Murnau’s Faust (1926) is reimagined in a new immersive live cinema performance marking 250 years since Goethe’s first draft of Faust and the centenary of its landmark expressionist adaptation performed by The Enchanted Cinema:
Celeste Cantor-Stephens — trumpet, foley FX
Caelia Lunniss — violin, foley FX
Kieron Chissik — guitar, organ, electric viola, and choral FX
Murnau’s Faust (1926) is a landmark of German Expressionist cinema, using bold imagery and dramatic light and shadow to tell its story of a pact with the devil and a world in moral collapse. Here, the film is carried by the live score: trumpet cutting through the action with lines stretched through delay and space, violin tracing folk-inspired melodies through its emotional shifts, and electric viola & vocal FX shaped in real time into layered textures that expand the film’s atmosphere in addition to a host of ingenious foley sound FX.
Following acclaimed performances at LSO St Luke’s, Horniman Museum and Gardens, and Abney Cemetery, this is a rare chance to experience a landmark of early cinema brought vividly to life. At select venues, The Enchanted Cinema are joined by young people on stage to help with foley FX. Supported by the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding through Audience Projects Fund. A Cabinet of Living Cinema CIC production.
