The Austin Film Society will be screening Faust at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
In the annals of German expressionism, there is Fritz Lang and then there is F.W. Murnau, perhaps a director even less beholden to some form of naturalism than Lang and certainly a precursor to his success.
The AFS continues its series The Great Escape – Three European Emigré Filmmakers with Murnau’s 1926 adaptation of J.W. Goethe’s timeless play, Faust. In a small German town racked by pestilence, Dr. Faust, an alchemist, fails to save the life of a woman, making him desperate enough to entertain the diabolical advances of Mephisto. The Dark Lord has inundated Faust’s town with the plague and now offers him a chance to synthesize a cure. The doctor complies, but his altruism gives way to avarice, as he yearns for youth, lust, wealth, power, and the love of a maiden named Gretchen, all for the cost of his soul. It’s a cautionary tale whose resonance continues to this day, and Murnau, utilizing optical effects and the expressionistic sets and compositions he was known for, has the visual verve needed for the story of God against the Devil for one man’s soul.
Check the AFS website for more information.
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