Tartuffe

Tartuffe (Herr Tartüff, 1926) — watch online on iFILM — is F.W. Murnau's silent German adaptation of Molière's comedy about piety weaponised for personal gain. Murnau adds a frame story: a young man screens a film version of the play for his wealthy grandfather to expose a scheming housekeeper who has her eye on the estate.

Emil Jannings plays Tartuffe as a man who converts other people's faith into profit — a performance built almost entirely from gesture and expression, which is precisely what silent film demands. Murnau, who had made Nosferatu four years earlier, uses camera angles as a satirical device: the framing mocks the hypocrite before the plot does. Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover round out the cast. Stream Tartuffe (1926) on iFILM.