of Cesare as the victim of corrupt authority. His sleep is interrupted by forced violence, and, although he doesn't sleep in the state of ominous heaviness of his victim's, he also doesn't get any sense of safety or comfort, even if false. Sleeping in a coffin represents a deadening of the soul and of free will. He no longer has the basic semblance of safety and pleasure of those who haven't been exploited by (or perhaps even just disillusioned from?) the system of power. Being in this position is dangerous, but also has a certain element of comfort with it.
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