SOURCE: "The Beginnings of the Expressionist Film," in The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt, translated by Roger Greaves, University of California Press, 1969, pp. 17-38.

Widely recognized as an eminent film critic, Eisner began her career in Germany in the mid-1920s, then fled to France in the 1930s following the rise of nazism. In the following excerpt, which is reprinted from the 1969 translation and revision of the 1952 French version of her The Haunted Screen, Eisner examines the Expressionist aspects of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The leaning towards violent contrast—which in Expressionist literature can be seen in the use of staccato sentences—and the inborn German liking for chiaroscuro and shadow, obviously found an ideal artistic outlet in the cinema. Visions nourished by moods of vague and troubled yearning could have found no more apt mode of expression, at...