Murderous shadows, terrifying air: Dr. Caligari in China

Abstract

This article traces the relocation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to interwar China, when the nation began to experience a proliferation of terror amid the bleak premonitions of an impending war. Revising Kracauer’s famous interpretation of the film, I reformulate terror as an environmental experience that goes beyond both national and psychological terms, identifying instead the cinematic design of shadows and air as the primary site of horror that hails wartime subjects into being. With a major reference to Fei Mu’s much-neglected work Nightmares in Spring Chamber, the article conducts a transnational mapping of discourses and styles informed by the German and Chinese discussions of air and atmosphere. In cross-referencing genres, critical accounts, and military cultures, this study introduces ‘mismatches’ to Dr. Caligari’s reception in China in hopes of defying the thesis of unidirectional influence often assumed uncritically in transnational film studies.