Sokurov's 'Faust' Wins Golden Lion at Venice Film Fest
By Worth Attention on 13-Sep-11 12:14:53 PM
Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov won the Golden Lion award at this year's Venice film festival for "Faust," a visceral take on Goethe's play which explores the theme of corrupting power.
"There are films which make you dream, which make you cry, laugh and think, and there are films which change your life forever. This is one of those films," said jury head Darren Aronofki, saying the decision had been unanimous.
Beating 22 other films to the Venice Golden Lion prize, the stomach-turning movie Faust is the final instalment of Alexander Sokurov's cinematic tetralogy on the nature of power, following his acclaimed portraits of Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin and Emperor Hirohito.
"Making auteur cinema is very difficult these days," the St Petersburg-based director said, adding that he was "very happy to live in a Europe where we can understand each other."
Sokurov told journalists that he sees Goethe and Faust as a "fundamental phenomenon, a basis for world culture of the 19th century. The director filmed his movie in German. It is not a film adaptation of
Goethe’s tragedy, but a rethought interpretation of what remains between
the lines.
”"The basic concept of Faust (Johannes Zeiler) the man is here," Jay Weissberg assures us in Variety, a "professor and alchemist, craving knowledge yet incapable of being satisfied with the limitations of human understanding. He falls in love with Margarete (Isolda Dychauk, Lucrezia Borgia in the French-German TV series), for whom he signs away his soul. Sokurov's Mephistopheles however owes little to any other manifestation: He's known in the film as the Moneylender (Anton Adasinskiy), and unlike most literary embodiments, this devil is no charmer. He's a snivelly creature, quick with words but the opposite of Goethe's jocular and sensual beguiler."
The movie-making required lots of historical research, and Sokurov explained that it was necessary to choose the right sites that would resemble the 19th-century German cities.
“To me Faust is alive and human, not mythological. His fate has everything that can happen to a living man,” Sokurov said. He added that he has been searching for the right person for Faust’s role all around Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and Iceland. His choice finally fell on German actor Johannes Zeiler. The actor himself considered his role in Sokurov’s film to be the peak of his career on screen. Mephistopheles is portrayed by Anton Adasinsky.
