Welcome gentle readers to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. This week it’s a Halloween treat: Faust, a black and white silent masterpiece of a film.
And a heads up. Thanks to a great idea from reader Jeff N, I’ll be posting the link for next Sunday’s film to give readers time to view it during the week. Hopefully this will lead to some great discussions. Here is next week’s offering:
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1957)
Now on to today’s film!
Reviews:
The Oxford Student says:
There’s no denying that they’re dated. In the scene where Mephisto (Satan) restores Faust’s youth, the transition from the older actor to his younger counterpart is a far cry from the smooth CGI of modern cinema. But in my opinion this is part of what makes the film so charming. Not only are the practical effects used rough around the edges, they often seem to be avoiding realism entirely. Murnau makes no attempt to hide the fact that many of the sets used for the birds eye view shots of the world are models. All of the effects in Faust are unconvincing, but they’re beautifully realised (sic) and capture the imagination in a way that many modern films struggle to achieve.
Much in the same way as a theatrical production has to adapt to factors such as the distance of the audience from the stage, a silent film has to remain engaging without audio. Both mediums make use of bold visual elements to achieve this and both use sets that invite the viewer to suspend their disbelief. As a result, like many silent films, Faust has a theatrical quality. Most of the cast started their career on the stage and the lack of spoken dialogue means that the actors use exaggerated facial expressions and movement. The bold makeup and costumes are also similar to the kind found in theatre productions.
Roger Ebert says:
Murnau had a bold visual imagination, distinctive even during the era of German Expressionism with its skewed perspectives and twisted rooms and stairs. He painted with light and shadow, sometimes complaining to his loyal cameraman, Carl Hoffmann, that he could see too much — that all should be obscured except the focus of a scene.
“Faust,” with its supernatural vistas of heaven and hell, is particularly distinctive in the way it uses the whole canvas. Consider the startling early shot of Mephisto, his dark wings obscuring the sky as he hovers above a little village that huddles in the lower right corner. Murnau treated the screen as if it offered a larger space than his contemporaries imagined; long before deep focus, he was creating double-exposures like shots in “Faust” where a crowd of villagers in the foreground is echoed by faraway crowds in the upper corners.
His screen encompassed great breadth and depth, so that when Mephisto takes Faust on a flight through the sky, we really do seem to see the earth unreeling beneath them: towns and farms, mountains and rivers. Murnau used a model of the landscape, of course; as his art director, Robert Herlth, remembered, “there were pines and larches made of reeds and rushes, glass-wool clouds, cascades, fields of real turf carefully stuck on plaster. When Murnau saw us at work, he bent his great height to help us make our little rocks and trees.”
Like all silent-film directors, Murnau was comfortable with special effects that were obviously artificial. The town beneath the wings of the dark angel is clearly a model, and when characters climb a steep street, there is no attempt to make the sharply angled buildings and rooflines behind them seem real. Such effects, paradoxically, can be more effective than more realistic ones; I sometimes feel, in this age of expert CGI, that I am being shown too much — that technique is pushing aside artistry and imagination. The world of “Faust” is never intended to define a physical universe, but is a landscape of nightmares. When the elderly Faust is magically converted by Mephisto into a young man, there is a slight awkwardness in the way one image is replaced by another, and oddly enough that’s creepier and more striking than a smooth modern morph.
Criterion says:
Whatever the case, the German cut of Faust really brings the too-familiar tale into sharp focus, offering a real sense of urgency to what might otherwise seem tepid and stale. With Nosferatu, Murnau established himself as a guy who could really find the sense of dread in the fantastic. With The Last Laugh, he unveiled a man’s inner desires, and contrasted those with his outer circumstances. What a perfect blend of the two Faust is. Swedish actor Gösta Ekman rather beautifully plays the character all the way through, first as the aged scientist, frustrated with his inability to help those afflicted by the plague; later, as the young man, given a new lease on his youth thanks to a pact with the demon Mephisto (an appropriately-oversized Emil Jannings). He understands the elder Faust’s physical limitations, as well as the way the soul can start to cry out when given a glimpse of what he could have.
My take:
If you watch one silent film, make it Faust. It’s excellent, the shadow and light play of German Expressionism lends a creepy surrealism that modern film couldn’t hope to mimic. The special effects, crude by today’s standards, are far more effective than they. It’s a masterpiece of cinema.
Director: F.W. Murnau
Written by: Hans Kyser
Notable Actors: Gösta Ekman
Synopsis (Spoilers!):
Mephistopheles has made a bet with an Archangel. If he can corrupt the soul of a devout man, he will win dominion over the Earth. Sounds like an easy thing to do and Mephisto takes the bet.
Mephisto casts a plague upon the home town of an alchemist Faust (Ekman). As people die about him, Faust turns to God for help. But his prayers go unanswered.
In despair, he burns his books including his bible. One of the books opens and offers a ritual to summon the Devil. In exchange for one’s soul, one can command a demon and all his powers. Faust hesitates but decides he must for the sake of the people. He gains the powers for 24 hours but is rejected by the people because he cannot bear the sight of a cross.
Mephisto then offers him another deal. In exchange for his soul, he will return the alchemist to his youth and offer him a life of debauchery. His every whim will be realized. Faust takes the offer and lives a life of pleasure and wealth but soon tires of it’s emptiness. He tells Mephisto he wishes to return home, when he does he falls in love with a maiden named Gretchen.
After a series of misadventures instigated by Mephisto, the young Gretchen finds herself about to be burned at the stake. Faust, now an old man again, throws himself onto the flames. But instead of being consumed, they ascend straight to Heaven. The Archangel appears and informs Mephisto that he has lost the bet because Faust was still capable of feeling the most powerful thing in the world: Love.
***
Bonuses:
The first bonus is a short film about the life of F.W. Murnau:
Next we have a article from Jacobin magazine (courtesy of KLG) about the rise of the modern horror film:
https://jacobin.com/2025/10/1960-modern-horror-film
and finally a documentary about a haunted antique shop, shot by the acclaimed documentarian Christopher McGuinness who went from skeptic to believer after shooting the film:
The Undeparted
Enjoy!
