THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI | SILENT FILM | LIVE IMPROVISED MUSIC BY GONÇALO PRAZERES & JOSE DIAS

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920) — Silent Film with Live Improvised Music

Enter the strange, distorted world of Robert Wiene’s THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920), accompanied by a completely live, improvised score from Gonçalo Prazeres (saxophone) and José Dias (guitar).

One of the defining works of German Expressionist cinema, Caligari unfolds in a nightmarish landscape of crooked streets, impossible shadows and twisted architecture. At its centre is the mysterious Dr. Caligari and Cesare, the sleepwalker he appears to control — and a series of murders that blur the boundaries between reality, madness and illusion.

For this screening, Prazeres and Dias create the soundtrack in real time, responding to the film and to each other through saxophone, guitar, texture, silence and improvisation. There is no pre-recorded soundtrack and no fixed score: this version of Caligari will exist only once, in this room, with this audience.

Expect one of silent cinema’s most visually extraordinary films transformed through an unpredictable contemporary musical performance.

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI
Robert Wiene · Germany · 1920 · approx. 75 mins

Live improvised accompaniment
Gonçalo Prazeres — saxophone
José Dias — guitar

23 November · 8pm
Artefact, Liverpool

Part of After Silence, José Dias’s ongoing live-cinema project bringing silent and archival film into dialogue with contemporary improvised music.

LIVE · IMPROVISED · DIFFERENT EVERY TIME