Streaming Availability: Public Domain
We're going to have to fast-forward very quickly to the second half of the 20th century during this series. Unfortunately, demons were just not a major concern of horror films before Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist built their role in pop culture. The Devil before the Seventies seems like a figure people were just not that scared of. In movies the Devil is mostly a silly trickster figure whose various schemes are foiled by technicalities in the end. He appears in comedies like The Devil and Daniel Webster or Bedazzled or Damn Yankees!, none of which are horror movies. He's fast-talking, he's charming, he's mildly queer-coded, but he's harmless. It's going to take some time before demons in film are real threats.
Today though we're still in the Twenties, and we do have a heck of a movie about Satan's dealings involving one Dr. Faust and his eponymous bargain. This is Faust, sometimes called "Faust: A German Folktale" coming from that brief moment of peace called the Wiemar Republic. It is directed by none other than F. W. Murnau, still famous today for his earlier film, Nosferatu. Just as Murnau can claim to have made the ur-vampire movie, he's also made the ur-devil movie. Faust is a classic example of German Expressionist filmmaking, easily the most technically impressive and ambitious silent horror film I've ever seen. It was the second most expensive German silent film ever, behind only Metropolis. It is going to be many decades before we see a blockbuster of this scale again involving the Devil or his cohorts.
The legend of Faust is a medieval German tale that traces back to the 16th century. It seems there may have been an actual Johann George Faust who lived about a century earlier, who was an alchemist and oculist, but everything about him is murky and unclear. It's possible there never was such a person. By 1604 the legend was famous enough for Christopher Marlowe to have written a play called The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The most important Faust work comes in the early 1800s, with Johann von Goethe's play Faust, which is the direct inspiration for this film. Dozens of other versions of the tale exist across literature and stage plays and films, there's even a Faust comic book superhero. (There's a Faust superhero movie which is... quite a thing, we might have to cover that this month.)
Altogether this figure is the classic example of the Deal with the Devil. It's always the story of an old scholar regretting his dull nerdy life, so making a deal with the dark forces for restored youth. This kind of bargain is not exclusively Christian, Jinns in other cultures play similar roles. But with Faust, we always end up with a Christian message that life's pleasures are unsatisfying. Faust usually wiggles out of it and returns to God's grace.
Before he screws over the demons, we can get a lot of the Devil being a horrible little bastard and that's where the real joy lies. F. W. Murnau's own feelings of faith are hard to judge. He was gay in an era where such things were absolutely not reconcilable with faith. I suspect that much like Häxan, it was not the message that driving the filmmaking, but rather the technical exercise. Faust's scale and beauty are worthy goals in of themselves. It's a great achievement in special effects and gorgeous shot compositions.
We open up on a scene of Mephisto (Emil Jannings) in shadow. The Devil is massive in the frame, his dark wings crushing his body, almost like he's a head buried in a dark mountain. Disney would be inspired heavily by these images when he made Fantasia in 1940. Mephisto is met by The Archangel (Werner Fuetterer), an equally impressive figure with huge wings, holding a vast spiky sword. These two kaiju-sized beings are a contrast of good and evil clearly defined. I love that we have 4K restorations of Faust available, because now we can really see how brilliantly the light and shadows play together in on the silver nitrate film stock. (I'm also extremely thankful this movie survived where so many silent films did not.) These two figures with their exaggerated operatic poses are something you do not see much in movies, it's more a comic book double-panel moment or something you'd find in the rich illustrations of manga.
Mephisto and the Archangel drew up their game, a Book of Job wager that the Devil can tempt good Dr. Faust to reject God. To launch his scheme, Mephisto towers over a small German village. You can see his awful face fill the sky for the villagers, they are less than insects before this diety. The Devil reduces himself to mere human-scale to be able to speak to Faust, now allowing Emil Jannings to really camp it up across the screen as this cackling, wonderful villain. The devil's costume with an intense widow's peak and black cape may reminds one of a certain Bela Lugosi, in fact. Faust himself is played by Gösta Ekman, only in his thirties at the time, but playing the in an incredible old-age costume initially. You'd never believe that Old Faust and Young Faust are the same person, but you can accomplish a lot with a massive beard and stage make-up. Modern films are utterly unable to pull off an age make-up this impressive.
The first hour of Faust is just a non-stop blockbuster of special effect after special effect. We see Mephisto briefly return to his god form and he suddenly grows to fill Faust's room floor to ceiling. They have a magic carpet ride across fantasy miniature landscapes. There's a sophisticated crane shot where a bridge full of dancers play in the background as the camera pans down through three levels in the foreground, all in focus. This is where we meet the beautiful Duchess of Parma (Hanna Ralph), now tempted by this mysterious prince Faust who has appeared from nowhere with a menagerie of elephants. (I guess not only Fantasia was inspired by Faust, this is extremely Disney's Aladdin, isn't it?)
Unfortunately, the second hour is less spectacular as Faust finds himself in his home involved in a romance. He wishes to woo a pure maiden, Gretchen (Camilla Horn). The set-up and follow-through of this tragic romance is solid but less spectacular. Camilla Horn gets to do a lot with the brutal despair her character is put through. Mostly the joy is with Emil Jannings getting to fill the space with ham and wickedness, he's so great as the Devil. What a star. Even the plainer scenes of simple German peasant life are full of the intense angular style of Expressionist filmmaking. I really enjoyed most of Faust, even if Gösta Ekman has more to do as Old Faust than Young. It's a great find, movies like this are why I do this series every year.
And the conclusion of Love Conquers All is some nonsense as far as this author is concerned. I'll forever be ever in the devil's corner if he's a fun wicked fellow. But again, Faust the story is not the draw. It's the imagery, its the artistry, which are amazing. Faust is a work of incredible art. It's the kind of movie that makes you sad that the silent era will end in just a few years and the invention of sound will demand far less technically impressive filmmaking. We will not be back here for decades yet.
Next Time! We jump to the 1930s and the world of sound with a Yiddish tragedy of the demonic, The Dybbuk.
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