Edvard Munch and His Time
March 10–April 19, 2006

Toward the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Europe was teeming with new ideas and innovations of modernity formulated by writers, painters, and poets in a society at once attracted to serious intellectual challenges and disturbed by radical change. In conjunction with the exhibition Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul, the Department of Film and Media presents a small survey of films by and about Munch, as well as films based on the writings of equally famous fellow Scandinavian iconoclasts Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Knut Hamsun—artists whose paths crossed during this particularly fertile period in the Nordic arts, and who in some instances shared artistic concerns. The works of these authors have been performed and interpreted ever since they first appeared. They continue to stir debate, and have inspired filmmakers in a variety of cultural settings to filter the texts through different artistic temperaments and eras, creating new, original works.

Edvard Munch. 1976. Norway/Sweden. Written and directed by Peter Watkins. With Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Johan Halsborg. Originally made for television, Watkins’s astonishing film is full of original cinematic devices that successfully transpose Munch’s sensibility and milieu to the screen. Sumptuous visual effects, overlapping action and conversation, the intrusion of memory on present actions, and deliberately contrasting acting styles of a nonprofessional cast—who sometimes stare silently but directly into the camera—make for a haunting portrait of the artist and his particular cosmos. In Norwegian, English subtitles. Print courtesy Project X Distribution Limited. 170 min.
Friday, March 10, 6:00. T1; Sunday, March 12, 2:00. T1; Sunday, April 9, 2:00. T2

A Doll’s House. 1973. Great Britain. Directed by Joseph Losey. Screenplay by David Mercer, based on Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play. With Jane Fonda, Delphine Seyrig, David Warner, Trevor Howard. Shot in northern Norway during so-called "Lapland fever," Losey’s film captures an Ibsenian mood of darkness and betrayal. The volatile combination of Ibsen’s protofeminist play and the two politically active actresses occasioned many rewrites and "suggestions" to the exasperated director, and the film displays this dual energy in interesting ways. Courtesy Cinémathèque Suisse. 106 min.
Saturday, March 11, 4:30. T1; Monday, April 10, 6:00. T2

Rare d ocumentary footage shot by Edvard Munch. c. 1927. Norway. Rarely seen footage that the painter filmed in Dresden, Oslo, and at his residency, Ekely, probably during the summer of 1927 on a 9.5mm Pathé Baby camera. Courtesy Munch Museum. 6 min.
Sult (Hunger). 1966. Denmark/Norway/Sweden. Directed by Henning Carlsen. Screenplay by Carlsen, based on the novel by Knut Hamsun. With Per Oscarsson, Gunnel Lindblom. A starving young writer roams the streets searching for food and a way to publish his work in the stark and brilliantly hallucinatory atmosphere of Kristiania (now Oslo) in the 1890s. In Norwegian and Swedish, English subtitles. Newly restored print courtesy The Danish Film Museum. 112 min.
Saturday, March 11, 7:00. T1; Thursday, April 13, 6:00. T2

Fröken Julie (Miss Julie). 1951. Sweden. Directed by Alf Sjöberg. Screenplay by Sjöberg, based on the play by August Strindberg. With Anita Björk, Ulf Palme. Sjöberg’s adaptation of the ultimate class and sex polemic seamlessly brings to the screen a three-dimensional tale humanized by spectacular performances, careful and fluid editing, and breathtaking cinematography. In Swedish, English subtitles. Courtesy The Swedish Film Institute. 90 min.
Monday, March 13, 6:00. T1; Wednesday, April 12, 6:00. T2

En Folkefiende (Enemy of the People). 2005. Norway. Directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg. Screenplay by Skjoldbjærg. With Jørgen Langhelle, Trine Wiggen, Sven Nordin. In this updated adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play, television celebrity Tomas Stockman is faced with a moral dilemma when he moves back to his native village, and, together with his brother, devises a plan to produce the purest bottled water in the world, thereby restoring economic power to the community. Rumors unfold that their water shows traces of illegal pesticide. One of Norway’s top directors imbues the age-old tension between economic and social concerns with contemporary urgency. 91 min.
Monday, March 13, 8:00. T1; Friday, April 14, 8:00. T2

Nora Helmer. 1973. West Germany. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Screenplay by Fassbinder, based on the play by Henrik Ibsen. With Margit Carstensen, Joachim Hansen, Irm Hermann. In Fassbinder’s made-for-television version of Ibsen’s play, everybody is in the process of emancipation. The filmmaker points to a nonfeminist interpretation of the play in which it is Nora—played by the matchless Carstensen in true style—who is as clueless at the end as she is in the beginning. In German, English subtitles. 101 min.

Monday, April 10, 8:15; Saturday, April 15, 8:30. T2

Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People). 1989. India. Directed by Satyajit Ray. Screenplay by Ray, based on the play by Henrik Ibsen. With Soumitra Chatterjee, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Mamata Shankar. Instead of a Norwegian spa, this film is set in a Hindu temple in contemporary Chandipur, where contamination of the holy water is suspected to be the source for a rampant epidemic in the region. However, Doctor Gupta’s fight against city officials and business interests is as bitter now as a hundred years ago and no less relevant and challenging in its moral and social complexity. In Bengali, English subtitles. 100 min.

Wednesday, April 12, 8:00; Monday, April 17, 6:00. T2

Ansigter (Faces). 1971. Norway. Directed by Anja Breien. Based on Edvard Munch’s portraits—the faces, expressions, and situations; accompanied by a poem by Poul Borum.

In Danish, English subtitles. 6 min.

Drömspel (Dreamplay). 1994. Norway. Directed by Unni Straume. Screenplay by Straume, based on August Strindberg’s play Ett Drömspel. With Ingvild Holm, Bjørn Willberg Andersen, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson. A beautifully realized adaptation of the modernist classic about the daughter of Hindu god Indra, who comes to Earth to observe humanity and discern if the grievances of man are well-founded. Straume’s powerfully poetic dream imagery bares the many underlying dilemmas of human existence. In Norwegian and Swedish, English subtitles. 90 min.

Thursday, April 13, 8:30; Sunday, April 16, 3:00. T2

Peer Gynt. 1941/1965. USA. Directed by David Bradley. Screenplay by Bradley, based on the play by Henrik Ibsen. With Charlton Heston, Betty Hanisee, Katherine Elfstrom. This truly independent debut production by twenty-one-year-old amateur filmmaker Bradley starred the even younger Charlton Heston in his first feature film. Shot on 16mm film in “the wilds” of Illinois and Wisconsin, the film’s bucolic setting and mood evoke silent moviemaking. New footage and narration by Francis X. Bushman was added for a 1965 reissue. Courtesy the Bradley Film Collection at Indiana University, with grateful thanks to Harold "Rusty" Casselton, LarCas Productions. 100 min.

Friday, April 14, 6:00; Sunday, April 16, 1:00. T2

Le Bassin de J. W. (The Hips of J. W.). 1997. Portugal. Directed by João César Monteiro. Screenplay by Monteiro, based on August Strindberg’s texts “Coram Populus” and “Little Catechism for Usage of the Inferior Classes” as well as texts by Pier Paolo Pasolini, António Esquimó, Teixeira de Pascoaes, and André Breton. With Monteiro, Hugues Quester, Pierre Clementi, Joana Azevedo. Two actors performing as God and Lucifer in Strindberg’s Inferno find themselves competing in real life as well. Rich in references and symbols, Monteiro’s film deals with the grand theme of humanity, the struggle between good and evil. The imagery and philosophy of this original filmmaker is, however, inspired surrealism and always closer to Buñuel than to the Bible. In Portuguese, English subtitles. 148 min.

Saturday, April 15, 5:00. T2; Wednesday, April 19, 8:15. T1

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