Faust/Faust – Eine Deutsche Volkssage (1926) - Murnau's grand, religious, Germanic folktale adaptation

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An original, Gothic-styled, chilling poster for F.W. Murnau's Faust

Faust, an old alchemist, who is attempting to make gold, becomes the object of a bet between God and Satan: If the devil can corrupt Faust, he is entitled to everything!

Faust is written by Gerhart Hauptmann (Der Biberpelz (1971), TV movie) and Hans Kyser (Arabella/Arabella. Der Roman eines Pferdes (1924)), based on the legendary Faust tale and on Johann Wofgang von Goethe's (The Sorcerer's Apprentice/Der Zauberlehrling (1797), poem) same-titled two-part play (1808; 1832), and directed by German master filmmaker F.W. Murnau (Tartuffe/Herr Tartüff (1925)).
As the plague sweeps across his town, Faust welcomes the devil's messenger, Mephisto, - in the grotesquely overacting, menacing figure of Emil Jannings (Husbands or Lovers/Nju - Eine Unverstandene Frau (1924)), - and later he fully enters a pact to reclaim his youth. SPOILER Contrary to the original ending of the myth, here God is in the end proved right, because the devil doesn't know of ... Liebe! [love] This provides a fine and moving ending that has a grandeur about it that matches the rest of the film's.
Faust is most impressive because of its striking images, compositions and lighting, (cinematography by Carl Hoffmann (The Girl from Fano/Das Mädchen von Fanö (1941))); its sets, costumes and effects, (among them are Faust and Mephisto's flying on the latter's cape to Italy!), and its iconography, as is also apparent in the photos from the film below.

 

Related post:

 

Top 10: Best German movies

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 2 mil. marks, different sources determine this to have been approximately 0.47 - 0.9 mil. $ at the time - a very substantial budget at the time
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain - but reportedly the film recouped only half of its costs in admissions, which would decidedly suggest that it was a huge flop
[Faust was first released 20 September (in Denmark!) and runs 106 minutes, - though running times may vary from version to version, as at least 5 versions of the film have been located. Murnau was not initially meant to direct the film, but after he - with Janning's backup - sought the job, he got it. And due to his success with The Last Laugh/Der Letzte Mann (1924), he was given a reportedly unlimited budget. Kyser's first script was reportedly so disliked by the studio that they hired Hauptmann, whose script was even less liked, and Kyser's was reportedly the one finally used. Filming lasted 6 months in UFA's Berlin studio, where Murnau challenged convention with two cameras filming simultaneously and innovative detail and effects orientation. The details surrounding the film's theatrical performance are not known. Murnau had relocated to Hollywood, when the film came out in Germany, and he was already busy making his first film there, Sunrise/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). Jannings returned in The Way of All Flesh (1927), also in Hollywood, now a lost film. Roger Ebert has given Faust a 4/4 review, translating to two notches better than this one. A version of the film has entered the public domain and can be seen and downloaded free and legally here. Faust is fresh at 94 % with an 8.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Faust?

The Blue Angel/Der Blaue Engel (1930) or, A Man's Downfall

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Marlene Dietrich was made a star by the film, and Emil Jannings ended his time as a star after Joseph von Sternberg's Der Blaue Engel

QUICK REVIEW:

We are in a German provincial town, where we follow a high-school teacher, who, - in an attempt to correct his students, - strays into the men's club Der Blaue Engel, where the beautiful Lola Lola sings and dances. The quaint, bespectacled man's downfall from then on is one of film history's hardest, most profoundly sad tragedies. The current IMDb-review's caption for the film is, 'Humiliation, Degradation, Despair', and it seems a fitting one. Engel is a truly bleak film.
The teacher is grippingly portrayed by the great, German actor Emil Jannings, who won the Best Actor Oscar in 1929 for his performances in The Last Command (1928) and The Way of All Flesh (1927), but later did Nazi-propaganda and was an active Nazi himself.
Marlene Dietrich (Touch of Evil (1958)) achieved international stardom with her part as the depraved whore Lola Lola, whom she plays and sings with great feeling and authenticity.
The film is reportedly the first, major German sound picture, and it was shot simultaneously in German and English for commercial purposes. The English version is the least viewed of the two, and I'm glad that I didn't see the wonderful actors struggle with the foreign tongue, when I saw it.
Visually, with photography by Günther Rittau (Metropolis (1927)), Engel is underplayed, unsensational in often sneakily long shots, ending in the SPOILER almost traumatizing clown performance and the clown's final return to his empty classroom. Alas and alack, by that time the film has pierced your heart through and through seven ways from Friday.
Austrian-Hungarian director Joseph von Sternberg (Dishonored (1931)) left Germany permanently, as so many of his other great colleagues at the time, after Der Blaue Engel, because of the hostile climate there. He carried on a long affair with Dietrich, cast her in 6 of his films in all and got divorced from his wife because of her.
The film was remade in Hollywood in 1959 by Edward Dmytryk, but there seems to be little reason to look up this version.

Related posts:

Top 10: Best German movies
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

The inimitable Emil Jannings towards the tragic end of Der Blaue Engel

Watch the lengthy, original trailer for the must-watch here, (unfortunately in unsubtitled German)

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of Der Blaue Engel?
Any other similarly harsh tragedies from the era that you can recommend?