During the first decades of the 20th century the movie industry became one of the most prolific and popular ways of entertainment for the masses. Millions of peoples went to the theatre to see what would become the definitive visual expression of mankind. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 1920s that the world would see movies as a form of art rather than commercial entertainment. The forefather of this mentality was The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari. Considered by many as one of the first legitimate horror film it pushed the boundaries of movie making by exposing for the first time Expressionism in its visuals and the global modernization of society in its storytelling.

As of late, a new XBOXLive Arcade title named The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom was released. With its creators being huge fans of Chaplin, Harold Loyd and Buster Keaton it was inevitable to see many influences been carried on in the design of the game. Winterbottom is a puzzle-platformer worthy of any time-bending and pie eating fanatics. Although the game has a notable sense of humor, one of the most neglected aspects of its design is in the morbid atmosphere surrounding this somewhat light-hearted game. As we approach the inevitable parallel that we are about to discover, let’s see how The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom takes it’s substance in one of the most revered horror films in the history of cinema.



Let’s look at the game and movie from a visual stand-point ; If we compare the two we can clearly see that Winterbottom’s backgrounds are greatly influenced by the angular and incongruous shapes of Caligari’s style. The backgrounds and the front layers of Winterbottom’s level design are darken by the black and white filter applied to the game. Like the scenes in Caligari they share that grim tone and paint-like feel that would confuse the viewers into thinking that they are actually still images. The dark tones and sinister music used in the game are also indicatives of the influence of the movie.

One other notable aspect of Winterbottom’s presentation is the way the game concludes its levels by retracting the iris of the camera into a small pocket of light emphasizing the attention on P.B. while it’s closing up. This technique is also used in The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari as transitions between scenes in order to highlight certain characters or symbols.

An interesting tangent is also present in the way the story of both The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom are told. In fact, the panels used in one and the other give the impression to the audience that the narrator is inexistent. They are employed as way to prevent voluntary cuts in the continuity of the stories and make it seem like the flow between scenes or levels are meaninglessly stopped by pauses. This is what we call narrative continuity.



Let’s get back for a moment on the original perception of the German expressionism of the 1920’s and 30’s. Back at that time this artistic movement was often paired with insanity and delusion, notably so most of the artists who called themselves expressionists we’re later on in their lives proclaimed insane which leads us to our final argument in this analysis. The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari was one of the prime examples of the expressionist wave of the early 1900’s with its story about madness and insanity. The movie essentially revolved around an unsolved murder case intertwined with a Frankenstein-esque love story between Cesare the somnambulist and his victim.

Solely based on these facts, if we were clever enough to use our imagination , we could also create a tangent between P.B.’s Winterbottom obsession for pies and Cesare’s obsession for Jane. Furthermore if we take the metaphorical sense of the round figures present in every scenes Jane was shown in, we could also speculate that the "round" pies in Winterbottom are a twisted metaphor to represent womanhood and PB’s sinister womanizing adventures. But if we should embark in such intellectual endeavors we could be legally proclaimed as insane!



In Conclusion, whether or not we consider videogames as art we can’t help but see the influence of other mediums in its evolution. A great example of this argument is portrayed in the latest XBLA game P.B. Winterbottom off whom it takes its humor from the great silent forefathers of american cinema but in parallel brewed with the horror and film-noir movies of the early German expressionism of the last century in both its presentation and story-telling.

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If you are interested in seeing what The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari is all about you can do so right away with this link since the movie is now public domain for all to see. You can also listen to a somewhat gritty version on youtube aswell.

As a side note, the game possesses a great rag-time jazz soundtrack that characterizes perfectly the 1920’s upon which the game is based on.