Faust

Black-and-white cinematography was redefined in Murnau’s Faust, a film shot in darkness and light. According to film historian Lotte Eisner, Murnau’s version of the legend of Faust, starring Emil Jannings as the subtly mischievous Mephistopheles and Swedish actor Gösta Ekman as a subtly homoerotic Faust, “starts with the most remarkable and poignant images the German chiaroscuro ever created. The chaotic density of the opening shots, the light dawning in the mists, the rays beaming through the opaque air, are breathtaking. . . . No other director, not even [Fritz] Lang, ever succeeded in conjuring up the supernatural as masterfully as this. The entire town seems to be covered by the vast folds of a demon’s cloak (or is it a gigantic, lowering cloud?) as the demoniac forces of darkness prepare to devour the powers of light.”