Faust (1926 film)

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Faust
Directed by	F. W. Murnau
Written by	Hans Kyser
Produced by	Erich Pommer
Starring	Gösta Ekman Emil Jannings Camilla Horn Wilhelm Dieterle Frida Richard Yvette Guilbert
Cinematography	Carl Hoffmann
Music by	Werner Richard Heymann (in the premiere) William Axt (US, uncredited)
Distributed by	Ufa (Germany) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (USA)
Release dates	14 October 1926 (1926-10-14) (Berlin, Germany[1]) 5 December 1926 (1926-12-05) (US)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	Germany
Languages	Silent film German intertitles
Budget	2 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to €8 million in 2021)
Box office	1 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ (equivalent to €4 million in 2021)

Faust – A German Folktale (German: Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage) is a 1926 silent fantasy film, produced by Ufa, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto, Camilla Horn as Gretchen/Marguerite, Frida Richard as her mother, Wilhelm Dieterle as her brother, and Yvette Guilbert as Marthe Schwerdtlein, her aunt. Murnau's film draws on older traditions of the legendary tale of Faust as well as on Goethe's classic 1808 version. Ufa wanted Ludwig Berger to direct Faust, as Murnau was engaged with Variety; Murnau pressured the producer and, backed by Jannings, eventually persuaded Erich Pommer to let him direct the film.

Faust was Murnau's last German film, and directly afterward he moved to the United States under contract to William Fox to direct Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927); when the film premiered in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Murnau was already shooting in Hollywood. Faust has been praised for its special effects and is regarded as an example of German Expressionist film.