Of Faust’s dozens of memorable images, big and small, comic and tragic, harrowing and absurd, it is for me the looming, bat-winged shadow of Mephisto over a medieval town that means the most. In terms of plot, this is the moment when the king of demons (Emil Jannings) unleashes Plague upon the town; a scourge intended to be so virulent that it will drive the town’s foremost wiseman, Faust (Gösta Ekman) to bargain with the Devil for help. This is really Mephisto’s game to lose. If Mephisto can corrupt Faust (so claims his angelic opposite number), then the Earth is his.
From an aesthetic standpoint, however, it is this scene which establishes director F.W. Murnau’s vision for Faust: An overly-dramatic, excessively costumed being, impressing its will over what appears to be toy buildings—a scene of almost impudent fakery. So obvious is the artifice in Faust that I doubt it will wholly draw you in—it never has me, with the exception of a single scene late, late in the film. But Murnau does entrap us, in a way. Through the tricks of his craft, he takes an operatic tale and buries it in a dismal, soundless basement, and us with it. His Faust is a claustrophobic experience, even by Expressionist standards.
