Berndt Heller has taught Film Music at the Berlin University of Art since 1975. He is known both for his numerous productions and compositions of music for recent films, and for the reconstruction of original music for silent films. He has performed live concerts for silent films all over the world, from Barcelona to Singapore. Among the films for which he has reconstructed the music are: Die Nibelungen, The Docks of New York, Merry Widow, Nosferatu, Metropolis and Der Rosenkavalier.

“If Goethe were alive, I’m sure he’d like this film, and things of this type (the model of the flight over the Alps) above all, the only things capable of reminding him of his work”.

F. W. Murnau

Faust should be considered as the personal work of F. W. Murnau, who changed its screenplay many times until he reached the definition of his own vision of the myth of the ancient alchemist. This is his most cared-for work from the point of view of versatility, the one in which the director’s conviction of the possibility of transforming cinema into an art with its own laws appears most evidently. But copies were circulating of this film which came from very different negatives, edited with parallel takes. It was necessary to reconstruct the original cut wanted by Murnau, ignoring the changes introduced by Ufa at the time of the film’s distribution, while at the same time coming close to the photographic quality of the original. Faithfulness to the director’s vision was the criterion applied by us in this restoration which we are now finally able to present.

The restoration of the film

The most interesting element in the restoration of this film has probably been one of its aspects which have made it an absolute novelty, namely the fact of calling people’s attention to the question of double versions in silent films, a fact which is apparently too well-known, but which had never been taken into adequate consideration as it deserved.

The restoration of Faust has led us to discover that, although it may seem logical, this practice was not introduced with the early sound films, because dubbing and subtitling did not exist or were not widespread yet. This practice was simply used because it was common in silent films, although it may seem absurd because intertitles could be translated and replaced.

The analysis of different materials of Faust preserved all over the world has allowed me to realise about the existence of not less than seven different negatives of this film! They were clearly earmarked for the large film markets, the same ones that, only three or four years later, would have obliged producers to make different sound versions of a film. […]

Restoration has been made by duplicating the American negative of Berlin, by changing its editing following the same one as the Danish copy, replacing the scenes containing texts in English with those in German taken from a Danish print and from the Wiesbaden duplicating positive, by replacing the scenes which had been eliminated by Murnau in America as well as those deteriorated in the American negative with others in turn taken from the Danish copy or sometimes from the Turner duplicate, which was rather complete although its quality is far from excellent. The work has been completed by replacing the American intertitles with the original German ones, since they almost always occupied the same place.

Accompaniment music

“When Murnau left for Hollywood on June 22 1926, he considered his work finished. He had prepared a list of accompaniment music together with Ernö Rapée (that he would have soon left Ufa to go to Hollywood), including pieces from Gounod’s work. The film was presented on August 25 in Berlin with this accompaniment, but a few authoritative critics, such as Hans Feld, did not approve of it, stating that such a film would deserve original music. The Ufa producer, Hans Neumann, withdrew Rapée’s accompaniment and charged first Giuseppe Becce, who would eventually give up, and then Werner Richard Heymann to write the full score. Heymann used original themes together with other repertoire pieces for his accompaniment which was played at the film’s première in Berlin.

As Heymann’s accompaniment also included choruses and a large number of instruments, it could not be played in small movie houses. Hence, Paul A. Hansel prepared a music list of 48 pieces which were easier to be played by small orchestras. Hensel’s compilation, which was very well accepted by critics, is the only one where full access has been possible, thanks to its publication in the November issue n. 283 of the ‘Licht-Bild-Bühne’ magazine. Paul A. Hensel’s accompaniment music was synchronised according to an original orchestration by Berndt Heller, with the collaboration of Spanish musicians Armando and Carlos Pérez Màntaras, completing the small fragments that Hensel had left unfinished in his compilation, such as Mephisto’s greeting upon his appearance (Hensel noted: a flute’s humour note should be used at each Mephisto’s greeting) or the agitato crescendo of the end of the first scene between the devil and the archangel (Hensel noted only: great agitato crescendo).

For a small fragment of the monk’s death scene it was not possible to identify the theme Scène funèbre by Fauchey, as indicated by Hensel, which was instead replace by a fragment of Unstern! by Listz. When Hensel implicitly suggests the use of Heymann’s music, without clearly defining its theme, that music has been used. For instance Hensel writes: ‘For Gretchen’s theme use a 32 ¾-bar soft song for string instruments’. Berndt Heller, who also prepared a chorus accompaniment for some scenes of the film, has directed the orchestra at Faust’s presentation during the last Berlin film festival”.

Luciano Berriatúa, Cinegrafie, VI, n.9, 1996