"Finally, the vicar was in the pulpit..."
Sometimes at these festivals your day is done after you’ve
just seen something that resonates with such force you don’t want to spoil the
mood or otherwise break the spell that was so brilliantly cast by the film and
musical accompaniment. So it was that I retired to just stay as long as
possible in the moment of having just seen and been seen, by Mauritz Stiller’s
magnificent adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel. Now, I’m not saying the
film is perfect in fact there’s a reason he was no higher than her second or
third favourite film director of the Nobel Prize winning author, but like
Heaven’s Gate, Greed and several works by Monsieur Gance – one of which was
frustratingly counter-programmed against this one… - the ambition wins you over
along with incredible performances.
Lagerlöf’s name is on the film after, against her better
judgement, she signed off on Stiller and Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius original
script which changed during production; she called the result “cheap and
sensational”. The film takes considerable liberties in its mash-up of the
novel’s narrative with some events happening at different parts of the arc and
to different characters and, indeed buildings… Characters are changed with Gösta
himself much more charming – how can he fail, he’s played by Lars Handsome? -
whilst Countess Elisabeth is not quite the strong character she becomes as she
leads the fallen priest towards a better, humbler life. She’s played by Greta
Garbo of course in her first film, yet to master her craft and here just 19 and
about to learn very quickly in Hollywood.
Needless to say, the Majoress and Marianne are women of
agency in both, with the latter pushing Gösta away, refusing his offer to stay
with the woman who has lost her beauty after smallpox although Jenny
Hasselqvist still looks wonderful to my eyes. More than ever though this
screening showed the Swedish Sarah Bernhardt, the great Gerda Lundequist, in
full force as Margaretha Samzelius, the Major’s wife and mistress of the estate
of Ekeby in Varmland. She has the most expressive face and know exactly how to
play for the camera with delicate hand movements and shifts in expression that
bely the fact she only made four films. One of these, One Night/En Natt
(1931) was shown as part of the Gustaf Molander strand and she is fabulous too
in a smaller role; along with Bea Lilley in Exit Smiling, her display in
Gösta is one of the greatest of those who only made a single silent film.
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| Gerda Lundequist |
Selma’s women are so strong – as you’d expect from her own life
story – and this is one of the most fascinating aspects of this epic, so many
female characters are creating their own direction, making their own mistakes
and standing up for what they believe in… which raises the question, was Selma Lagerlöf
“woke”? She was certainly a force to be reckoned with and a pioneer with a big
prize to prove it!!
The magic realism of the novel is dropped almost completely in
favour of the pure drama and the poetic world created by Lagerlöf is given less
room for melding myths and legends with the characters such as Sintram, the
cavaliers… dozens of finely wrought episodes punctuate the main story with meanings
only emerging from within the text as you search for the link. Lagerlöf was so
adept at subtext but also so disciplined in building the “spirit” of the book;
the place and the people of Varmland are vibrantly interconnected in ways that
are frankly still inspiring. *
Now then, back to the digital wonders on screen, this latest
version from the Swedish Film Institute is not just a restoration of Gösta but
a remix and extended cut being not only some 20 minutes longer than the 1975
restoration which most of us have only seen up till now via the Kino release,
but also in a different narrative order with the party sequences and their two
exiles are re-sequenced and there are variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic
mix for the burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and
new intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder.
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| Lars/Gösta and Jenny/Marianne (after the ravages of smallpox) |
Never has the camera work of the great Julius Jaenzon looked
so fine from the gorgeous sweeps of the lakes and forests to the shots on set
and the performer’s expressions. It’s the quality this film deserves and to be
able to focus on individuals’ emoting is a delight with Jenny Hasselqvist and
Lars Hanson being, in their own ways, two of the most talented of all silent
actors, the former all force and subtlety and the latter bringing her
world-class balletic movement and grace to the fore along with a remarkable
ability to radiate changing emotions through very controlled raising of the
angle of her face, a flash of the eyes or hands raised in grief.
As with the original release, the film was split into two
parts with Matti Bye’s specially written score forming the basis for
extemporisation with Eduardo Raon on harp for the first part and Silvia
Mandolini, on violin, for the second. Eduardo has been a feature of this
edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato and his use of effects peddles brings a whole
range of tonality and atmospherics which served the statelier pace of the first
half. Silvia’s violin could have been played by the demonic Sintram himself for
the fiery climax and the iconic chase across the ice as wolves pursue Gösta and
Elisabeth was breathless before the piano and strings played out an inspiration
and elegiac conclusion.
For a film I’ve waited a decade or more to see online and a
restoration I first heard mentioned in 2018 in Pordenone… there was a lot at
stake; I set bad personal expectation when I had a Lars and Gerda t-shirt made
for the occasion. The SFI delivered though as did Stiller, the film and all his
cast with the aid of these three musicians. Selma might not have completely
approved but this film is part of her living legacy and I hope it, along with other
famous works from Stiller and Sjostrom especially, along with the two Molander
films screening later in the festival, will see interest in her work increase.
As the authorial voice at the end of the book ponders… “the
giant bees of Fancy have thronged about us… but how they are to enter the
beehives of Reality is surely their own affair.”
Make of that what you will dear reader.
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| Hang on lads, I've got an idea... |
*Translating in words and film
I am basing this on a reading of the most recent translation, the first in a century, from Paul Norlen – previously awarded the
American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize in 2004 – who is closer to
the spirit and intent of the original work than contemporary translators such
as the well-intentioned but over fussy and interventionist, Velma Swanston
Howard.
In terms of filmmakers “getting” her work, according to Paolo Cherchi Usai in The Oxford History of World Cinema, it was the author’s admiration for Sjöström’s films that led her to sign over the film rights for all her books to Svenska Bio and he adds that the director “found in her work the ideal expression of the active role played by nature in the destiny of characters torn between good and evil.”
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| Greta in glorious tints!! |
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| Lars in even more clarity |
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| Even more snow for Jenny |
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| Sadly that inter-title has been changed... |
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