Selma’s way… Karin Daughter of Ingmar (1920) Selma Lagerlöf Part I

“We Ingmar don’t have to beg from others, we only have to walk in the ways of God.”

Selma Lagerlöf's novels formed the basis for numerous Swedish films during the silent period with their mix of historical precision, sense of place, religion and humanism. Her books are complex and not only full of rich characters but also moral conundrums for which there are no easy answers. Her characters are often flawed; loving yet sometimes cruel, making the mistakes we all make before finding their solution and all against a backdrop of an imagined golden age of rural peace. As Sweden faced the new century, Selma looked back to show the ways forward and gripped the nation’s readers in ways that influenced views of social justice.

Not for nothing was she the first woman to be awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize for Literature, "in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings". Her work provided the basis for Stiller’s Sir Arne’s Treasure (1919) from Herr Arnes penningar (1903), Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage (1920) from Körkarlen (1912) and, of course, her debut, The Story of Gösta Berling (1898), was the basis of Mauritz Stiller’s recently restored 1924 epic starring Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Gerda Lundqvist and Jenny Hasselqvist.

Victor Sjöström in Karin Daughter of Ingmar

One story, published in two books, Jerusalem I (1901) and The Holy City: Jerusalem II (1902) provided the basis for no less than four films with three drawn from the first volume alone, of which the full title was Jerusalem : två berättelser. 1, I Dalarne (Jerusalem: two stories. 1, In Dalarne). Set in the traditional rural heartlands of Dalarna it develops into and story of religious mania as a group gains a new faith and emigrates to Jerusalem as happened in the parish of Nås in 1896. Taken overall it’s an examination of the impact of social/economic change on farming culture and, perhaps, the need to escape all that with a return to the very roots of a faith that is no longer enough to hold the communities together in the face of industrialisation and changing working practice.

Victor Sjöström made the first two films, The Sons of Ingmar (Ingmarssönerna) (1919) and followed that up with Karin Daughter of Ingmar (Karin Ingmarsdotter) (1920) which failed to repeat the success of the first film leaving the director to turn his attention elsewhere. Gustaf Molander picked up the project and completed the story with his brace, Ingmar's Inheritance (Ingmarsarvet) (1925) and Till österland (1926). The two directors had many differences in approach with Sjöström’s narrative much closer to Lagerlöf’s text and more focused on the interior life of her conflicted characters whilst Molander broadened the palate, taking more liberties and setting up more action.

Harriet Bosse and Victor Sjöström in The Sons of Ingmar

I saw a very rare screening of The Sons of Ingmar (1919) in Cambridge back in 2014 – written up here – and was surprised to see how little of the book is devoted to the story of Big Ingmar and his choice over whether or not to forgive the woman who kills their first child. It’s a bleak premise, but a rewarding film enlivened by the camerawork of Julius Jaenzon especially the famous scene, lauded by Ingmar Bergman, when Ingmar (Victor Sjöström) greets Brita (Harriet Bosse), on her release from prison, with both characters almost set alight by the glaring sun above them.

Ingmar’s sense of duty and fairness enables him to make the most difficult of decisions and to forgive then learn to love this woman who made such a mistake and committed such a crime after feeling she had no alternative. This is only the first of many impossible decisions Lagerlöf’s characters must make. Ingmar is guided by his ancestors in his decision, a literal of figurative device that is for the reader/viewer to decide as he climbs a ladder to discuss matters with his dead relatives. It’s a mark of how much his life is set by tradition and the collective common sense passed down by the family and now embodied in him as Big Ingmar.

Tora Teje - Karin Ingmarsdotter

In Karin Daughter of Ingmar (1920) the story has moved on decades, Ingmar is sixty, “the best man in the parish”, and Brita has recently passed leaving him with two children; twenty-something, Karin Ingmarsdotter (Tora Teje) and her much younger brother Lill-Ingmar (Bertil Malmstedt). The Ingmar farm is one of the finest in the region and the family are one of the most admired and naturally, the hand of Ingmar’s daughter is much in demand. She is courted by Halvor (Tor Weijden) who is a man of means, running the family store and is of seeming good character despite his father’s reputation as a drunkard.

Halfvor and Karin travel into town to make arrangements for their wedding and Halvor is slipped a few “Mickey Finns” by two friends leaving him drunk and passed out in a ditch. Karin is appalled and decides with her father’s blessing, to call off the wedding ignoring Halvor’s protestations. Instead, Karin marries Eljas Elof Ersson (Nils Lundell) who’s father is well-to-do and well respected all of which leaves Halvor crushed along with his reputation.

There follows one of those moments on which Lagerlöf's stories often turn as a flood sweeps through and Ingmar goes in search of children swept away by the torrent. Spotting a group of three hanging on to a raft he bravely wades into the river with a boat hook and manages to guide them to the river bank and safety but, just as they’re safe, a huge log slams into his side striking a mortal blow.

Karin hands her ring back to Halvor (Tor Weijden)

Ingmar dies surrounded by friends – including Strong Ingmar (Emil Fjellström) of whom we’ll hear a lot more – along with his five daughters and young son with the fate of the farm now resting with Karin and her new husband. Sadly, Eljas proves to be more than a disappointment and without the moral fibre or will to carry the responsibilities he now has, he has turned into the drunken waster Karin always feared.

"She soon perceived that he was like a blasted tree, doomed to wither and decay, and that she could not hope for either help or protection…”

Eljas turns Karin’s life into a misery and bullies her brother at one point getting him so drunk he passes out forcing Karin to send the boy to live with the school master, Storm (Paul Hallström), his wife and daughter Gertrude. Having avoided Karin to the best of his abilities, Halfvor meets her and young Ingmar when he visits Storm and it is here when we have another grand moment when the boy gives him the remains of his father’s watch following instructions after his fatal accident. Just when we thought Big Ingmar was out of the picture, he delivers a moment that not only signals his acceptance that he was wrong about Halfvor but lifts the man’s spirits.

From now on the shop keeper will play a major part in proceedings and without spoiling it, the story turns on that one gesture.

Karin protects young ingmar from the wastrel, Eljas

It’s difficult to compare Karin Daughter of Ingmar with it’s predecessor as I wasn’t able to watch a decent copy unlike the 35mm Sons of Ingmar, but it holds up in dramatic terms even if it lacks the set piece magic reality of the first film. In terms of its source material, we’re two films in and have covered only 105 pages with 600 to go; a lot of work for Gustaf Molander to cover five years later.

A word on translations: Selma Lagerlöf's books were translated by Velma Swanston Howard an American writer who ended up working closely with the author but whose approach – as with many translators – was governed by her own instincts. There’s a fascinating paper from Björn Sundmark arguing that Lagerlöf is well overdue re-translation in order to eradicate Howard’s authorial interventions and allow re-appraisal for the works from the English-reading public. His opinion is that: “… sadly, Howard’s ability as a translator was not as great as her commitment and sincerity to

the Lagerlöf cause in general.”

In one letter form the author to the translator, Selma gently tries to urge a lighter touch: “And so dear friend I have started to think that you really work too hard on your translations. One can correct and change things forever, and in the end, one returns to the first formulation. You understand, I am so grateful for your beautiful, artistic work, but I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

So, whilst I enjoyed Howard’s translations of both books, they are as much an interpretation as the works of Sjöström and Molander… the search for intent and meaning continues.

You can find Sundmark's paper here at YorkSpace, York University's Institutional Repository.

A 1912 German translation... check out Abe Books!

Into the light... Sons of Ingmar (1919), Cambridge Arts Picturehouse with John Sweeney

This was a rare experience and in her excellent introduction, Trish Sheil, Film Education Officer for the Cambridge Film Consortium, explained why.  Victor Sjöström’s Sons of Ingmar exists only on 35mm film – it is not digitised – and the Swedish Film Archive only allows prints to be shown via double reel projection which the Picturehouse is now rare in providing. Our live projectionist also had to multi-task by manually inserting English subtitles, sometimes shadowing the screen to facilitate legibility – something like patting your head whilst rubbing your tummy at the same time.

The film only gets screened once in a silvery-blue moon and as Trish said makes for interesting comparison with Mr Griffith and other the leading lights of Hollywood with its moral complexity, naturalistic acting and novelesque narrative. The film pulls you along at its own pace, only exposing the depth of its characters sparingly and if you’re not wiping a tear from the corner of your eye by the end you’re probably not human.

Victor Sjöström

Set almost entirely against the Swedish countryside there is breath-taking cinematography from Julius Jaenzon which seems to push against the limits of the settings. At times he is shooting almost against the sun or at least with the light pouring diagonally onto the performers allowing for some extremes of light and shade that go against the contemporary rule book yet add to the engagement – you’re gripped by the unconscious response as the actors and the elements merge almost into one.

This risk-taking is most in evidence in the sequence outside the prison – so highly praised by Ingmar Bergman in Gosta Werner’s Sjöström documentary* - when the bleached white stone and sunshine confounds the eye as the players try hard to gauge each other’s feelings, blinking in the bright light searching for a reaction that confirms genuine love or pity.
 

Searching through sunshine

Sons of Ingmar was the first of a series of films based on Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Jerusalem – Sjöström planned to make five but only completed this one and the follow up Karin Daughter of Ingmar , with Maurice Stiller directing a third. Nobel Prize winner Lagerlöf was a major figure and this adaptation was by over half the population of Sweden within weeks of release.

Her novel was an immense multi-generational parable involving an attempt to found a new Jerusalem – the dream of a “return” that haunts the subjects of a society in flux. Sjöström’s opening section reflects this as Lill Ingmar Ingmarsson (Sjöström) tills his field, mulling over a difficult decision and daydreaming about discussing it with his deceased father (Tore Svennberg).

 

He imagines a huge stepladder leading up to the clouds and slowly climbs his way high above the fields, the countryside and all of Sweden. He is greeted by a bearded St Peter who directs him to his father’s homestead – surrounded by lush fields and heavenly host of heifers…  He finds his father holding court in a large room full of dozens of generations of Ingmars: the heritage he must live up to.

If all this sounds fantastical then you have to bear in mind the Swedish sense of humour…  Sjöström’s Ingmar is a bit slow with a lower lip almost perpetually pursed as he over-thinks almost everything but, bear with him; he has some tough times to live through.

The old sons of Ingmar

His father leads him to an ante room where young Ingmar begins to unwind his tale of woe…

Shortly after his father’s death Ingmar had decided to take a wife and had proposed his intention to the parents of local lass Brita (Harriet Bosse) – father (Hjalmar Peters) and mother (Svea Peters). They accept on their daughter’s behalf but she, still sweet on an old boyfriend, is not impressed at all… especially as, their banns published, it is decided that she should go to the Ingmarson farm to help out while the wedding waits.

Brita struggles on the farm, distancing herself from Ingmar and his aloof Mother (Hildur Carlberg) who can hardly move for knitting and is a slave to the routines of hard work. Only the alert middle-aged maid Karin (well-played by Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson) seems to notice her pain…

Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson and Harriet Bosse

Things get much worse as Brita gets pregnant as Ingmar obviously couldn’t wait for wedlock… she nurtures a hatred for the family around her and vows to make Ingmar suffer the only way she can. One day Brita disappears and after a night of frantic searching, she is found with her stillborn baby…

Brita is tried for murder and the whole village turns up to pass judgement of their own…  she can sink no lower and yet Ingmar speaks out on her behalf, accepting his part in the breakdown of their love and pleading for leniency: if she would only change her mind about him, he would marry her.

Brita’s eyes spark open with hope and yet, when her mother asks him if he meant it he says only that he was trying to get her a lesser sentence… “she has killed all love in him”. Never-the-less, Brita heads off to jail with hope in her heart whilst Ingmar returns to his farm weighed down by remorse and tainted love…

Three years on, as he asks his dead father, should he take Brita back or let her go to start again in America, all shame left behind. It’s a tough call and as the old man goes off to consult the massed ranks of the male line, Ingmar comes to his earthbound senses and makes his decision or does he?

Harriet Bosse

No spoilers…

By this stage of the film you are convinced of the resolution but Sjöström doesn’t allow such certainty to linger long and it’s anyone’s guess as miss-communication worthy of Antonioni ensures the audience is left willing the characters on against seemingly insurmountable odds of church, community and family.

This is surely amongst the most genuinely compelling dramas of the period with superb, restraint and power from Sjöström as well as from Harriet Bosse who’s character does a hateful thing but must still somehow gain our sympathy – you wouldn’t get that kind of role in a DW photo-play.

John Sweeney provided expert accompaniment helping to create a live event that will live long in the memory and that’s exactly where it will remain unless this opportunity ever comes our way again or that dream box-set of Sjöström rarities ever gets released. As it was, Sons of Ingmar was a transient experience just as it was always intended to be… a bit like life I suppose.

*The documentary is an extra on the Kino DVD release of The Outlaw and His Wife and shows the only digitised sections of the film from which I’ve captured the above images.