52 Pick-Up #45 – Faust (1926)

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...sorry, guys. I tried to figure out some way to do a gimmicky start for this about the fact this is a silent movie, but the fact this is a text-based medium really doesn't lend itself well to that.

I mean, I suppose I COULD just put this whole write up in a series of image text cards, but I feel like that is just tempting fate here.

So, without further preamble, welcome back to 52 Pick-Up, my year long project to whittle down my cinematic to do list while writing impressions on the first time picks. I'm hitting two firsts for the project with this, albeit two that go somewhat hand in hand: the first silent movie picked as well as the first movie in this lineup to hit triple digits in age. It's the literary adaptation that didn't land F.W. Murnau in legal trouble, this time with his adaptation of Faust.

This is one where it feels sort of weird to do the pitch – after all, the core story of Faust is so well known there's a literal trope named after it. At the same time, there's enough variation in the tellings I should get some of the details for this version.

Murnau starts his in a heavenly tableau as Mephisto sets out to unleash wrath upon the world. His plans are stymied by an archangel intervening. Taking a page from his Book of Job days, Mephisto turns this into a wager – if he can corrupt the soul of a righteous man, then he gets free reign over Earth. Wasting no time, Mephisto sets his on learned alchemist Faust, first by offering him knowledge in the face of a plague (that he happened to unleash) and later in temptations of youth and love.

So, I will start this one by falling a bit on my own sword here – I came into this movie with some expectations from how I'd seen it presented elsewhere that were only half correct. Much of what I was expecting was built around the first half of the movie, with its more expressionistic imagery and the more explicit bargaining with the devil. I'm not going to come down hard on the second half for not being what I expected, and I did keep an open mind, but as I did have some criticisms of the back half, I did want to just put that up front.

But, to start this on a positive note, one thing I will give this movie right from the jump – Murnau's visual eye here is as strong as it was on his earlier Nosferatu. Between the movie's opening shots of the horsemen of War, Plague, and Famine riding forth to do Mephisto's work and the subsequent visual of Mephisto extending a wing over Faust's village to unleash disease and death, this movie's opening has some top notch effect work. Watching this part was actually giving me memories of recently rewatching Haxan and being impressed with what both of these movies did for visual style a century (in the case of Haxan, more) ago. The movie in general is largely worth the watch all around, but those visuals alone are a big justification.

As a story, this runs in two main pieces. The first, as referred above, being the plague story – where an aged Faust is tempted with the knowledge necessary to cure the plague. Of the two, this was honestly the one that hooked me more. Besides appreciating the darker visual style on display in this section, I liked how this one plays much more with the 'road to Hell is paved with good intentions' levels of manipulation and corruption. Mephisto lures Faust in the guise of altruism, promising he'll be able to help others, while conveniently leaving out the catches that come with taking on the powers of Hell.

The second story is where the movie loses some of its steam for me. In the most spoiler-free terms I can manage (hey, the movie is literally a century old, humor me,) the first act ends with Faust realizing his infernally gained knowledge suddenly has made him persona non grata among those whom he sought to save. Living in self-appointed exile, Mephisto instead offers him less lofty offerings – first youth, then decadent debauchery. This dulls the pain for a time before Faust decides he's tired of this and wants for home. This then leads his younger self into a romantic entanglement, with Mephisto happy to lob some figurative grenades into the works.

It's a good idea in general, and in the broad strokes, it does work well. The problem here for me is more in the pacing of the back half. We get several scenes like an extended sequence during Faust's spree of hedonism, as well as a later sequence between Mephisto and the mother of Faust's love interest that wind up feeling overly drawn out. The ideas behind them aren't awful, but in both cases, the scenes just keep going. In the first case, I'm at least a little more forgiving because it's still a major point for the film. The latter feels more like it's there for comedic relief after a point as it just becomes Mephisto and the mother getting up to hijinks while Faust is romancing her daughter. If it was more in line with Mephisto setting the stage for the tragedy to come, I'd have been more open to it. As it was, it just left me thinking the movie could have been tightened up.

Overall though, not too bad. That I can say I've seen better silent films, both in general and from Murnau, is more a testament to those other movies than a knock on Faust. As it is, there is still a good amount of this that makes an engaging watch, and once you get past those particular drawn out sequences, the finish of the movie still makes for a good payoff.

This also has me realizing I should probably look further into the larger cultural history behind the Faust legend, but that's a story for another day. For now, November keeps rolling.

For what it's worth though, I'm gonna be keeping it spiritual in the week ahead, albeit in a much more modern vein. Next week I'm jumping ahead 90 years for one of the passion projects of Martin Scorsese, Silence.

Till then.