thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2005-01-19 03:58 pm
thedeadlyhook) wrote2005-01-19 03:58 pm
Hell is for Faustus
Felt the impulse this week to rent films - in this case, two surreal Czech samples from the city's best video store, Le Video, a.k.a., We Bring You the World in Film Even Via Bootleg Copies If We Have To Stoop To That. Not to get the good folks at Le in trouble - they have plenty of commercial releases too, and will gladly stock the shelves with "official" versions as fast as they become available. It's a fantastic store. I have an anecdote from one of my old coworkers, about how he had to escort a fairly famous Italian horror director around for a San Jose film fest which (embarrassingly enough) turned out to be playing an edited version of his movie, and took him to Le Video, which had all of his films in stock, and uncut. In these days of bittorrent, TV series can swap hemispheres fairly quickly, but world film can still be hard to obtain - thank heaven there are still places like these that push the envelope.
Anyway, we saw the Jan Svankmajer version of Faust, which I'd always meant to get around to seeing, and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, which I'd never heard of before, but which really turned out to be a weird and dreamlike little fantasy trip, not unlike our viewing of The Black Rider play, or A Company of Wolves in some regards. Strange fairy tale-ish fun, with odd animal imagery to go with its story of a girl with magic earrings who could see vampires in her little town. Neat. Remind me sometime to talk about that Russian movie we saw once, about witches, The Vij, which it made me think of, somewhat.
Faust, though- now that was something. The Faust tale in general is great fun - when Toys and I went to Prague, we were assured by every guidebook that one must see a puppet theater while there, and Faust was what we saw performed, in a black-light performance, which was rollicking good op-art trippy fun. As I recall, though, the puppet show we saw was based on the Goethe version of the story, in which Faust is rescued from hell by love, and Svankmajer decided to go back to the Christopher Marlowe version (although Goethe is also credited), in which Faust, having signed away his soul, is screwed for good - there is no salvation. A surfeit of deadly sin that hath damned both body and soul. The end, with some elaboration.
The film is bits of dialogue from Marlowe (dubbed in English from the Czech - there's not all that much dialogue, so it hardly jars one), live actors fabulously mixed in with classic wooden puppets, a generous use of claymation (!), and weird animal metaphors. It's brilliant, and quite funny. There's a recurring theme of the stage play - life is a stage - and sets will keep appearing out of nowhere, even in the middle of open landscape. Secret passageways lead to backstage dressing rooms. And through it all there's the fabulous dour-faced star actor Petr Cepek as Faust, the guy who wants answers about Life, The Universe, And Everything, even if he has to ask the devil himself, and as a backdrop, magnificent, crumbling, not-yet-fixed-up-for-tourists old Prague.
What made an impression on me most, though, I think, was what a cynical story Faust really is, especially when you omit the early folklorish ending (saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary) or Goethe's ending (saved by the love of a beautiful woman). Faust asks the devil outright about the meaning of the universe, heaven and hell - he's a seeker for knowledge. Mephisto tells him that lack of heaven is hell to those who have seen paradise. Faust starts to rethink, and then Mephisto throws this stunner at him:
Faustus
When I behold the heavens, then I repent
And curse thee wicked Mephistophilis,
Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.
Mephistophilis
Why, Faustus,
Thinkst thou heaven is such a glorious thing?
I tell thee tis not half so faire as thou,
Or any man that breathes on earth.
Faustus
How provest thou that?
Mephistophilis
It was made for man; therefore is man more excellent.
Faustus
If it were made for man, 'twas made for me.
I will renounce this magic, and repent.
Translation: Marlowe was a sneaky bastard. He's saying that the excellence of man trumps the glories of heaven. Interesting to see these little critiques of canonical church thinking snuck into these sorts of works, noting again that this is a revamp of an earlier story in which the fallen hero is saved by a Saint, and revised later (by Goethe) again to a more secular reading yet, where the fallen hero is saved by love. Interesting, no?
More fun with Faust: the Wikipedia entry.
John Dee, the man who might have been a model for Marlowe's Faust - a real, live alchemist!
Alchemy - gotta love that Wikipedia. If you follow the links for alchemical symbols, note that the classic "male" symbol also means "iron" while "female" is "copper." Put 'em together and I guess you have either bronze or brass.
Alchemical symbology is something else. I could go off on a whole other tangent of mystical symbolism and the Pre-Raphaelites, and what fun you can have loading up art with coded meaning.
Final weird link: for a modern example of a Pre-Raphaelite-style artist who just luuvs that coded meaning, try this guy. He's even done a painting with Buffy in it (top right in "Gallery 2" under "Paintings").
I see symbols everywhere, I swear.
Anyway, we saw the Jan Svankmajer version of Faust, which I'd always meant to get around to seeing, and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, which I'd never heard of before, but which really turned out to be a weird and dreamlike little fantasy trip, not unlike our viewing of The Black Rider play, or A Company of Wolves in some regards. Strange fairy tale-ish fun, with odd animal imagery to go with its story of a girl with magic earrings who could see vampires in her little town. Neat. Remind me sometime to talk about that Russian movie we saw once, about witches, The Vij, which it made me think of, somewhat.
Faust, though- now that was something. The Faust tale in general is great fun - when Toys and I went to Prague, we were assured by every guidebook that one must see a puppet theater while there, and Faust was what we saw performed, in a black-light performance, which was rollicking good op-art trippy fun. As I recall, though, the puppet show we saw was based on the Goethe version of the story, in which Faust is rescued from hell by love, and Svankmajer decided to go back to the Christopher Marlowe version (although Goethe is also credited), in which Faust, having signed away his soul, is screwed for good - there is no salvation. A surfeit of deadly sin that hath damned both body and soul. The end, with some elaboration.
The film is bits of dialogue from Marlowe (dubbed in English from the Czech - there's not all that much dialogue, so it hardly jars one), live actors fabulously mixed in with classic wooden puppets, a generous use of claymation (!), and weird animal metaphors. It's brilliant, and quite funny. There's a recurring theme of the stage play - life is a stage - and sets will keep appearing out of nowhere, even in the middle of open landscape. Secret passageways lead to backstage dressing rooms. And through it all there's the fabulous dour-faced star actor Petr Cepek as Faust, the guy who wants answers about Life, The Universe, And Everything, even if he has to ask the devil himself, and as a backdrop, magnificent, crumbling, not-yet-fixed-up-for-tourists old Prague.
What made an impression on me most, though, I think, was what a cynical story Faust really is, especially when you omit the early folklorish ending (saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary) or Goethe's ending (saved by the love of a beautiful woman). Faust asks the devil outright about the meaning of the universe, heaven and hell - he's a seeker for knowledge. Mephisto tells him that lack of heaven is hell to those who have seen paradise. Faust starts to rethink, and then Mephisto throws this stunner at him:
When I behold the heavens, then I repent
And curse thee wicked Mephistophilis,
Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.
Mephistophilis
Why, Faustus,
Thinkst thou heaven is such a glorious thing?
I tell thee tis not half so faire as thou,
Or any man that breathes on earth.
Faustus
How provest thou that?
Mephistophilis
It was made for man; therefore is man more excellent.
Faustus
If it were made for man, 'twas made for me.
I will renounce this magic, and repent.
Translation: Marlowe was a sneaky bastard. He's saying that the excellence of man trumps the glories of heaven. Interesting to see these little critiques of canonical church thinking snuck into these sorts of works, noting again that this is a revamp of an earlier story in which the fallen hero is saved by a Saint, and revised later (by Goethe) again to a more secular reading yet, where the fallen hero is saved by love. Interesting, no?
More fun with Faust: the Wikipedia entry.
John Dee, the man who might have been a model for Marlowe's Faust - a real, live alchemist!
Alchemy - gotta love that Wikipedia. If you follow the links for alchemical symbols, note that the classic "male" symbol also means "iron" while "female" is "copper." Put 'em together and I guess you have either bronze or brass.
Alchemical symbology is something else. I could go off on a whole other tangent of mystical symbolism and the Pre-Raphaelites, and what fun you can have loading up art with coded meaning.
Final weird link: for a modern example of a Pre-Raphaelite-style artist who just luuvs that coded meaning, try this guy. He's even done a painting with Buffy in it (top right in "Gallery 2" under "Paintings").
I see symbols everywhere, I swear.
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Hope you have a good time over in the flatlands!
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