Fresh from the triumphant releases of Nosferatu and The Last Laugh, F. W. Murnau was given carte blanche to direct this epic fable of the supernatural. Freed from the burden of plausibility by the story's fantastic premise, Murnau summoned forth a tempest of cinematic brimstone so that every scene ripples with reckless ingenuity. Utilizing the full resources of the UFA Studios (including elaborate miniature models and experimental special effects), Faust captures the intensity of a medieval universe steeped in religious fanaticism and pagan alchemy. Black-hooded pallbearers lead a torchlit procession through a plague-stricken village literally cloaked by the wings of Satan. Crowded landscapes materialize and vanish in wisps of smoke, demonic cratures soar through the heavens and earthly beings are tormented by the vaporous spirits that permeate the dungeon-like homes and Caligari-esque rooftops of this shadow world. In the eye of this infernal maelstrom is the great Emil Jannings (The Blue Angel, Othello), who sets off the film's sound and fury with a diabolically engaging performance, making Faust "a radiant jewel...a masterpiece." (The New York Times)

"A masterpiece. It inspires with its wealth of imagination, its shadows and soft lights, its astounding camera feats and its admirable portrayals." -- New York Times

* ABOUT MURNAU'S FAUST *

Murnau is a master of subtlety - in his films the smallest gesture can communicate many ideas. Faust may be his least subtle film - one that builds its power through large quick strokes but nonetheless maintains the kind of intimacy with its characters that his other later films do.

Faust is part Goethe and part Marlowe, shot through with Murnau. It features an international cast, with a Swedish Faust and a German Mephisto, Emil Jannings.

The film begins with the forces of the prince of darkness riding across the sky. The prince of peace, a flaming-haired angel with enormous wings, wagers the world with the prince of darkness, Mephisto. The locus of the wager is Faust, an alchemist, a scholar. Mephisto covers Faust's city with a dark cloud of plague, and in his frustration over his inability to heal his fellow citizens, Faust hurls his books into the fire and calls upon the assistance of the prince of darkness. Jannings' portrayal of Mephisto, particularly his giant form looming over Faust's city, was the inspiration for the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence in Walt Disney's Fantasia

Through Mephisto, Faust recaptures his youth and an assistant, the trickster of tricksters himself. Both Faust and Mephisto are young men as Faust wishes for a home and is transported to the village in which Margarethe lives with her mother and brother, on leave from the army. Faust falls in love with her, but with trick upon trick Mephisto turns a sun-drenched love story into tragedy that encompasses a merciless winter storm and a burning at the stake.

At the center of the film is the parallel wooing of Margarethe by Faust and Mephisto by Margarethe's Aunt Marthe. Mephisto and Marthe provide broad comedy to contrast with the earnestness of Faust's pursuit of Margarethe. Later, Martha is just as merciless as Mephisto, rejecting Margarethe when the rest of her village does.

This center of the film is perfectly framed by much darker sequences involving Faust and Margarethe alone. The first third of the film follows the trials and fall of Faust, while the last third shows what happens to Margarethe after the tragedy that strikes her as a consequence of her love for Faust.

This sequence of Margarethe is to me the most powerful part of the film. She wanders alone through a biting winter storm, clutching her dying baby, all she has left of her relationship with Faust. Camilla Horn gives the performance of her career here (two years later she would co-star with John Barrymore in Tempest before returning to Germany) in a role originally intended for Lillian Gish. Horn's ability to transform her entire body from exhilaration to a kind of stalking misery in which she looks like a moving mannequin is akin to Gish's performance in Broken Blossoms, or Jannings' in The Last Laugh.

Murnau paints the story with one of his largest palettes. The film's swirling clouds of special effects evil frame the painterly intimacy in its middle. Faust was Murnau's last German film, and provides a strong bridge to take him from the stylization of expressionism that informed his early films to the stylized realism of his work in America.

"The greatest master of horror in the silent era was a cheerful man, much loved by his collaborators, even though they might lose consciousness from time to time while enveloped in clouds of steam or surrounded by tongues of flame. F.W. Murnau (1888-1931) made two of the greatest films of the supernatural, "Nosferatu" (1922) and "Faust" (1926), both voted among the best horror films of all time on the Internet Movie Database: "Faust" surprisingly in fourth place, just ahead of "The Shining," "Jaws" and "Alien."

Murnau had a bold visual imagination, distinctive even during the era of German Expressionism with its skewed perspectives and twisted rooms and stairs. He painted with light and shadow, sometimes complaining to his loyal cameraman, Carl Hoffmann, that he could see too much -- that all should be obscured except the focus of a scene. "Faust," with its supernatural vistas of heaven and hell, is particularly distinctive in the way it uses the whole canvas.... "  --Roger Ebert 

* ABOUT CUL DE SAC *

Cul de Sac formed in 1990 in boston, massachusetts, taking their name from a Roman Polanski film. Led by guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Glenn Jones, Cul de Sac's music is primarily instrumental - although vocals from Boston folk legend Dredd Foole graced the bands debut album - drawing inspiration from sources such as 1960s psychedelia, surf-rock, Middle Eastern folk music, krautrock, John Fahey and "american primitive folk music," free jazz, and the more industrial elements of the avant-garde.

Cul de Sac have been classified by many as a post-rock band - the term was coined for group by writer Simon Reynolds for the music of bands like Cul de Sac, Stereolab, and Bark Psychosis - but Jones has expressed some discomfort with the term, preferring that Cul de Sac's music be viewed on its own terms, rather than as part of a specific genre. Nevertheless, Simon Reynold's own description describes post-rock as "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and powerchords," a description that applies well to Cul de Sac, albeit more to a way of approaching music than to a particular style.

Jones has stated that Cul de Sac is the most "musically satisfying" group he's been involved with, a group that is the "closest to being the band I'd dreamed of forming. It allows me to combine my love of open-tuned guitar, played fingerstyle, with my love for electronics and noise, all placed within a rhythmic rock framework."

Cul de Sac have collaborated with legendary guitarist John Fahey and with Can singer Damo Suzuki, caught the ears of Lou Reed, (". . . there's a group called Cul de Sac - very ambient, very cool." - Lou Reed, Interviewed in Mojo) and composed the soundtrack to the 2002 Roger Corman film "The Strangler's Wife."

In 2004, Cul de Sac accompanied Murnau's FAUST on a tour of Europe with critical acclaim and intense audience response (many patrons were left in tears by the emotional impact of the film enhanced by Cul de Sac's live musical treatment).