Film Information

RESTORED DELUXE EDITION

Mobilizing the full resources of the Ufa Studios, F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Sunrise) orchestrated a colossal adaptation of Goethe’s FAUST that ranks alongside Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as the greatest achievement of the German silent cinema.

Gösta Ekman stars as the titular alchemist who, struggling with his faith amidst a devastating plague, is offered the power to cure and the gift of youth...in exchange for his soul.  As the diabolical Mephisto, Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh) delivers a performance of operatic scale and intensity, by turns charming, comical, and horrific.

This special Kino edition contains the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation’s meticulous restoration of the original German version of the film (with unique hand-painted intertitles), as well as a lengthier alternate cut prepared by the Ufa Studios in 1930.

FAUST: Eine deutsche Volkssage
Germany   1926   106 Min.   B&W   1.33:1
Directed by F.W. Murnau  
From the play by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Produced by Erich Pommer   
Photographed by Carl Hoffmann
With Emil Jannings, Gösta Ekman, Camilla Horn, Wilhelm Dieterle
Score compiled from historic photoplay music by
The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
C Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden     
Music C and P 2009 Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

Previous U.S. Release Version   116 Min.   B&W   1.33:1
Music composed and conducted by Timothy Brock   
Performed by The Olympia Chamber Orchestra
Produced for video by David Shepard
C Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden     
Music C 1995 Timothy Brock

"One of the most astonishing visual experiences the silent film has to offer." - Dave Kehr, The New York Times

"Murnau extracts the essence of Goethe’s poetic masterwork through the strength of his images...Such astonishingly vast visual conceits as the Devil covering a town with his wings and spewing gas to spread the plague, or the final transfiguration of the martyred lovers, suggest an artistic imagination that isn’t merely adaptive but even rivals Goethe’s own." -Richard Brody, The New Yorker

• Two-DVD edition featuring the restored German version (with optional English subtitles) and the previous U.S. release version
•  “The Language of Shadows: Faust,” a 53-minute documentary on the making of Murnau’s film
• New musical score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra in 5.1 Stereo Surround or 2.0 Stereo
• The lost screen test footage of Ernst Lubitsch’s abandoned 1923 production Marguerite and Faust.
• Image Gallery
• Essay by film historian Jan Christopher Horak