Faust aux enfers Review

Méliès had previously filmed two other adaptations of the Faust legend: Faust and Marguerite (1897) and Damnation of Faust (1898). The 1903 Damnation of Faust was his third version. In 1904, he would make a fourth and last straightforward adaptation, Faust and Marguerite, but his later films The Merry Frolics of Satan (1905) and The Knight of the Snows (1912) are also inspired by the legend.[2] According to Méliès's American catalogue, the direct inspiration for the 1903 version was Hector Berlioz's musical work La damnation de Faust.[3]

Méliès plays Mephistopheles in the film.[2] The dancing masked demons have the same costumes as those in The Infernal Cake Walk, a Méliès film made earlier in 1903.[2] The elaborate painted scenery for the film takes advantage of stage machinery techniques, including scenery rolling both horizontally and vertically; the sixth tableau was designed so that the set could repeatedly peel back to show new layers, allowing Méliès to show Faust and Mephistopheles advancing without having to move his heavy camera.[2] Other special effects used in the film include pyrotechnics, substitution splices, superimpositions on black backgrounds, and dissolves.