Faust

Murnau's version of the story of the man who sold his soul to the Devil (Jannings) in return for youth is visually extraordinary but dismally uneven in terms of its dramatic effect. Certainly, its opening scenes (the prologue between an Angel and Satan, and the temptation of Faust, after which Mephistopheles takes him on an astonishing, beautiful journey through the skies) easily hold the attention, but a long, tedious central section, portraying in farcical detail Faust's courtship of Marguerite, sits awkwardly with what has preceded it. The finale finds Murnau returning to form, but too late: one is left merely marvelling at the way he and cameraman Carl Hoffman have imitated the old Dutch, German and Italian masters, and the German romanticists.