FAUST

Faust

1926

Director- F.W. Murnau

Cast-  Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard

            

   Faust is the archetypal story of the deal with the Devil. It has been passed down and re-interpreted for hundreds of years, entering our modern lexicon as a Faustian bargain. F.W. Murnau, the genius behind the eternally creepy Nosferatu took a swing at the centuries old tale, in this, his last film before he left Germany for Hollywood.

The movie begins with Satan and (what I assume is) the angel Michael making a wager about the fate of the Earth (not sure how God would feel about Mike gambling with the Earth but whatever). If Satan can corrupt the soul of Faust, he wins the Earth. If he doesn’t win, well he’s already in Hell, so I guess he’s playing with house money.

To set the stage, Satan, in the form of Mephistopheles, sends a plague and then tempts Faust with the power to cure it. Though tempted, Faust is reluctant to fully give himself over to the dark lord. Mephisto then offers Faust a trial offer; complete access to the Devil’s reality altering power for 24 hours. At the end, if Faust isn’t interested, he can go free. Of course, Old Scratch turns up the heat on the temptation. The next thing he offers is a sexy woman (it was quite surprising to see a nude woman considering such sights would be banned from Hollywood within a few years).

The Devil really gets Faust’s attention when he gives him a chance to return to his youth, in a rather lengthy scene where Fust time travels to his old home town. Faust sees a beautiful young girl, Gretchen, and Mephisto offers to deliver her via an enchanted necklace. The film really slows down here and gets off track at times such as when Mephisto is trying to get Gretchen’s aunt drunk (or horny I’m not sure).

The Devil makes sure that Gretchen’s affair with Faust is discovered and she is shamed as a harlot in front of her entire village. Nine months later (though the 24 hours is still not up on Faust, Satan can alter the space-time continuum and why not), she is homeless and alone, having just given birth to the bastard child of her and Fast. Shunned by the townsfolk, and despondent, Gretchen murders her child in a moment of lunacy. Though the villagers wouldn’t lift a finger to help the child when it lived, they are eager to execute Gretchen for its death (typical). Faust uses the last of his power and races through time for one last embrace with Gretchen as she burns on the stake.

The Devil shows up to Heaven to claim his reward of the Earth but it seems Michael is reneging on the deal on the grounds that Faust did all of this for love, so it’s OK.

Despite the hokey ending and the soap opera direction it takes about half way through, this movie is highly recommended for fans of the Prince of Darkness for its stunning visuals. The first 40 minutes of the film is the most metal thing you will ever see; a giant, winged Satan, spreading his black wings over a town, the horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the sky, Faust in a summoning circle calling up the devil.

Interestingly, Emil Jennings (the actor who played Mephisto and was also the winner of the Best Actor award in the very first Academy Awards) seems to have struck a Faustian bargain himself. When Hitler came to power, Jennings starred in several Nazi propaganda films. While this helped him during the Reich’s reign, after the war he was virtually unemployable.