Caligari

Eleven composers from the Chain-Tape Collective collaborated in Exquisite Corpse fashion to produce two brand new soundtracks for the German Expressionist Classic The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.

As part of the project, public domain footage of the film was located and restored. The film was re-divided into six acts after the original scenario, tinting was added and new inter-titles were created approximating the style of the original film.

The result, while not a definitive restoration by any means, is a brighter, more colorful version of the film somewhat truer to the original than other freely available prints.

Each of the eleven composers worked in isolation from the others scoring one of the film’s six acts, with the film visuals being the only common reference point.

Each of the eleven scored from a unique viewpoint and style, yet the striking visual coherence of the film was sufficient to ensure an emotional continuity in soundtrack approach. Even more surprising, sonic elements and motifs are echoed and reiterated throughout the film, despite the fact than none of the composers heard the work of any of the others prior to submitting their own work.

All components of this project, including the film, are either in the public domain or licensed by the creators under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial/Sharealike/Attribution 3.0 license.

The finished project is available for download / streaming in various formats at the Internet Archive.