Faust (F.W. Murnau, 1926)
When Faust summons the dark lord to appear, after the burst of wind and lightening and a harrowing ghostly chariot crashes to the earth, the scene stills and Faust realizes his effort was not unheard. Ashamed and afraid, he tries to run from Mephisto only to find him again at each place he flees. This is one of the most frightening images from Faust, and the one that I think of most when I consider the movie.
Murnau clearly had the full resources of UFA Studios behind him and the desire to give the fantastic story a gloriously expressionistic telling. His use of sets, costumes, lighting were extraordinary. Though Murnau is making his epic, he is not afraid of small things. The small gesture seen above, Mephisto's tipping of the cap, is a sign of friendship that bodes ominous because we know who he is and Faust is already beginning to regret his summons. Emil Jannings played Mephisto and is one of the great silent film actors, imbuing Mephisto with both strength and ambiguity. Not surprisingly, the film is full of startling and memorable images that could stand alone as great artistic achievements. I just picked one among many.
When I was in film school I forced myself to catch up on a bunch of canonical classic movies I had missed. This eventually lead to me watching Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927) which led to me discovering Faust. It was my first off-canon jump into silent cinema, the movie Murnau made before he left Germany for Hollywood. It was bold and gothic and frightening. I loved it. Faust taught me that beyond the film canon of commonly held "greatest films", there lurks a whole world of cinema that may be on the exact same plane, just unheralded.
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