#faust 1926

Camilla Horn in Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage (1926)

Eugène Delacroix; “Faust and Mephistopheles” (c. 1827-28) // Ary Scheffer, “Faust in his Study” (c. 1840)

“Mephistophelian Laugh” is a reference to Mephistopheles' laugh, from the 1859 opera “Faust” by French composer, Charles Gounod, considered one of the world’s most popular operas from the mid-19th century until World War II. Adapted from the play “Faust et Marguerite” by Michel Carré, loosely inspired by 1808 “Faust: A Tragedy” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The “Mephistophelian Laugh” is a famous expression of demonic mockery, conveying power and malice, like the demon Mephistopheles throughout Gounod's “Faust” opera, when he has his way, and is closer to get Faust’s soul.

Goethe's “Faust” tells the tragic tale of an old scholar who becomes depressed and thinks of ending his life. The character of Faust is based on the legends surrounding 16th century German alchemist and magician Johann Georg Faust. Enter the demon Mephistopheles (or Mephisto), who wagers a bet with God that he can tempt Faust to commit evil acts, and gain his soul and service for all eternity.

01. Portrait of Jennie (William Dieterle, 1948) - 5/5, rewatch

Portrait of Jennie is such gorgeous, romantic, strange, fascinating movie. While director William Dieterle didn't become a director until after he arrived in Hollywood, he did work in the German film industry, making an independent film with other artists and acting in German Expressionist classics like Murnau's Faust and Leni's Waxworks. So while the blatant expressionist influence isn't as present as in the works of directors who worked in expressionism before coming to the US, like Murnau or Fritz Lang. But working in those films clearly had an influence, because so many of his films are completely unlike most of what you'd see from Hollywood. He made some incredibly unique love stories, using those more expressionistic techniques and ideas to give his love stories a certain darkness, while also infusing it all with an atmosphere that's almost devastatingly romantic. Portrait of Jennie is probably the best example of how effective that can be. This is a romance/ghost story/time travel/period piece sort of hybrid that offers no solid answers about what's happening and specifically how, but you kind of don't even notice or care. There's almost a note of Borzage here, with the feeling of the transcendent spirituality of love being the kind of motivating factor for it all. It's just an absolutely gorgeous film, incredibly romantic while also being deeply strange. It's absolutely one of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood.

02. Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953) - 5/5, rewatch

I am a big, big fan of Richard Widmark, and I think Pickup on South Street is my favorite of his movies. It's such a naked, barebones noir that absolutely utilizes plenty of the style and tropes of noir, but in a way that's a lot more grounded and less glossy than a lot of Hollywood noir. And it even kind of twists a lot of the common tropes noir would become known for. We've got a morally gray antihero, but the way he gets involved in the situation in question and the choices he makes are so unlike the typical noir antihero storyline. We've got a female lead who seems like she would be a pretty typical femme fatale, but she ends up being one of the most sympathetic and moral characters in the story. And as such, it also ends up being one of the most effective noir romances. This thing is also packed with great performances, from Widmark, using his rough, cynical charm to make us root for Skip even as we can see all his flaws and all the ways he's going wrong, to Jean Peters really giving the film its heart, as a decent woman in a terrible situation just trying to survive while also doing the right thing, to Oscar nominated Thelma Ritter in truly her finest performance, bringing warmth to it all in a fascinating way, and Richard Kelly as the intense bad guy, leaning far away from the a lot of the baddies we see in noir, instead giving us a weaselly and increasingly nervous and erratic villain. This is an excellent noir, one of the absolute best.

03. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) - rewatch, 5/5 (but it's been over 20 years since I watched it and barely remembered it, so how much is it really a rewatch in that case?)

What a beautiful, life affirming movie. I feel like this movie doesn't get discussed with the same reverence people used to talk about it with when I was a young film fan on the 2000s movie forums. Which is a shame. I think that sometimes when movies get talked up as being among the greatest of all time we can kind of end up rejecting them, or even just taking them for granted. But this movie deserves to be in the conversation of the all time greatest movies just as much now as it did back then. Yes, this is a movie about the importance and power of hope, but this is not the treacly, overly sentimental Oscar bait I think many people assume it is (if you want that, check out A Beautiful Mind, but it might bore you to death). There are parts of this movie that are tough to watch, and not because it feels like it's trying to shock us by the horror of it all. It feels like a very honest and organic part of the story, and a necessary part because it balances the hopeful message and helps you empathize with the characters and the things they feel. Morgan Freeman gets a lot of (very deserved) love for his performance, but I think Tim Robbins doesn't get enough attention for this role. I think this is his best performance. It's incredible.

04. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950) - 5/5, rewatch

I got to see this on the big screen last Sunday for the 75th anniversary, and even the woman sitting near me who literally could not go five minutes without making a comment to the man she was with (I started timing it) couldn't ruin what a great experience getting to see this in a theater was. This is one of the best "Hollywood makes movies about itself movies" there is, and especially to come out of the classic era. Which, believe it or not, was even more obsessed with making movie about itself than Hollywood is now. Billy Wilder was such a genius writer. Even when his films weren't comedies, they were smart and funny, with a certain amount of cynicism that gives them a tone that sets them apart from other movies in their genre. Gloria Swanson's performance is pretty legendary. I know people get really worked up about the Best Actress race for this year, with people usually being angry that either Swanson or Bette Davis for All About Eve didn't win. I don't really do that, I just think it was a pretty juggernaut year for that category and I think all of the performances are amazing and worthy of praise and awards. But Swanson's performance is something exceptional. I think in a similar was to Davis's performance in AAE, I think a lot of actresses from this time period would not have been willing to play these kinds of roles, that rely very much on the fact that they are older actresses in an industry that is not kind to women older than 35 (and like, that's at the oldest in most cases).

05. Faust (FW Murnau, 1926) - 5/5, rewatch

Murnau's Faust turns 100 next year, and it remains one of the best looking movies of all time. It takes German Expressionism and cranks it up to an amazingly fantastic degree. There are a lot of silent movies that maybe look cool or have cool effects, but that still look pretty janky just because of how old it is, but Faust doesn't have an ounce of jank to it. Which is wildly impressive considering just how many shots in this movie are either effects-based shots, or shots that are carefully designed to be super visually interesting. I'm not by any means an "all CGI is bad and ugly and movies shouldn't use it" person, but I do think Hollywood has an over-reliance on it that has led to them largely forgoing plenty of style impactful and viable non-CGI effect techniques that have in the past and still could make for some incredibly moments, and that, yes, in some cases, would look better than CGI. Faust really just stands as a testament to that, looking more interesting and just better than plenty of movie made today, even though it's almost a century old.

06. National Theatre Live: Best of Enemies (2020) 5/5, first viewing

James Graham's Best of Enemies is riveting from beginning to end. Zachary Quinto's Gore Vidal is charming and entertaining while also having something about him that's just a bit unlikeable, while David Harewood's William F. Buckley is almost the exact opposite. He comes off as uptight and arrogant, but there's still something about him that's easy to like. And of course, one of the primary themes of the play is that even with how glaringly different they are in so many ways, they're also so, so alike in so many others. And the actors capture that fantastic interplay between them, the battle for the upper hand as it passes back and forth between them, guiding the social mindset of the country even while both of them are at a place removed from most of it. That relationships is, obviously, the centerpiece of the play, the most fascinating thing, but it is surrounded by a lot more incredible interesting and deeply explored stuff about the state of political discourse in the world, the things that fuel it as that state becomes worse and worse, and how the people shaping it either don't have the people's best interests at heart, or they're so far removed from what normal life looks like for most people that it's hard to believe they really understand what anyone needs.

07. Heroes for Sale (William A. Wellman, 1933) - 5/5, rewatch

Considering how popular WWII is in film, going right back to pretty much as soon as it ended, I think people might be surprised to find how few films there really were about WWI and its fallout that were made between the wars. The few short years of the pre-code era is probably the window, or at least one of them, where we saw the most movies about the war, or focusing on characters in the aftermath. Which is understandable, both because having less restrictions during those years meant filmmakers could be more bold in how that depicted war or post-war stories, and because it was during the Great Depression, and a lot of the people who were struggling the most were out of work veterans. William A. Wellman's Heroes for Sale is a beautiful exploration of a life ravaged by war. We do spend some time with our main character as he serves, but most of this movie is focused on his life afterward, the trauma he struggles with, the addiction, the difficulties of finding work or staying employed, the way it impacts his relationships. It has an amazing central performance from Richard Barthelmess, and great supporting turns from Loretta Young and Aline McMahon.

08. Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) - 4.5/5, rewatch (yet again, another one that I had not seen in many, many, many years)

Many people feel that many of the murder mysteries David Fincher has made have an almost "cozy" feel to them. Well there's nothing cozy about Se7en, his first murder mystery. It's dark and angry, tinged with an undercurrent of sadness throughout, confronting us with horrifying tableaus of the ugliness humanity is capable of. There's so much loneliness and isolation, making it clear that human connection is something so badly needed, but never giving us the catharsis by bringing any connections that might have begun to true fruition. Morgan Freeman is more world weary here than ever, and Brad Pitt demonstrates why he dominated the 1990s. I believe I said in my review for Fight Club that I don't think we really appreciate these days just how good of an actor he is, and that the interesting choices he made and performances he gave really do demonstrate just how talented he is, that he didn't just get famous for being gorgeous and charismatic. Gwyneth Paltrow is also really good. She's only in a few scenes, but there's some complexity to her role, even how relatively small it is, and she really pulls it off. Above all, I think Se7en is really special in the way it behaves like your usual 1990s mystery thriller while refusing to take any of turns such a movie normally would.

09. Ella Cinders (Alfred E. Green, 1926) 4.5/5, rewatch

Ella Cinders is a contemporary Cinderella adaptation, with Colleen Moore as the title character, left to care for her awful stepmother and stepsisters after the death of her father. Rather than being saved by a fairy godmother and a prince, she enters a beauty contest to try to win a ticket to Hollywood. She's chosen the winner because the firemen running the contest think she's funny, and that Hollywood needs more funny women. But even that doesn't save her, because it turns out the beauty contest was a scam, so she has to save herself, hustling to find a job. This is one of my favorite updates to the Cinderella story. Colleen Moore was such a great comedic actress, so funny, and so likeable and charming and cute. It's such a great fit of actress and project, I really can't imagine anyone else in this role. This is such a funny movie, too. Some really great jokes and gags. It also has a pretty solid love story. This is one of the best comedies of the 1920s, in my opinion.

10. The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin, 2003) - 5/5, rewatch (again, I have not seen this since it came out 22 years ago)