A short presentation on the legend of Faustus and how Christopher Marlowe came to write his play, how Marlowe came to die and a recitation of Faustus dramatic death in the play.

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 1

Jul 24th, 2011 4m 44s

Chorus speaks: We are outside a house in Württemberg, Anno Domini Fifteen-hundred and Ninety-two. Mummers herald the holiday.***Image is a Black Holetaken from the Hubble telescope.Music excerpt is Paganini’s Vieuxtemps Violin Concertos, Viol

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 2

Jul 24th, 2011 4m 44s

A scholar’s gloomy study with a desk cluttered with writings and surrounded by shelves of books***Music excerpt is Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248: Chorale No. 35, "Seid Froh Dieweil, Daß euer Heil"Sung by the Prima Choir

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 3

Jul 24th, 2011 7m 3s

Main room of Faustus house, a large long table occupies the center, laden with food, many chairs about the table. Faustus in the center, seated, is flanked by students to his left and right, eating and drinking while Wagner bustles dishes in an

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 4

Jul 24th, 2011 15m 14s

We are in the scholar’s study again. Many candles are lit in many places around the room; and now on closer view by panning and close-ups, we see the instruments of necromancy: a glass globe containing boiling mercury, steaming crimson poisonou

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 5

Jul 24th, 2011 13m 57s

On New Year’s eve, Faustus sits in his gloomy study, pondering the sunset which he sees by its glorious inference upon the frosted panes of his mullioned windows, illuminating each glass square, gleaming traced patterns of sheaves of ice, like

Faustbook Act 1 Scene 6

Jul 24th, 2011 12m 21s

Again in Faustus’ study, which is lit now by light of a single candle that shines upon his face; the solitary image in the darkness***Image is a still frame from F.W. Murnau’s silent film Faust.Music excerpt is Paganini: Caprice #24 In A Minor

Faustbook Act 2 Scene 1 (& Interlude)

Jul 24th, 2011 12m 50s

In the marketplace: carts of goods, slaughtered livestock and vegetables such as stored for winter; stalls of freshly baked breads and cakes and other delights; and merry minstrels, mischievous magicians, conniving gamblers and whores—all wande

Faustbook Act 2 Scene 2

Jul 24th, 2011 14m 44s

A woods on a summery day, a mountain is above and beyond the horizon of the forest, distantly, a pearly cascade plunges from its peak and where it crashes a mist rises. ***Music excerpt is Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite, Op. 60 - The Birth o

Faustbook Act 2 Scene 3

Jul 24th, 2011 15m 27s

A child’s room in the home of one who is well-to-do by standards of the sixteenth-century, probably an official of some dukedom whose wealth is acquired by taxes upon men who are mostly poor.***Music excerpt is Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite

Faustbook Act 2 Scene 4

Jul 24th, 2011 18m 3s

Returned to his study, it is the very cusp of day that all of this began, the risen day after New Year’s eve, and Faustus sees the dawn’s foreboding light stain the icy window panes, casting blood hue on everything....***The image is a capture

Faustbook Act 2 Scene 5

Jul 24th, 2011 6m 23s

All the lights within the theater and on the stage are suddenly extinguished. Space is void. Each one alone in it. All is silent, except for restless anxiety in the audience.The chorus speaks from the everywhere....The image above is “Faust’s

Interlude (Between Act 2 and 3)

Jul 24th, 2011 5m 39s

Stage lights rise on Faustus study.Ralph and Robin come running in and hide among the furniture. Immediately they are followed by several raw-skinned demons, midgets of reptilian humanoid form, with female breasts and thrashing snake-like tails

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 1

Jul 24th, 2011 23m 16s

Faustus, walking briskly, enters his study, where Mephistophiles is lying on an oriental chaise. Faustus is reading aloud from an opened royal missive. A silky ribbon, bestrewn its wax seal, trails conspicuously, flirtatiously.***The image is a

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 2

Jul 24th, 2011 6m 11s

Lights are doused. When they are restored, a massive chorus appears on stage, in the guise of the manifold appearance of all human society, to testify to the Emperor’s newfound philosophy.***Music excerpt is Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite, O

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 3

Jul 24th, 2011 27m 57s

The chorus parts like a curtain: bowing, backwards walking, en masse they part and go off stage, left and right, revealing at the center stage the Holy Father in his private chambers in the Vatican, sitting at his toilet, attended by Cardinals.

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 4

Jul 24th, 2011 12m 15s

Our Chorus of Mankind returns to the stage, now wearing bloody bandages and scorched rags; there is sound of a huge battle beyond them and shocks of shells exploding in midair, screams of women and the crying of babies.Faustus stands apart from

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 5

Jul 24th, 2011 14m 46s

As the sun sets on the Battlefield where corpses lay, the voice of Mephistophiles addresses them. From this grisly imagery our camera dives into the bright orb of the sun, our visualization stunned, and as we draw back from that blinding light

Faustbook Act 3 Scene 6

Jul 24th, 2011 12m 44s

The stage is darkened and there appears in the center, in mid-air, an immense illuminated cross upon which the person of Christ is dying.Beneath it the Chorus of Mankind solemnly assembles, robed as for a church choir, prayerfully, with bowed h

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 1

Jul 24th, 2011 25m 26s

Cinematically, rising from the reflection of sky in the glassy stare of one who lay dead at the Battle of the Damned, to the panorama of its horrific extent of savage death, and thence to the air, to wheel and to fly rapidly away into majestic

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 2

Jul 24th, 2011 15m 1s

Again in Faustus study, the scene begins with Faustus addressing Mephistophiles who is costumed for a masquerade; he wears some women’s clothes and a powdered wig; daubs of rouge spot both his white-washed cheeks.***The image, a still frame fr

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 3

Jul 24th, 2011 6m 6s

A circular space is illuminated, displaying tessellation of vivid colors, like gems in leaded glass, like the sacred Window of the Rose, in which intricate and repeating designs, endlessly change; like a wheel it turns; like a kaleidoscope the

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 4

Jul 24th, 2011 4m 31s

The circular space transforms, dissolving and reconfiguring. The image changes within the circle, as it resolves and transforms from the image of a mother and her child to a face—the full face of a young woman, whom we should recognize—and repl

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 5

Jul 24th, 2011 18m 53s

By cinematic montage we witness the marvel of seasons, the alteration of time upon Faustus’ garden in a span of several changes, so that across it the magic flowers grow and die more magically, in the spring naturally and in the winter supernat

Faustbook Act 4 Scene 6

Jul 24th, 2011 9m

A spotlight is cast upon Helen holding her child in her arms, standing upon an orb poised above a crescent moon, within the bowl of it, so that the moon resembles golden horns cradling the Earth, and she above it, enthroned. About her head twe