The casting of John Malkovich for the role of Dr. F.W. Murnau in "Shadows of a vampire" (2000) was probably not by change (although there is not a ghost of similarity between Malkovich and Murnau) - at least not for those people who have seen Malkovich in "The Convent", where he plays the director of the Nosferatu- and Faust-topics.
I think the best approach to this rather hermetic movie of Manoel De Oliveira is by asking questions. Why does his wife who openly despises her husband's work accompany him into the monastery, where she has absolutely nothing to do, where a minute is as long as a day outside of the walls, where she has neither inside nor outside of the remote convent connections to other people? Why is a convent guarded by a couple who celebrates black messes? And does the chief-guardian not look like the Devil in medieval depictions and knows big parts of Faust I by heart, as if he would be actually Mephisto? Another interesting detail is that "Piedade", the immaculate, fragile, angel-like librarian gives the professor an edition of Faust, but of Faust II.
The content of Faust II is the purification of Faust's soul. Therefore, all those people who see in "The Convent" the classical Faust-motives are wrong, because these are from Faust I. So, it does not astonish that the wonderful Portuguese landscape that De Oliveira shows us, corresponds practically literally with Goethe's description of the different scenes of Faust II (including the mysterious grove in which Piedad vanishes at the end and in which to loose herself she is wished by the professors jealous wife). I am afraid, all these people who have not read Faust II (and this is the majority both in Europe and elsewhere), is left alone in this movie.
At the end of the film, before the credits, we read that the professor has abandoned his research to prove that Shakespeare was the Jewish Spaniard Jacques Perez, but, according to his impressions in the monastery, has dedicated his life now to the research of occultism. This is very interesting insofar as we have here now the former Faust II turned into the Faust at the beginning of Faust I, where he sits in his hollow-like apartment and studies Cabbalist signs, at the same time depressed that he cannot go into the magic letters and thus invokes Satan (as to be seen in F.W. Murnau's "Faust" (1926)). But in De Oliveira's movie we seen the already purified Faust II turning slowly into Faust I. This is by all means exciting.
I think the best approach to this rather hermetic movie of Manoel De Oliveira is by asking questions. Why does his wife who openly despises her husband's work accompany him into the monastery, where she has absolutely nothing to do, where a minute is as long as a day outside of the walls, where she has neither inside nor outside of the remote convent connections to other people? Why is a convent guarded by a couple who celebrates black messes? And does the chief-guardian not look like the Devil in medieval depictions and knows big parts of Faust I by heart, as if he would be actually Mephisto? Another interesting detail is that "Piedade", the immaculate, fragile, angel-like librarian gives the professor an edition of Faust, but of Faust II.
The content of Faust II is the purification of Faust's soul. Therefore, all those people who see in "The Convent" the classical Faust-motives are wrong, because these are from Faust I. So, it does not astonish that the wonderful Portuguese landscape that De Oliveira shows us, corresponds practically literally with Goethe's description of the different scenes of Faust II (including the mysterious grove in which Piedad vanishes at the end and in which to loose herself she is wished by the professors jealous wife). I am afraid, all these people who have not read Faust II (and this is the majority both in Europe and elsewhere), is left alone in this movie.
At the end of the film, before the credits, we read that the professor has abandoned his research to prove that Shakespeare was the Jewish Spaniard Jacques Perez, but, according to his impressions in the monastery, has dedicated his life now to the research of occultism. This is very interesting insofar as we have here now the former Faust II turned into the Faust at the beginning of Faust I, where he sits in his hollow-like apartment and studies Cabbalist signs, at the same time depressed that he cannot go into the magic letters and thus invokes Satan (as to be seen in F.W. Murnau's "Faust" (1926)). But in De Oliveira's movie we seen the already purified Faust II turning slowly into Faust I. This is by all means exciting.