Steven Ritz-Barr and Hoku Uchiyama, Faust, Classics in Miniature, 2008. DVD, www.classicsinminiature.com. Home edition: $19.90

Summary

The connection between the Faust material and puppetry is legendary. Goethe references the puppet play in Dichtung und Wahrheit and throughout the nineteenth century attempts were made to recreate the connection. The advent of cinema may have eclipsed the popularity of the puppet play medium. We recall that Georges Méliès, the magician turned filmmaker, produced and starred in an array of short film adaptations of Faust in the first decade of cinema, among them Faust et Marguerite (1897). Der Student von Prag, directed by Paul Wegener in 1913, one of cinema history's first feature-length films, was a version of the Faust legend. And we certainly cannot forget Murnau's silent classic, Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage (1926). It was not until the Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Svankmajer tried his hand in 1994 that puppetry and cinema were joined in adapting Faust. For Svankmajer it was an opportunity to offer critical commentary on the cultural situation in post-communist Eastern Europe. Mixing puppetry, live actors, clay animation, and stop-motion, Svankmajer artfully and humorously adapted the Faust material, particularly Marlowe and Goethe. If the fortunes of Faust across the centuries mark the arc of the concept of the modern individual, by the time we hit Svankmajer, all we are left with is a cruel Faust machine that daily pulverizes its anonymous victims.

Puppet master Steven Ritz-Barr's Faust, a thirty-minute “classic in miniature,” is more restrained in ambition and scope. Confining himself to a very small set (over which he toiled as puppeteer for hours at a stretch) and a handful of sharply drawn marionettes, Ritz-Barr offers a reinterpretation of the Gretchen story. While snatches of Goethe's text (in the original German, English, or French) serve as intertitles, the real accomplishment of Ritz-Barr's film is to marry puppetry with the visual and musical qualities of silent film. With faces frozen in a single expression and the limited motions of their marionette limbs, the puppets nonetheless achieve a remarkable and compelling vitality. One can't help but think of Kleist's musings on “Das Marionettentheater.” Searching close-ups of Gretchen, Faust, and Mephisto are astonishing for their ability to convey intense emotion. The haunting musical score by John Greaves, bass player for Henry Cow in the 1970s and avant-garde jazz composer, heightens the intimacy of the film, as does the powerful cinematography of Hoku Uchiyama.