3 Faust (1926)
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Gosta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Eric Barclay, Wilhelm Dieterle
DVD Info
Release:
Jun 5, 2001
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- Keep Case
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- Digital Stereo - Orchestral Score
- Featurette - 1. "UFA Studios 1925: The Making of FAUST"
Interactive Features:
- Scene Access
- Interactive Menus
Text/Photo Galleries:
- Essay by Film Historian Jan Christopher Horak
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Reviews
Revisits the German legend of Dr. Faustus with an amazing use of expressionistic visuals.
This extraordinary piece of artistry and craftsmanship integrates its dazzling special effects so seamlessly that they're indistinguishable from the film's narrative, poetry, and, above all, metaphysics.
As atmospheric and menacing a work as the expressionist movement ever produced.
Faust an extremely stylish horror fantasy in the best tradition of German silent cinema, featuring brilliant photography, magnificent art direction, and magical special effects which still have the power to amaze.
Films from the German Expressionism era are famous for their fiercely stylized mise-en-scene, and to Murnau the medium's very artificiality provided the keys to locating its truths.
Here is a picture which is as far removed from the ordinary movie as a Tintoretto painting.
Murnau's version of the story of the man who sold his soul to the Devil (Jannings) in return for youth is visually extraordinary but dismally uneven in terms of its dramatic effect.
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.
Still a classic example of eye-popping excess at a time when German filmmakers were among the most innovative in the world.
A masterpiece of expressionistic filmmaking, a silent classic that is unfortunately deeply flawed by a maudlin second act.


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