Tartuffe (F.W. Murnau, 1926)

This film is based on a play by Molière, a French playwright. He is known to be one of the greatest comedy playwrights of all time. I read Tartuffe some years ago, and couldn’t remember much of the plot, but the play has always stayed with me. It is an indictment of hypocrisy, particularly religious and Christian hypocrisy. I recently saw Pabst adaptation of Brecht’s play The Threepenny Opera, and had some critical points on it. I was concerned whether or not Murnau would fall into some of the same traps as Pabst.

Seeing this just some hours after seeing the phenomenal Der Letzte Mann (F.W. Murnau, 1924) is probably not such a good idea. It is a bit of a disappointment compared, although it does have its strengths. One of the crucial points is that Molière’s play was a comedy, and this should be too. Due to the play being a comedy, much of it was based on dialogue, rather than physicality, like say Chaplin. Dialogue driven comedy wasn’t really the strength of silent cinema, and it does show to some extent here. The film isn’t that funny, although it does get the themes and irony across. Due to the film not being very funny, it felt a bit flat, and the plot didn’t quite complement the mood. Although the atmosphere is great, like any Murnau film, it worked much better in Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) than here. Emil Jannings returns for Murnau here, playing Tartuffe, and the contrast is big. He looks like pure evil in this film, while in Der Letzte Mann he was a very sympathetic character. Good trademark of an actor I guess. The film also felt more stilted than Murnau’s other efforts, the technique he has otherwise showed is not here, and as a consequence it felt less interesting. I know it is not all about technique, but Murnau’s use of it was so good that I really missed it. I felt that the adaptation of Brecht’s play was stronger than this, but that might have something to do with that film being a sound film with monologue. Tartuffe is silent, and with only writing on the screen to substitute, a lot of what was good about the play is gone, or harder to get across.

The film is not quite that close to Tartuffe in many ways. In a way it is a film within a film. There is a plot, set in modern times, which is a parallel to Tartuffe. An old woman who takes care of an old man manages to convince him that his grandson is no good, as he is an actor (oh the horror!). He is convinced, and signs over his will to this woman who cleans his house. To get to his grandfather, the young man dresses up as a man going around town and with a projector showing films. The film he shows is, of course, Tartuffe. With this wraparound plot and the very short running time of the film, just over an hour, the film has omitted much of the narrative from the play. The film does feel quite unsatisfactory with its short playing time, and I believe that with a longer running time and more story the film could have been significantly improved, adding more meat to the plot. While I have criticized this film quite a bit, I did like it, but it doesn’t stand out as a classic, and is indeed the weakest I’ve seen by Murnau. I think there are some silent films that were successful adaptations of literature and theatre, but in many ways this format is perhaps not the best platform. Sound films have a better potential, considering that play and literature are mediums which rely very much on the written word, while silent film, to a much greater extent than sound film, is a visual medium. Perhaps it is better that films don’t adopt so much from other arts, but then again, there have been some fantastic films based on great works from other mediums. This is not one of them though.

An interesting watch, if nothing else, I remember liking Tartuffe, the play, quite a lot, and was sadly disappointed with this. Still, I am even more excited about watching more silent films from Germany, and while this may be one of Murnau’s weaker films, there is still a lot of good craft shown here, but the painfully short playing time, the lack of a structured narrative and the lack of true comedy makes this come short compared to the original play.