Faust

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Alec B Every shot in the movie (even the title cards) is unbelievably beautiful. A work of exquisite craftsmanship and about as close to pure cinema as one could ever get. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/21/24 Full Review Miguel Ángel P Great film. Best sound track. Without doubt one of the best film in the history. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/05/24 Full Review Killian M A good enough silent horror movie with a story that could be done great justice in a modern setting. It just suffers what a small portion of silent movies do by having us read paragraphs at a time. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/13/24 Full Review Matthew B F W Murnau was one of the most talented directors of the silent era, and he had a gift for putting images on the screen that still look breathtaking and remarkable today. In fact the movies of Murnau were far in advance of many early talkies, which were handicapped by the need to soundproof noisy cameras. He was able to create a visual spectacle that is just as captivating today as it was then. There is a kind of wizardry about the best silent moves – the ability to use the most basic of methods to make something extraordinary. Perhaps the very limitations of the films actually helped make them more convincing. When you watch a silent movie, you are never in doubt that you are watching a film. The images may be grainy or flickering. The movement of the images may be jumpy. There is no sound but music. Actors talk and yet we hear no words. Occasionally an intertitle flashes on the screen to tell us something that they said. This is in contrast to movies ever since. The images on the screen have become clearer, the special effects have become more sophisticated, the dialogue is audible. It is possible to lose oneself in the film and treat it as reality. As a result, the moviemaker cannot afford to use sets, props or effects that look too phoney, as they break the viewer's suspension of disbelief. Murnau did not have this problem, because the silent movie is by its nature dream-like and unreal. When Murnau shows Faust and Mephisto flying amidst dark and looming clouds, passing by peculiar birds that look almost like pterodactyls, the director can use models of houses, mountains, rivers and waterfalls below the actors, and we accept the illusion. In other scenes, we do not mind that flames are being created by burners, or that fans are being used to make the characters' cloaks billow in the wind. The image still convinces. Sometimes it is remarkable to wonder how the visual trickery was achieved. Images are superimposed on the screen. The devil is seen looming over the earth, dwarfing the entire town. Mephisto draws up a diabolical pact for Faust to sign, and we see glowing words appear slowly on the scroll, a scene which took an entire day to film. In any case, the film embraces opportunities for looking artificial. Houses are crooked, camera shots are slanted, and parts of the screen are darkened so that we are only allowed to focus on the part of the image that Murnau considers to be important. The movie uses religious language and representations, but perhaps we could see it more simply as being about the conflict between the nobler and darker sides of human nature, a central theme in Sunrise too. The archangel and demon are on one level the outer representations of an inner psychological struggle in the personality of Faust, and it is one that we too are fighting inside ourselves. I wrote a longer appreciation of Faust on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/faust-1926/ Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/24/23 Full Review Audience Member This could have been five stars if they had a margarine dukey 2022 cameo in it. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/13/23 Full Review Michael M F.W. Murnau's Faust is a visually-stunning adaptation of the German folktale which falls among the director's best. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/01/22 Full Review Read all reviews

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