Motifs
The pact and temptation
Selling one's soul, crossing the forbidden line.
A man obtains what he desires on condition of accepting a clause whose price he badly underestimates: the motif is as old as German legend, and Goethe gave it its widest form with a scholar who has learned everything and no longer knows how to live. Balzac shifted it towards a piece of skin that shrinks with every wish, Bulgakov brought the devil into Stalinist Moscow. Cinema seized it too: a knight who plays chess with Death, a dancer made to choose between love and her red shoes.
works 10
- TheatreFaustJohann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1808A scholar weary of knowledge, a devil ready to serve him and a wager on the moment when man will declare himself fulfilled.Literature
- NovelMelmoth the WandererCharles Maturin · 1820A damned man who has wandered for a century and a half in search of a soul willing to take on his bargain.Literature
- NovelThe Wild Ass's SkinLa Peau de chagrinHonoré de Balzac · 1831A ruined young man receives a talisman that grants his wishes at the price of his own life.Literature
- NovelThe Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde · 1890A wish made before a canvas, and a painted mouth that is no longer quite the same.LiteraturePublic domain
- CinemaFaustF. W. Murnau · 1926A German town ravaged by an epidemic, where an old scholar gives himself to the devil.Cinema
- CinemaLes Visiteurs du soirMarcel Carné · 1942Two emissaries of the Devil enter a medieval castle, and one of them falls in love with his prey.Cinema
- NovelDoctor FaustusDoktor FaustusThomas Mann · 1947Germany from the end of the nineteenth century to the Second World War, through the life of a composer told by his friend.Literature
- CinemaThe Red ShoesEmeric Pressburger · 1948A dancer must choose between the man she loves and the man who made her an artist.Cinema
- CinemaThe Seventh SealDet sjunde insegletIngmar Bergman · 1957A knight returned from the Crusades finds Death waiting for him, and proposes a game of chess to hold him off for a while.Cinema
- NovelThe Master and MargaritaМастер и МаргаритаMikhail Bulgakov · 1967A posthumous novel, published in 1967: the devil on a visit to Moscow, and the Roman prosecutor of Judea.Literature