In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the doctor comes to town and applies for a license to put on a show, “a somnambulist.” The town-clerk asks for no further details. Like, “somnambulist” was an established and well-known form of circus/sideshow/vaudeville act in Europe in 1920. Was it? 
Furthermore, Dr. Calibari’s “somnambulist,” Cesare, has an act that does not consist of walking around while apparently asleep, it consists of fortunetelling. Double .
Granted, all of the above takes place only in a lunatic’s fantasy. But, it doesn’t sound like the kind of detail dreamed up by the lunatic in-story.
BrainGlutton
That framing device was added only after authorities complained that the original film (which ends with Dr Caligari locked in a cell in his own asylum) was disrespectful to authority. The original film was meant as a story of fantastic events and was NOT the delirium of a patient in the asylum.
A somnambulist license is what you got if you failed the written exam for hunger artist.
I love this board! A Kafka joke in a thread on a silent German Expressionist film!
Back To The OP
I can think of multiple explanations-
1 Being a German Expressionist film, presenting feelings and making the audience share in them is far more important than making sense
2 The clerk giving permits for the show doesn’t give a damn what the act is, so long as the proper paperwork is filled out and the proper fees paid.
3 Maybe somnabulist fortune tellers were a known thing in Germany but never made it to America.
Dr. Caligari is a work of fiction. This mean it was made up. It does not reflect reality. The events did not happen, nor was there any real expectation on an audience that they reflected actual events.
Let me ask, why do you wonder about this? It’s completely trivial and unimportant.
Did you even look at your own link?
“The narrator, Francis (Friedrich Fehér), and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) visit a carnival in the village where they see Dr. Caligari and the somnambulist Cesare, whom the doctor is displaying as an attraction.”
“At night, [writers] Janowitz and Mayer would often go to a nearby fair. One evening, they saw a sideshow “Man and Machine”, in which a man did feats of strength and predicted the future while supposedly in a hypnotic trance.”
This is not a helpful response, Chuck. If you think a question is stupid, ignore it, don’t come into the thread for the sole purpose of telling the OP that you think the question is stupid. That is what is known technically as threadshitting.
No warning issued.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
The Wikipedia article agrees with me. If you read the “Production” section, it says that it was the producers who insisted on a new ending.
Huh, Wikipedia makes no mention of the film Dr Caligari in the article, nor does it seem to have its own page.
Dr Caligari is a talkie and in color. It is made in the German Expressionist style. The grand daughter of the original Caligari is running an asylum. Her methods are rather unconventional.
It’s one of my favorite films. I believe it can best be described as “psychotronic”.
It does. Which, indeed, isn’t linked to in the article for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, just the disambig page.
That was what I was asking about.
Ah, yes, I saw it when it came out.
Nowadays, it is one of my touchstones for 1980s esthetics. Especially the bit about shaving sheep trotters before eating.
I know, I know. But that still leaves the question I asked in the OP.
I’m actually quite taken aback that someone who’s been a member of this board for twelve years would post something like this. I know you’ve already been warned so I’m not trying to play Junior Mod, but man, don’t you know that any kind of question is okay to ask here? And the OP’s question was totally valid. I wondered the exact same thing when I first saw that movie.
Some people on this board have the bizarre idea that simply because something is fictional, it means you can’t ask questions about why something happened in the plot. Because the story is made up, they think it doesn’t matter if something doesn’t make sense or is unbelievable within the context of the film/book. For some reason, they think “It’s fiction” actually answers something.
Somnambulist, in this context, does not mean a sleepwalker,it means someone who is hypnotized. This may be a result of poor translation from the German, but it is not entirely inappropriate: a hypnotized person is ambulant, capable of moving around and acting, whilst in a mental state somewhat resembling sleep, and certainly short of full, normal waking consciousness.
The notion, or superstition, that people who are hypnotized might have special powers, including being able to divine the future, is not uncommon. It is quite traditional for seers and prophets to go into some sort of trance state before issuing their prophecies.
You’re absolutely right about that. I’ve never seen the attitude put forth so dismissively and rudely, until now, but yes, what you’re talking about is true.
Q: “Did duels like the one at the end of Barry Lyndon actually happen?”
A: “Dude, you’re aware that Barry Lyndon is fiction, right?”
It happens with regard to historical accuracy:
“The armor and weapons in Robin Hood were totally out of period…as someone who is interested in history, I thought this was really stupid.”
“Dude, it’s a FICTIONAL MOVIE!” (As if historical films shouldn’t even strive for accuracy at all…shit, why not give Robin Hood a 19th century cavalry sabre? I mean, a sword is a sword, right?)
It happens with regard to realism:
“It’s so silly how the computers in this movie all have made-up graphical interfaces and make beeping noises and clicking noises all the time.”
“It’s just a movie!”
I disagree. Caligari is shown spending years searching for a somnabulist. It seems to be a pre-existing state, rather than something Caligari induces.
Which in turn should not be confused with The Cabinet of Caligari, a 1962 movie which has little to do with the original movie besides the title.