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What started as an exploration of the devil in their show, The Exorcist Minute, has grown into something much greater. Find all the original episodes of the show and more right here in The Devil's Details with Lester Ryan Clark and Kynan Dias.
Coming up on the Devil's Details, F. W. Murnau's FAUST! Good morning, Star, and welcome to another episode of the Devil's Details, a show where we dig up, decipher, dissect, and deconstruct the many forms of the devil. One of my names is Lester Ryan Clark.
Kynan Dias:And I sometimes go by Keenan Diaz.
Lester Ryan Clark:And we're just two lost souls hitchhiking down the highway to hell. Alright folks, this is it. We made it. You made it. Are you excited?
Lester Ryan Clark:Are you happy? Are you proud of yourself? Pat yourself on the back. We have reached the end of our FAUST season. Season?
Lester Ryan Clark:Season. Yes. We we have seasons now. Mhmm. Seasons And greetings.
Lester Ryan Clark:So
Kynan Dias:stupid. Yeah. So we're gonna finish up with FAUST and take a little break and and then come back with the new season
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. On
Kynan Dias:the Devil Devil stuff.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Presumably. Yes. Wouldn't wouldn't that be wild if we didn't? It's like it's it's it's the mermaid minute.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's what we're doing. But, no, guys, Keenan really wanted to show me and show us this film. This is the adaptation of our FAUST story done by F. W. Murnau, famous director.
Lester Ryan Clark:F. W. Murnau, you might know him from Nosferatu fame.
Kynan Dias:Yes. The first Nosferatu, not the new one that's out with Will Sarsgaard. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:The one sans mustache.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. But I I did insist on this one. You know, Lester wanted to take a break earlier. I said, no.
Kynan Dias:We need to do this one. And yeah. So it is roughly an adaptation of Goethe's version. So a lot of that's gonna be the same. But one of the reasons I was really insisting that Lester and then any of you who are playing along at home take a look at it is because of the specific imagery, especially in relationship to Mephisopheles
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:You know, that I think is is a big part of the way that we look at the Devil. What Murnau and his filmmakers were able to do to design Mephistopheles.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I was expecting it was like it's like, oh, okay. So Keenan wants me to to watch out for the imagery here. Mhmm. And then when we're on the show, he's gonna point out some things that that I that went straight over my head and make me feel stupid.
Lester Ryan Clark:But then the the minute this thing opens up, he was like, oh, this is this is exactly where they got the silhouette for Night on Bald Mountain because that's what we see here.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah. Not subtle here.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No.
Kynan Dias:It is Not subtle imagery.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's it's like if you turn your head slightly, it's it's it's kinda like Night on Bald no.
Kynan Dias:It's exactly like Night where on the Disney animators get their idea for Night on Bald Mountain is Yeah. From this. Mhmm. So that's one of our bonus episodes. You become a member for us, we have an episode on Chernobog and the Disney Devil.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But, yeah, beyond Disney, there are, I think, a lot of even, like, the way that we imagine, like, devil worship Mhmm. And some of the imagery of of say how to conjure the devil. Mhmm. Yep. And, you know, again, seeing FAUST in this context as the old man and then as as the young person, which we've seen, you know, in in the opera, etcetera.
Kynan Dias:But Mhmm. But the way they frame him here and the way that they have him interacting with the Devil who is oh, well, how would you describe this version of Epistopolis?
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, this version? Well, I wanna I wanna talk a little bit about that once we get to him. But before we even get to the Devil Alright. Guys, we got the, well, we got the three horsemen of the apocalypse, I guess.
Kynan Dias:This was this was during a great, you know, economic troubles in Germany at the time. Lester, don't know if you remember, like, hyperinflation. People would have wheelbarrows full of Deutsche Marks to go and buy their loaves of bread.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right. They were burning their their Deutsche Marks because it was cheaper than than, you know, buying the firewood. Right? Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Stuffing their mattresses.
Kynan Dias:Yes. You want them to have four horsemen in this economy?
Lester Ryan Clark:Well, I was also gonna say, they probably don't want war back. So they're just like, you you stay over there. Famine, pestilence, death, come on in.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Come You on
Lester Ryan Clark:had your day. Just just be over there and be and be sorry for the rest of the existence of Germany. Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, should I give a little background about German expressionism in general and Murnau? Is this a good time for that?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So Murnau is a relatively young filmmaker. He's in his late thirties when he's making this. And he's working within what we call German expressionism today, which you might have heard if you're a film fan, you might have heard of German expressionism, like, influencing the horror genre in America, which you could see here, and also the film noir genre in America. So what this was
Lester Ryan Clark:I would say Tim Burton leans heavily on on some German expressionism.
Kynan Dias:Is a really interesting yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think it's it's sort of German expressionism plus like English Victorian Gothicism.
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Like like Edward Gorey and then, you know, that that kind of like art style. Yeah. Then you get Sam Burton. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what this was was a rejection of realism, just in general. Like realism not for us here at this time period.
Kynan Dias:And yeah, it's in film. So we normally say German expressionism. But there is an expressionism that is not German. It's like throughout all of Northern Europe at at the time. Okay.
Kynan Dias:So probably the most like worldwide famous expression of expressionism is Edvard Munch's The Scream.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, yes. Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So like it's not even the child, I think, looks at the screams like that's not literally realistically what would look like if you were on the seashore. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But we alter, you know, the external in order to reflect the internal. Yes. So that's what it feels like to be that person. Or, oh, I don't know, in the screen, like, we meant to be that person or are we someone who's looking at that person and seeing their existential dread?
Kynan Dias:But, you know, either way, like, that's what we're experiencing inside.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. I always saw it as like, oh, this is, you know, whatever that person is feeling is kind of mirrored in the, you know, in the background,
Kynan Dias:I Yeah. In the background, like like in the way the bridge or the the boardwalk or whatever that is is drawn, like, it doesn't literally look the way it's supposed to look. The colors aren't what they really would be. Mhmm. And there's swirls and, yeah, Tim Burton y.
Kynan Dias:There's not there there's very little straight lines in the background at all. Right? Just the there's like the boardwalk and that's a straight line, but like the the clouds are wispy and the the land is wispy and the the ocean is wispy and then the person's wispy. Right? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. He's not he's straight up not having a good time.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. Absolutely not. Speaking of not having a good time Uh-huh. I I think we have to mention Keenan is recovering right now.
Kynan Dias:Oh. I thought I was hiding it so well.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. No. No.
Lester Ryan Clark:You were. You were. But I just I just want to I just want to to let everybody know how much of a trooper you are. The last time the last time I I talked to Keenan, was like, hey, you know, what do you think of, you know, doing the show this weekend? Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and his appendix spoke and it said, your mother sucks. God's in hell. I'll fucking kill you. I'll kill you all. And I was like, well, gosh.
Lester Ryan Clark:And so he went to the he went to the doctor and Uh-huh. And the doctor said, your appendix isn't here with us. And
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Went to the doctor and the doctor said, no more appendixes jumping on the bed.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bada bing bada bang bada boom. And that's I I imagine that's exactly how it felt to you, Keenan.
Lester Ryan Clark:They got it out. They got it out. Mhmm. Yeah. And he's he's recovering.
Kynan Dias:You you know, so we're in this golden age of surgery right now, and, we're gonna get better. It's gonna be with lasers in the future and, like, tools that, like like self seal and all that stuff. But like Mhmm. What they do nowadays is with little tiny cameras on fiber optic cables. So they they don't have to open you up very much.
Kynan Dias:And like they warn you that, hey, we could get in there and we can't do it. Had to cut you up, you know, traditionally, you know, with the big old gash and all that stuff. But but, yeah, it's all laparoscopic with these tiny little guys. And so what they do, Lester, is they cut four holes in me.
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay.
Kynan Dias:Little tiny know, the biggest incision I have is like an inch and a half.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:And one of the holes gets a tube in there that that they pump you full of carbon dioxide.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay. So they blew me up like a balloon.
Kynan Dias:And that that's so that they could see in there. So they Oh. Basically, like, they expanded me like a balloon. So when they put the cameras with the scissors in it and stuff, they could see.
Lester Ryan Clark:I see.
Kynan Dias:Okay. So I would I would just remind you of the frog in Shrek. Uh-huh. Who gets blown up as a balloon.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:That's what they did to your boy.
Lester Ryan Clark:That that is what they did. Wow. Yeah. And the whole time folks, the whole time Keenan Keenan's face looked like Edvard Munch's history. He was conscious through it all.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And the incisions they made were very German expression y.
Kynan Dias:Very expression y. Yeah. Exactly. They they're not a straight line. Nice.
Lester Ryan Clark:When you first told me, we used this like, oh, like like right before we began, he he's like, oh, you know, it's it's it's very different nowadays. Surgery is very different. And I thought you were gonna start pitching, like, gentle parenting surgery. You're like, like, they just talked to my appendix, and they were like, alright. Now now now now come out.
Kynan Dias:Come on. Yeah. That's not what we do, and this is why. So next time we're in this situation One. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So they cut it out. I was discharged about a week ago. I missed an episode of our Everything Everywhere show, every minute of Everything Everywhere all at once. And our friend Ian jumped in, which I'm very grateful for.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Alright. Where were we? We're talking about existential dread? Yes.
Kynan Dias:Yes. I've been very, very tired.
Lester Ryan Clark:So, yes, send your send your well wishes. Send send, you know, all your all your, you know, good vibes over to I almost said thoughts and prayers, but I I just that that phrase is
Kynan Dias:back. I'll take I'll take thoughts. I'll
Lester Ryan Clark:Send your thoughts and prayers too.
Kynan Dias:Right, where were we? Expressionism.
Lester Ryan Clark:So we got Night on Bone Mountain. I just got to the part where he is looking very chernoboggy.
Kynan Dias:Expressionism in general for his Oh, yes. We're up in Northern Europe. We have this expressionism.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But then when it spreads to Germany
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. There's the thing that happens because the Germans
Lester Ryan Clark:When when thoughts and concepts and ideas come to Germany, something happens. Something happens. Right? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So we're not in World War II yet. We're in World War I. So German expressionism, as we know, it sort of overlaps with the German experience of World War I. And the Germans are blamed for World War I, whether fairly or not. Right?
Kynan Dias:I think that's up for a lot of debate. And they were they but they were the most powerful country in Europe. And then they were they were humbled by by World War one. Not just like the the deaths in the in the trenches and all that, like the experience of the soldiers and the starving and all of that, which is legendary. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right. But also, like, the victors of the war, like, wanted them to, like, really feel it emotionally. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. They wanted to the Treaty of Versailles, folks, just like, you know, just check out that that treaty. That they they they wanted to stomp them flat. Yeah. I yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:If I remember correctly, it's like, because we came in like, don't we always just come in late?
Kynan Dias:At least in the last two world wars. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:What's what's going on? Yeah. And but like and I I if I remember correct if I remember my history correctly Mhmm. At the, you know, the the Versailles meeting, we were the ones who were like, ah, you know, let's go gentle on them. Let's, you know, let's you know, because we didn't have we never had boots on the ground.
Lester Ryan Clark:We never had bombs, you know, like like falling on our cities and
Kynan Dias:stuff. Own territory. Territory. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? But, yeah, the the the the French folk and the and the English folk, were like, no. Fucking. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Absolutely. So they really they really wanna stick it to the Germans and, like and so, again, whether that was justified or not, the result of it was that the German psyche was pretty broken. Yeah. Just in general. And so that's so now you're adding expressionism, the idea of like, hey, realism isn't really how to express what's inside of people.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. And now we have the German people going through a real crisis emotionally.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And then you get German expressionism, which is pretty distinct. And it's like in film, but also theater and dance and architecture, you start having buildings that aren't just straight up and down lines. They're sometimes curves, but often like jagged. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And in Nosferatu, Murnau's other film, you kind of are introduced to the idea of the kind of the key thing in German recession, which is the shard. Like, is jagged. Like, the world has thinking about the world is like a bauble, like a glass bauble. Mhmm. And it's been broken into a million bazillion pieces.
Kynan Dias:And and we've tried to put it back together in some way. Right? But it doesn't it's not gonna work.
Lester Ryan Clark:And everything's kinda like all like like, you got, like, polygonal and you got, like, like, janky corners missing and and stuff like that.
Kynan Dias:We tried our best. Right? Mhmm. But then also a little Tim Burton, you're like, it's not gonna work, I'm gonna, like, wear the mistakes on my sleeve. Right?
Kynan Dias:So now I'm purposefully gonna make these mistakes, and that's how I like, you show that I'm a survivor. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Let's let's make a a an architecturally impossible tower that just kinda, like, like, bends weird and, you know, like, has, like, way too, like, pointy of a roof and Right. You know, and windows that, like, you you can't actually see through because they're so thin and and Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly. Not functional. Mhmm. Not straight up and down, but they that's how they how you it feels to be in a house.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So then, you know, we mostly look at the the movies of German custom because it's the most like, one of the most influential, like, film movements. But Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:This was also in, yeah, architecture, poetry was jagged and then Mhmm. Expressionism, and then dance, which I'm not a dance historian expert, but as I understand it, like that that's a huge departure and like we still use expressionistic dance often comes from this period as well
Lester Ryan Clark:from Germany. Wow. Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So then that's for now. And he makes Nosferatu. Mhmm. And that is a bootleg version of Dracula, which we talked a little bit about.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And that's the world's, like, big introduction to German special on a grand scale. There's a movie before that called The Cabin of Doctor Caligari that you might Yeah. Mhmm. With a sleepwalking murderer guy.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. But I think Nosferatu is really the, like, beginning of it, like, as a mature art form. Mhmm. Mhmm. Like, it looks as the world saw everywhere outside of Germany.
Kynan Dias:And, yeah, it was bootlegged Dracula. And as you probably know, right, they Bramsoker's estate sued. Mhmm. And said, hey, you can't do that. Even though they changed, like like, in Dracula, he's a wolf and a bat, but in Nosferatu, he's a rat.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's definitely very rat like. It's a and what it like like a perfect German expressionist version of Dracula is, like, you know, bald and pointy. Everything about him is is like his nose, his ears. Mhmm. Even his teeth are they're not I mean, you know, vampire teeth are pointy, but his are like it's like two teeth become one teeth.
Lester Ryan Clark:It it it's very rat like.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Very rat like. And he he moves. He jerks. He doesn't he doesn't walk.
Kynan Dias:He like Mhmm. You know, like German dance, expressionist dance.
Lester Ryan Clark:He Right.
Kynan Dias:He doesn't have natural movements whatsoever.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And so Bramsoger's estate sued and said, not only can you not make Nosferatu, you need to burn every copy. Yeah. And luckily, that didn't happen. We still have some.
Kynan Dias:But, yeah, that became hugely influential too.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. How crazy is that? Like, we almost didn't have Nosferatu. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:I agree. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And then, yeah, to yada yada yada over over the rest of Murnau's career, he makes a movie called Last Laugh, which really tries to show camera movement. It's like this influential camera movement idea of the unshamed camera, the idea that the camera should be able to go wherever the hell it needs to go to tell the story. Oh. And long takes and cameras that start up on a balcony and then move downstairs and up through elevators and out outdoors and stuff like that. And then his last German movie is FAUST.
Kynan Dias:Before he is what's the word? Recruited by Hollywood to kinda make some of best early Hollywood movies.
Lester Ryan Clark:Scooped up by Scooped by the Hollywood machine.
Kynan Dias:That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:So this is German expressionism over here.
Kynan Dias:Oh, they loved it. They couldn't they couldn't get enough of it. Yeah. So that that's like a, you know, crash course of German expressionism. There's way a lot more.
Kynan Dias:Like, at UNLV Film, we teach a whole semester of it. And and then our buddies, Andy Nelson over at CinemaScope, which is his podcast. He did a let's see, an hour and a half episode on German expressionism with some experts, yeah, to talk about that. But, yeah, take a look at that. And like a great book on it is called From Caligari to Hitler.
Kynan Dias:Oh, okay. A Psychological History of German Film by Siegfried Krochauer. Krochauer. Krochauer. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But that but that's basically German expression is really, truly brief because by 1933, when the Nazis took over, they were like, no more of that. We're done with that. Right. Right. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:They took over the whole film industry, they wanted propaganda instead.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right? And we had a whole we had a whole minister of propaganda. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:It was a tiny little he looked German expressionist. He looked he looked like the the subject of Edvard Munch's The Scream.
Kynan Dias:That's right. He does. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, boy.
Kynan Dias:Alright. Anyway. Yes. Anyways, that's that's where we are. But yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So okay. So what you're saying, Keenan, is this film is kind of like the culmination of Murnau's work because this is this is his last thing before he was scooted off to Hollywood, and we get to see all of his tricks from Nosferatu Mhmm. And all of his other works.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. All of his German works kinda lead up to this. And the first movie he makes in America is called Sunrise, which is one of the best movies. But but, yeah, this is like the culmination of all of his German stuff. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Got it. And then he dies very quickly after that. So
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. Okay. So this is happens.
Kynan Dias:Let's see. He is he died at 42 a year older than me.
Lester Ryan Clark:Jesus fucking Christ.
Kynan Dias:But he died in a car crash. Don't worry.
Lester Ryan Clark:Don't worry. Okay. Okay.
Kynan Dias:That will never happen
Lester Ryan Clark:to us.
Kynan Dias:I said, no. That's impossible. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm just gonna I'm just gonna stay in my home, I'm not gonna
Kynan Dias:do anything. Don't go anywhere.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But, yeah, like, I I'm this is this is my second, I guess, German expressionist movie that I that I watched with intent. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like, actually, like, taking notes and everything like that. Mhmm. I did see Metropolis. Uh-huh. You know?
Lester Ryan Clark:And, of course, Nosferatu.
Kynan Dias:Oh, great.
Lester Ryan Clark:But this one is like the first the first one where I'm like, okay, I'm sitting down and I'm paying attention to, you know, all the stuff.
Kynan Dias:Very cool. The best German specialist movies still hold up very much and Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Definitely. So, yeah, speaking of that, so you're saying that this image of Mephisto kind of like with his wings kind of like half folded
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:This is like, I'm I'm looking at it right now. There's there's no way that Disney didn't get the idea from this image.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Mephistopheles introduced in this this version as coming out of a mountain. Right? Yes.
Kynan Dias:And that his wings have been folded over him. We we see the side of a mountain, and then we understand that, oh, the mountain is actually his wings that he unfolds as
Lester Ryan Clark:he wakes up. Yeah. Yes.
Kynan Dias:That is that is virtually impossible that that is not Disney seeing this because this is a very famous movie. And then even more than I mean, when even when you look at the village Mhmm. Here, it looks exactly like the village in Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, just the shading and just how it kind of, like, trails off into the back.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So absolutely, this is that. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. The hugely influential movie.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But you know what Night on Bald Mountain didn't have Mhmm. Was this big freaking angel. Yeah. We got an archangel here, folks.
Lester Ryan Clark:I don't think I don't think he has a name
Kynan Dias:I don't believe so. Or they
Lester Ryan Clark:have a name, but he's just like, halt. So weird to understand that Mephisto has woken up. It's not it's not just that, like, Mephisto's hanging out and he's been out here for a while and and the angel shows up. The angel is here specifically because Mephisto woke up.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. It is. It's so it's similar to Goethe's idea of having this prologue. Right? That's sort of Jobian of of this this bet that they make.
Kynan Dias:Right? Mhmm. Mhmm. But yeah. But it is it does seem like Mephistopheles does not live up in heaven like the Job Satan does.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:He he's of the earth, which I think is a is a key change in this one. Like Right. Because again, this is the twentieth century idea. And by this point, we are much more of the idea that the Devil is of the Earth and lives of the Earth and Mhmm. Like of the of the world is how I should
Lester Ryan Clark:mean it. He's worldly.
Kynan Dias:He's worldly. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right? Everything all the natural things, all the nature that you feel or or your natural feelings, you know, are are are sinful and it's Right. Because of him. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And that's why the Devil's original color back in, you know, Chaucer's time was green because he because he was, you know, he was he was of the forest.
Kynan Dias:He was
Lester Ryan Clark:of the woods. He was, you know, he was he was the man in green.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly. So our our archangel here is this like glowing white. Like what you know, I don't wanna say like there's no design choices here, but he's like, imagine an archangel.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Just just think of an archangel. There you
Kynan Dias:go. That's that's what you got. Yeah. Yeah. So he's got this big flowing white robe that looks like lit from within, right, and the long the long hair, shoulder length hair, but you know, he looks pretty cool.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he's got he's got the he's got the armor, he's got the sword, he's like, halt. And and Mephisto is like, nah, it's my time. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm I'm coming out.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. He seems to be Mephisto seems to be waking up because of these brief glimpses. They're not even really scenes that we have of FAUST at this point of him working in his, like, laboratory. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And, you know, like like, again, I don't think German expressionism gets enough credit for inventing the idea of, like, a mad scientist. Yeah. But we have that in Metropolis. And then if we if we draw the line between German expressionism and something like Frankenstein Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:The movie Frankenstein rather. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Right. Like like, that's our image of because in the book Frankenstein, Shelley doesn't go into really a lot of, like, how the lab looks or how you make the monster.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. There's no, like, test tubes or, you know, Bunsen burners or, you know Yeah. Like, lightning thingy Right.
Kynan Dias:You know, kind of It's not about electricity or anything. It's just I I I worked really hard and I woke up the next day and there was a monster that I made. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So like that that comes from German fascism. So a lot of the imagery here of like FAUST working in his lab and yeah, dealing with like Rube Goldberg esque like versions of Erlenmeyer flask or whatever, you know, you or think of like Bugs Bunny in a lab or something. Like, you drop something here and it turns a different color and goes through all these different types and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:That's that's from here. And yeah. So it seems like Mephisopheles is like awoken by some things that FAUST is doing here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. It like, he the angel comes to stop him, and Mephistopheles starts talking about, like, how shitty humankind is. And it's like, it's my time now. I'm just gonna I'm take these guys, and you know, it's like that's what the plague is, right? And the angel does, you know, the the god role, and he's like, well, about FAUST?
Lester Ryan Clark:Look at FAUST! And he shows, I think, you know, it's kinda you're you're spinning it, you're kinda being a little bit biased, Angel, because he shows he shows FAUST as a professor, and he's teaching all these, you know, all these students. And it's look at look at that. And Mephisto's like, uh-huh. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:But what about what he when he gets home? Like, look at what he's trying to do. He's an alchemist. He's trying to turn metal into gold. He's trying you know?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. It's like it's like you just you just show him being a good teacher. Come on.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And that's that's the start of the bet. It's like I can show you I'll show you that that FAUST is is not a good guy. Right. Spoilers.
Lester Ryan Clark:He isn't. This we have eaten it like halfway through. Was like, oh, maybe this is the no. No.
Kynan Dias:Because then he
Lester Ryan Clark:gets to Gretchen, and I'm like, nope. Nope.
Kynan Dias:Nope. That that's all virtually the same. Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But this bet is slightly different. Right? It it is it's slightly different from from the Goethe one. It's like, we're going to see if we could rest FAUST! SOUL from God, think he says.
Kynan Dias:Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. I'll I'll wager that I shall rest SOUL from God.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's not quite what it is in the Goethe one. Listen. And this is like specifically like like maybe FAUST is like led astray, but I read that as like FAUST! Is still with God in in this version.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Like he's on the fence, like he's he's a possible convert either way.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And the angel's like, if you can destroy the divine in him
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Then not only FAUST is yours, but the world will be yours. Yes. Exactly. Because I guess like FAUST is so so FAUST is, like, the representative of, like, the best and the worst of all of us in this in this version.
Kynan Dias:Oh, good.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. Oh, don't don't make any long term plans, folks.
Kynan Dias:FAUST is our FAUST is our cheerleader. It's like that. Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah so you know the bed is made and the angel disappears and Mephisto also disappears and then we get lights up on this on this town and we get this charming townsfolk scene. There's there's just so many, like, moving parts in this thing. There's, you know, you got the crowd, you got this this, like, kind of jester fool dancing up on the on the on the stage, you got people on a swing, all of this this guy on a doing a handstand. And then, like, in the foreground of one shot, you got what looks like, I don't know, like like two birds or something like that, like kissing or something, and then they become hands. They're like they're like shadow puppet hands.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But it's like it's stuff that's like it's everything's happening all at once. It's so quick. It's just this rush of humanity and and and festivity and but also, like, debauchery, and you're seeing it all Yeah. You know, happen. And and you can't take it all in.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like, you have to watch this this scene just a couple of times to see, like like, each corner of the screen what everybody's doing.
Kynan Dias:Right. And I I like that you're you're pointing at it. It's debauchery. They're not you like we don't go into into the world after this bet is established and, like, go to church or something.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And we don't go to, like, you know, the holy Roman emperor. He's he's not a character in this. Like, we go to everyday people. And they are, yeah, they are fiddling while the world burns, I guess.
Kynan Dias:Right? Mhmm. And they're watching, you know, at this carnival. And this jester guy who's doing handstands, he falls dead on the stage. Yes.
Kynan Dias:And they rush up to help him. They're like, oh, he's got the plague.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And then they just like they abandon him. Mhmm. They run they run as if like the plague is is something that can like chase you.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. And it kinda and then at the same time, we have Mephistopheles who's standing above the village. Right? Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And like we
Kynan Dias:see him he like in this image, he's like a thousand feet tall or something. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:He is Chernobog in the, you know, in
Kynan Dias:the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he like, he's interacting with live people unlike Chernobog who interacts only with dead people and spirits and and that kind of thing. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But but, yeah, it's like, yeah, they're running away from the the guy with the plague, but they they can't run away from Chernobog. What's his name? Mephisopheles. Right. He's over them.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. And he's he's so over them. But yeah. So so this this plague gains ground very, very quickly.
Lester Ryan Clark:We get I'm I'm assuming these are very problematic costumes right now, but I'm assuming these are plague doctors.
Kynan Dias:Not KKK members? Yes. Yeah. They look like KKK. So I don't know I don't know what that I don't know what they would be in Germany.
Lester Ryan Clark:It must I mean, they look they have to be they look like doctors because they're they're carrying the dead people. Mhmm. Right. Like, they're they're they're serving the same kind of, like, offices. Or more not morticians, whatever.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like grave diggers or whatever.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But, yeah, they're they're they're getting rid of the the dead. It's like, bring out your dead. Bring your dead. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and and I guess that, you know, that that pointed hat is like, you know, marks them out as like, yeah, we're we're the ones who we touch dead people.
Kynan Dias:I isn't isn't like I don't know this. Maybe someone does know it. Like, you know, that, like, the plague doctor mask, it looks like a beak.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Isn't it supposed to be like like that extra air is supposed to, like, insulate you, like this extra, you know, pockets of crap in your mask is supposed to help you? Not that it does.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. No. No.
Lester Ryan Clark:They were it's it's it it was dumb, but it was like it was they were on the right track. Right. Because what they they filled I mean, like, this this might be pseudo, like, like, hearsay, whatever. Mhmm. But from what I understand, they filled those quote unquote beaks with, like, perfumes and rose petals and and things like that.
Kynan Dias:Right. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because they thought it was the smell that was carrying the the disease. And it's like, we just overpower like, if we just fill our, like, masks with, like, you know, the smell of poppies and roses and and all that stuff, then, you know, the the the disease won't get to us. They didn't know about germ theory. They didn't know about viruses or Right. Or bacteria or anything like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:They thought it was but but they had The miasma, the
Kynan Dias:bad air. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:They had some idea that it was like airborne and they were like, the smell will will defeat it.
Kynan Dias:Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe they're doing that with their grand wizard caps.
Kynan Dias:I have no idea.
Lester Ryan Clark:I guess. Yeah. Mean, like, yeah. It covers their faces, I guess. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But but yeah. And and, you know, the plague is the plague is raging and FAUST is instead of turning trying to turn metal into gold, he's I I guess he's trying to find a cure for the plague?
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. That's a big difference. Right? Like, he is working for good.
Kynan Dias:He's a doctor in the way that we would consider doctor today.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So he's not a theologian. And they describe him as an alchemist, but he's trying to use alchemy like like ancient magic. He's like reading what? Like, Egyptian texts and things like that. But so he you know, stuff that perhaps he shouldn't that's not real quote unquote science for his time, but he's trying to cure the plague.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like like not like, there was no science for his time. Right?
Kynan Dias:Like Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:This is before even, you know, John Milton and and, you know, it's like talking about, like, natural philosophers before we even had the word scientist. So he yeah. He's kind of in line with, you know, it's like, yeah. There's a little bit of religion, little bit of dark magic, a little bit of, like, what will eventually be science and, you know, just Right. You know, mix it all together and and Yeah.
Kynan Dias:I guess my point is that we we take pains to show that he's using pagan religions or, you know, Egyptian religions, like ancient pantheons. And I think we're supposed to think of we're supposed to kind of understand that that's like, oh, that's the wrong path. Uh-huh. You know, if we if we showed him praying to Jesus. Right.
Kynan Dias:Right. And that and that's it. Like, he's trying to come up with a Christian type of science. That that would be a bit different. We're we're showing him, like, reaching back into the past with these Right.
Kynan Dias:These older heatheny religions.
Lester Ryan Clark:And do you think then this is is Murnau's saying, it's like, see, like, is this is why it was easy for the devil to get him.
Kynan Dias:I think so. I think exactly. I think he's because he he he's not going towards the one truth. Right? The real truth.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:He's going through all these old he's using his books and reading about what they did in in Egypt and Greece. Like, oh my god. Crazy.
Lester Ryan Clark:Which of which of books and your knowledge and your
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Yeah. And then we see him like, you know, ministering to to people, which is different. So he like tries to help this woman.
Kynan Dias:The the this daughter comes like, help me save my mother. She has the plague. He goes and he goes and does that. You know, he he walks the walk in this version.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:So he is not like in both Marlowe and and Goethe's version like a a hermit in his like tower of books where he just like learning Right. Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Suffering, you know, it's like like he he he wants to be like, in in those ones, he wants to be a doctor because, like, doctors are, like, respected and esteemed.
Kynan Dias:And And they know more than other people.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And he's actually trying to put those into action, which is very different.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. So that's okay. You know what, FAUST? Just stay this way.
Lester Ryan Clark:Maybe the play gets you, and then you know what? That's that's actually a good thing. Just, you know.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And then we go out into the streets, you know, out from Goethe's place, we see, you know, a lot of suffering there, which is some of my, I was gonna say, favorite imagery, but at least some of my striking imagery that doesn't get talked about a lot. But, you know, like there's these, like, bonfires in the street and they have all these really shadowy, like, you know, shadows of of the people in the streets who are suffering and Mhmm. There's, like, a street preacher. He doesn't seem to be like a priest.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I think you would call him a monk. He's got the tonsure haircut with the Oh, that's true. Shave thing and the stark image of him holding that cross again is just like kinda like very, very it stands out. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Absolutely. And so we see him out there and so he he seems to I I don't know. Like, he's talking about, yeah, gotta you gotta pray, you gotta repent, etcetera. Mhmm. And then the people some of the people try to accept that and other people don't.
Kynan Dias:Like, there's a debate in the in the streets about like how to deal with plague. And there's, okay, we can be an aesthetic like this monk and and, like, you know, just pray until you die. And but that's okay. And then there's, like, a there's, like, a parade of, like, revelers coming through. And, hey, the town is gonna die, so, gather you roses while you may.
Kynan Dias:And live through the dance of fools, which is Oh, this is also really influential, expressionism in general, on Ingmar Bergman stuff like The Seventh Seal. Oh, So then we have that debate, and then there's kind of a debate about trying to find a middle ground between faith and science, which is not in Goethe or Marlowe at all. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:This is
Kynan Dias:a twentieth century version of that.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like yeah.
Kynan Dias:Like, yeah. You can't do it just on faith. Like, that's not gonna be enough.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. As as evidenced by we get this this monk dying. Yeah. So it's like, okay. Well, that's proof that, you know, that doesn't work.
Lester Ryan Clark:I do like right before he dies, he's the only one who can see the Devil. He sees because there's we get this we get this kind of the whole time that the the plague is is kinda spreading through Mhmm. We have kind of like superimposed Mephisto's face kind of like drifting through the streets and everything like that. Nobody can see that. Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's it's, you know, it's more of a kind of like it's like just for us. But our priest Mhmm. Is like sees it right before he dies. And it's almost like that's the thing that kills him is the shock of seeing, you know, Satan's face.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Looking directly at you. Yeah. Right. Like like out of out of the hundreds of people in this village, like now he's looking directly at this guy.
Kynan Dias:It's
Lester Ryan Clark:like Right.
Kynan Dias:Know, boo. And then, yeah, he drops dead, drops his cross and collapses. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And then right after that, we get FAUST coming back to, you know, his place, and it's it's it's like filled with books like like little miniature towers of books. Right.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And he gets so fed up. He just, like, like, starts, like, chucking the the books. He starts toppling the towers. He's like he's fed up with with all of these books.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Right.
Kynan Dias:So yeah, he's not like he again, unlike unlike the Goethe Goethe version and the Marlowe version where he is he seems content. Even as those tragedies are going out, he's still like, you know, the the whole thing in Marlowe's is like, hey, you're showing me all this stuff, but it's stuff I already knew.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Like,
Kynan Dias:where's the new knowledge? Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And then in in Goethe, it's like like like some of these books might be wrong, and that's why I'm throwing them away. Here, it's like these books can't help me. These like
Kynan Dias:a lot
Lester Ryan Clark:of good these books did.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And expressionist style, like there's shots of him like in between these towers of them like overwhelmed by like basically this whole like overwhelmed by his life choices. Right? Mhmm. Like here I am with these with these things and they don't help people and yeah, and he rages against them.
Lester Ryan Clark:Could that be a mere like, we got we got Mephisto towering over, like, a city. Right. And then we got FAUST towering over this kind of, like, city of books.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. I like that. That's really smart. Okay. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But he goes in addition to, like, you know, throwing his alchemy books in the fire, he throws a bible in the fire Yep. Which we talked about this on The Exorcist Minute. Uh-huh. Like, even as an atheist, I would as an as an atheist actor, like I don't I I think I would have trouble throwing something that is made to look like a bible into the fire.
Kynan Dias:I think like there's still something about that deep in my little Catholic boy or just like not rude person brain.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's I mean, it'd be the same, like, even if you're not even if you're not Muslim, I wouldn't throw, like, a Quran in the like like Yeah. You can't like or even a fake one. That's a fake one. Right. It's like because as soon as you put the little cover on Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Even if all the pages are blank, I'm not gonna like, how yeah. Like, where where does the line go? Like, you know? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And he's got this huge bible. It's like phone book size, like gigantic bible. Because it's a illustrated manuscript, I guess. It's got
Lester Ryan Clark:like yeah. With a you know, it's it's the one that, you know, those those monks kinda like, you know, sit, you know, in rows in their in their little cloisters and and kinda like, you know, highlight all the all the little, you know, letters and everything like that. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Right. Let me look up this verse that he he reads before he but you, Lord God, are merciful and full of goodness. That's what like like, that's the last page of the that's the page that breaks the the FAUST back here. Mhmm. And he's like, no.
Kynan Dias:I just I'm in the street seeing people die, and that's
Lester Ryan Clark:not true. Yeah. So so that causes him to burn the bible. Mhmm. But then as he's burning all these books, like, one kind of, like, falls open.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And I love that. It's like because then because then you have the questions like, okay. Was that coincidence? Was that was that god?
Lester Ryan Clark:Was that Mephisto kind of like it's like, hey. Hey. Hey. You know? Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But it's a it's a book of magic and he's like, Okay. This is the thing I haven't tried. This will this this is the answer. Right? I've tried I've tried your way, god.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. You know? Yeah. You win this around god as I say on a daily basis.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. That that never seems to change. Whether whether something is good or bad, it just, know yeah. But then Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Let's see. This page says, the powerful threefold key to controlling evil spirits. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:So even even his yeah. This book that awakens him, this idea of going to magic, like, it says things like, yeah. You can control these things,
Lester Ryan Clark:you know. Yes. And that was a big thing. Remember in our early episodes, folks, we talked about well, it was in the Testament of Solomon, but then, you know, oh, we still haven't, gotten to the lesser key of Solomon, the actual the actual magic book. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But the the whole idea is that, you know, with God's help Mhmm. You can kind of, like, take these demons to task and Right. And and get them to do your bidding.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Yeah. And so, yeah, off to off to the the the forest he goes, and he finds a crossroads, which is very kind of like in in Devil lore. It's like that that's where you always meet the Devil is the crossroads. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right. Uh-huh. Mhmm. And the imagery here, I mean, it looks like not that this is how roads actually work, but it looks like it's not paved. It looks like it's it's like a natural occurring crossroads.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. It's like it's like a a dirt a dirt path. It's it's, you know, perpendicular dirt paths.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And and again, like we're seeing it in an x because of Yes. Because of where the camera is. And, it's not it doesn't seem like a path that a per a normal person would tread.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Who made this? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And he goes out there and he's got his his book and he does oh, I don't know if you call it incantation or whatever, but he's reading from it. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. And there's a, you know, fiery circle that he's in and
Lester Ryan Clark:Now wait a minute. This special effect, I have seen this special effect before. Uh-huh. So, folks, yeah, like, fiery circle appears, and then the I I guess, like, reflections or projections of the circle kind of, like, float upward. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I've I've seen like, I'm pretty sure Coppola copied this for.
Kynan Dias:Oh, I bet he did. I think Coppola has seen this movie. Yes. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:If I had to guess,
Lester Ryan Clark:I would say that world famous director Francis Ford Coppola has seen world famous director F. W. Murnau's work. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I love it. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But the circle, like, yeah, emerges from like, emerges around him. Yes. As he's saying, which is which is super interesting and cool. Mhmm. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And I think that that oh, I guess it's called out a little bit in Goethe's, like, the pentagram that's drawn that becomes a portal, etcetera.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But this one I don't know. Seeing it visually like this, this one emerges around him, I which think is just a little bit different.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I mean, this to me, that said, okay. Like, if you wanna if you wanna summon, like, you know, a low level demon, you gotta do, you know, the work. You gotta get the chalk. Gotta get the Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Exactly. You know, you can draw the draw the diagrams and all that stuff. But, like, this is the Devil. Like Right. You just just open the book and you say the magic words and, you know, and and they'll you know, the circle will appear.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And then the three horsemen come out. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And there it's definitely three. The the first time the first time you see it, you're like, oh, because, like, part of the screen is black because maybe Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know Maybe that's where war is. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Saw things over there. The footage is not, you know, like, hasn't been what's the word? Kept in good shape or
Kynan Dias:whatever. Right? Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, it's like, oh, okay. We lost we lost, you know, the the fourth horseman. Nope.
Kynan Dias:We didn't. He wasn't there. It's just the three. These are very expensive, Lester.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Each horseman cost about
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Seven seven barrels of of Deutsche Marks. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:The the the horses were stuffed with Deutsche Marks. Mhmm. Yeah. But oh my god. Can we talk about the appearance and and the first kind of, like, design of Mephisto?
Lester Ryan Clark:This is the creepiest fucking thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I oh my god. So that, like, we get this explosion of flame Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And outside the circle, which is how you do it in, you know, in magic when you're summoning a demon because the circle protects you from Right. The demon. And it should be like, he should be, like, in a little triangle, but I don't see, you know, whatever. Oh, FAUST should be in a triangle? No.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. He's in a circle. The demon should be in either another little circle or a triangle to contain him.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. But but, yeah, this this I don't know how you how you describe like, what's what's his first costume? What is this?
Kynan Dias:Oh, jeez. He he looks like mama from throw mama from the train.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yes.
Kynan Dias:You know what I mean? Anne Ramsey in throw mama from the train. Or or she's from the goonies. Yeah. She looks more like the goonies version.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Here in in in this FAUST. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Why'd you summon me?
Kynan Dias:What do you want? I love her. She's she's brilliant. She's brilliant. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Yes. But I'm glad I'm glad you agree. That's kind of what what he looks like here.
Lester Ryan Clark:But it's it's he's he's sitting completely still. Yeah. He's dressed in I saw another video talk about, like, beggars clothes. Yeah. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, peasant clothes.
Kynan Dias:I guess that makes sense. Yeah. I I guess I don't know what a beggar looked like back then.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I don't know. Like, it's it's it's basically it's just like a like a burlap sack robe.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dirty long hair, which I think is why I'm thinking of Van Ramsey. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Under under, like, this, like, filthy, like, skull cap that they had, like, like a hat with no, you know, brim or anything. Yeah. And he's he's just looking off to the left Mhmm. Not looking at FAUST. And it's like, I don't know why, but it's the creepiest thing.
Kynan Dias:Well, especially since and we we understand this is the same Devil as we've seen above the city and all that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Right.
Kynan Dias:Like, we must assume that. Right? And it's but then that Devil is pretty animated and has has opinions and is very expressive. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And you see his face very, very clearly Mhmm. Like, the makeup and the horns and everything like that. You can't see this guy's face because it's so far away. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And all he does, almost like a little animatronic figure, he he reaches up and he takes off his skull cap at, like, kind of like a how do you do, like, type thing, and he puts it back on. Mhmm. The rest of him doesn't move. Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:You're that's
Kynan Dias:a good point, like, animatronics. Yeah. We're we're into adventure yet, just to be clear. Right. But, like, he has, like, three or four motions he can do, that's
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And FAUST freaks out and he just runs out of frame and we're but we don't follow him. We stay on this guy. Mhmm. He turns and he looks at the camera and his fucking eyes are glowing.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:But then when FAUST does run out of frame, every other frame he runs into has this guy in it somewhere else. Yes. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:With glowing eyes. Like With glowing eyes. Now he's just now he's just a guy chilling like in the swamp Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And he
Lester Ryan Clark:runs up on him and again, another little skullcap. How do you do? Mhmm. But but it's again, the the head doesn't turn to
Kynan Dias:frost.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Mhmm. It's it's like a it's like a puppet doing it.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's a good point. Like, it has the the appearance of being alive, but it's not. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. He could be like, they're in this weird marshy bog. He could be a tree stump.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Right? One of those sinners who got turned into a tree stump.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Right. And Dante. Yeah. And, yeah, freaks out, runs into him a couple of times Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then runs back to his his his his little study
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and the guy's there too.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And but now we can see him. He's he's grinning. He's smiling. We get a close-up on his face. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:This guy, I oh, shoot. I forgot his name. Emil Yawnings. Yeah. Emil Yawnings.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. I love the expressions that he does.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And it's like, we've we're gonna see him in, I guess, three different makeup Yeah. Things. Right? Mhmm. Because we've we've already seen where his like his face is either completely like, I don't know, like dark or red or black or or whatever as as the big devil.
Lester Ryan Clark:And now we see him as this beggar guy and he looks straight out of like like he could be Fagan from Oliver.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's a good point.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Both of these actors so far I mean, so Emile Yawnings was the more famous of the actors, especially in America. He wins the the first best actor Oscar. Yep. Like, the first first? The first one.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. He's the first best actor winner. Holy shit. Yeah. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Okay. It should've been like, oh, a couple years after this because it it it's it's complicated. They they had they did for the first couple Oscars, they did them in fiscal years instead of Okay. Yeah. So it's weird.
Kynan Dias:So it was like the 1927 to 1928 fiscal year, and then they gave it out in 1929. So it's odd. Anyway, so in a couple years, he'd win the the best Oscar the best actor Oscar, the first one. And then, I don't know how to say it in Swedish. He I don't know him very much because he's not as many films, but he was apparently like the Olivier of the Swedish stage or, you know, like the peak one.
Kynan Dias:But so he he looks very different here. He's gonna go through, He has two looks basically, but they're pretty extreme.
Lester Ryan Clark:But you could like, I actually was convinced it was two different people.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Can we talk about the special effect of the contract writing itself?
Kynan Dias:Oh, I don't know how they did it if that's the question.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But it's beautiful. That's not the yeah. But it is. It's like he Mephisto is holds up, like, you know, this this Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Big ish con I I guess they need it to be, like, big sized.
Kynan Dias:Because at least it's weird word. So the audience oh, see. Yeah. So the yeah. The gunpowder or whatever is on it can do itself.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But that's yeah. That's that's basically what's happening is Mhmm. The the the letters appear in smoke and fire. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like across the like like if you just like burn the paper, then the letters appear. Right. It's really beautiful, really well done.
Kynan Dias:It looks like magic. I don't know if I wanna know how they
Lester Ryan Clark:did it. Yeah. But it's great. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And so it just Mephistopheles is like holding it up and you see his grinning face like like, look, I know this is freaking you out and I love it. I'm having a great time watching you being freaked out.
Lester Ryan Clark:I love a Mephisto who enjoys his work. Yes. This is I mean, like our first one was was what is it? Marlo. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:He seemed so, like, just not wanting to be there. Right. You know, he he found his he found his joy in Mhmm. In his FAUST. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah, but it took a while. This this one this one is just having a blast.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. He knows that what he's suggesting to FAUST is going to be repulsive to him. Like, some of the other Mephisopheles we've seen so far, like, don't have that.
Kynan Dias:They're like, you know, either, oh, you're gonna take this or or what have you. But, like, like, he seems to get off on the insult, on the on the sacrilege of this. He's like, I know that you as a FAUST are not gonna like this.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Oh, that's a good point. Right? Because one is like, it's like, hey. I'm, know, as I'm friendly, I'm your buddy.
Lester Ryan Clark:Let's, you know, let's do this. Right? Right. But, yeah, this one's like, I'd like, I know I'm your last hope. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I know how much that that bothers you.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And then that's that's making me laugh.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yep. And, yeah, and this one, FAUST calls him Satan, and we have no other reason to think it's not Satan. So Right. He's Satan.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And, you know, then yeah. And and he and he kinda, like, backs away and he looks out into into the town through his little window, and we see more of those those doctors just carrying Mhmm. Dead people. They're they're kinda, like, shoving away people. He's like, save me.
Lester Ryan Clark:Save me. Right. And that's the kind of the, like, he he can't even he can't even bear the sight of that. So he kinda like like falls back and that's when you see again our our Mephisto. Like his eyes just get so wide and bright and his smile is so
Kynan Dias:big. Mhmm. Yeah. And so his counterargument to FAUST again is like you could save people. You can cure suffering.
Kynan Dias:Mean appealing to him as a doctor but also kind of as a Christian.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's a good person. You can do this for good.
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. So yeah, you're going to be doing this evil, but that's just you, and then you can help other people. You know? Right.
Kynan Dias:Like, why are you being selfish essentially in not in not taking this deal when you can go and cure people?
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. You can be Christ like. You can, you
Kynan Dias:know,
Lester Ryan Clark:like, throw away your body and your soul for for the good of these these people.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And so again, I know it's like these are hundreds of years apart, but like in in what's that thing that we read? Where the devil it's the sequel and the devil takes Jesus over
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh yeah.
Kynan Dias:Paradise Regained. Paradise Regained. Couldn't think of no. No. Keep that in.
Kynan Dias:I couldn't I couldn't think of it as like The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolution. What's the
Lester Ryan Clark:sequel to Paradise Lost?
Kynan Dias:Lost again, Lost Warp.
Lester Ryan Clark:I take my eyes off of Paradise for
Kynan Dias:for three seconds. Yeah. So I know that's like, you know, that's from Milton's age.
Lester Ryan Clark:Paradise, what did I come into this room for? Alright.
Kynan Dias:I've got my car keys in my hand. That's not it. Oh, paradise. Yeah. That's what I was looking for.
Lester Ryan Clark:There we go.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But in, you know, that's from the sixteen hundreds, and and it's like the the the way that we humanize Christ and his temptation is things like king, all the kingdoms of the world, you know, that kind of thing.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah. So, like, to a nineteen hundreds audience, a twentieth century audience, like, kingdoms of world, what's that god do with me? But Right. You know, going and and doing, like, actual tangible good for people.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. So this one's like you can help the town that you live in. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. We get our iconic sign on the dotted line. He actually gets in there and stabs his wrist
Kynan Dias:to In the vein. Yeah. Like like a suicide vein.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And he says, you know, this is I I think this is a line that they had in in Goethe. It's like blood makes quite an extraordinary ink.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And FAUST like runs out immediate as soon as he gets it, he's like, I'm gonna go out and try this. And he Yeah. Seems to. And I think every indication is that it it really happens. He like cures someone of the plague.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. And and Mephisto is is very, very quick to to snatch up that that contract as soon
Kynan Dias:as it's done. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Before this guy comes back and takes Right. Before he
Lester Ryan Clark:changes his mind. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Right. Mhmm. Yep. So they're they're hailing him in the street as a as a, you know, a miracle worker.
Lester Ryan Clark:Can I can I just say? Go So so so Faust has left his study
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And we have a we have an image of Mephisto laughing his ass off. He's promoting this is this is the villain evil laugh. Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But as soon as his eyes hit the camera, he's like, serious time. Yeah. And then he rolls up the thing. He's he's like, okay. Now business.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:I had my moment of fun. Yeah. Mephistopheles just wanna have fun.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But And he's also, like, looking at the the hourglass. Yes. He's like, oh, that that my time of fun is over. Right. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's very German, guys. We have we have a a lot of time of fun and now we we go and we we get to soul. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Right. Exactly. So then, yeah, FAUST is out there. He's healing people.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Doing real miracles. They they're they're coming back to life, basically.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And they're hailing him as a saint. And the problem is that they then point crosses at him as you would with saint. And
Lester Ryan Clark:he Yep.
Kynan Dias:He finds himself all of sudden repulsed by crosses. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And we get a little cut because, like like, Mephisto is kind of like he's still in the study and he's kind of eavesdropping. Mhmm. And he's looking out there and he's he's looking at FAUST's progress, and he sees this little incident with the cross. Mhmm. And I can't tell.
Lester Ryan Clark:Is he like is he happy about this? Or he's
Kynan Dias:like, uh-oh, I didn't think about that. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because he kinda like he sidles off into the shadows. He's like, time for plan b.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that is interesting as as we're gonna see, like, this is a version of the fast Mephistopheles dynamic that is again, like I was reading the Goethe one with this one in mind. This is the one that I know the best.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So like this is this is how I imagine the relationship, which is like Mephistopheles is like on his side, but is secretly like going around behind his back, backstabbing him and everything. You know? Right. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So that's the version I like, I guess. He's like, I'm on your side, buddy. Buddy. Hey, buddy. And then and then you're like, hey, you know, this this guy, this he's my buddy.
Kynan Dias:Fuck him.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's interesting because, like, when when we see them together, it's it's, you know, kind of like it's like, oh, I can give you this. I can give you that. Mhmm. And, you know, we're working out, you know, the the details of the deal and everything like that. When we see FAUST alone, it's always sadness, despair, crisis.
Lester Ryan Clark:When we see Mephisto alone, it's like it's it's happiness or a frantic, oh, shit. What do I do next? Like, he's he's fucking it up. Like, I gotta, you know, I gotta like, it's it's he's building the bridge as FAUST is stumbling along.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's chaos. He's he's like the he's he's this version is more like the Joker in the Dark Knight or something.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yeah. I like
Kynan Dias:that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Comes back in. FAUST is is like, oh, maybe this maybe this doesn't doesn't fit for me. And he tries to drink the poison. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:So that's another trope we got of, you know, it's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna drink the poison. I'm gonna end it all. Mhmm. Weirdly, it it happens after the deal is made.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And in this one, Mephisto calls him out. He's like,
Kynan Dias:oh, no.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. You're not gonna escape me that way. Right? It's like we remember our pact.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then he says, the trial day is not yet over. So he's got now, folks, you might remember that I subscribed to the Royal Ballet and Opera. And both Keenan and now Ian and Kyle
Kynan Dias:And Kyle.
Lester Ryan Clark:Our other friend Kyle have reminded me to cancel my subscription before I get billed again. £10, man. And I have not done it yet.
Kynan Dias:Oh my god, Lester. And Now you're reminding yourself. And, yeah,
Lester Ryan Clark:and I'm reminding myself. And once I am editing this episode, I'm gonna hear that reminder again. And then in the car while I like because I always listen to it one more time at once it's once it's aired Mhmm. You know, just for mistakes. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm you're I'm gonna be driving, and I'm gonna be on the 405 in LA, and nobody's gonna hear me, but I'm just gonna be like, fuck. Fuck. 10 pounds. Yeah. 10 goddamn pounds.
Kynan Dias:Sterling. Mhmm. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah, so apparent so this is different. In this version, there's a trial period.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like for a day, he gets to, you know, gets to test this whole, you know, powers of of of earth and air act.
Kynan Dias:Right. So maybe you wanna kill yourself tomorrow, but Yeah. Do do all you can right now.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Right. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:So so that's yeah. It's like but but FAUST is like, no. No. Every man is free to die. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he's about to like, he snatches the poison back from Mhmm. Mephisto, he's about to to drink it again. But and I like this. Mephisto puts this hand up and it and you can you can tell that it has stopped Faust's hand. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And like like he can't he can't move the poison to his ribs. Right. And then also in the now in the poison you see a reflection of, well that must be a young FAUST. Looking looking very very different.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But FAUST is is that death? As he sees a reflection of himself in there, you know? Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I I really like that. I and and and again, the so far, the opera and now this film have double duty this poisoned, this this is the thing. Right? Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yep. So he wants to be changed young. Right? So so he it is interesting. So this is where he starts to become a real bad person, I suppose.
Kynan Dias:Right? Yeah. Yep. So he's like, you have the day to do the trial thing, and you can go and do so much good. But that doesn't seem to work.
Kynan Dias:And when Mephistopheles changes his his tune, he's like, I also make you young. Yeah. He's like, oh, let's let's do that. Yeah. And so he makes him young and it's a really interesting way of doing it.
Kynan Dias:Like, you know, he basically like, the imagery is him is of him burning the house down and burning
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:FAUST to death in his sleep. Yes. Then and then once the fire is gone, he is the young FAUST.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm. And really, oh gosh, really freaky imagery here. Mhmm. This is I mean, like, when you said that this was, like, his his final film, I'm I'm like, I'm seeing the imagery.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm seeing the
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:The acting and and all of the the the direction choices, but I'm also just like all the special effects. Like, this had to be, like, for its time, like, amazing.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. I think it is because it is today still even. Right? And Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And
Kynan Dias:yeah. So when he comes to America after this, this is the last German film. He makes a movie called Sunrise, and that's a drama. It's a straight drama, but it's just still special effects. Like, is just what what he was interested in.
Kynan Dias:That's what that's what a lot of the really sophisticated dramas were. They they were, you know, trying really hard to not look like plays. Right? The people who really believed in cinema as cinema as opposed to filmed stage plays. Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. They're like, let's do everything we possibly can. And again, like like Murnau had done this unchained camera idea. The camera should go wherever it needs to go. Like like, instead of, you know, what what you and I might do is like, hey, what's possible with our camera?
Kynan Dias:And then let's make a story around that. He was like, let's think of the story and then let's figure out how to how to do that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. Yeah. And this all ends in not one, but two changes. Uh-huh. Because we got so we got FAUST as the flames clear Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he has become young. Mhmm. And I like how Mephisto, he looks in this little he's got a little, like, pocket mirror type thing. Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he looks at it. He's like, ah, we've trapped the old man. So it's almost like that's his soul. That's like it's like, now I got FAUST in my pocket. Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? And this this soulless thing is just gonna walk around and, you know Mhmm. Seek pleasure and whatever. And then, folks, we get Mephisto changing Mhmm. And Otho from Beetlejuice.
Lester Ryan Clark:What
Kynan Dias:What are you doing? No.
Lester Ryan Clark:I love this costume. I love everything about it. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:It's like a silky leotard y thing.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? But it's and it's very I mean, this was before Bella Legosta's Dracula, but I mean, it's like the top half is like, it's it's basically that. He's got this this very tall collar. Yeah. He's got the widow's peak.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's got the kind of like the arched eyebrows and everything. Mhmm. And I love how he he kinda, you know, it's superimposed as the same actor, but, like, the effects have him kind of, like, sidestep out of the old Right. Mephisopheles.
Kynan Dias:And be like, hey. We'll see you later. Like, we'll we'll save you for later. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:I love he does this little shushing. Mhmm. Like, he shoos the old Mephistopheles always like, just get out of here. Just get out of
Kynan Dias:Now that he's young, leave him with me. Yeah. And then the last part of his costume I wanna point out is like Uh-huh. He's got, I don't know what you call it, but like a Peter Pan hat.
Lester Ryan Clark:Okay. Yeah. Is that oh, shit. Is is that what a doublet is? Hang on.
Kynan Dias:I thought a doublet was a shirt. Hang on. I assumed a doublet was to cover your doubles.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. Okay. I was wrong. A doublet is is the the shirt.
Kynan Dias:Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So it's so it's a yeah. It's a hat. It's like yeah. It's a it's a Peter Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Actually, Why are you trying to complicate this? It's a Peter Pan hat.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's it's exactly that.
Kynan Dias:Right? But black, presumably. Yeah. So it's a dark Peter Pan hat. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. He's got this he's got this flowing cape that kinda, like, wraps all around him and which is is really impressive Mhmm. Until he turns around and you see that goddamn sword. Mhmm. He's got this sword, which I get you know, he's, you know, supposed to have.
Lester Ryan Clark:He needs the sword for for later. Mhmm. But that goddamn sword sticks out like a tail. Mhmm. And it it sometimes sometimes it's, like, it's naked, it's just sticking out and you don't even see it.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, like, sometimes it's under the cape, so it just looks like he's got this, like, I don't know, extra leg just sticking out like that.
Kynan Dias:You're mad at that. I think that's great. Like he's got a like he's got a third leg or something. Sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. It's a Devil y Tail.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:To me it just kinda like ruins the because otherwise he's nice and he's slim to a point with this cape, you know? And it's just this extra, it's like, you know?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. If you're not gonna watch the movie, I mean, I would recommend it obviously. But, yeah, Emil Yawnings is a large man. Like, he's a he's a rotund guy.
Kynan Dias:He's got a big round face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this this costume does try to make him look like a point.
Kynan Dias:But I also like that he, you know, seems hurt like a guy who likes to eat and and carouse and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Drink wine, of course. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. I always drink wine. Oh,
Lester Ryan Clark:him and Bella Lugosi in our box cellar just like but but, yeah, FAUST wakes up and he's like, I'm young. And and he already sees a vision of, I'm guessing that's Gretchen.
Kynan Dias:I'm guessing so. It looks like a slightly different actor, but but yeah. But it's a naked lady.
Lester Ryan Clark:That is I I actually just noticed that just now.
Kynan Dias:I didn't
Lester Ryan Clark:see that the the first time.
Kynan Dias:You just noticed that, like like, just now as you're watching these, you could see your doublets? Yep. Just double doublets. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Nudity was was not uncommon back then, especially like this where it's like, again, like, virgin beauty, like a statue or something.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah. They they would have that all
Lester Ryan Clark:the time. So this did not, like, cause, like, in in theaters or anything
Kynan Dias:like that? No. Not that I've seen. And, yeah, they're relatively common. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Up in the sound era kinda changed things. When when you move to, like, really, you know, realism, like realistic movies, then things like this happened. Was like, oh, no. That's no good.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:I see. But you'd have nudity. You'd have oh, quiet in the Western Front has nudity. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:You know? It happened. Yeah. Until, like yeah. In the mid thirties, they they cracked down on that in America, and that kind of had ripple effects everywhere.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. You know who did that?
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, the way you're saying it, I should know. The Catholics. Ah, the Catholics. Always the Catholics.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. The Catholics were the driver behind film censorship in the thirties in America.
Lester Ryan Clark:Want no more doublets. We don't want no more Peter Pan hats.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. We know what Peter Pan hats mean. Yeah. Yeah. No more swords.
Kynan Dias:We were born yesterday.
Lester Ryan Clark:In the back of the front? No. But violence galore.
Kynan Dias:We could just galore. Everybody's head off. Exactly. Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. That's the I like the that's what I'm hearing is, like, the the the difference in censorship between between Europe and and here. Right. It's like, we're fine with, you know, like like gore and and blood and, you know, guns and stuff like that. Yep.
Lester Ryan Clark:But but show up you show it even a single doublet. People lose their minds.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But it's like it's it's it's swapped over there.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly. It's not really it's not even like censorship over there, just good taste. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Like, weren't there weren't the same kind of, like, rules that they had over there in Europe about violence Yeah. That we have about unity. But they were laid out very explicitly. Yeah. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Can't do this. Can't do that. Can't do this.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So so yeah. So so FAUST is like, yeah. Take take take me to this take me to this lovely lady. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he's like, alright. Step on my cloak. And Right. They they they they go, and I I I was just talking about the special effects. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:I really like how this special effect looks, how they go out the window. Mhmm. Mhmm. Because because it does look a little bit silly.
Kynan Dias:But It looks a little bit silly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. A little bit silly. But but I like it.
Kynan Dias:But then the camera work, the point of view of this cloak magic carpet, like, going over the miniature city, that's really good.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. And I I can only imagine that's like like like somebody's little somebody's little biplane, and they're they're just going all around. Or or are those miniatures? No. They're miniatures.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, look at that.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. They're really, really clever stuff. Yeah. But even, like, yeah, the camera, like, tilts over as it's, going over and, yeah, really, really cool stuff.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So we get this whole journey through the mountains. I mean, it's like waterfalls and trees.
Kynan Dias:I can show you the world.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's exactly what this is. Right? This is the dark version of that. Right? And a nice close-up on the hourglass.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like this is the cost. This is the stakes.
Kynan Dias:Right? Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:We got some we got some blades flying. And then he and then Mephistopheles points down. He's like the wedding celebration of the Duchess of Parma. Yeah. She's she's going to marry Duke Jean.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So we don't have the Holy Roman Emperor or things like that. This is this is the closest thing we have to it. Like, let's go across the the world and and screw with some people from other cultures. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Italy. Italy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Let's go. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And, oh my god, just the the as the camera sinks into we have another town, another city setting, and and people are dancing. Mhmm. And I love I love and they're all doing you know, they're it's it's it's a lot of moving parts. It's still chaotic, but it's it's like there's order to this chaos.
Kynan Dias:Right. And again, are these are all miniatures.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. We didn't have a camera that can quite do this. But again, unchain camera, put the camera wherever it needs to go. Yeah. And like it like goes into a balcony and then like goes down several floors and there's people dancing and stuff like that.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. That that this kind of thing would be copied in the Citizen Kane later on Uh-huh. In the opera sequence, where we we really have a camera that can go like one story down, and then we're just like using transitions to every time we go down a story, we would have a cut basically to make it look like our camera can go like four stories down.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But it's great. So it's the marriage night. Like, so we're not stopping the wedding here. We're stopping the The honeymoon.
Kynan Dias:Honeymoon. Yes.
Lester Ryan Clark:Holy shit. Yeah. I didn't even I didn't even realize,
Kynan Dias:but I guess, yeah, they're
Lester Ryan Clark:all because everybody's already, you know, celebrating. They're kind of on this, like this is just what rich people sleep on, I guess,
Kynan Dias:is is
Lester Ryan Clark:they don't they they never actually lie fully down. They're just, like, on a on a a on a, what is it, a chaise lounge
Kynan Dias:or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? And and and in comes Mephistopheles, and he like like, he might as well be singing prince Ali because he's like like, prince Ali is here.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and we got we got we literally got, like, I guess I guess those are, like, people in elephant suits.
Kynan Dias:Elephant suits? Yeah. Hold on. Let me pull this up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Are you not seeing this?
Kynan Dias:Oh, there's big old elephants here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Are those are some. But I can tell they're not actual elephants.
Kynan Dias:Right. Again, like, was like, Lester must mean, oh, I have to go back and look at this. Has to be really subtle. Like, I define where the elephants are. No.
Kynan Dias:No. No. Never mind. These are these are elephants. These are
Lester Ryan Clark:That's exactly what's going on here. Yeah. And and in comes I'm like, folks, I'm not even kidding. He's got a turban on.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is FAUST as prince Ali.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And he comes in, and and he's like, well, hello, duchess of pharma. Big pharma. Yeah. Oh, I didn't even I I went with oh, no.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, yeah. Because it's Parma. That's
Kynan Dias:why. Like Parmesan.
Lester Ryan Clark:Parmesan. That's that's the kind
Kynan Dias:of where they make the cheese. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. But, yeah. So she just he he just shows up and he's like, hey, I know you just got married. Right. And I know you're like literally in the middle of your honeymoon,
Kynan Dias:but Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. You know, come come on with me.
Kynan Dias:Again, like, movies are sexier than we think old old movies would be, but like Mhmm. It it even though, like, there's tons of people here, like, they're in this kind of alcove up there before FAUST comes and takes your way. That does remind me of the kind of things they would do with, maybe not nobles, but with kings and queens where Yeah. They witnessed, you know, the first time that they would have sex.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. The consummation. Like, this is
Kynan Dias:The consummation.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Like, this is vital to the continuation of our kingdom. Like, this we need to we need to know that our crops are going
Kynan Dias:to survive, you know Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:After this winter. We need we need to see them fuck.
Kynan Dias:Yes. And that's that's basically what this looks like, even though I don't think that's literally what's going on. And then No. No. FAUST, like, takes her away from that.
Kynan Dias:Like, her ladies in waiting are there, and they're, like, over her, like, you know, waiting for her to get consummated. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right. And Mephisto puts the guy to sleep.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Just just yeah. Yeah. I I just like there's jokes there, but I'm just gonna say, yeah, he falls asleep. Mhmm. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And and, yeah, FAUST takes her in his arms and and they stroll off and and then this guy wakes, what happened? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Where's my big cheese? Uh-huh. Somebody took a bite out of my cheese.
Lester Ryan Clark:And yeah. Yeah. He looks in, you know, next know, like, the the the space on the couch is is empty.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But Mephisto's standing there Mhmm. And he he he hunches his shoulders up and he starts walking towards the the the duke and he's like, I'm gonna get you. And and the duke stabs Mephisto.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And it's not like a like, I'm gonna stab you and you're just gonna hold it under your arm type thing. He gets him actually in the chest. Yeah. Mephisto dies.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Mephisto actually
Kynan Dias:falls to the floor and then dies. Uh-huh. But then his his spirit comes out and is like Yeah. You killed me, but that doesn't actually mean anything.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. Right. Mhmm. And yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he he kills the duke and and everybody flees and he he kind of, you know, has this chin up look at the camera.
Kynan Dias:He's like Mhmm. Fucking badass. And
Lester Ryan Clark:and then yeah. And that's and that is that scene. And then we get I really like this. He Mhmm. I'm guessing this is like FAUST's bed chambers or I guess this is a castle in In Karma, I guess.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But he goes up They just find
Kynan Dias:the nearest empty bed chambers.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, we have to be fucked now. Right.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Mhmm. Right. So where is the bed? And he but, like, Mephisto knows where gonna where they're gonna go.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And he grabs this, like, hanging lantern, and he starts swinging it.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I love that this is because, obviously, this is for the scene. This is what Murnau wanted, the, you know, the chaos of the swinging light and the shadows playing on, you know, the bed curtains and everything like that. But the fact that he found a a diegetic reason for it. It's like Mephisto was the one who started swinging the Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Let's get all expressionists up in here. Let's get some shadows going. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:We got we got light and we got dark.
Kynan Dias:That's what you need for a party.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. It's kinda like good and evil.
Kynan Dias:You know? Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Then we see the the hourglass, and FAUST is about to consummate her, whatever that is. And then something kind of stops him. Yeah. And he sees Mephistopheles, he's over in court. And Mephistopheles is like, your day is over.
Kynan Dias:That's the end of the twenty four hours.
Lester Ryan Clark:The trial period Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Your trial period has ended. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Has ended. If you want to continue with this. Right?
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:But and and that's that's the thing. It's like it's like he show very good salesman. Shows him like, turns off the trial for for just a little bit, and we see kind of like old FAUST kinda shuffle back in. He's like, no, I don't want this. Right.
Kynan Dias:You know? And he keeps so FAUST is able to like be outside of the moment with the the duchess, but the duchess is still in the moment. She's like totally seduced and like
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like time has stopped.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Like she's not frozen though. She's still like, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But he's able to see that, like see what he's leaving behind with it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right.
Kynan Dias:He doesn't Zach Morris it and be like Mhmm. You know, wait a second. Time out. Right? But she's she's actually still moving as if she's being seduced as if he's making out with her.
Kynan Dias:Right. He's he's like seeing her without him there making out with her.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And it's like that's that's what I just left. It's like, yeah. Okay. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'll give you my soul.
Kynan Dias:Of course you would. Look at that. Yeah. And then,
Lester Ryan Clark:you know, he jumps back in bed. Mhmm. And again, it's like you could say that this is what's really happening, but I like that this is like, you know, like you were talking about with the scream. It's it's Right. I I don't think Mephisto is really over their four poster bed kinda crawling on the top.
Kynan Dias:At at closing the curtains Right. So they could have some
Lester Ryan Clark:But he closes the curtains. Again, it's like it's you know, for us, it's like, okay. It's like, we're gonna close the curtains. Like, you know what happens. But then he just he just I love I love his face.
Lester Ryan Clark:He's like
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then our our next sequence, we kind of have it more like so so dig in.
Kynan Dias:That's like that's like the this movie's version of all the holy remembrance stuff and all of that, like, intertanglings with the continent, essentially. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm. And then we get this moment that is closer to Marlowe, and Faust is kind of sitting out in, like, something that looks like the crossroads area he was before, kind of like this is a desolate nature place.
Kynan Dias:He's by himself, and Mhmm. And he's, like, bored. And then Mephistopheles comes up. He's like, what's wrong? Don't you have everything you wanted?
Kynan Dias:Like, what what else what else is there? You know? Mhmm. And, like, that's only just for a moment. But it's sort of, I think, speaking to that Marlowian idea of, yeah, you can get everything you want and that's still not enough for you.
Lester Ryan Clark:You mean probably Goethe?
Kynan Dias:No, I mean Marlow.
Lester Ryan Clark:Really?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's how I see Marlow as one of, hey, you have all of this knowledge, etcetera. And he's like, yeah, but it doesn't teach me anything. It's not like, you know, that's what that's what I think of primarily when I think of Marlow's version.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But I
Lester Ryan Clark:guess it's
Kynan Dias:true in all of them. Yeah. You're right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Fair. It's FAUST. He's unhappy.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's his whole deal.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So then Mephistopheles shows him an image of a town, which I don't think is is his town. This is like a country town or
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I think this is a little bit different. It's like these are these are quaint peasant folk. They're not they're not, you know, they have they're not covered in city filth.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. There's no plague anywhere. Yeah. Right. Right.
Kynan Dias:And this is Gretchenstown, it seems
Lester Ryan Clark:like. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah. So, yeah, basically, he kinda like shows him this picture like a tableau, and it's not literal, but it it feels like like they like Mary Poppins, who like leads him into this picture that he showed to him. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:They they they they go into the the vision. Right? Right. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And it just happens to be Easter, and everybody's
Kynan Dias:happy. Convenient. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then we get a little look in on Gretchen.
Kynan Dias:Gretchen, what are you doing here? And
Lester Ryan Clark:Gretchen is with her mom who is Yeah.
Kynan Dias:She's a character and everything. Which is
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah, which is great. And yeah, Gretchen is just being just being a a a young woman. Yeah. She she walks out with with everybody else, and they're they're gonna they're gonna go to church because it's Easter.
Kynan Dias:Right. Mhmm. And FAUST is, like, walking through the youth, he's like, sometimes when my students see German movies from this time period, they're like, there's this, like, you know, you you I think we're primed to see pedophilia and everything today. Like, we're just on watch for it. But but he does this thing where he, like, is running his hands over the heads of the of the kids, you know, which is like Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And it's like kids, like, youth, like like, like, that that is like purity and love, you know, just like to be around innocence, you know.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. It I yeah. I I don't know. Like, because we were talking about this with the Goethe version too.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Being mesmerized by the by the by the boy angels. Right?
Kynan Dias:Right. And then also Exactly. With Gretchen a little bit. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And with Gretchen and with with the Earl King, you know, being mesmerized by the young boy.
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:There seems to be back in the day Mhmm. People kind of looked at youth almost as something that, like like not just something that you could envy and be like, oh, wow. Know, it's like I remember when I was that young. Mhmm. You know, it's like, oh, you know, youth is wasted on the young.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. It's like it's like if I like, they seemed to think if I if I hang around this this kid Right. Like, I'll get it through osmosis or something. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like something you could you could hunger for or eat.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. No.
Kynan Dias:I think that's part of it. And again, like, these are these are not meant to be literal. They're not realistic. They are
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Expressionistic. But it also, I think, evokes, you know, Jesus' call to the children, like, for you to be like children.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. That's one of the things ideal way. It's like Yeah. If and and and, like, we think about that today too. It's like life was so much simpler.
Lester Ryan Clark:I had no worries. Everything like, my like, my biggest worry was, you know, I know, what I was gonna get for Christmas or something like that, you know? Exactly. Mhmm. And it's like it's like, God, to go back to that time and just to be and and to not know about all the evils of the world.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So look at his face.
Lester Ryan Clark:This face is seen evil. Yeah. I wanna go back to when I was when I was a youth.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yep. So he ends up at the church. He doesn't, unlike in some other, he doesn't follow Gretchen to the church. Right.
Kynan Dias:He seems to follow this progression of rural innocence and youth to the church. Yeah. And that's where he interacts with Gretchen. Maybe Gretchen happens to be there. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Maybe Mephistopheles has set this up, etcetera. Right. Yeah. But then we also see Valentin come home.
Kynan Dias:He's a character. Uh-huh. And he shows up and sees the mother and and we have all that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Before that before that, it's like so and speaking of this church. Right? So FAUST walks on in, but Mephistopheles hangs back. And I love the I love the faces that he pulls.
Lester Ryan Clark:Just like Mhmm. He kind of like, you know, he he sees what's going on in there and he has to kind of like stick his head back out and be like
Kynan Dias:Right. And he kind of his face has engineered this meet cute between Faust and Gretchen. Right? Because Yes. He ends up scaring Gretchen with his his face pulling.
Kynan Dias:And she drops something, and he picks it up for her. Mhmm. So she's in there, Faust goes and and, you know, watches her be a good Christian child, you know. Mhmm. And again, this this is where it will be creepy, I think, in any age.
Kynan Dias:Like, he's he's gonna seduce her, you know, because of she's young, because she's beautiful and all that. But but then, yeah, we see Valentin back at home. He comes home. He's a soldier in this version as well. And he goes and sees his mother.
Kynan Dias:And Valentin is played by William Dieterle, who
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh.
Kynan Dias:Must be like, Vil Vilham. Let me oh, yeah. Is. Yeah. Absolutely.
Kynan Dias:As I looked it up. Yeah. Vilham Dieterle. Yeah. Oh, okay.
Kynan Dias:So so he he's an actor, but he becomes more famous as a director. He directs a best picture winner called Life of Mio Zola.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay.
Kynan Dias:He does the the Hunchback in Notre Dame with Charles Lauten, you might have seen.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, okay. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. He directs that one. And but the real reason I'm bringing him up is that one of his most famous movies is the 1941 version of The Devil and Daniel Webster, which we might be doing on a future season of the show.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. That'd be that'd be next season, definitely. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because our next season is gonna be The Devil and Okay.
Kynan Dias:All all those
Lester Ryan Clark:Devil and this guy, Devil and that guy.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that's him.
Kynan Dias:This is William Teeterle as as Valentin in this version.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And he seems okay. Like, this is this is the only Valentin
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Where I'm like, okay. Seems like a good guy so far. Mhmm. Seems like a nice guy. Like, he's he surprises his mother.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. You know? Yeah. He's like because because I guess he's, you know, he's away Mhmm. You know, in the wars and everything like that.
Lester Ryan Clark:He comes home and he's like, mother. And, you know, he he takes his mother up in his arms and it's it's this nice, sweet thing. Mhmm. And he's gonna do the same for Gretchen. He's gonna kinda, like, surprise her
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, that he's home. Right? And okay. Alright. Okay.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Have an actual positive relationship with her with it. Yes. In good notes, because of the the nature of opera, there is no mother because we don't have a song for her to sing. Right.
Kynan Dias:So we don't have her as a character. And then like they basically, Gretchen and Valentin interact through props they leave for each other. You know, they don't really have a scene together at all.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right. Yeah. So this one, yeah, they have a nice relationship. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then we kinda we we cut back to FAUST as he's, like, exiting the church. Mhmm. And I I I sent this to Keenan today. I was so happy. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because Mephistopheles is out there. He's waiting Mhmm. For FAUST, and he grabs FAUST. He's like, hey. You know, it's like like, you're supposed be with me.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, we're following these, you know, these these these girls
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Around. And FAUST shrugs him off,
Kynan Dias:and he
Lester Ryan Clark:and he continues to follow Gretchen, and we get this amazing shot. Folks, it's fifty two minutes and thirty eight seconds in in in the one I'm sure, like, YouTube is, you know, like, slightly different. But Mhmm. Mephisto watches his his quarry walk off, and he has the most, like, well, I never face and he puts his hands on his hips and it is the exact it is exactly the what is it?
Kynan Dias:Disappointed Mohammed. Yeah. Cricket Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Cricket fan. Disappointed football fan meme. Is my favorite image in this whole thing. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So he has he has somewhat of that same relationship that we've seen in some of the other versions, right, where it's like, you're supposed to be hanging out with me only. So yeah. So maybe this this side story with Gretchen here or this, you know, detour, I mean, from his plans isn't as planned because the next sequence is Mavisovli is basically trying to take back control of Right. Of FAUST's narrative and be like, you know, let me insert myself into this Gretchen love quadrangle.
Kynan Dias:Now, let's make it a love quadrangle because I need to keep an eye on you.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yeah. So that's that's where the the famous jewels come from.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? So he has that little box And Yeah.
Kynan Dias:This one is a chain, which is interesting. I think that that Yeah. Makes sense. Is it like, you know, bondage and like Right. You know, you're you're being controlled by me through the chain.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's not many, many jewels. It's like this necklace.
Kynan Dias:Right? Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And yeah. So and it's it's in a little little box. I guess you would still call it a casket.
Kynan Dias:I guess so.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah, he he basically again, I love the I love the the two bitness of of Mephisto's tricks sometimes. Right? Mhmm. Because like we saw him, he began as, you know, Chernobog above the city and he was like, I'm breathing out the plague
Kynan Dias:all over. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:I could kill
Kynan Dias:people by looking And at
Lester Ryan Clark:now he's Joe Pescian Home Alone sneaking into, you know, this girl's house.
Kynan Dias:Right. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he's just kinda like poking around and he's like, you know, he's like, you know, and and then he catches a glimpse of a a a Virgin Mary statue holding baby Jesus. He's like, and he he kinda like like sidles away from it. And then you see another like magic thing where he like puts out his hand and the drawer opens and then he puts the the casket inside. Right. So it's like it's it's he had the magic to to, like, move the furniture, but he still had to, like, like, sneak into this girl's house.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Exactly. You know? And, you know, I could open a drawer.
Kynan Dias:I don't need the powers of hell.
Lester Ryan Clark:I like that too.
Kynan Dias:Even though I'm holding a casket of of a of a necklace, I could still open the drawer with the other hand. But Right. Yeah. He needs to use magic.
Lester Ryan Clark:He still uses his other hand. Like he's holding it's like it could be like that's a good point. Like he could he could have just like uttered a word and then they you know, the thing comes out, he had to put his hand out, like point to the drawer and then it opens. Right. You're, like, one step away from just opening it with, you know, your hand.
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Right. Like, I have a Roomba, but I follow it around with the remote control because it gets stuck in corners and
Lester Ryan Clark:stuff Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Eats cords and cables. So
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I still like it, though. They like like, yeah. You get like you don't change nothing, guys, from the past. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So he he heads out of there, and we got nice family scene. We got mother
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And son and daughter. Right. And they're all just, like, celebrating that Valentin is home. Mhmm. Valentin mentions, hey.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, it's like, how about, you know, the boys? Are any boys, you know, court and you or anything like that? Which is interesting. Because, I mean, okay. It's different from, you know, I feel like our other Valentines would be like, any boys, Courtney, have get away from them.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm gonna kill them. You know? But he's like, you know, interested, maybe a little too interested.
Kynan Dias:Oh, maybe. But again, think he's the he's the man of the house now.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, he has
Kynan Dias:to be like, well, yeah. So, can I deal with that while you're in here? Like, you know, we'd have to set these things up properly. Right. But while I'm back in yeah.
Kynan Dias:While I'm back in town, do wanna deal
Lester Ryan Clark:with that? Straight, you know. Yeah. But she's bothered by this because there is a man that she is thinking about and she retreats to her room Mhmm. And that's where she finds the jewels or I guess, yeah, the the necklace.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. But before the necklace, she she like she's like, oh, I gotta I gotta get fresh air. She opens the the her little window and there's FAUST! And he's like, tips his hat. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:How do you do? And she closes, I really like that. I don't know if it was meant to be funny Right. But she's like, I just need hair. And then she opens it, and there's FAUST.
Lester Ryan Clark:She's like, oh, fuck the one person I don't wanna see.
Kynan Dias:Right. And this section is funny. Like, I know the Gano section is funny. Some people think the the Goethe section of this with them is funny. But I think this this is played up.
Kynan Dias:I think because this all this imagery of expressionism is so dark and and like Mhmm. You know, really, really, really dark. We see people dying in front of their children and stuff like that. Then a jester who dies
Lester Ryan Clark:Plague and
Kynan Dias:mid handstand. Right? So this section, you know, the first time I saw this movie, was like, this is way, way far afield Yeah. You know, to now get this, which is just straight up comedy Right. This next sequence.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. This shouldn't be this silly. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yes. And it is very silly. And it's very fun. I think it is probably the funniest of the three versions of it. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. So this is, yeah, where we meet Marta, who is now aunt Marta.
Lester Ryan Clark:Aunt Marta Mhmm. Instead of just, you know, a neighbor. Right. And she is the local magic lady.
Kynan Dias:Oh, Jesus. I thought you were gonna say she's the like the town bicycle or something. I was like, what? Lester, what? What did you say?
Kynan Dias:What? I thought you were gonna she's the yeah. She's the town bicycle. Everyone's had a ride.
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm like, what? Lesser, how could you say that? How could you how could you say that thing that I was thinking you would say? I don't know, Ginan. I think I think that's that's a little bit more on you.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, no, I I love this version of Marta, but I want like, I was interested because, you know, I mean, before witches were demonized, like, every every small town had kind of, like, a medicine woman that you would go
Kynan Dias:to Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:For, you know, for for your problems. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Even if you you would go to church and then, like, right after, you would go to, you know, the local, you know, not doctor, I guess, but like the, you know, the local
Kynan Dias:Pogo stick. No. Everyone's had a jump. Sure. No.
Kynan Dias:No. No. No. No. She's like an apothecary.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Right? Just a
Lester Ryan Clark:wise woman who would, know
Kynan Dias:But like with folk medicine Mhmm. And they often were. Right? Like older women who their kids weren't at home anymore or they were widows and they kind of had time to, like, have clients administer to people who need folk remedies. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:There was I'm I'm I'm remembering in just, like, kind of, like, reading about the history of witches all over the world. Like, in Italy, specifically, they would have, like, you know, which is, you know, it's just like, you know, just like kind of almost like the like like a like a female, you know, like like a Don Corleone, you know.
Kynan Dias:Oh, okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's like, your two families, you're fighting. Maybe not so much. You know? And just like give advice and, you know, and be like like a counselor and a and a a a a therapist.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. But also have like home remedies and stuff like that. And she'd be like well respected in the town. Mhmm. And everybody would go to her for, you know, like like physical health things, but also like mental health things, spiritual health things.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like even
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like you'd go and have confession to your priest, but like maybe before that, you'd like, okay, how much should I tell the priest?
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. You know? Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:And she'd like, tell him this, tell him that, and
Kynan Dias:you know? Great. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. An estrega?
Lester Ryan Clark:Estrega, which I think I think just like is is translated as witch. Oh, okay. Yeah. Let's see.
Kynan Dias:Translates to witch.
Lester Ryan Clark:There we go. Yeah. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Alright. But that's interesting. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Now, again, like, you know, historians and and, you know, people who who know a little bit more about this, don't quote me on this. Mhmm. This is just kind of like hearsay from various podcasts and readings and stuff like that. But but that's what I'm like, it it because because that's what we got Martha doing right here. She's like, oh, yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, take two of these things and call me in the morning and, you know Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. But it's like it's not like like doctor stuff. It's like a love potion.
Kynan Dias:Right. And that's interesting. So so in the other versions, she kinda keeps the chain to herself. But here, she shows it to to Martha. And she's like, you know, this is what do think I should do with this?
Kynan Dias:Like, this showed up all of a sudden. Mhmm. And what is this? And I don't Maybe if that's like, what do you think? Did someone did did magic?
Kynan Dias:Did I don't know. The the fairies leave this or what have you? Right? Like, this like, I'm I'm smart enough to know this didn't just come from nowhere. But, like, what do you think about that?
Kynan Dias:And she did she talks to aunt Martha about that and not her own mother.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Yeah. Well, like, in in the Gerta version, she talks to her mother first. Mhmm. And her mother's like, oh, we gotta give that to the church.
Kynan Dias:Exactly. That that's what I mean. So here, this one, she's like, no. I have this other person, like you're talking about with Estrada, who's gonna be like, no, let's make these decisions, you know, on our own. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:But yeah. So she she brings it and Martha is Mhmm. She's she's motherly in Goethe version.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:In this one, she seems a little bit like like there's a little bit of comedy here Mhmm. Where it's like it's like, oh, that's the you know, it's like because in the Goethe version, she's like, oh, yeah. You know, don't tell your mom. Just, you know, leave the leave the jewels here and you can play with them. You can come over whenever you like.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. But here, it's like, she's like, I like these jewels too. She almost doesn't want to give them back.
Kynan Dias:Right, right. And then Mephistopheles can come over and be like, the same kind of high comedy of these, the two unattractive people or the less attractive people interceding in the love story. Right? That's here, but he's able to be like, oh, here's your own necklace. Here's your own chain.
Kynan Dias:And he puts it on her and feels up her breasts and things like that. Ganaud doesn't quite do that. Yeah. And in Ganaud's Zurich, they become kind of the parody of the bickering old couple. Like instantly, they go back and maybe we're supposed to think that, oh, maybe they do sleep together.
Kynan Dias:But the joke of it is that like it happens within seconds, you know? And they come back out, and they're bickering with each other. But here,
Lester Ryan Clark:is the future. This is the truth. You never get married.
Kynan Dias:But we spend a lot of time here. And Mephisopheles ends up giving again, like you're talking about the inconsistency of the magic here. Like, gives her, like, a potion. Right? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Instead of just, like, snapping his fingers like she's like Right. Like, she's the village drawer. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Everyone's had a poll. This is this none of this none of this is me, folks. I was talking about, like, an
Kynan Dias:interesting historical Very interesting. Very interesting.
Lester Ryan Clark:She's like the local, like, magic lady. Right. And yeah.
Kynan Dias:Right. But this gets this is actual sexy. And I think it's supposed to be, like, funny because, again, like, they're older, they're heavier, they're they're not the leads or whatever. Mhmm. But, like, yeah, like, we actually show some sexuality between them.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. There's, like, there there's, like, romantic love,
Kynan Dias:and then there's, like, pow, pow, pow. Right. The lusty part of it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so they're doing the. And and meanwhile Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And again, I mean, how old is this joke that it it seems like Mephisto has bitten off more than he can chew and Right. Right. She's chasing him around.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Exactly. Even though he has potioned her and he's the Devil, right? Like, now she's doing it. That's like the Pirates of the Caribbean, like, you go through it and then the the there's a pirate chasing a woman through a balcony and then another pirate chasing one down the balcony and then the the next one is the the heavier, shorter woman who's chasing the pirate around the balcony.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So that's, I mean, joke as old as time, I guess. Right. Right? Hey, did you know that women get horny too?
Lester Ryan Clark:Wow.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. The Devil, did you know that? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we all yeah.
Kynan Dias:Although, like yeah. Like you're saying, everything about the Faust and Gretchen part of it is Mhmm. You know, basic to the point of, like, we don't spend a lot of time on that. Like, they they go and see each other there. But then, yeah, the movie, like, she's picking flowers, doing the he loves me, he loves me not thing.
Kynan Dias:And then Mephistopheles does that with a sunflower.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. He gets a big sunflower.
Kynan Dias:Yeah, With all of these different petals. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he starts eating it and snuffing out the seeds in Martha's direction.
Kynan Dias:Right, exactly. Yeah. So it is a little odd, I think, in this movie. Again, this still this sticks out less to me now because I've read all these other Goethe's where this does or sorry, all these other FAUSTs where this does happen. Right?
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But the movie doesn't necessarily spend a lot of time convincing us of Faust and Gretchen's love. Like, it just kinda takes it as a given, and then we spend a lot of time, like, undercutting it with Mephistopheles.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. That's actually that's actually a good point. It's like it's like, alright. By this time, y'all know. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:It's Romeo and Juliet. It's it's Faust and Gretchen. Right? So, you know, they,
Kynan Dias:we don't need a big song like to know to end one of the acts. Right? Right. Yeah. Like, okay.
Kynan Dias:They're gonna get together. It's exactly what you think it's gonna be.
Lester Ryan Clark:Alright. Let's let's go back to Amarda and and Mephisto.
Kynan Dias:Which is which is super funny. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And she so she she snatches the so he's doing the same. It's like, loves me. Or she loves me. She loves me not.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And she stops him just like, she loves you. And Mhmm. He runs away. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:She still has the sunflower.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And so she starts picking it off and putting it in her shirt, like putting it down her bosom. Right. Yeah. Yep. So Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And before we fade to black Mhmm. We have just a just a a clip of Mephisto running away and he looks like he spits one more seed at him before retreating into, like, you know, a doorway.
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And then our next sequence gets very serious again.
Kynan Dias:Like, now we're in in night, you know, on the studio set, like, high contrast lighting. And Mhmm. Mhmm. And we have we have shots of Gretchen's mother going to sleep and Gretchen getting ready for bed. And Faust shows up there and Mephistopheles is like, you know what you wanna do.
Kynan Dias:You wanna Yeah. Break into that house and have your way with this young girl. Mhmm. Mhmm. And Faust doesn't say like, oh, no.
Kynan Dias:He doesn't say like, no. I'm my intent is to appear. I wanna marry her or whatever. Like, he just Right. Basically needs Mephisopheles to say like, that's what you're thinking, so go and do it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. You need the tiniest tiniest push, FAUST. Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. So he doesn't use magic or, you know, mind control or anything. He just like as a like a a wingman human would do, he's just like, go and do it. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. He's he's Cyrano de De Staphales. Right.
Kynan Dias:But but, yeah, like, he sends him up there and then, like, again, like, I like this is that Mephistopheles immediately goes down to the bar. Yes. And And it's like, hey, Valentin. Why don't you go home?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes.
Kynan Dias:Yes. So he's playing both sides. And I and, like, again, like, I don't know if I can articulate, like, what the what's in it for Mephistopheles to screw FAUST over. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But he just can't help it.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. It it's it's this is this is you know what? He came up here to do a job, but this is this is his. This is for him.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Like, I'm gonna do the job, but I'm gonna I'm gonna have some fun too.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So, you know, if we're thinking about the bet again, which is to, like, win him over to hell, like, I yeah. Like, he's he's both trying to be like, hey. With hell's powers, you can get this girl, could be young and also fuck you. Like, I can
Lester Ryan Clark:just, you
Kynan Dias:know, screw you somehow. Like, like, I don't know if he if he is thinking about the bet at all. You know?
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I like, because no. Like, if you just left him over
Kynan Dias:Right. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:You would win.
Kynan Dias:You'd win. Yeah. Exactly. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know? But, like, no. Like, he wants to I mean, maybe maybe he's thinking it's like, oh, we can get because this is this is the age of, you know, when people who pissed each other off had duels to the death.
Kynan Dias:And he's
Lester Ryan Clark:like, oh, maybe, you know, maybe maybe I can maybe I can get the the brother too.
Kynan Dias:Right. So he gets Valentin to go catch them. He also wakes up the mother to catch them in bed, and they're they're in bed under a sheet, but they still have all their clothes on. But in this time period, it's still enough for her to catch them and have a heart attack and die.
Lester Ryan Clark:They're not separate beds. She has a heart attack and dies.
Kynan Dias:She dies. The mother dies and she ships herself. Yeah. And then Valentin comes in, then it's the
Lester Ryan Clark:It's a running gag, folks. That's just just in case nobody's heard that that that thing we did in in our other show. What would they have?
Kynan Dias:Oh, that wasn't on the Devil show. That was on the show.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. That was we're not just laughing about people dying and shitting themselves. But that's what happens when
Kynan Dias:you when you die, you shit yourself no matter what you're doing. Yep. Yep. Yep. No matter where you are, you die.
Lester Ryan Clark:So So if yeah. If you can control it, folks. The meal that you have on the day your death.
Kynan Dias:Oh, know, there were there were people who were like, they knew they were gonna get guillotined in the the French Revolution.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh.
Kynan Dias:And they were like, hey, I'm gonna like, it's you and me. Like, hey, Lester, I'm going first. I'm I'm gonna try to wink at you afterwards, see if that happens, you know? So, like, people people have done those kind of studies and stuff. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. I don't think it works. I think you just die. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:But, yeah, you just shit yourself. So
Lester Ryan Clark:I thought you were gonna say, hey. Hey, Lester. I'm going first. I I had, like, a whole bowl full of chili. This is gonna be great.
Lester Ryan Clark:That'll show him.
Kynan Dias:That'll yeah. Somehow, that'll show him. Yeah. Yeah. So then, yeah, the rest of this duel scene is as you know, pretty close to before.
Kynan Dias:Right? Yeah. Valentine comes in and they have a real duel out in the streets. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:But the the big difference here is that, again, like, maybe you're not supposed to take any of this literally, but it is Mephistopheles who actually strikes Valentin.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Like, not part of like, hey, I'll guide your hand or any of that stuff. It's FAUST and Valentino are having a duel, and Mephistopheles goes behind Valentino and just stabs him in the back.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Not as like a shade, not as like he doesn't possess FAUST and Right. You know, he's not FAUST's shadow. He is he he could be any other guy Right. Just hiding in the shadows Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And they're fighting and just kinda is like, yeah.
Kynan Dias:Like Cyrano de Berserach. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then this crazy image, again, like, some of the stuff that isn't as as famous is still nuts where Valentin goes up to to FAUST, and they have they're they're like, FAUST is is a surprise it's Valentin that's Valentin got stabbed because again, it wasn't it wasn't FAUST who was doing it.
Kynan Dias:Right. And Valentin kind of stumbles in and they kind of like form the same person for a moment. They kind of like become one with each other and like, yeah, FAUST FAUST is not happy that Valentin has died.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this is not, you know, I mean, I still hate him. I still don't like him.
Kynan Dias:Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.
Kynan Dias:Sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Either of them. Because okay. Now in this one Mhmm. Because the other one the other one, you know, he's dying and and Gretchen, you know, comes out and she's like, oh, no.
Lester Ryan Clark:My you know, my brother. And and, you know, in the in the other one, it's just like, oh, you you you harlot. You you know, I curse you. I curse you. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:This one, he's like, I curse you and, hey, everybody, like, after I'm done dying, put her in the stocks. I
Kynan Dias:have a specific thing I want you to do, you know.
Lester Ryan Clark:Fuck me. Once I'm dead. Christ.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But then also, as Valentin is dying in Faust arms, which is, you know, in Gnouds or or the other ones, could stage it that way, but like that's how this one is staged. Right? That he dies in Valentin. Valentin dies in Faust arms.
Kynan Dias:And Mephistopheles has like cheesed it, and he's going around town and, like, saying, murder. He's been murdered. Everybody wake up. There's a murder, which he did. Yes.
Kynan Dias:Which I think it's it's it's just fun. I love it.
Lester Ryan Clark:No. No. No. I love it because, like, yeah, he's he's shouting in in into windows. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:He run there's there's a point. It's it's Kevin McAllister when he's running through the halls Yeah. And then he stops at the camera and he shouts murder at the camera.
Kynan Dias:That's right. And even, like, he even opens the windows back up to Gretchen's house who was Yes. Holding her mother who has died in her arms and he's murder. Murder. Murder.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And then he and then he you know, and and and Faust is having this crisis Mhmm. And just up pops Mephisto from behind him. Oh.
Kynan Dias:Oh. Oh, you know. This guy knows.
Lester Ryan Clark:We gotta go.
Kynan Dias:This guy's a murderer. Oh, yeah. And then they cheese it again, and they're riding on the back of, like, that tiger lion from He Man. Uh-huh. You know?
Kynan Dias:You know which one I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what this is. It's not one of the horsemen.
Kynan Dias:And it's not really explained what they're riding on. But it's some kind of big old demon. Yeah. Like, a hairy demon.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's a weird hairy kind of yeah. No. It is it is the lion from He Man.
Kynan Dias:Good. Yeah. And they're just, yeah, galloping through the the air. Mhmm. And and FAUST, you know, again, to maybe soften your hate of FAUST, he's like, Gretchen, we have to go back for Gretchen.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. You know what? That would that trying to trying to make him look at he's he's on a flying g man line. He knows there's no way that he can get back.
Kynan Dias:Okay. But he's not he's not controlling me.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's really like when
Kynan Dias:don't wanna fight somebody and you know
Lester Ryan Clark:your friends are holding you back.
Kynan Dias:Like, hold me back. Hold me back. Yeah. He's like, no. We gotta go back with Gretchen.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and Mephisto's like, okay. And then he starts turning the the line around. I was like, No. No.
Kynan Dias:No. Yeah. Exactly. So we could see Gretchen at a double funeral, which Yeah. Is left kinda out of the other versions because the mother and Valentin don't die on the same day in the other versions.
Kynan Dias:Right? Yeah. So and she's very alone by herself. She, like, doesn't have any friends. She doesn't even have that that bitchy friend who is like, hey.
Kynan Dias:Later on, we're gonna go and Right. And haze that that woman who got pregnant out of wedlock. Right? Not even that.
Lester Ryan Clark:She even passes like like Martha. You can see her. She's kind of like dressed in her morning stuff. And and Gretchen reaches out and it's like, nope. Like, gonna gonna shun you.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's it's all your god. People were such assholes back then. Like like this is all this girl's fault? Come on.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. They want to blame FAUST. FAUST is this bewitching older rapist guy, but then also blame her.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, the next scene is her I guess she's at the stocks. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, she's she's tied up to this this this this stake Yeah. In the middle of town. And most people are, like, gawking Mhmm. And laughing and and just, like, you know, I don't know. This is like this is the Sunday that we go out Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know, after church and we go and see the the the tied up lady.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And there's a guy who is eating a slab of bread or maybe it's some cheese. Maybe it's some maybe it's a chunk of Parmesan cheese. He might just have a a whole eighth of a wheel of Parmesan cheese he's eating. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. People used to do that. They you know, this was both like a warning for everybody else and and entertainment.
Lester Ryan Clark:Entertainment. Yeah. Mhmm. And then two girls come up. And this is mean, like, you know, we don't have the one where it's like, oh, we're gonna throw, you know Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Rocks at a wedding. But like these two girls like seems straight out of that scene.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because they're laughing at Gretchen. Mhmm. And then somebody comes and is like, alright. Time to time to like not be tied up anymore.
Kynan Dias:And he's like, that's a good thing. Right? He's like, oh, if you say so, lady. Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and but, like, I guess I guess she's done with her time in the stocks. Right. Mhmm. And but, like, still everyone's, like, laughing at her and jeering at her as she's as she's walking away.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But what can she do? Because, mean, as as a woman, the only thing you can do to survive is get a husband and you can't have a husband.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And so she goes yeah. And it's like, you you also can't move.
Kynan Dias:Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I mean This is this is when, you know, people lived and died in the same town. Right. Going Mhmm. You know, traveling from place to place was was a lot harder.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. So that's where you live now. Right. And every everybody in town hates you.
Kynan Dias:Right. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:You know? And you go and you you go back to your home Mhmm. And your mom's not there, your brother's not there, and you're just like kinda, you know Yeah. That's
Kynan Dias:it. And where's your baby?
Lester Ryan Clark:And where's your baby?
Kynan Dias:Right? Oh, you have a baby now. What? So that one time in bed that was coitus interruptus by the mother Mhmm. Was enough.
Kynan Dias:So remember kids at home. Mhmm. Right. Yep. Pre ejaculate, Right.
Kynan Dias:Not even once. Right? Exactly.
Lester Ryan Clark:Never. Or or you'll end up like Gretchen. Right. You know, just just did your your whole life, your brother dead Mhmm. Mother dead Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Your father. I mean, if if, you know, we don't know where he is, but probably dead.
Kynan Dias:He art in heaven, I imagine.
Lester Ryan Clark:There we go.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. Yep. So, yes, then we spend again.
Kynan Dias:We haven't seen FAUST since he ran away on the tiger. We've set whole sequence with Gretchen, which is similar to yep. Goethe's focus on Gretchen, the tragedy of Gretchen as opposed to tragedy of FAUST. Right. It is now winter, not in a nice Christmas y sort of a way, like it's it's constant like snowstorm and all of that.
Kynan Dias:And Mhmm. She like seems to hang out most of her time at the foot of a of a church.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. But the church won't let her in apparently, and she has her baby with her and she's she's wandering through trying to find warmth of anyone
Lester Ryan Clark:can take her. Let's let's talk about this church service too because they're reading Mhmm. The gospel and they're they're talking about the Virgin Mary and they're talking about the Virgin Mary kind of wandering through the streets and having no, you know, a a place to lay her head and Oh, yeah. And no shelter and everything like that. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I just I just keep on thinking of, you know, today we got, you know, some some some very Christian folk
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, talking about, like, oh, yeah. You know, these these these immigrants from another place Mhmm. You know, with nowhere to rest and you know, but they're the holy family. They're, you know, they're the nativity. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Get out of my way homeless person
Kynan Dias:as I as I walk to church. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, that that's exactly what's going on here because, like, we pan from the church where they're talking about this, the holy family being homeless. Right. And there we go. We got Gretchen dressed very Virgin Mary like.
Kynan Dias:That's a really good point.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. She's got the, you know, she's got the hood. She's got the, you know, the shawl and Mhmm. And she's clutching her baby and and Yeah. You you gotta like I was thinking you were gonna tell me about like like they got her in like a lot of Virgin Mary poses.
Kynan Dias:Oh, that makes so much sense.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Very Leonardo da Vinci like painting of the Virgin Mary.
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. No. That makes total sense. Hadn't thought of that. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. So she's going through the snow and then we get this really, you know, cruel montage of her like, going to people and be like, hey, don't don't take care of me, but can you just, like, take my baby, adopt my baby, and then, like, stop
Lester Ryan Clark:For real.
Kynan Dias:Like, take my baby just for the night even. Right? Yeah. Like, like, I'll I'll die out here in the snow, but please take the baby. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:That's the, yeah, that's that's the thing that got me. It's like, it's not even like, hey. Let me in. Get you know, let or let us in. It's like, just take the baby.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. And the I don't know. Like, the social class or the social stigma of, like, you're a tainted woman.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like, I'm not even going to save this innocent child because of not even because of what you did, but because what was done to you. Right. Mhmm. Like, stretches all the way to your child. It's like Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Yep. And then she has this really famous image later on where she is hallucinating that the snowbank is a crib
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, fuck.
Kynan Dias:For her to put the baby in. Right? Yeah. So this is this is different. In the other versions, she kills her own baby, perhaps out of mercy.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Right. But in this one, it's it's a straight up hallucination. She does not mean to kill the baby.
Lester Ryan Clark:And it's such an effective it's it's a hard cut. Like, she you see the oh, yeah. And there's the Virgin Mary imagery. It's like this. At one hour thirty four minutes and forty eight seconds, it's it's it looks like a painting.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. You're right.
Lester Ryan Clark:But but, yeah, then then she sees this little cradle. Mhmm. And and we see the cradle too, and we're like, oh, you know. Mhmm. And she puts the baby in the cradle, she's smiling Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And then hard cut Mhmm. To the baby is dead in the snow. It's like half buried.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And she's half buried and and as if maybe maybe she doesn't know it and she just now at this point just wants herself to die. Yeah. But unfortunately for her, she is saved by the the local like
Lester Ryan Clark:Rabb troop. Yeah. The local the local not minding my own goddamn business club. Right? Like like they they they couldn't find her when like she needed them.
Kynan Dias:Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Exactly. It's like we're not gonna we're not gonna help you when when you know your baby needs you know food but like right, you know.
Kynan Dias:Yep. So they say, oh, you've killed your your baby and they Mhmm. They again shout it so everybody knows. Yeah. And she looks directly in the camera and asks for FAUST.
Kynan Dias:She's like, FAUST, save your aggression.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yeah. And somehow FAUST, all the way on that, you know, planet with the blue milk.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well well, then Gretchen's face, like like, floats up through the sky, you know, over this other planet. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:You're right. It looks like entirely different planet. Do you think he's in hell?
Lester Ryan Clark:I no. I think he's still in the world. I think he's he's traveling from from place to I think this is, you know, the imagery of, you know, like, even though FAUST didn't or Mephisto didn't show him this
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:This is like, you know, it's like the top of a high mountain, all the kingdoms of the world, and and stuff like that.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Wow.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. But, well, you know what? Looking at it now,
Kynan Dias:volcanic. It's looks like hell.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:And so he sees there, he he he hears Gretchen or sees her face, right, through his love. And he's like, Mephisto, you've tricked me. I realize this now. Like, this is all this is all you're doing. I don't know if that's really borne out by the facts.
Kynan Dias:No. But but, yeah, he decides he needs to go and save her. And he starts to see images of Gretchen being taken to, you know, the to be what's it called? To be Executed? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Or burn of the stake here. Burn of the stake. That's the phrase I was saying. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we start to, like, be able to see that essentially. And then Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And then we have, you know, our our jail scene here is a little bit different from it has it has been poured. It's just her. It's right. It's the kind of thing that movies can do that's intimate moments. You don't have to dramatize it.
Kynan Dias:We just need to see her in the jail cell. Right. And and FAUST instead is doing, like, the movie version of it of, like, coming to save her and we're cutting back and forth between the two series of action of Right. FAUST riding the tiger lion from He Man. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And Is it gonna
Lester Ryan Clark:be too late? You know? Right. Exactly. I love the so because it's just her Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And because we have the movie Mhmm. We can have her like, we can have the superimposed image of her when she was, you know, when she was fine and and, you know, the the kids were dancing around her and Right. You know, she first meets FAUST and everything like that. Mhmm. And then, you know, that fades and we're back in the prison cell with her.
Lester Ryan Clark:And there's this great close-up as she, like, she grabs some straw Mhmm. And she starts kind of twisting it. Now that I think about it, because one of the first times we see her is when she's unbraiding her braids.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Uh-huh. Is that, like, is that what she's doing with the straw?
Kynan Dias:Oh, yeah. Maybe.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Cause she's she's got it like her hands in the same position, but her eyes are just wide Mhmm. And they're just staring off into, you know, the void. Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. They they take her
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:They take her to a pyre, guess that's what you
Kynan Dias:call Yeah. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:That's what you call a pile of sticks that you burn people.
Kynan Dias:Burden. Yeah. Burden you. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and that's like right when FAUST! And Mephisto shows up. He sees it happening. And Faust runs down. He leaves Mephisto up on the mountaintop.
Lester Ryan Clark:And as he leaves
Kynan Dias:Notice that Mephistopheles could park anywhere, but he decides to park on the mountaintop. Yes. And have Faust walk his way down there.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. Yeah. That was was that was all by design.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Oh, it's $10 to park your your tiger lion down in the city, so I've gotta you've gotta walk the way. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like not on a Tuesday. There's street cleaning. There's, you
Kynan Dias:know Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. But but yeah, so so FAUST runs down there and he takes out his little Mephisto takes out his little mirror. Yeah. And he he tells, I guess, the old FAUST to come out.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. You know, and so even as our young FAUST is running to save Gretchen, he becomes old. Right. And he's kind of like crawling up to her Mhmm. Even as she's like, you know, tied to the stake and is burning.
Kynan Dias:And Gretchen but Gretchen, you know, for for her her point, she seems to recognize the FAUST within the old FAUST. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:And Yes.
Kynan Dias:And is in love with him still. Right?
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And He asked her he asked her to forgive him, which which she does. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And and they die together. Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Alright. He sacrificed himself for her.
Lester Ryan Clark:But she no. He didn't save her.
Kynan Dias:So he killed himself adjacently to her. Yes. So that's gotta count for something. Right? Sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:I will say, of all the of all the FAUSTs Yeah. This is the least shitty.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what's really happening, I know we're being funny, but, like, what's really happening is that he wants he wants to tell her he's sorry before she dies.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. That's that's the thing. It's it's not like like, oh, I I wanna get, you know, one more smooch in.
Kynan Dias:Like, it's
Lester Ryan Clark:it's not that. It's it's he has to make amends.
Kynan Dias:Right. Uh-huh. Yeah. And he does and he turns back into young FAUST. He's just turned into old FAUST.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. But in the fire, he turns back to old to young FAUST. Is this herb experiencing him as young FAUST through his old age? Or does is he rewarded on Earth for these ten seconds of life left with his youth again? We, you know, we don't have an answer to that.
Lester Ryan Clark:But I think I think this is I think that's that's in her mind. Yeah. Mhmm. I think bodily he is still old FAUST until Until. They they burn up.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. And then they both float up to heaven in their, like, in their best versions of themselves.
Kynan Dias:Yes. Young, you mean? Yes. Right. But she's restored to before, you know, her her beggar period Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:And all that trauma, etcetera. And then he's restored. And they hold each other as they go up there, right? So it is similar to the ending of the Goethe one, right? Like condemned and saved, but they're both saved.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Right. Again, I just I must have just misremembered. I just I always thought that, like, this ended with with FAUST going to hell, but
Kynan Dias:Not usually. The
Lester Ryan Clark:only one who didn't do it was the Brit. That's the only person who who who dragged FAUST to hell.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right? Goethe, you know, this this is a German folktale and Right. And there's like, yeah, forgive that guy. And and and then it's French and is like, you know.
Kynan Dias:Because that is
Lester Ryan Clark:that is what we do.
Kynan Dias:Right. Right. So, yeah, they float up into heaven, which is, you know, a crazy special effect, it's surprising, I think. I I I don't think you're supposed to expect that, I guess, unless you've read FAUST. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. But then we get this shot of Mephistopheles in his old self as well. Right. Now he's to be up in the mountains, yeah, as the Chernobyl version with the horns and the wings and everything. And the camera rushes into his face, and he is not happy that he has lost.
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:He has lost that bet. Mhmm. And the angel says, alright. You're you're done. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:You you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Or no. Actually, you do have to go home
Kynan Dias:Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Because because this is this is no place for you. And and and but but but he's like he's like, no. No. My pact. We had a contract.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he's like, one word destroys your your contract, your pact. Yeah. And it's like, what word is that?
Kynan Dias:He's holding up the contract. He's like, look at this. I got it here. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's all in black and white. Well, everything is black and white. It's a jokey Murnau. But it's like one word alleviates every pain and sorrow. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:The eternal word, dust that dust thou not know it? Mhmm. Alright? And then he dissolve the angel dissolves into a cloud.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:That cloud has words written on it
Kynan Dias:or has a word written
Lester Ryan Clark:on it.
Kynan Dias:Uh-huh. What's the word? Tell them at home what the word is.
Lester Ryan Clark:The word
Kynan Dias:Lester. Lester. Lester. Yes. Tell them what the word is.
Lester Ryan Clark:Lester. Yes. Tell them. Someone Someone somewhere in the corner of Pee Wee Heard was like No. It is it is Liebe.
Lester Ryan Clark:Liebe. Liebe. Which means love.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. So the word is love. Mhmm. All you need is love. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yes. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:That is yeah. What oh, I don't know I don't know where current, like, Christian theology is, but that is for the first half of the twentieth century, that was the the thing that he would say, that that God is love Mhmm. And they they are equivalent to each other and that it that is all there you need to have that you can like, even in, like, some Catholic circles, people would say this. Like, yes, we're doing the sacraments, etcetera, but but the word is love and God is love.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Right. So it's like if you feel love, then that's it's you're feeling God. Right. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:And and this this trounces Mephistopheles and he sinks back down and and the angel just like Mhmm. You know, he puts he puts his sword down in front of him. He's like, That's it.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. This this version that we have here cuts out the original version where where Mephistopheles is so shaken by this that he falls down the mountain and rolls, and it's just three minutes of him going, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
Lester Ryan Clark:And he passes and and, of course, there's a little, you know, German cottage, you know Right. On one of these one one of these little
Kynan Dias:crags. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:And as he passes it, he just opens the window. He's like, murder.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. That's our FAUST. Thanks for watching that, sir. I mean, yeah, there's such interesting things here.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, I loved it so much.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. And I do like you know, a lot of these movies have the the subtitles, the early silent movies
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm.
Kynan Dias:Or late silent movies rather have that. Like, so a German folktale, we talked a lot about that in my class when I taught this movie before. Like, a part of it, I think, is, reclaiming the FAUST legend as its original as German. Like, this is, you know, Marlow and Gano and all you people.
Lester Ryan Clark:We got this British guy. We got this French guy taking our taking our story.
Kynan Dias:It's German. Yeah. But then also, think, you know, the new kind of Germany, like, again, German expressionism is this outcropping of of the broken psyche between the two world wars. And, you know, Germany was dealing with all of this really complicated stuff about, like, who are we? Like, are we really the the villains of The the villains of world?
Kynan Dias:The entire world. And and some people, you know, then obviously went over to Hitler within a few years and were like, that's the way that they're gonna see us, then yeah, let's be those people. Mhmm. You know, in addition to like getting everything that we want, right? But this period between the wars is like this huge flowering of the sciences and arts in Germany.
Kynan Dias:It's like one of the most productive and also one of the most tolerant twentieth century societies. There were trans people and interracial relationships and all sorts of really progressive things happening. And so, like, German expressionism is often seen as like this attempt of, well, you know, that's who we were and the world is broken, but now what are we gonna do with that? Like, what what is like, how do we think of FAUST now? Like, what is Germany?
Kynan Dias:What what is it what does it mean to have, you know, our national folktale, you know, in the twenty first sorry, the twentieth century.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. So this is I mean, like because you talked about, like, compared it to, like like, shards of glass, right, and shattered pieces. I mean, like, could could this art be seen as like, well, this is us now picking up the pieces?
Kynan Dias:Picking up the pieces, making a new world. In in Nos feratu, it's it's a little bit more clear with that, and and it's also like finding a new type of person. So I don't I haven't read Dracula. Have I have I told you that?
Lester Ryan Clark:I did not. Shut this all down. Goddamn it.
Kynan Dias:But in in Murnau's Dracula, like Yes. There's a real big emphasis on the role of the Mina Harker character and her becoming a new Christ figure and saving the world and sacrificing herself. Oh. That that is not in the novel as far as
Lester Ryan Clark:I'm aware. No. Yeah. In the like, man, all the movies, they like to make, like, they they gotta put, a thing between Mina and Dracula. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:They gotta put, like like, she's she's actually, like, really, really cool in the book. She's the one. Mhmm. She's she's the reason you have the book. Uh-huh.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Because the, you know, the book is an epistolary. It's like, you know, a collection of every everybody writes in a journal. Mhmm. Then it's like newspaper clippings and letters to, you know, each other and everything like that.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And Mina is the one, like she figures everything out and she's like, okay. And she she just, like, sits in a room and she she puts it all together in one manuscript. Right. And then and then Dracula comes in and he burns all the originals. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Like like, because I don't want anybody to find out about this. And but, like, it's it's revealed. It's like like, everyone's like, oh, no. All of our documentation. How are we going to, you know, defeat Dracula?
Lester Ryan Clark:And she, like, kinda, like, pulls out the manuscript. It's like, I've been working on this. I got it all right here. Ah, okay. Okay.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. And then she turns to the camera and says, and you can buy this for
Kynan Dias:$49.99. No. That's good. Yeah. Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So in the in the Murnau version, which then influences the Coppola one. Right? Like, Mina Mina is an active participant in there, and then Dracula has this relationship with But in the in the Murnau one, which is similar to the the new one that's out, the Eggers one.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Right. In that she she the plan that they come up with is that she has to be there as prey for Dracula Right. And be a Christ figure and sacrifice yourself. That's this Ellen character. So in the Murnau one, it's more like, you know, who are our heroes?
Kynan Dias:And it turns out it's this woman, you know? It's like making a very feminist stance. Like the like the new mensch, the uber mensch that we're looking for is a new type of hero. Right? Yeah.
Kynan Dias:So so that's there in a lot of German expressionism. And yeah, I think FAUST is a little bit like that. A little more than Mhmm. In Goethe's in in our version at least.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Mhmm. He's more like I need to sacrifice up myself and
Lester Ryan Clark:Right.
Kynan Dias:Pay the piper.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yep.
Kynan Dias:Yeah. Yep. The the town piper, everyone gets a toot.
Lester Ryan Clark:We had to have we had to have a three.
Kynan Dias:So, you know.
Lester Ryan Clark:Except he doesn't pay him. Mephisto get loses. Oh,
Kynan Dias:yeah. I guess so. He gets to go to heaven or whatever. Yeah.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. Yeah. I just want him to be up there in heaven, like, as the janitor.
Kynan Dias:You know, there's nothing wrong with being the janitor in heaven. Sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:Sure. But that's, you know, that like, okay. Like like, yeah. He can go, but, like, you know Mhmm. Four hundred thousand years as, you know, like like, janitor in heaven.
Lester Ryan Clark:It's like, okay. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. But, no, folks, that's that is the end of our FAUST season.
Lester Ryan Clark:We have followed FAUST Mhmm. Mephisto, Gretchen Mhmm. Martha, Valentin. We we some somehow, we lost Wagner on the way.
Kynan Dias:And we gained stable or whatever.
Lester Ryan Clark:And we gained Sybil. Yeah. Yeah. We we we don't know where the hell Dick and Rafe are. Or no.
Lester Ryan Clark:Robert Robin, Rafe, and Dick. Right. Yeah. They're they're they're just gone. Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:They're that they're the Marion Pippin they're the Marion Pippin and Pippin
Kynan Dias:of of
Lester Ryan Clark:this whole thing. Mhmm. But so, yeah. Let us know what you think. Let let us know.
Lester Ryan Clark:Write in and tell us which was your favorite version of FAUST.
Kynan Dias:Mhmm. Right.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? Because we certainly had enough versions, and I feel like I can now call myself a FAUST scholar. Right. Even though I'm not.
Kynan Dias:Yeah, but more than we were before for sure.
Lester Ryan Clark:Yeah. I can go to college and I can pull a Santa Claus and some tenured professor falls off a roof somehow.
Kynan Dias:And I
Lester Ryan Clark:put on a suit, and I teach, you know, Goodes' FAUST. I teach Marlo's FAUST. I teach, you know, the opera.
Kynan Dias:You know? Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right? And I'm like, professor, what you know, what's the what's the difference between, you know, the the German style and the French style? And I would say, well, you see, missus Doubtfire was a film in the early nineteen nineties. And there we go, you know? Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:And I'm tenured. I can I can say whatever I can
Kynan Dias:say whatever the fuck I want?
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah, what did what did you think of this whole FAUST journey?
Kynan Dias:Oh, I'm glad that we looked at it. Because so I started this. I'd only seen this movie and read the Marlowe play. Mhmm. And so I only had, know, now now I think I understand, like, you know, the differences in the different context.
Kynan Dias:And, yeah, as we look at, where the where our idea of the Devil comes from, like, it is even within one FAUST story, it is multiple, you know, versions, multiple different ideas about, like, what we think of this relationship is. So The
Lester Ryan Clark:whole thing with the contract and the sound of your soul.
Kynan Dias:What is a Faustian bargain? Well, it depends, unfortunately. There's a couple of different versions of that.
Lester Ryan Clark:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I'll never look at Little Mermaid the same again.
Lester Ryan Clark:Right. Exactly. You know? And just so you know, folks, in between the seasons, we're gonna be taking a little bit of a break just so we can kind of gather all of our notes and also work on our other shows. It's gonna be about a month, so we will see you a month from now with our new season of The Devil's Details.
Lester Ryan Clark:But, yeah. So our next season, is going to be The Devil and. Mhmm. Right? So it's gonna be all those stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster Mhmm.
Lester Ryan Clark:The Devil and Tom Walker. We got the cartoon, The Devil and, Daniel Mouse. Mhmm. I'm gonna see if we can find a a couple more. But, yeah, that's that's I'm excited for that because that is when the Devil comes to America.
Kynan Dias:Where he belongs. Or
Lester Ryan Clark:he still is, I think. Well, folks, this has been another episode of the Devil's Details. I've been Lester Ryan Clark. You can summon to me on all the socials as Lester Ryan Clark.
Kynan Dias:And I've been Keenan Diaz, and you can invoke me on Instagram and Letterbox as Howdy Keenan.
Lester Ryan Clark:For more of our shows and other really cool podcasts, go to truestory.fm, or feel free to drop us a message at banana for scale mail, that's mail,@Gmail.com. We got our Facebook listener group, banana for scale. That's a community for all of our shows, including this one. It's a private group. But just request to join, we'll let you into the inferno family.
Lester Ryan Clark:Oh, also, if you want more, consider joining us at truestory.fm/join, and look for banana for scale. That's You get bonus episodes of all our shows, access to our Discord, and you get your episodes a week early. That's pretty cool, just $5. But if you can't spare that, one thing you can do is give us a five pentagram rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to your shows. That and sharing the show by word-of-mouth or on social media helps our little podcast grow and find more cool people like you.
Lester Ryan Clark:Alright folks, until next season, love and hisses.