Richard Burton's "Doctor Faustus"

Richard Burton’s “Doctor Faustus”

            I would imagine that putting on a production of “Doctor Faustus” would not be easy for many reasons.  I think that Richard Burton was ambitious for making “Doctor Faustus” into a film, however I was not particularly impressed with the choices that Burton made.  Perhaps this is just because I pictured the play very differently when I read it in my head. First of all, the film was significantly more dramatic than I think that Christopher Marlowe had intended. There were many dramatic pauses that I was not expecting. When I read the play, I also did not picture the role of Helen of Troy to be as central as it was in the film. Although Elizabeth Taylor is beautiful and definitely contributed greatly to the financial success of the film, I do not think that it was Marlowe’s intention to make Helen of Troy a main character in the play. However, I did find that Burton’s use of music whenever Elizabeth Taylor was in the scene was a very interesting yet annoying touch. Every time Elizabeth Taylor on film, annoying music would play and get more and more annoying every time she appeared.

            Overall, I did not particularly enjoy Richard Burton’s production of “Doctor Faustus,” however I think that a lot of it had to do with the fact that I did not even really enjoy reading the play very much either.