Murnau’s “Faust” (1926) on 16mm film! With Live Music by Bradford Reed and Geoff Gersh!!

The tale of the brooding seeker of knowledge transformed to ebullient youth and the waggish attendant from the underworld who both aids and sabotages him in his quest to win the innocent lass has taken many guises. F. W. Murnau’s silent classic “Faust” (1926) remains one of the exemplary versions of the story, shimmering with moments of pure cine-magic. The film features Emil Jannings as a smirking, barrel-bellied Mephisto. He is encountered early on as a colossal fiend, black-feathered wings fanning outward, standing over a diminutive city; the tableau suggests another Faustian work in another medium: the striking illustration by Delacroix of Mephistopheles in flight.

Earlier, we encounter a ghoulish tableaux of the four horsemen of the apocalypse galloping across a billowing vale of lead-colored clouds. The film is abounding with charcoal shadows, radiant rays of dazzling light from on high, and the white-bearded Faust illuminated by the dim glow of the alchemist’s furnace. It is oftentimes akin to a densely crayoned work of lithography or heavily inked intaglio print, or the vision of an eerie moonlit gloom of a Caspar David Friedrich nightscape rendered onto the film’s cinematic canvas.

We are pleased to present Murnau’s “Faust” on 16mm film, in its gleaming, glowing, analog glory, with an original score performed live by acclaimed local musicians Bradford Reed and Geoff Gersh. Their sonic rendering of the Murnau masterpiece has played to sold-out audiences at the Nitehawk Cinema. The duo’s innovative musical approach includes Reed’s handmade, zither-like Penicilina and Gesh’s eclectically performed music for electric guitar, ranging from plaintive, poignant cadences as Faust and Gretchen woo one another in the garden, to dark, thundering power chords as Mephisto devises his moments of diabolic mayhem.











When: Fri., Apr. 29, 2016 at 7:00 pm
Where: Morbid Anatomy Museum
424 Third Ave. Brooklyn

Price: $12
Buy tickets/get more info now
See other events in these categories:

The tale of the brooding seeker of knowledge transformed to ebullient youth and the waggish attendant from the underworld who both aids and sabotages him in his quest to win the innocent lass has taken many guises. F. W. Murnau’s silent classic “Faust” (1926) remains one of the exemplary versions of the story, shimmering with moments of pure cine-magic. The film features Emil Jannings as a smirking, barrel-bellied Mephisto. He is encountered early on as a colossal fiend, black-feathered wings fanning outward, standing over a diminutive city; the tableau suggests another Faustian work in another medium: the striking illustration by Delacroix of Mephistopheles in flight.

Earlier, we encounter a ghoulish tableaux of the four horsemen of the apocalypse galloping across a billowing vale of lead-colored clouds. The film is abounding with charcoal shadows, radiant rays of dazzling light from on high, and the white-bearded Faust illuminated by the dim glow of the alchemist’s furnace. It is oftentimes akin to a densely crayoned work of lithography or heavily inked intaglio print, or the vision of an eerie moonlit gloom of a Caspar David Friedrich nightscape rendered onto the film’s cinematic canvas.

We are pleased to present Murnau’s “Faust” on 16mm film, in its gleaming, glowing, analog glory, with an original score performed live by acclaimed local musicians Bradford Reed and Geoff Gersh. Their sonic rendering of the Murnau masterpiece has played to sold-out audiences at the Nitehawk Cinema. The duo’s innovative musical approach includes Reed’s handmade, zither-like Penicilina and Gesh’s eclectically performed music for electric guitar, ranging from plaintive, poignant cadences as Faust and Gretchen woo one another in the garden, to dark, thundering power chords as Mephisto devises his moments of diabolic mayhem.

Buy tickets/get more info now