Caligari's Cure1982

My work has always depended on outside sources, whether it's an artwork from another period or people, events, and places from my own past or present. I use this material as a springboard. Both as a student and a teacher I have spent most of my adult life in an art environment. This present work combines formative memories of Catholic school with the other half of my life – the museum and school of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have always wanted to do a remake of Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, both because the film is very interesting to me in a psychological sense and to reflect my interest in art and film history. "CALIGARI'S CURE is Tom Palazzolo's first fictional narrative film and also his first feature .... The film is a comic fantasy that presents the filmmaker's memories ... as reenacted by a cast of performance artists and friends in wildly colored, distorted sets and costumes. Palazzolo's style is playful and irreverent, incorporating and openly acknowledging a wide range of influences from cinema, art history, and contemporary American art. The subjectively distorted, expressionist sets of the original German film, for instance, have been transformed into a junky, cartoon-like, and distinctively American version that reflects Palazzolo's involvement with contemporary painting as well as with film history." – Callie Angell, New American Filmmakers Series, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY