A real miracle that brings this film back to life. 1926 in Germany produced many prodigies. Murnau chose to go back to the old traditional legend, hence to ignore Goethe's double drama and all the subsequent romantic or melodramatic adaptations in the 19th century. He also decided to ignore Marlowe's adaptation from 16th century England. He simplified the traditional tale and only had one simple episode of travelling through time, in this case to some Italian noble beauty that Faust rapes under the influence of some magic. Murnau chose to concentrate on the tale of Gretchen in the second part of the film (which had started with the plague, of course the Black Death) after this Italian trip with elephants and black slaves. He makes it romantic and intense in feeling, though all that feeling is nothing but the result of diabolical magic. Mephistopheles seduces the mother while Faust seduces Gretchen. Mephistopheles also keeps the brother away long enough for Faust to succeed in his seduction. But then Mephistopheles gets on his own route since Faust must be damned for him to recuperate his soul. He gets the brother back to the house in time to find the seducer in his sister's room, but after the mother had found him in the room too and had died of the traumatic shock. Faust kills the brother in the fight that follows. The sister will be then put in the blocks but not executed for fornication. But the winter comes and her baby is born. In the cold and the snow the baby will die of exposure. She will be accused of having killed the baby and then sentenced to burn at the stake. And here Murnau regenerates the tale by making Faust truly in love and coming back to see Gretchen again. He runs in the crowd to be on her passage when she is led to the stake. Mephistopheles makes him old again just when he stands in front of her begging for forgiveness. He is pushed away, unrecognized. She is tied to the stake and set afire. He jumps onto the pyre and into the fire and she sees through his age the young Faust she had been in love with. They die together at the stake. And that brings the final salvation because Faust was not moved by lust only but by real love that made him sacrifice his life, and Gretchen was also moved by love since she was able to recognize the young Faust in the old one, hence to see beyond appearances. The end then is the rejection of Mephistopheles' request to get Faust's soul by God's angel whose wings are wide open in the shape of an enormous heart. Apart from this touching and intense tale, the film is of course marvelously well directed and shot and Murnau chooses too to keep the old framing technique that was natural with the old camera, the picture is systematically fuzzy all around. Today this produces some kind of dreamlike feeling. The music of the DVD is also quite fascinating, in both versions of it, only a harp or a full symphonic orchestra. We must be more than plain grateful when we see all these old films that find a new youth and glory thanks to the DVD.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines