tomgillespie2002 The film begins with the story of a rich man being given a slow premature death by his money-grubbing housekeeper. The elderly man has shunned his actor grandson, who visits him and, after discovering the housekeepers use of poison, is sent away. He returns disguised as a travelling cinema worker, who, upon getting into his grandfather's house, proceeds to show them the story of Herr Tartuff. Rich landowner Herr Orgon (Werner Krauss) brings his new friend and religious fanatic Tartuffe (Emil Jannings) home, much to the dismay of Orgon's wife Frau Elmire (Lil Dagover). After she spurns Tartuffe's sexual advances, she sets out to prove to Orgon that Tartuffe is an imposter who is seeking to inherit Orgon's vast estate.Why director F.W. Murnau decided to use the film-within-a-film device in his adaptation of Moliere's famous play, I'm not sure. Maybe it was to put his own new spin on what is now a well-known story and moral tale, or perhaps it is just to bring it up to date. Either way, it's an effective device, and allows Murnau to advertise his unbelievably advanced film-making techniques and ideas. His better known classics such as Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) showed his ability for expressionism and breakthrough techniques, but Tartuffe displays his eye for the science of cinema. Every frame, every camera movement, and every cut is sheer beauty. And everything is helped by one of the giants of silent cinema, Emil Jannings.Tartuffe is an absolute monster, and it needed a true monster to play him. Jannings is colossal - his hulking frame making him look like a kind of evil spectre, capable of anything (what a shame that Jannings would later commit career suicide by becoming Goebbels pet propaganda tool). The film takes some surprising risks (for its time) as well. During the opening scenes, before we are introduced to Tartuffe, we see the young grandson being booted out of the house. Then something amazing happens - he walks up to the camera and looks at us, the audience, smiling. He assures us that the matter is not finished, and that he will be back to avenge his grandfather. This was back in a time where directors felt they had to have the characters looking a certain way went conversing, and that camera shots had to be at a certain level, for fear the audience simply wouldn't understand what was happening. Directors were simply terrified to try new techniques, but not Murnau.There is also a shocking scene involving the first exchanges between Tartuffe and Elmire. She is in the midst of demanding him to leave, when the camera droops down from her face, and lingers on her cleavage, which is slightly visible due to the way she is looking down upon Tartuffe. All is seen from Tartuffe's point of view, and this happens a number of times. Surprisingly saucy given it's age. Murnau is simply a genius, and you can watch almost any of his films to realise this. Tartuffe is not his best, and even if it seems to be breathlessly sprinting for the end in the final ten minutes, it is still a brilliant film.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

gavin6942 Young man shows his millionaire grandfather a play based on Molière's Tartuffe, in order to expose the old man's hypocritical governess who covets his own inheritance.This is a film that really shows the talent of Emil Jannings and why he was so popular in Germany. He is assisted by Lil Dagover. The story is surprisingly lecherous for its time, though the overall tale is simple. I have not read the Moliere tale, but I have to imagine that it goes into a great deal more depth than this.Professor Jan-Christopher Horak notes that "the frame story is shot realistically, with Freund and Murnau consistently emphasizing depth through movement from background to foreground, and by opening and closing doors in such a way that they are literally in the spectator's face." I did not notice all that, but I will take his word for it.

VanRippestein This is the fourth Murnau i've seen, after Nosferatu, Sunrise and Faust. I admire the work of Murnau for it's beautiful compositions an camera movement. Murnau is able to translate the mood he want's to set into composition and movement without being artsy for the sake of it.Tartuffe has quiet a story behind it. Apparently, Murnau was forced by contract to make this film. So this film is to Murnau what Spartacus was to Kubrick. Even though it's still a Murnau picture: again Murnau knows how to give a quiet flat story more depth by suggestion and style. I liked the film, it's hasn't got the outdoors scene's that Sunrise and Nosferatu had, or the huge sets and special effect of Faust, but still it remains an exciting film. Don't hold back by the negative reviewers of the film, this is, by all means, not a bad film. It's just that Murnau made so much breathtaking stuff in his other work, that this film seems not so historical interesting. But if you're a fan of Murnau's other work I'm sure you'll like this as well. Make sure you'll watch the Masters of Cinema edition. It has a great documentary about the making of this film. It gave me a lot of new insights about the film and about Murnau.

MARIO GAUCI In 1992, an Italian TV channel showed a two-week late-night retrospective of Silent films, the bulk of which were expressionist classics. Unfortunately, I missed out on a couple of these and TARTUFFE was among them. More than a decade had to pass before I could watch it, by which time I had come to consider Murnau - despite the fact that only a small portion of his work has survived the ravages of time - as one of the undisputed masters of cinema.For some reason, TARTUFFE has been little-seen over the years so that it never had much of a reputation (which may explain why I by-passed its sole TV showing to begin with!); having watched the film now, it clearly emerges as a masterwork from the golden age of German cinema and its place in Murnau's irreproachable canon (still impressive 75 years after the director's untimely death!) should not be overlooked.Having watched OTHELLO (1922) - which also starred Emil Jannings and Werner Krauss - relatively recently, I couldn't help noticing that it offers an interesting role-reversal with Murnau's film for these two powerhouse actors; in fact, Jannings' larger-than-life performance here is played alongside an impressively restrained turn from Krauss (whom I had previously only seen essaying villainous characters). One of TARTUFFE's most interesting elements is its 'film-within-a-film' structure that looks back to THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919; featuring Krauss's most famous role, interestingly enough) and forward to Hiroshi Teshigahara's THE FACE OF ANOTHER (1966) - which, coincidentally, I watched the very next day (my review of which is shortly to follow) without having prior knowledge of this! Criticized at the time for being a pointless flourish on the film-makers' part, I strongly feel that - with respect to TARTUFFE, at least - this device merely underlines the universality of the main theme being dealt with. I see, however, a third connection at play here, this time with Murnau's own NOSFERATU (1922): Tartuffe is presented as a different form of bloodsucker, one who is not undead but very much alive (or human, if you like), and just as dangerous - not to mention that much more common in our daily life than the vampire of myth and literature; besides, the fact that - as in NOSFERATU - here it is the devoted wife of the man under the influence of Moliere's symbolic figure of hypocrisy ("From now on, all hypocrites shall be called 'Tartuffe'!" reads a subtitle) who brings about his come-uppance, by 'sacrificing' herself, only helps reinforce this particular aspect.Despite the film's relative brevity (explained in my notes for the accompanying documentary below), its intimate nature, and also the fact that Murnau was handed the project at short notice, his trademark stylistics of expressionistic lighting and acrobatic camera-work are well in evidence. Finally, I would like to say something about the English subtitles - displayed over the original German intertitles - for all three of "Masters Of Cinema"'s Silent releases (the others being, of course, SPIONE [1928] and ASPHALT [1929]): I admire Eureka/MoC's decision to preserve authenticity in every aspect of their DVDs, but the interweaving text (with the English translation appearing in too small a font) makes it a comparatively labored read overall! At this juncture, I truly regret missing out on the retrospective of Murnau's work shown a few years back at London's National Film Theatre - and I can only long for the time I will be able to watch the likes of JOURNEY INTO THE NIGHT (1921), THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1921; when I was in Hollywood I held in my hands a DVD-R of this film but, since it had been announced for DVD release by Image, I didn't rent it), THE BURNING SOIL (1922), PHANTOM (1922; the same comments for THE HAUNTED CASTLE apply here, its DVD release from Flicker Alley has been imminent for some time now!), THE GRAND DUKE'S FINANCES (1924) and CITY GIRL (1930). It's inconceivable how the work of such an important film-maker, so long as it is available, is kept mysteriously under wraps - thus denying film buffs everywhere the opportunity of enjoying it! The 41-minute documentary, TARTUFFE: THE LOST FILM (2004; TV), is an essential watch for fans of Silent films and director F. W. Murnau: although TARTUFFE may not be among Murnau's greatest films, it is certainly one of his most personal as he identified himself with the young relative who is shunned from his inheritance because he has chosen the lowbrow way of the artist rather than a more lucrative profession. Besides, the documentary highlights the depressing state of most Silent films in existence today: while we should consider ourselves lucky that the U.S. theatrical version of TARTUFFE (from which the DVD transfer was made) is in such a good state, it is considerably shorter than the original German version. Fragments of the lost scenes shown in the documentary include a couple of key sequences which, as incomplete as they are in the film now, seem a little rushed. Although the quality is understandably inferior, one wonders why they weren't included in the main feature itself.