Lighting is the single most important component of the mise-en-scene. ...
Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari is a German Expressionist film that has stark and surreal imagery throughout. ... has a prologue and epilogue) told through the eyes of Francis, who is later found out to be a madman, about a series of murders and the strange case of Dr Caligari and his somnambulist prophet Cesare, who is committing the crimes.
The hook of the film comes after 14 minutes when Cesare is woken by Caligari after having (we are told) been asleep for 25 years. ...
Throughout Caligari, many of the smaller characters are lit strongly from the front so that their faces about flooded with white light, eliminating attached shadow, to make their facial expressions impossible to read. ...
This same technique is used in the opening scene of Citizen Kane. Except for an extreme close-up of his lips, we do not see Kane’s face in this scene, keeping his character a mystery but still drawing the audience into curiosity about him. ... This keeps audience attention focused on Kane and immediately indicates her character is of little importance and is a representation of a kind of person rather than an individual, in much the same way as the townsfolk in Caligari. ...
Where darkness and silhouettes are used in Caligari to make the image scarier and more surreal, they are used in Citizen Kane to be representative of relationships between characters. For example when Kane meets Boss Jim Gettys, both men are initially in shadow, showing the tension and distrust between them and showing neither man with an advantage over the other. ... This is a deliberate filmic effect that gives perceived power to Gettys over Kane. Indeed the effect is mimicked when Kane later regains control of the scene; he steps into the light and seems to now have power over Gettys just because of the lighting effect.
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