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This month, MUBI Editions is collaborating with the Cinématheque Française to publish a special document called the Rosetta Stone, known to cinephiles as the “Faust Bible.” A century ago, when director FW Murnau completed work on his last German film and his most ambitious to date, his crew put together a scrapbook of illustrations and photographs documenting the making of the film in a prop bible, presented as a souvenir of the production before Murnau moved to Hollywood.
The Faust Bible, thought lost for many years, was recently rediscovered and restored by the Cinématheque, and now MUBI and the Cinématheque are re-creating this “remarkable relic of film history” and publishing it under the title MUBI. The Faust Bible: The Making of FW Murnau’s Masterpiece. Laurent Mannoni, Scientific Director of Heritage at la Cinémathèque française, who led the restoration and publication of the book, wrote:
One of the most influential and pioneering filmmakers of the silent era, FW Murnau was famous for his privacy on the sets of his films. Reluctant to welcome visitors, he was even less interested in making his creative process public. The rediscovery of Faust “The Bible” provides extraordinary insight into the making of one of cinema’s great masterpieces. Published in full for the first time, this book allows readers to trace the creation of this legendary film.
To accompany the book, MUBI commissioned this stunning film poster, designed by MUBI Lab and printed in black ink on bronze paper with a foil stamp on the title treatment. Available as a limited edition in MUBI Shop. The Faust Bible: The Making of FW Murnau’s Masterpiece Designed by Mathias Clottu and Valérian Charmasson for Studio Mathias Clottu. The Rudolf Koch letter featured on the cover and poster was redrawn by Adrien Vasquez.
Forster plays an important role in the story of Murnau’s Faust. In mid-August 1926, a few months after production ended and Murnau left for the United States, the producers of Studio UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft) held a contest to design a poster for this most famous film. A total of 359 designs were submitted, the winners were announced on September 20, and the best designs were displayed in the lobby of Germany’s largest cinema, Ufa-Palast am Zoo, on October 12, two days before the film’s gala premiere. The winner of the first prize of 2,000 marks (equivalent to about 9,000 dollars today) was the Berlin artist and printmaker Karl Michel (1885-1966), who by 1926 was already well known in the art world.
Measuring 36 inches by 55 inches (nearly twice the size of an American sheet), the poster is as beautiful and beautiful as anything else from its era. Painted in the style of a medieval woodcut, this work reflects the 16th-century origins of the Faust legend. It shows Dr. Faustus resuscitating a dying man as a crowd watches, while the three horsemen of the apocalypse (War, Pestilence, and Death) gallop overhead. Surprisingly, what it does not depict is Mephistopheles, the devil incarnate. The only exception is when he has to be one of the hooded figures behind Faust. His omission is unique because Mephistopheles, known in the film as Mephisto, was played by Emil Jannings, one of the great stars of German cinema.
Michel’s poster is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and is widely regarded as one of the great film posters. (This poster has been featured in numerous MoMA exhibitions, including the landmark “Movie Posters” exhibition in 1960. notebook magazine—until 2010 “Weimar Cinema 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares”). But it wasn’t always so highly regarded.
On October 13, 1926, a day before the film’s release, a German trade magazine Film Currier I wrote the most poignant article about an exhibition of the best of the submitted designs. The article began with a very sympathetic look, looking at the overall situation of movie poster design.
It is worth noting that the idea of holding a public contest for Faust posters was brilliant. Firstly, it provided an opportunity for good publicity, and secondly, given the low artistic and advertising quality of the majority of our film posters, it provided an opportunity to attract new, unknown poster artists, which was urgently needed.
It results in widespread criticism of the results, saying, “70% of the designs are clearly amateurish,” and “among the remaining images, not a single one is even remotely satisfactory.” “Of course the UFC is innocent of this deplorable failure,” he warned. “Because the topic was very attractive and the prize money was very high.”
Part of the problem was that many great artists and illustrators entered the competition with little or no knowledge of film poster design, and most importantly, the results had to be advertising pieces. Film-Kurier continues, “Obviously trying to fit the text was the most troublesome thing. A title, a subtitle, the names of the director, writer, librettist, four actors and two logos – it’s a lot, but not an insurmountable task.”
Finally, they come across Karl Michel’s winning design, but the artist’s name is not mentioned anywhere in the article.
The first prize of 2,000 marks was awarded to a design depicting a series of iconic figures and scenes in the style of old woodcuts. It’s intentionally different from the typical movie poster, but that’s pretty much its only advantage. The actor’s name is completely pushed into the background. It’s difficult to describe it as particularly effective. Add to this the bright yellow overprint typical of Berlin, and the overall impression is very unsatisfactory.”
despite Film CurrierDue to objections (which, surprisingly, did not include the omission of Mephisto), Karl Michel’s poster was used as the official German poster for the film, at least initially. It was reproduced in various colors on the promotional flyer for the film’s release (above), and the black and white outline was also used again on the inside cover of the 40-page booklet handed out at the time of the film’s release. A booklet titled A word about FaustContains unused subtitles by Nobel Prize-winning poet Gerhart Hauptmann. Hauptmann was asked to edit the existing subtitles, but ended up writing 700 lines of verse after seeing the film. When screenwriter Hans Kyser objected in an open letter to several newspapers that Hauptmann’s title was too literary and an “unfair infringement on the work of other artists,” the title was scrapped, but to appease Germany’s most famous poet, it was printed in a booklet and distributed at screenings. This version of the poster had Hauptmann’s name added to the credits.
However, another program for the film’s original release did away with Michel’s design and featured Mephisto more prominently.
I wish I had pictures of the exhibition, but I couldn’t track them down. It would be interesting to see other submissions. Film Currier “Second place went to a poster featuring the heads of Faust and Mephisto, both well-executed, but a poorly rendered Gretchen,” he says, giving a hint about the runner-up. It appears to be a poster signed by Kurt Lange.
I found a 1928 article about Lange in a magazine. Art School – Illustrated monthly magazine for art and art therapy (The Art School – a monthly magazine for the arts and their promotion) states that Lange was born in Berlin on February 25, 1898, worked as a painter, and designed several film posters. The article mentions Lange’s design as follows: Faust At the UFA competition, I took 3rd place instead of 2nd place. And it includes an alternative poster for Faust and Jannings’ study of the poster above.
Here is another German movie poster without the artist’s signature.
And perhaps the text below, used to advertise a screening at the Oeser-Kino in Vienna in February 1927, is an adaptation of the third (or was it the second?) winner? Film Currier “It does justice to the typography poster,” he said.
Faust It was released in New York on Sunday, December 5, 1926, less than two months after its German premiere, the same day as Sergei Eisenstein’s performance. Battleship Potemkin (then known as Armored cruiser Potemkin). The film played for two weeks at Broadway’s Capitol and 51st Street, advertised as “the world’s largest and best movie palace.” here new york times Opening ad:
american poster Faust Although it leaned heavily on Mephistopheles, it was rendered much more cartoonish and bore no resemblance to Emil Jannings’ portrayal (Jannings’ Mephisto was clean-shaven). Here is a 1926 US page 1 and a relatively sized insert poster (artist unknown).
Next are the window cards and lobby cards.
And finally, here’s the front and back of the film’s trailer flyer, which includes many of the elements above.
In 2006, 80 years after its original release, British label Eureka’s Masters of Cinema revived the Carl Michel art on the cover of its DVD release, and did the same for its 2014 Blu-ray release.
It was also used in the theatrical poster for the French re-release of the restored film.
In 2015, Kino Lorber released a fully restored version of the film on Blu-ray, using one of the film’s most dramatic and iconic scenes that previous poster designers had strangely ignored: an image of a giant horned Mephisto looming over a city. This image is stunningly repurposed in MUBI’s new poster.
A similar image was used in Johnny Dombrowski’s tribute poster for Mondo and Black Dragon Press in 2020.
Murnau for 100 years Faust Despite what modern trade magazines say, it has proven to be a rich source of design inspiration. faust bible A comprehensive look behind the scenes of this incredible silent film and the mind of one of its geniuses.