F.W. Murnau may have made a greater film in Sunrise, but there is perhaps no greater image in his filmography than that of the demon Mephisto (Emil Jannings), at the beginning of Faust, towering over a medieval city, black wings blotting out the sky. This take on the German legend—the archetypal “making a deal with the devil” narrative—continually astonishes in its use of practical and in-camera effects to conjure haunting images, some as thrilling as Mephisto riding a flying steed through thunderous skies and others as tragic as a mother and infant freezing into stillness during a snowstorm. There may be a visual lull during the sequences of Faust (Gosta Ekman), having bartered for power and youth, frolicking after a woman he has targeted, yet even there Jannings and Yvette Guilbert provide comic relief as Mephisto indulges in his own desires with the woman’s randy aunt. As the story scales back up to metaphysical proportions, the happy ending may seem to come too quickly and easily, yet if you read Faust as a variation on the biblical Book of Job, it registers as one of the cinema’s most indelible visions of cosmic grace.
(10/29/2026)
