[10] Several of Janowitz's past experiences influenced his writing, including memories of his hometown of Prague,[20][21] and, as he put it, a mistrust of "the authoritative power of an inhuman state gone mad" due to his military service.

[35][59] He embraced the idea for commercial, not aesthetic reasons: Expressionism was fashionable at the time, so he concluded even if the film received bad reviews, the artistic style would garner attention and make it profitable.

[66][67] Pommer has claimed while Mayer and Janowitz expressed a desire for artistic experimentation in the film, his decision to use painted canvases as scenery was primarily a commercial one, as they would be a significant financial saving over building sets.

[64] This was also disputed in a 1926 article by Barnet Braverman in Billboard magazine, which claimed the script included no mention of an unconventional visual style, and that Janowitz and Mayer in fact strongly opposed the stylisation.

[89] Certain elements from the original script had to be cut from the film due to the limited space, including a procession of gypsies, a handcart pushed by Caligari, Jane's carriage, and a chase scene involving horse-cabs.

[62] The camerawork in Caligari is fairly simple and is used primarily to show the sets,[32][84] mostly alternating between medium shots and straight-on angles, with occasionally abrupt close-ups to create a sense of shock.

[96][97] The visual style of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is dark, twisted and bizarre; radical and deliberate distortions in perspective, form, dimension and scale create a chaotic and unhinged appearance.

[25][52][60] The sets are dominated by sharp-pointed forms and oblique and curving lines, with narrow and spiraling streets,[93] and structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, giving the impression they could collapse or explode at any given moment.

[25][88] Film critic Roger Ebert described it as "a jagged landscape of sharp angles and tilted walls and windows, staircases climbing crazy diagonals, trees with spiky leaves, grass that looks like knives".

[101] The visual style of Caligari conveys a sense of anxiety and terror to the viewer,[93] giving the impression of a nightmare or deranged sensibility,[25][60] or a place transformed by evil, in a more effective way than realistic locations or conventional design concepts could.

[102] The majority of the film's story and scenes are memories recalled by an insane narrator, and as a result the distorted visual style takes on the quality of his mental breakdown,[103] giving the viewers the impression that they are inside the mind of a madman.

[86] The sets occasionally feature circular images that reflect the chaos of the film, presenting patterns of movement that seem to be going nowhere, such as the merry-go-round at the fair, moving at a titled angle that makes it appear at risk of collapsing.

[122] Capitol Theatre manager Samuel Roxy Rothafel commissioned conductor Ernö Rapée to compile a musical accompaniment that included portions of songs by composers Johann Strauss III, Arnold Schoenberg, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev.

[16] According to Janowitz, Caligari was also shown in such European cities as London, Rome, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Brussels, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest, as well as outside Europe in China, Japan, India and Turkey, and also in South American nations.

[131] Barlow said it was often the subject of critical disapproval, which he believes is because early film reviewers attempted to assign fixed definitions to the young art of cinema, and thus had trouble accepting the bizarre and unusual elements of Caligari.

[135] A story in a November 1921 edition of Exceptional Photoplays, an independent publication issued by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, said it "occupies the position of unique artistic merit", and said American films in comparison looked like they were made for "a group of defective adults at the nine-year-old level".

"[142] The Russian director Sergei Eisenstein especially disliked Caligari, calling it a "combination of silent hysteria, partially coloured canvases, daubed flats, painted faces, and the unnatural broken gestures and action of monstrous chimaeras".

[149][150] The site's critics' consensus states: "Arguably the first true horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari set a brilliantly high bar for the genre – and remains terrifying nearly a century after it first stalked the screen.

[144] Additionally, the success of Caligari's collaborative effort – including its director, set designers and actors – influenced subsequent film production in Germany for many years, making teamwork a hallmark of German cinema in the Weimar Republic.

[62] Two major books have played a large part in shaping the perception of the film and its effect on cinema as a whole: Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler (1947) and Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen (1974).

[180] Likewise, John D. Barlow described Caligari as an example of the tyrannical power and authority that had long plagued Germany, while Cesare represents the "common man of unconditional obedience".

[183] Cesare lacks any individuality and is simply a tool of his master; Barlow writes that he is so dependent on Caligari that he falls dead when he strays too far from the source of his sustenance, "like a machine that has run out of fuel".

[47][183][128] Kracauer argues Caligari and Cesare are premonitions of Adolf Hitler and his rule over Germany, and that his control over the weak-willed, puppet-like somnambulist prefigures aspects of the mentality that allowed the Nazi Party to rise.

[188] Most of the film's characters are caricatures who fit neatly into prescribed social roles, such as the outraged citizens chasing a public enemy, the authoritarian police who are deferential to their superiors, the oft-harassed bureaucratic town clerk, and the asylum attendants who act like stereotypical "little men in white suits".

[201] Although he does not think it possible to reduce the narrative or the film to the beliefs of its makers, Eisner claims Franzis can be seen as embodying the politics of Expressionism's anti-naturalism, through which a protagonist does not see the world objectively, but has "visions" that are abstracted from individuality and psychology.

Here, Eisner claims, the militarist and imperialist tendency of monopoly capitalism is combined with what Sigmund Freud would later refer to as the longing for protection by a tyrannical father figure, or what Kracauer characterised as "asocial authority".

[107] Critics have suggested that Caligari highlights some of the neuroses prevalent in Germany and the Weimar Republic when the film was made,[187][206] particularly in the shadow of World War I,[207] at a time when extremism was rampant, reactionaries still controlled German institutions, and citizens feared the harm the Treaty of Versailles would have on the economy.

[45][88] Vincent LoBrutto wrote that the film can be seen as a social or political analogy of "the moral and physical breakdown of Germany at the time, with a madman on the loose wreaking havoc on a distorted and off-balanced society, a metaphor for a country in chaos".

[208] Thomas Elsaesser called Caligari an "outstanding example of how 'fantastic' representations in German films from the early 1920s seem to bear the imprint of pressures from external events, to which they refer only through the violence with which they disguise and disfigure them".

[69][210] Janowitz wrote a treatment for a remake, and in January 1945 was offered a minimum guarantee of $16,000 against a five-percent royalty for his rights to the original film for a sequel to be directed by Fritz Lang, but the project never came to fruition.