RAISING HELL IN THE REAGAN YEARS: THE 1980s
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Mepbislo.
religious television spewed forth a torrent of misinformation concern ing the Black Arts, whipping up a genuine witch-hunt against any sign of suspected Satanic influence in the media. Panic-stricken mass delusions swirling around fears of Sata n ic serial kil lers, Satanic child abuse, and other imaginary ills entered into a currency not seen since the M iddle Ages. It was hardly an atmosphere conducive to the production of adventurous Satanic cinema. There were some exceptions to this rule, almost all of them created outside the borders of Ronald Reagan's fundamentalist theocracy of "family values" The Fa ust legend was p layed as political al legory in Hungarian d irector Istvan Szabo's M EPH ISTO ( 1 981). Klaus Maria Brandauer turns in a powerful performance as Hendrik HOfgen, a ruth less German stage actor of the 1 930s whose greatest role is Meph isto in Goethe's Faust. His metaphoric pact with the Devil is symbolized by his willingness to work for the new Nazi state, which serves as his patron. Here, Satan is represented as a secular force of power rather than a metaphysical being. Obviously, the main character is based closely on the controversial Gustav GrOndgens, the most famous interpreter of Mephisto on the German stage, who enjoyed the patronage of the Third Reich ¡in the 1 930s and 1 940s. The screenplay, written by Szabo and Peter Dobai, emphasizes the Faustian symbolism far more than the 1 936 Klaus Mann novel which inspired the film. Mann was GrOndgen's embittered brother-in-law, and the novel was rea lly a very personal poison pen letter disgu ised as a novel. There are several interesting ambig uities to the picture. Although it is Brandauer who's seen in the traditional make-up and costume of the Devil as he