Bruce Loeb on Piano Like A Page of Madness, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari exteriorizes internal mental states. Remarkable sets, designed by followers of Der Sturm expressionist group, use painted shadows, oblique angles and flattened perspective to create a sense of distortion and instability, suggesting both a madman's perspective and a world gone awry. In the chilling, nightmarish story, Dr. Caligari, the head of a mental institution, compels a somnambulist to murder. The film was conceived of as a critique of authoritarianism, with the official representatives of rationality insane. But at the insistence of the producer, a framing story was added which "explains" away the biting portrait of a state gone mad with a chronicle of personal madness. K.G.