Faust is a tragedy drawn in magnificent images like paintings in light and shadow and is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful of Murnau's German films.
FAUST (1926)
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Reviews Counted:18
Fresh:17
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.3/10
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Murnau's FAUST stars the inimitable Emil Jannings as Mephistopheles, to whom the hapless and aging Faust sells his soul for renewed youth as well as wealth and power. Based on Goethe's... Murnau's FAUST stars the inimitable Emil Jannings as Mephistopheles, to whom the hapless and aging Faust sells his soul for renewed youth as well as wealth and power. Based on Goethe's interpretation of the age old legend, Murnau merely uses the story as a starting point for an incredibly phantasmagoric vision of the struggle between good and evil. Beginning with a flourish, Murnau introduces Mephistopheles with one of the most famous sequences in film history, finding Jannings being birthed as a disgusting, primordial creature from the heavens and banished to the netherworld. Baroque, bizarre, and unforgettable, FAUST is one of the German master's greatest triumphs. Silent movie with English and German subtitles. The Kino version is restored with a symphonic soundtrack. [More]
Starring: Gosta Ekman, Emil Jannings, William Dieterle, Camilla Horn
Starring: Gosta Ekman, Emil Jannings, William Dieterle, Camilla Horn, Eric Barclay
Director: F.W. Murnau
Director: F.W. Murnau
Screenwriter: Hans Kyser
Producer: Erich Pommer
Composer: Timothy Brock
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Reviews for FAUST
A great work by a great director, and one of the most instantly accessible silent films ever made.
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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