Faust (1926)

Saw Faust (1926), directed by F W Murnau.  It was spectacular and bold and unfortunately exhausted my short attention span fairly early.  It follows the famous Faust who sells his soul to semi-demon Mephisto in exchange for knowledge and power.  Mephisto torments him on earth by giving him his every desire, usually an excess of what he wanted or in some way that screws him, monkey-pawing him in some diabolical way to spoil Faust's happiness.

The film has two main acts: everything leading up to the signing of the contract, and then the aftermath.  Up to the contract signing, everything is just eye-popping.  We open on an angel and Mephisto fighting in heaven.  There's a scene where Mephisto appears in the sky above a German village, his spreading cloak symbolizing the plague spreading through the town!  Faust gazes helplessly, his cloud of hair back-lit, an ostrich egg staring forth from a snowy nest of beard and hair.  It's all amazing!  And to say nothing of the special effects!  There's a scene where the contract appears, written in flaming letters.  If it were filmed today, I'd assume computers were involved - I have no idea how they managed it back in 1926!

Alas, once the contract is signed, the film crystalizes a little bit into a doomed romance between Faust and Gretchen.  In some versions of this story, Gretchen is an angel in disguise who saves Faust in the end, but here she's just a lovely lass from his home town.  While they're falling in love, Mephisto engages in some "humorous" business with the town love-potion-lady.  It's all very droll and Greek-theater-style comical servants.  I never found that crap funny and don't here.  I am a grump.

Unfortunately, I feel I failed this film a bit.  It's very well made and packed full of crazy visuals.  The Mephisto character outright steals every scene he's in, but I started falling asleep mid-way through the film.  This always happens to me with silent movies and I'm not sure why.  I think the lack of dialogue makes it harder for me to pay attention or something.  Anyway, this is a fun film to watch, just see it in the morning!