Petit Faust
About Petit Faust
Émile Cohl retells Faust with jointed puppets. Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles act out the familiar bargain, the romance, and the devil's claim, played for burlesque. A period synopsis said the story was too well known to retell, and that the comedy depended on the audience already knowing Goethe and Gounod. The figures are moved a fraction at a time between exposures.
Cast & crew
More about Petit Faust
Cohl made Le tout petit Faust at Gaumont, where he was nicknamed the doctor of trick work. The original length was 125 meters, and part of the print was colored. He shifted wire-less puppets, sometimes by a millimeter, for each frame.
Themes
Making
Stop-motion of solid figures, rather than drawings, meant building the puppets and locking the camera while each limb was reset.
Look
Cohl shot the puppets frame by frame. A section of the 125-meter original was colored.
Technique
The puppets have no wires. Motion comes from repositioning the figures between exposures.
Preservation
A public-domain copy about five and a half minutes long survives. The original release was 125 meters and partly colored.
Notes
- A surviving copy runs 5 minutes 38 seconds.
- FilmAffinity lists Goethe's play as the source.
- La Dépêche du Midi, writing up a 2021 screening in Castelnaudary, called the short a puppet film of Faust via Gounod's opera.
- The English working description in a trade-style synopsis calls the parts "puppets in the hands of clever and careful operators.
- Cohl had already been making drawn animation for Gaumont before this volume-animation short.
Scenes
- The puppet Mephistopheles presses the bargain on Faust.
- Marguerite's scenes are played with the same jointed figures.
Influenced by
- Goethe's Faust, by way of Gounod's opera
