Khrenov, N. A. Sokurov’s ‘Faust’: Anatomy of Demonism

Abstract: The article is devoted to a cinematographic masterpiece caused by an attempt of a film director Alexander Sokurov to use Goethe’s brilliant worktragedy ‘Faust’ –and to tell about the most nettlesome issues of XX century related to formation of masses, mass societies and, as a consequence, group leaders and dictators. Alexander Sokurov’s film is not a screen version of Goethe’s ‘Faust’ in the traditional meaning of the word. It should seem that using Goethe’s tragedy for sharing his thoughts on modern issues must lead to superficial and vulgar interpretation of a classical writing. But Sokurov’s idea to include his new film in what he called ‘tetralogy’, i.e. a group of films devoted to famous dictators of XX century (Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Hirohito) allowed to get a better insight into Goethe’s plot and to understand why that Goethe had such a difficult time writing that tragedy. If we try to understand the primary intentions of Goethe, we can find out the beginning of the demonism complex in Western culture that very well explains the way we perceive political leaders of XX century.

Keywords: