Murnau’s Faust meets Italian quartet in gothic masterpiece.

There’s no older story than the one about the person who makes a deal with the devil, and no better version outside the Book of Genesis than Faust. So when legendary German filmmaker F.W. Murnau was granted a mammoth production budget and limitless creative control in 1926, he chose to remake this legend about a scholar who sells his soul in exchange for a return to his youth.

As it happens, at the same time Faust was filming in Germany, workers were putting the finishing touches on the Golden State Theatre here in Monterey. Designed to simulate the courtyard of a Moorish castle, it might have been the perfect venue for Murnau’s macabre masterpiece. Alas, Faust was never shown on this gothic theater’s screen.

Fast-forward nearly 80 years. Both the Golden State Theatre and Murnau’s film have deteriorated. The formerly glorious theater squats on Alvarado Street in near ruin, and the film—once possessed of such extraordinary visual beauty and emotional power—has become a muddled and over-paced reproduction.

Yet over the last few years, as if the product of some Faustian bargains, three minor miracles have coincided to create a once-in-a-lifetime event this Saturday night in downtown Monterey. First, the Golden State Theatre has been restored to its vintage 1926 condition. Then, a prodigiously gifted Italian quartet was commissioned by the Provincia of Como to compose and perform music for Murnau’s Faust. Finally, the only 35mm restored print of Faust in North America was delivered here.

The end result is so good it has to be the work of the devil. So how did it all come together?

The answer is Gatto Marte, an Italian quartet made up of a violinist, bassoonist, pianist, and double-bass player, that is so good there are rumors circulating that they’ve sold their souls to weird progressive/jazz/rock-and-roll.

“They are truly one of the most original bands you will ever hear,” says promoter Elise Rotchford. “The closest I can come to describing them would be a cross between the Kronos Quartet and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.”

Over the course of five CDs and five film scores, the Gatto Marte quartet has gained tremendous popularity in Europe since it began in 1991. Their classically-based music includes rock, opera and jazz, with innovative compositions, impeccable musicianship, beautiful melodies, and lush textures, from modal tranquility to polyrhythmic atonality.

According to Rotchford, their moody, virtuoso compositions are a perfect fit for Faust. “This is the original format, restored to perfection,” she says. Gatto Marte’s original film score is transcendent.”

While not as well known today as Murnau’s other films, Nosferatu or The Last Laugh, Faust is considered by many to be the director’s masterpiece. It’s part Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and part Christopher Marlowe, infused with pure creepy Murnau. Precisely because of this approach, contemporary German audiences reacted in outrage when the film was released in 1926. They’d expected a movie faithful to Goethe’s version.

Yet what Murnau sacrificed in philosophical complexity, he easily made up for with truly astonishing imagery. French New Wave director Eric Rohmer wrote a book-length study of Faust where he argued that, “Murnau was able to mobilize all those forces which guaranteed him complete control of the film’s space. Every formal element—the faces and bodies of the actors, objects, landscape, and such natural phenomena as snow, light, fire, and clouds—have been created or recreated with an exact knowledge of their visual effect. Never has a film left so little to chance.”

Alas, Gatto Marte’s Faust will only be shown once at the restored Golden State Theatre, so, like Murnau, leave nothing to chance and get your tickets now.

Saturday, Jan. 22 at 8pm. $20/ general; $16/students. The Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado Street, Monterey. 372-4441.