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Faust (1926 film)
Encyclopedia
Faust is a silent film
produced in 1926
by UFA
, directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman
as Faust, Emil Jannings
as Mephisto, Camilla Horn
as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle
as her brother and Yvette Guilbert
as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust
as well as on Goethe's classic version. UFA wanted Ludwig Berger
to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety
; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer
to let him direct the movie.
Faust was Murnau's last German
movie, and directly afterward he moved to the US under contract to William Fox
to direct Sunrise
(1927); when the film premiered in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo of Berlin, Murnau was already shooting in Hollywood.
Mephisto
has a bet with an Archangel
that he can corrupt a righteous man's soul and destroy in him what is divine. If he succeeds, the Devil will win dominion over earth.
The Devil delivers a plague to the village where Faust, an elderly alchemist
, lives. Though he prays to stop the death and starvation, nothing happens. Faust then makes a trial, 24-hour bargain with the Devil. Faust will have Mephisto's service till the sand runs out in an hourglass, at which time the Devil will rescind the pact. At first, Faust uses his new power to help the people of the village, but they shun him when they find out that he cannot face a cross.
Later, Faust makes a further deal with Satan, who gives Faust back his youth and offers him earthly pleasures and a kingdom, in return for his immortal soul. Mephisto then takes him to the Walpurgisnacht celebration on "Bald Mountain", to finish his tryst with an Italian
Duchess. Faust seals the deal permanently; he is Mephisto's forever. Faust soon grows weary of debauchery and yearns for "Home". Here Faust falls in love with an innocent girl, Gretchen, but he is later framed for the murder of her brother by Satan and must flee (with Satan's encouragement). The girl has a child (by Faust) but is cast out into a blizzard where the child dies, and she is sent to the stake as a murderess. Faust sees what is happening and demands Satan take him there. Faust arrives just as the fire has been started to burn his lover. Faust wishes he had never asked to have his youth back and runs through the assembled mob towards Gretchen; Mephisto gleefully grants Faust his wish and it is as an old man that Faust throws himself onto the fire to be with his beloved.
Gretchen recognizes Faust and sees him in her heart as a young man again as the fire consumes them together. The angel reveals to Mephisto that he has lost the bet because love has triumphed over all.
the following year. According to film historians Faust seriously impacted studio shooting and special effects techniques. Murnau uses two cameras, both filming multiple shots; many scenes were filmed time and again. As an example, a short sequence of the contract being written on parchment in fire took an entire day to film.
Overall, five versions of Faust are known to exist out of the over thirty copies found across the globe: a German
original version (of which the only surviving copy is in the Danish Film Institute
), a French
version, a late German version which exists in two copies, a bilingual version for Europe prepared by UFA
, and a version prepared by Murnau himself for MGM and the US market (July 1926).
with English
subtitles on DVD
. A commentary is also an optional extra on the DVD. The original intertitles have also been recovered.
The US version includes titles and scenes filmed especially by Murnau, where for example the scene in which Aunt Marthe offers Mephisto a drink that he rejects as causing heartburn: in the US version, Mephisto rejects the drink for having had alcohol, a joke aimed at the Prohibition
era; again in the US version, Mephisto offers Marta a necklace, from the Great Khan
of the Tartars, rather than the cousin from Lombardy
, as Murnau believed the US audience would not have heard of Lombardy. One scene was done with a text juxtaposition, as again, Murnau believed the American audience wouldn't grasp the imagery by itself. This is also the only version having the originally conceived finale of the ascension of Faust and Gretchen into Heaven. In all others, the scene is rather more conceptual. Books appearing in the film were labeled or any plans with text were shot twice, in German
and in English
.
The bilingual version was prepared to be shown aboard trans-Atlantic ships traveling from Hamburg
to New York
. Therefore, they catered to both American and German audiences.
The French
version is generally believed to represent the poorest choice of scenes, both including the largest number of filming errors (e.g., showing assistants holding doors, actors slipping, Gretchen stepping on her dress, show the stage maquette). It does hold takes that do not exist in any other versions, however.
" sequence in Walt Disney
's 1940 animated film Fantasia
.
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
produced in 1926
1926 in film
-Events:*August - Warner Brothers debuts the first Vitaphone film, Don Juan. The Vitaphone system used multiple 33⅓ rpm disc records developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to play back audio synchronized with film....
by UFA
Universum Film AG
Universum Film AG, better known as UFA or Ufa, is a film company that was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945...
, directed by F.W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman
Gösta Ekman (senior)
Gösta Ekman, Sr. , born Frans Gösta Viktor Ekman, was a Swedish actor. Generally spoken of as Swedish theatre's most legendary stage actor, Gösta Ekman enjoyed a prolific stage career during his short life, becoming the first real star of Swedish theatre...
as Faust, Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
as Mephisto, Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She starred in several Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.-Biography:...
as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle
William Dieterle
William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
as her brother and Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque.-Biography:...
as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
as well as on Goethe's classic version. UFA wanted Ludwig Berger
Ludwig Berger (director)
Ludwig Berger was a German film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. He directed 36 films between 1920 and 1969...
to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety
Varieté
Variety is a 1925 silent drama film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont based on the novel Der Eid des Stephan Huller by . Jannings portrays "Boss Huller," an ex-trapeze artist who runs a seedy carnival with his wife and child...
; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer
Erich Pommer
Erich Pommer was a German-born film producer and executive. He was involved in the German Expressionist film movement during the silent era as the head of production at Decla, Decla-Bioscop and from 1924 to 1926 at Ufa responsible for many of the best known movies of the Weimar Republic such as...
to let him direct the movie.
Faust was Murnau's last German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
movie, and directly afterward he moved to the US under contract to William Fox
William Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
to direct Sunrise
Sunrise (film)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...
(1927); when the film premiered in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo of Berlin, Murnau was already shooting in Hollywood.
The story
The demonDemon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
Mephisto
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
has a bet with an Archangel
Archangel
An archangel is an angel of high rank. Archangels are found in a number of religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Michael and Gabriel are recognized as archangels in Judaism and by most Christians. Michael is the only archangel specifically named in the Protestant Bible...
that he can corrupt a righteous man's soul and destroy in him what is divine. If he succeeds, the Devil will win dominion over earth.
The Devil delivers a plague to the village where Faust, an elderly alchemist
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, lives. Though he prays to stop the death and starvation, nothing happens. Faust then makes a trial, 24-hour bargain with the Devil. Faust will have Mephisto's service till the sand runs out in an hourglass, at which time the Devil will rescind the pact. At first, Faust uses his new power to help the people of the village, but they shun him when they find out that he cannot face a cross.
Later, Faust makes a further deal with Satan, who gives Faust back his youth and offers him earthly pleasures and a kingdom, in return for his immortal soul. Mephisto then takes him to the Walpurgisnacht celebration on "Bald Mountain", to finish his tryst with an Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
Duchess. Faust seals the deal permanently; he is Mephisto's forever. Faust soon grows weary of debauchery and yearns for "Home". Here Faust falls in love with an innocent girl, Gretchen, but he is later framed for the murder of her brother by Satan and must flee (with Satan's encouragement). The girl has a child (by Faust) but is cast out into a blizzard where the child dies, and she is sent to the stake as a murderess. Faust sees what is happening and demands Satan take him there. Faust arrives just as the fire has been started to burn his lover. Faust wishes he had never asked to have his youth back and runs through the assembled mob towards Gretchen; Mephisto gleefully grants Faust his wish and it is as an old man that Faust throws himself onto the fire to be with his beloved.
Gretchen recognizes Faust and sees him in her heart as a young man again as the fire consumes them together. The angel reveals to Mephisto that he has lost the bet because love has triumphed over all.
Cast
- Gösta EkmanGösta Ekman (senior)Gösta Ekman, Sr. , born Frans Gösta Viktor Ekman, was a Swedish actor. Generally spoken of as Swedish theatre's most legendary stage actor, Gösta Ekman enjoyed a prolific stage career during his short life, becoming the first real star of Swedish theatre...
- Faust - Emil JanningsEmil JanningsEmil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
- Mephisto - Camilla HornCamilla HornCamilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She starred in several Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.-Biography:...
- Gretchen - Frida Richard - Gretchen's mother
- William DieterleWilliam DieterleWilliam Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
- Valentin - Yvette GuilbertYvette GuilbertYvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque.-Biography:...
- Marthe Schwerdtlein - Eric Barclay - Duke of Parma
- Hanna RalphHanna RalphHanna Ralph was a German stage and film actress whose career began on the stage and in silent film in the 1910s and continued through the early 1950s.-Career:...
- Duchess of Parma - Werner Fuetterer - Archangel
- Anderhusan von Arteblach - Gretchen's aunt
Production history
Murnau's Faust was the most complex and expensive production undertaken by UFA. Filming took six months and a cost of 2 million marks (only half was recovered at the box office), until it was surpassed by MetropolisMetropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
the following year. According to film historians Faust seriously impacted studio shooting and special effects techniques. Murnau uses two cameras, both filming multiple shots; many scenes were filmed time and again. As an example, a short sequence of the contract being written on parchment in fire took an entire day to film.
Variant cuts
There were several versions created of Faust, several of them prepared by Murnau himself. The versions are quite different from one another. Some scenes have variants on pace, others have actors with different costumes and some use different camera angles. For example, a scene with a bear was shot with both a person in costume and an actual bear. In some versions, the bear simply stands there. In one version, it actually strikes an actor.Overall, five versions of Faust are known to exist out of the over thirty copies found across the globe: a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
original version (of which the only surviving copy is in the Danish Film Institute
Danish Film Institute
The Danish Film Institute is the national Danish agency responsible for supporting and encouraging film and cinema culture, and for conserving these in the national interest....
), a French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
version, a late German version which exists in two copies, a bilingual version for Europe prepared by UFA
UFA
Ufa is a city in Russia.UFA or Ufa may also refer to:*Ufa River, a river in Russia*Ufa, Ethiopia, a town in Ethiopia*Ultra flat architecture, a network architecture design for LTE 4G mobile telecommunication networks...
, and a version prepared by Murnau himself for MGM and the US market (July 1926).
Restoration and versions known to exist
The copy of the original German version lacks a number of scenes. With the copies available, a 106-minute reconstructed version has gotten released by Kino InternationalKino International
Kino International is a film and video distributor, founded by Bill Pence in 1977. Donald Krim bought Kino just months after its founding and served as president of the company until his death from cancer in 2011. Kino, based in New York City, specializes in art house films, such as low-budget...
with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
subtitles on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. A commentary is also an optional extra on the DVD. The original intertitles have also been recovered.
The US version includes titles and scenes filmed especially by Murnau, where for example the scene in which Aunt Marthe offers Mephisto a drink that he rejects as causing heartburn: in the US version, Mephisto rejects the drink for having had alcohol, a joke aimed at the Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
era; again in the US version, Mephisto offers Marta a necklace, from the Great Khan
Khan (title)
Khan is an originally Altaic and subsequently Central Asian title for a sovereign or military ruler, widely used by medieval nomadic Turko-Mongol tribes living to the north of China. 'Khan' is also seen as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289...
of the Tartars, rather than the cousin from Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, as Murnau believed the US audience would not have heard of Lombardy. One scene was done with a text juxtaposition, as again, Murnau believed the American audience wouldn't grasp the imagery by itself. This is also the only version having the originally conceived finale of the ascension of Faust and Gretchen into Heaven. In all others, the scene is rather more conceptual. Books appearing in the film were labeled or any plans with text were shot twice, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
The bilingual version was prepared to be shown aboard trans-Atlantic ships traveling from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Therefore, they catered to both American and German audiences.
The French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
version is generally believed to represent the poorest choice of scenes, both including the largest number of filming errors (e.g., showing assistants holding doors, actors slipping, Gretchen stepping on her dress, show the stage maquette). It does hold takes that do not exist in any other versions, however.
Legacy
The "Bald Mountain" scene served as the inspiration for the "Night on Bald MountainNight on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later and very popular "fantasy for orchestra" arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain , based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision...
" sequence in Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's 1940 animated film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
.
Sources
- Eisner, Lotte H.Lotte H. EisnerLotte H. Eisner was a French-German film critic, historian, writer and poet.She was born Lotte Henriette Eisner in Berlin as a daughter of a Jewish merchant...
. Murnau, (A Shadows book), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973, ISBN 978-0520024250.
External links
- Interview with Stan Ambrose
- Faust at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
- Faust on YoutubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- DVD review by Gary Johnson