(1913)
Dir - Stellan Rye/Paul Wegener
Overall: MEH
A significant work that proceeded the German Expressionism movement in cinema and is regarded today as the first independent movie ever made, Stellan Rye and Paul Wegener's The Student of Prague does not hold up very well as a viewing experience today aside from some still commendable technical aspects. The double exposure technique used to convey the main protagonist's wicked doppelgänger is incredibly convincing as both characters that are played by the same actor, (Wegener himself), come off absolutely seamlessly on screen. The story is a conglomerate, taking aspects of Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson, Alfred de Musset's The December Night, and the German legend of Faust, but the problem is that so very few intertitles are used that the story is exasperatingly difficult to follow. Multiple scenes play out in a row with no onscreen text given whatsoever and being a silent movie after all, it grows very frustrating to keep anything straight. This seems like something that could have easily been avoided, but it is a big enough problem to make the movie both boring and largely incomprehensible.
(1921)
Dir - Victor Sjöström
Overall: GOOD
One of the most praised of all Swedish silent films, actor/director Victor Sjöström's adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's novel (Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!), The Phantom Carriage was a technically advanced work for its time that has had a lasting influence. This was the forth of Lagerlöf's stories that Sjöström had brought to the screen and it would remain the most paramount, with the work of Ingmar Bergman alone, (who cast Sjöström in Wild Strawberries no less), noticeably impacted by it. The film's utilization of double exposure was a major plot component and was painstakingly achieved through hand-cranked cameras, no small feat for the time. This effect is very appropriately eerie as we witness Death's doomed carriage driver collect his souls in various settings, most fittingly in a gloomy graveyard. The non-linear script was also ambitious, being told mostly in flashbacks as we witness the extents of David Holm's , (Sjöström himself), wicked ways. Though it does not necessarily play out as a horror movie and is in fact more of a cautionary, religiously-themed fable akin to A Christmas Carol, much of the imagery would forever be cemented in the horror genre and it remains a striking work in any capacity.
(1926)
Dir - F. W. Murnau
Overall: GREAT
F.W. Murnau's pristine interpretation of Faust is one of the filmmaker's most cherished works and for good reason. Emerging four years after the paramount Nosferatu, Faust was the last movie he would make before moving to America and immediately following it up with Sunrise, arguably the most critically praised silent film ever made. This was also the most expensive ever produced at the time by the German company UFA and the budget certainly shows. Visually it is as breathtaking and expressionistic as any silent film, with a slew of then state of the art effects utilized to bring the legendary tale to life. Murnau actually shot and put together a number of different versions, (five so far recognized), with differences between scenes ranging from camera angles, costumes, text references for the American version, the ending, and entire scenes missing and included, depending. Pacing wise, it remains captivating throughout its entirety and all of the melodramatic horror and beauty ramps up to an elaborate finale just as it should. The film's lasting influence is as noteworthy as the fabled story itself and few finer fantasy movies have really yet to been made.
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