Faust Review – FW Murnau's Silent Masterpiece Is a Dazzling Vision of Evil

The 1926 film, based on Goethe's tragic story of a man who sells his soul to the devil, remains a spectacular masterpiece of German Expressionism. He sells his soul to the devil, but at the peak of German Romanticism, he is redeemed by love. (Specifically not the love of God, but the love of a good woman; the word «

The 100th anniversary of FW Murnau's silent fantasy melodrama from 1926 is an opportunity to reflect on this mysterious film, inspired by Goethe's 19th-century portrayal of the alchemist and natural philosopher who sells his soul to the devil, but in a very high German romanticism, the culmination of love for love again. (Not exactly the love of God, but the love of a good woman; the word "Liebe" eventually appears at the center of Murnau's radiant vision of the concentric circles made by the heavens that nullify his debt to Satan.) So very different from Christopher Marlowe's more frightening and unforgiving account of Dr. Faust.

Morneau's Faust (obviously) deals with and is animated by evil, and there are echoes of his Nosferatu, made four years earlier. In the film, Faust, who has temporarily made a 24-hour deal with Mephisto, realizes that he is afraid of a cross, like a vampire. It's also very much a film from Weimar Germany with frenetic energy and streaks of humor and black comedy. The book-burning scene in which Faust burns all his books along with the Bible is a scene that resonated with subsequent events. (Perhaps indirectly inspired Klaus Mann's novel Mephisto, later filmed by Istvan Szabo.)

Gusta Ekman stars as Faust, ancient and gray-haired like an Old Testament prophet (or like God himself) and veteran Emile Jennings (who two years later made Hollywood history by winning his first Best Actor Oscar) is a grinning, snarling Mephisto who makes a heavenly bet that he can corrupt a decent man. It is Faust, of course, who is wretched by plague and destruction everywhere and throws his learned books into the fire in desperation, but then is captured by a burnt page that tells how to sell your soul at a distant crossroads. (Was the tradition started by blues player Robert Johnson, who apparently did something similar?)

Mephisto offers him everything he wants, including a "bacchanal," or revelry, and a chance to make out with the Duchess of Parma, "the most beautiful woman in Italy." But Faust eventually wants to return to his village as the young man he once was, where he falls in love with the innocently beautiful Gretchen (Camilla Horne), while Mephisto, the tyrannical lord, clashes with Gretchen's moody Aunt Marthe (Yvette Gilbert). Set to lead to horror, Gretchen is condemned to be burned at the stake for murdering the child she conceived with Faust, who is in turn wanted for killing Gretchen's angry brother Valentin (William Dieterle, himself an Oscar-winning Hollywood director) in a duel.

Faust's ambition, scale, and motivation are clear: there is a great example of the landscape and cityscape that Faust and Mephisto look down on and fly above. And the calm image and painting of Mephisto as a great evil angel hovering over the city like a giant cloud and enveloping it. Black Wing is the inspiration.