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:
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!
Thanks Semper! This looks deliciously exciting and the soundtrack is to die for, haha. I’ve always heard of this story but never seen it performed and never read the screenplay. You have me very much looking forward to sitting down for my first silent film.
Enjoy!
Ooh, I can’t wait. I adore Murnao’s Nosferatu. Seriously, it is my favorite Dracula/vampire version.I have a weakness for vampire tales, and have seen most.
You seen the latest Nosferatu?
(I haven´t yet, being suspicious of the director. Apparently if was a big b.o. success making 4 times its budget)
I haven’t. I admit to being a little bit protective of Nosferatu. So I figured I had to be in a much more open place than I have been just to give it a chance. Soon.
I’m no movie connoisseur and really just a fan of supernatural horror and Bill Skarsgård but I thought that Nosferatu 2024 was about a 5.5/10. As a thriller it had its moments but parts of it seemed included just for the shock value (gore porn). The plot also didn’t always make sense in that it seemed to force developments with little buildup or logic.
It’s been a while but apart from a few moments I don’t remember feeling scared, only a vague discomfort, maybe that was the idea. Anyway, I would need a really good reason to watch it again. I’m actually still trying to forget one of the last scenes.
Again, though, I’m not a movie connoisseur.
It’s horror porn. I didn’t care for it. But I’m not big on the genre in general.
The female lead is Johnny Depp’s Depp’s daughter.
That’s an interesting remark. One should say that in the early 20th people were moving from a world where art and entertainment were totally about the imagination to the one we have now where technology dominates. Griffith and many of his actors also came from the stage world, and he was even more of a pioneer by giving us closeups of actors to inspire both empathy and eroticism. The Hollywood that resulted may have rarely been art but it sure was successful.
Of course Griffith also brought the cultural attitudes of his time that can seem a lot more dated.
Don’t think I’ve seen Faust. Will watch.
As a Murnau fan I am just humbly very thankful.
The great Eric Rohmer in 1972 wrote his excellent thesis on the relationship of real space and architectural space in FAUST.
L’ Organisation de l’Espace dans le Faust de Murnau
Éric Rohmer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/668567.L_Organisation_de_l_Espace_dans_le_Faust_de_Murnau
Not sure if it was translated into English (would be surprised if not.)
Highly recommended for those who have some time and inclination in this field.
p.s. I might overstretch here but my memory would suggest there were some pictoral similarities between how FAUST´s cloak is used in the frames and Sergei Eisenstein uses the cloak of Ivan Grozny in his biopic(s). 20 years later. Both as illustrations to their immense power.
Ivan Grozny: Ivan The Terrible (1944) (botched version)
98 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guCZbJN8zUo
(As for instance Faust/Ivan draping their cloak in a way that it covers the world below them in the same image or their close-up faces gazing upon the earth. And in general the way how both characters are moving and how their bodies dominate the choreography and space in each movie.)
As to the CGI-issue – to be frank I have no idea on what planet Ebert/Oxford student were living – this is 1923 ffs.
It was state of the art at that time. Which doesn´t mean people were not aware of the artificial quality. But doing top effects AND regarding them as artificial does not exclude each other.
The monolithic idea of perfect mimesis via CGI is an aberration that became popular with Kubrick´s 2001. And yes, that´s a serious point of criticism.
There is no CGI in 2001. All the effects shots are front projections, or traditional mattes, in which the same piece of negative was exposed repeatedly with different fragments of the image. This wasn’t computer-generated: it was done by human hands!
Tron was 1982. Lots of CGI.
He means 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was not actually from 2001 but 1968. :)
I know.
I am referring to the concept of perfect verisimilitude and the intent to be as realistic as possible transforming into a fetish. In the past 30 years this has become part and parcel of any major motion picture.
(Nolan in INTERSTELLAR used models too, as far as I remember, and he even stressed the argument as to make it more realistic.)
Neither models nor CGI are a problem as technological and aesthetic options as such. The way they are being used is.
Overwhelming audiences, “grabbing” them (Blockbusters), instead of “inviting” them to engage with the film (Classic Hollywood e.g.) has become the core attribute of mass movies.
People are completely enthralled by a hermetic world sucked in by CGI, the exaggerated use of symphonic harmonies and sound scapes, extreme emotional, climactic narrative forms and directing.
Compare Ford with the late Spielberg. (I am chosing these two examples because ironically latter appears to have major admiration for former but did eveything in doing movies to replace former´s tradition. Of course Spielberg´s approach by now could be seen as old-fashioned, too.)
Leftist film theorists would speak about fascistic vs. democratic. That may well go down as very academic and narrow minded. But they do have a point considering the stress levels huge films today are expected to trigger.
Fetishization over narrative transparency.
2001 was a major technological stepping stone in this entire development of visual media that also brought us to the current epistemic crisis over AI.
Ford was a sentimentalist and particularly about US history. And so is Spielberg. They are a lot more alike than you suggest.
Absolutely as their emotional and ideological foundation is concerned.
Which also explains the admiration and repeated references to WWII by Spielberg in the scripts.
But if you look at the way the movies are shot those are two different universes. Almost as if they were different media in a way. Which shouldn’t surprise as art evolves.
But compare the incessant hysteric camera work in e.g. “A.I” by Spielberg with the statuary style of Ford. But of course that´s just comparing two entirely different eras in a mass entertainment industry.
A.I. btw was supposed to be a Kubrick movie initially.
(The Classic way has been preserved in other segments I guess, like European and US “auteur” cinema, Kaurismäki, Jarmusch, Reichardt or many advanced dramas of the “Indie” category. I have to be careful though to no create some bogus criteria.)
Are there action genres today that would treat their subject in a way Ford did?
p.s. One may well discard the phrase as pure PR or vanity, but as the French New Wave once put it (was it Godard or Rivette in some written piece?) “A tracking shot is a question of morale”.
But you are talking about the container not the contents. As Stanley Donen–mentioned here recently–said, the camera is just a pen. It’s something to write with.
For sure there are different views on what movies are all about and they fueled the old auteur debates. I go with container re this very collaborative art.
And I think Spielberg is a very good director. His contents are highly variable.
Are you serious?!?!
A pen produces a final work, ex typesetting, particularly before word processing.
With the camera, you don’t point it at a stage and let it run (as if you were filing theater). the director has many choices, starting with staging of the scene, the tightness of the focus, whether to have continuous shots or many cuts. Many contend that the film editor has more influnece about how a film comes out in the end than the director.
I am sure the film buffs can make this point better than I can, but it is bloomin’ obvious.
Your argument is with Stanley Donen, famous film director. I’m just agreeing with him.
And what he is saying is what takes place in front of the camera and how you bring that to an audience is what matters just as some know how to write well with a pen and some don’t. But the emphasis here is that movies are not just photography or even technique. There are other people involved including those who write the scripts and stories, compose the music etc. And most of all there are the actors who, these days, control whether a movie even gets done or not in many cases.
Pauline Kael didn’t think much of the “auteur” theory and wrote a cutting essay about it. The fact that it was first proposed in Europe may have to do with the English as a second language tendency to see photography as all important. Many European films were not even shot with live sound so various languages could be dubbed.
But for Hollywood movies and their often stage show origins language was very important and scriptwriters as well. It’s not just one guy or gal.
In addition to Carolinian:
The camera as pen has been an image throughout the 20th century. André Bresson titled an entire book “Camera/stylo”. The New Wave was thinking about this.
Also the pen image I believe was popular especially with early Soviet avantgarde, Dziga Vertov and Co., due to the impressive features of film as a revolutionary new technology which offered the opportunity to turn on the camera and even with lesser creative effort than literature create a final product by just “pushing a button”.
Of course the camera-pen idea remained especially popular with essayistic filmmakers in later years.
I guess Passolini too made allusions of this kind in his manifold writings about film, politics and poetry.
Naturally there were also many who drew a strict line between the pen and the camera.
However if you consider the process of writing the final written piece too is the result of rewritings of editing and so on. So you put the ink down several times before it may be called finished.
In fact even when it is finished editors may well have a formative role in changing it, think Maxwell Perkins editing Fitzgerald or Tom Wolfe, or many contemporary novelists.
The process of writing has remained hard work up to this very day.
So the idea that a “pen” produces final words in contrast to “camera”, once put on paper, I would argue is a – perhaps – romantic view of the classic art vs. the non-classic (film not considered to be member of the illustrious 7 arts)…
edit: Robert Bresson! (not André Breton)
brain rot
“container not the contents”
Yes. However I personally come from a tradition where both cannot or should not be separated.
If I mention “camera work” that is of course standing for all aspects of the directorial work. But since Spielberg moves the camera around a lot it is conspicuous.
Which doesn’t mean to say he does so without an exact sense. On the contrary. The problem is that many discipes fail in the level of exactness and understanding like imo J.J. Abrams.
On the other hand I am having difficulties watching Indiana Jones I-III for this reason. Spielberg´s approach into the 2000s very often to me was a lot like a fetish. (Which would cause failure in certain aspects of his work.)
Raoul Walsh another giant of the Classical era spoke about the early days of tracking shots with Bogdanovich and that at one point (Walsh had started to work in Hollywood in the silent era) they discovered how well it worked when a camera was moving past a tree.
The rest is history.
“FAUST” is testimony to the fact that Murnau introduced the tracking shot/moving camera in German cinema on a very high level.
Matter of fact he was among the most modern and up-to-date directors in Germany and internationally along with Fritz Lang. Ernst Lubitsch on the opposite shunned Murnau for this e.g. And vice versa. Which wouldn´t obstruct all three of them ending up in the US.
I like that you bring up Donen. I have always held the belief that one of Spielberg´s role models is Donen. One just has to look at the dancing aspect in Spielberg´s movies, his obsession with choreographies and fun.
This was the case with his “1941” – the failure of which gave Spielberg a very different career trajectory I believe – he would never again dare to follow his pure artistic inclinations that much ever again.
Or in general the coordination of the moving camera and actors running around, crossing spaces, changing the focus on the various levels of staging (front – middle – background, like JURASSIC PARK or MINORITY REPORT).
And of course in particular Spielberg´s expressed love for musicals. Anybody who loves musicals most likely won´t get around Donen.
Look at entertainment scenes in INDIANA JONES or his long standing wish to remake WEST SIDE STORY.
It can be noticed even in such small instances as the bar fight in Indian Jones IV:
The energy and eminent role of musical rhythm reminds me of Donen very often.
Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Bar Fight
1:20 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cic1TG5rIQw
This proficiency is unthinkable without the knowledge of musicals and screwball comedies and an industry that has grown up doing such movies for a century.
Sure the idea – the content is there before especially in these highly formatted industry processes – but I am not sure if not the “container” is the real father of many things we love about movies which we do not get anywhere else.
I’m not a huge Spielberg fan but think he is a skilled director. His semi-recent West Side Story is typical–very well directed but a bit schmaltzy.
Did you think West Side was successful or rather not.
(I considered it more of a failure but I am curious.)
It´s strange me championing him here now and again since most of my life I was very critical of him. Considering people like Whit Stillman or Barbara Loden or Jennifer Lynch or or or dozens of others have a had a very hard time in of course very different ways.
Thanks for this one. Good silent films are a category in themselves.
I saved up my couch change for a month to buy a DVD of this film years ago. It bears rewatching every year or so. I always find new angles and obscured themes.
Murnau’s last film, “Tabu,” set in the 1920s South Sea is another semi-silent masterpiece. It shows the corrupting influence of the white man trespassing upon the natives while, at the same time, dispelling the myth of the noble savage.
If only Murnau had stayed away from Filippino houseboys. But then, Hollywoodland.
A well-received Blu-ray version was released by Kino Lorber in 2015. Also contains an “extended US version” from 1930. Music by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The 1930 version has music composed and conducted by Timothy Brock/Performed by The Olympia Chamber Orchestra.
Thanks for the credit 😁, semper loquitur, I do appreciate it, although, um, Jeff N is a different commenter, not me. (I’m the one who made the suggestion.) And now I’ll definitely watch next week’s film!
I’m trying to avoid movies about good verses evil, but this one was well worth an exception. Thank you.
My favourite part was Satan with the Sunflower. Wow.