Mephisto

Germany. 1926. Hendrik Höfgen is a little known actor at the Hamburg Artists' Theatre who is obsessed with fame. However, he has socialist leanings, and Hitler's henchmen throttle his career. He is blacklisted. He flees to Paris.

Once there, he realizes that he was never forced to stop acting, never forced to leave, just presented with a choice. A choice between morality and success. Hendrik returns to Germany, dragging his principles from the train from Paris to Berlin. Once there, he abandons those close to him, adopts Nazi ideologies, and swiftly rises to fame.

This adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel, Mephisto, (1936), is a visceral display in the great Faustian tradition of what happens when the soul is pitted against desire.