Faust
(1926)
review by Suspiriorum

There have been many versions of Faust, the old German legend about a man who sells his soul to the devil in an effort to relieve his plague-infected towns suffering, but this version from Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau is one of the very best. It’s a collaboration of several of the leading talents from Germany’s silent film era, including Murnau himself, cinematographer Carl Hoffman, art directors Robert Herlth & Walter Röhrig, and actors Emil Jannings & Gösta Ekman. The cast even includes William Dieterle, who would later become a major director in Hollywood with films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) & The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941) – considered by many to be the finest reworking of Faust of all. With such talents involved, Faust could hardly be anything other than something very special, & it stands up remarkably well today.

Faust is an amazing visual feast. The film is filled with awesome images that must have been staggering to audiences in 1926, & remain startlingly impressive today. Particular mention must be made of the atmospheric opening, the startling coming of the plague to the town (with Jannings looming huge over the town, smoke creeping out from beneath him), the electrifying summoning of Mephisto (& his disconcerting appearance immediately afterwards, with shocking piercing bright eyes), & the astonishingly dynamic flying sequence. These really are just the tip – there are far too many jaw-dropping moments to mention or hope to describe – this really is a film that has to be seen. It’s a grandiose, blood & thunder piece that is eminently watchable. Although Faust incorporates elements of expressionism at times, like Nosferatu it doesn’t strictly follow this movement.

It’s somewhat surprising that with so much visual fury the actors don’t simply disappear into the wallpaper. Three performances in particular stand out, Ekman is excellent in the titular role both in the iconic old man make-up & playing his age as the rejuvenated Faust, and Camilla Horn is wonderful in one of her first roles as the girl he falls for. But the best performance comes from Jannings as Mephisto. He’s not quite as patently memorable as, say, Max Shreck in Nosferatu, but his fairly normal & even mischievous performance is a virtuoso show, suggesting that evil can be masked by seemingly benign appearances.

Faust is not without its weaknesses, though. Not all of it makes sense, & the very end is perhaps a little too sickly for cynical modern audiences. Most disconcerting is the second half of the film, which suddenly veers of into whimsy almost like a silent rom-com. It’s not so much that this section is actually bad, so much as unexpected after the first half & it completely wrong-footed me on first viewing, although subsequently I have begun to appreciate it rather more. Murnau was not the strongest at passion & love, which does dampen things somewhat, but the talents involved make it never less than pretty good. Things improve in the final half-hour, but it can’t quite compare to the awesome first half. It’s this slight lowering in quality & wavering tone that prevents Faust from being my favourite Murnau film – an honour that falls to Nosferatu. Nevertheless, it’s an astonishing film that deserves to be seen more. Hopefully soon even more of the Murnau oeuvre will see the light of DVD.

Murnau prepared different versions of Faust, & the one on this UK PAL DVD released by Eureka (available in a double pack with their version of Nosferatu) that I have been reviewing is the American version, edited at MGM by Murnau himself. This version contains different takes & a slightly different order of scenes to the German version, although all shots of written documents are German, with burnt in English subtitles. The intertitles are all in English. Picture quality is pretty strong, although with a film of this age there is inevitably quite a bit of print damage at certain points. A fine new (1995) score by Timothy Brock provides audio, appropriately reminiscent of turn of the century symphonic repertoire, which works extremely well. The only extra is a commentary (written by critic Peter Spooner, read by Russell Cawthorne), which is lightly dry, perhaps aimed a little too low-brow (needing to remind us that there was no CG effects in 1926!), & low on scene specifics. It does, however, supply some interesting background information for those new to the film, & points out weaknesses in the film