Horst in Translation ([email protected])
This is an odd little short film. We see Faust, Mephistopheles and Marguerite in a room and Mephisto asks Fasut to behead the poor girl. Or is she really poor? Does she understand what they are saying. She sits there leaning back comfortably leaning back as if she watches a good movie. So, certainly not this one. Does she even understand what is going on?Anyway, Faust refuses to do so, so Mephisto does it himself. But instead of an open throat spilling blood we gets lots of magic effects. People keep appearing and disappearing in a manner that really doesn't make any sense compared to the actions. So if you want to watch an early version of Faust & Marguerite, go for Méliès from 4 years later instead, which makes actual sense.
Michael_Elliott
Faust and Margueriete (1900) *** (out of 4)Edison version of the story filmed countless times in this era including a version two years earlier by Georges Melies. This time out we see Marguerite standing by the fireplace with Faust when Mephistopheles appears and demands that Faust kill the lady. That's pretty much the entire set up here. This thing runs just under a minute so don't expect any plot or character development and it's probably best that you already know the story because nothing here is going to explain it to you. What we're got here is a mildly entertaining film that is certainly copying the Melies film and if you look closely here you'll notice that the man playing Mephistopheles looks a lot like the French director. The magic tricks here aren't nearly as good as the ones in the Melies film but it's harmless entertainment.
José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984)
American Director Edwin S. Porter was definitely the best mind working for Thomas Edison's film studio and, along with French director Georges Méliès, one of the two most important pioneers of early cinema. The artistic competition between Porter and Méliès resulted in both of them creating and improving the language of cinema as a storytelling art, and the development of special effects in what now would be called as "camera tricks". Like most of his early films, "Faust and Marguerite" (actually his third movie), is a film devised to showcase one of those newly discovered camera tricks. Sadly, this film still shows Porter mastering the trick and lacks the high quality of his two follow-ups to this movie ("The Mystic Swing" and "Uncle Josh's Nightmare", done later in that year), resulting in a film that out of its historical importance doesn't have really anything to offer.The strange plot is really the movie's major problem, as even with a narrated explanation is very hard to follow. The movie begins with Faust and Marguerite in their living room, when suddenly Mephisto appears and offers Faust his sword, asking him to kill Marguerite. Faust refuses to do the evil act and Mephisto decides to kill Marguerite himself, but when Mephisto is going to cut Marguerite's throat with the sword a bizarre series of events occur, with Marguerite transforming into Faust and vice-versa, confusing Mephisto until a priest appears forcing Mephisto to vanish in order to marry Faust and Marguerite. It's actually a plot too complex for the barely 2 minutes runtime of the film.Like most films of those early days, the whole point of the plot (written by Porter) is to showcase the camera trick as main attraction. The use of the familiar figures of Mephisto, Faust and Marguerite allows to have the trick centered around a "plot", but Porter fails to make the story interesting or even understandable and the movie ends up as another gimmicky film (Méliès was doing better things by those years). People interested in the film as a representation of Faust will find themselves disappointed, as the movie only uses the characters without having any real relation to the classic story.Now, the film obviously shows Porter at an early stage, still learning the tricks that would make him a legend with "The Great Train Robbery" (1903). The main camera trick looks very bad, even for its time (as written above, Méliès was doing similar things with much better results), but just by watching his follow-up, "The Mystic Swing", one can see that this movie really helped him to develop his technique. It is also in "The Mystic Swing" where Porter develops more his storytelling skills, as even when that film is also a "gimmick driven" movie, it showcases a better constructed story with a more understandable plot. Still, credit must be given to the actors chosen for the roles as they really deliver a great work of pantomime, and do their best to help the audience to understand what is really happening on screen. "Faust and Marguerite" is not really a good movie, it is in fact really average and poor even for its time; but it's still an interesting movie to watch, as it is one of the earliest film by Porter that have survived until our days. Along with "The Mystic Swing" and "Uncle Josh's Nightmare" one can really see the progression of film in the work of one of its most important pioneers. It is not the work of a master, but one can see that the autodidact mechanic turned filmmaker was on the right track while discovering the many secrets of film-making. 4/10
MartinHafer
This is a pretty lousy film--even by the standards of the day. There are three serious and fundamental problems. First, Georges Méliès, the French director, made this same film two years earlier. Copying each other's ideas was very, very common in the early days of cinema--sometimes you'd find many versions of the same film--each made by a different production company. Second, the film has pretty poor trick cinematography--Méliès had been doing similar but much more spectacular trick work on film and he was the master as making things appear and disappear on film. Third, the film is pretty pointless and seems to have nothing to do with Faust. So, what you are left with is a seemingly pointless and derivative film with second-rate camera tricks. Not a rousing endorsement, huh?
