Review: The Apprentice
Faust in a Glass Tower
By Waleska Antunes
In 1832, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer, exponent of romantism, finished the tragic poem called Faust. In general terms, Faust is the story of Heinrich Faust, a man who is dissatisfied with worldly life, receives a visit from Mephistopheles in a moment of total displeasure, and makes a blood pact with him. Mephistopheles’ pact is simple: Faust will have all his carnal and intellectual desires granted, however, if ever he attains goodness and redemption, he will be dragged off to hell. The Faustian narrative delas with desire and reparation, the flesh and the spirit.
The Apprentice, directed by Ali Abbasi (Canada, Denmark, Ireland, 2024, World Panorama) provides a temporal excerpt of the ascension of Donald Trump, businessman, presenter and politician. From the time in which he went from door to door collecting the rent of squalid apartments in the New York of the 1970s, overrun by drugs and political scandals, the film passes through the trajectory of this so-called self-made man, culminating in one of his most megalomaniac projects: the construction of Trump Tower, in the city centre.
We can say so-called self-made man because, in spite of the figure of the man who is the image of the American dream of the 1970s, with his extravagant suits and hair-dos, the empire was not built single-handed. Roy Cohn, an unscrupulous and aggressive lawyer, famed as one of the defenders of the North American mafia, guided young Trump on the path of fame and fortune, with his mannerisms and grimaces.
Trump interpreted by Sebastian Stan is a sort of unfinished Faust: an ungraceful, disheveled man, impotent in every way, incapable of showing any feeling, negligible and violent. It is up to the Mephistophelian figure of Roy Cohn, interpreted by Jeremy Strong, to guarantee that all his pupil’s desires become reality. Both of them live under the auspices of falsehood, negation and a marble-covered megalomania, a mirage.
Both Faust dressed as Trump and Mephistopheles dressed as Cohn invoke the most immoral and perverse tactics to obtain all their desires: forged documents, extortions, evictions of poor people, violence and corruption, everything is valid to guarantee a life different from that of mere mortals. Desire and ambition are tantamount, to the extent that even supposedly amorous relations, as between Trump and Ivana, are massive constructions to maintain an image. In this Faustian pact with Trump and Cohn, there is no love, but rather a big prenuptial agreement.
The frenetic editing, interspersed with archive images of the city and reenactments of moments, purvey the sensation that we are seeing the Faustian journey of a man trying to overtake human limits as a form of negation of his own insignificance; of all the blood pacts he has made, the only one that cannot be overcome is the passage of time.
Like Faust, Trump obtains fame and power and decides to materialise his power in a glass tower. This is the apex of his life – up to now – and the guarantee of an emulation of happiness. It is now that Cohn, like the fallen angel he is, shows that from now on, redemption is impossible, only damnation and the film, with airs of the American dream, begins to take on a somber, fatal aspect.
Trump’s ungracefulness morphs into cold-blooded villainy towards everyone around him and the creature turns against his creator: Jeremy Strong’s performance, incorporating a Cohn victimised by AIDS, immobile, weak and diminished at each passing instant, reaffirms that method acting is always valid. Stan swells like a monster, devoid of any kind of emotional aspect, with a coldness worthy of a terror film, making it clear that here is no longer a youth intimidated by the world, but a man with the world at his feet. Strong’s Mephistophelian aura fades into a mere shadow of life. For a man who has lied for his whole life, it is no problem to lie to the end of his days.
Even seeking redemption and reparation, where Strong becomes Faust and Stan, Mephistopheles, there is no possible salvation for anyone. Athough carrying the debt of so much fame and power, Trump builds his glass tower and is recognized as one of North America’s greatest entrepreneurs while Cohn dies with a brief note in his biography. From the top of his tower, the Faustian Trump cites his master’s teachings as if they were his own.
In every accursed place, it is said that the houses are built over ancient cemeteries; maybe, in The Apprentice, the glass tower of this disheveled Faust has been built over the death of his own humanity.