Faust (1926)

The famous German folk legend of Faust has constantly been adapted in the arts from opera to play to ballet to cinema. F.W. Murnau’s silent film is the best film adaptation to date. Even today, it’s quite stunning and one can only imagine what 1926 audiences felt upon watching the audacious images on the screen: Mephistopheles (Emil Jannings) hovering over a village before he strikes it with the plague, Faust (Gosta Ekman) and the Devil soaring over the German countryside on a satanic cloak, the fancy dress ball with white elephants, etc. Quite daring too as when a middle aged woman (Yvette Guilbert) drinks a devil’s potion and literally gets a “fire down below” as she gets sexually aroused. Jannings’ Mephistopheles may get a bit hammy at times (he flicks his tongue like a snake) but his is a devil with humor as well as evil. Alas, the last 20 minutes or so are pretty stagnant. Camilla Horn is the beauty who pierces Faust’s heart.