The odd couple… Havsgamar (1915)/ Dödskyssen (1916), Victor Sjöström 1912-17, (Part Two)

Moving on a couple of years from Sjöström’s second film, to his 19th and 29th, the director's cinematic technique has evolved and both these relatively short films show elements that would feature in his later feature work. The Sea Vultures (1915) (Havsgamar and also known as Predators of the Sea) is filmed on the same rugged coastline as A Man There Was (1917) and has some of the same ruthless nature vs nurture of the later film.  The protagonists are victims of their circumstances and it takes something truly human to changes the course of their lives, something wicked or, especially love

The Sea Vultures are hunters turned scavengers - a fisherman, Hornung (Rasmus Rasmussen) who, along with his eldest son Birger (John Ekman) are drawn into smuggling by the promise of easy money in hard times. They head out to greet a ship called The Eagle which carries illicit silk on board and, whilst the transaction goes well, they have been spotted by the local customs man, Eijvind Arnold (Richard Lund) who arrests them at gunpoint. Unbeknownst to Hornung, his youngest son, Anton has stowed on board to see what all the excitement is about, he emerges from hiding only to see his father and brother shoot the customs officer and his deputy dead, throwing them overboard before burning their boat and making good their escape.

All at sea

Years later and the two men are unaware of the impact their crime had on Anton (now Nils Elffors) who is tortured by what he saw and known as Mad Anton. But that is only the first step in fate righting their wrongs… Arnold’s son Arvid (also Richard Lund) has grown up and taken his father’s role along with the heart of Hornung’s daughter Gabrielle (Sjöström regular, Greta Almroth).

It’s not a tale full of surprises but it is well told and not lacking in tension and some gruesome retribution. Hornung’s guilt and sense of self-preservation makes him try to keep Gabrielle away from Arvid but theirs is a true love and a love much thicker than blood or water. As Hornung and Birger head out for one last big payday, the new customs officer is there to finish what his father started as Anton, fearing for his sister’s love and safety, makes a timely intervention.

Richard Lund, Greta Almroth and Rasmus Rasmussen

There’s plenty to admire in Henrik Jaenzon’s location cinematography, from sequences at sea to stark silhouettes against the rolling waves and barren rocks. Another scene has the camera pan left from scheming smugglers in one room past a wall – side-on – to show Anton listening at the door. There’s also some committed stunt work from Greta Almroth as she jumps into a boat and proceeds to row it out of the harbour; no wonder the director liked her so much!

Breaking the third wall?

The following year’s Dödskyssen, (The Kiss of Death) couldn’t be more different in style and is a crime caper, quite unlike any of the director’s other films but with narrative variations that would soon be used more extensively in The Phantom Carriage. It is not complete but most of the story and sense survives with the aid of a reconstruction from 2002 and what remains shows the influence of Louis Feuillade’s science detective adventures.

There’s an interesting structure with the story told in flashback by various witnesses to the murder of a doctor right at the start of the film and it’s a complicated tale with Sjöström taking two roles and those missing sections explained with new title cards.

Doctor Monro (Albin Lavén) is found murdered by his maid Anna Harper (Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson) who is the first to be interviewed by the Police Commissioner (Thure Holm). She explains how she found him lying unconscious next to his daughter (Wanda Rothgardt) and how a man she’d never seen before took charge of the situation and called the police.

Witness number two is Chief Engineer Weyler (Victor Sjöström) who was a patient of the Doctor having recently been struggling to complete some top secret plans for his employers. The Doctor had been unable to relieve Weyler’s inexplicable tiredness and it was going to cost him his job as well as his marriage. He was visited by an Engineer called Lebel (also Victor Sjöström) and after realising that they shared a remarkable resemblance the two agreed to swap places so that Weyler could get a break and Lebel could make sure the plans were drawn up on time. Now it is rather fortunate that one shared the other’s skillset… even more so that he could also impersonate him but, details, details… sometimes these things do happen!

Anyway, it is a fun concept and there’s excellent double exposure from cameraman Julius Jaenzon, as Victor’s characters look each other up and down in front of a mirror. As McGuffins go, this is a biggie but it does allow the plot to really take off as Weyler and his Doctor, Dr Adell (Mathias Taube) establish that Doctor Monro has been slowly poisoning his doppelganger. Meanwhile, the vital drawings are disappearing in the night and Weyler and Adell set a trap to find out how and why… things will not be quite as simple as they seem…

               

Just who is the masked man!?

The Kiss of Death is a world away from the previous year’s smugglers’ tale but shows Sjöström’s commercial nous and developing confidence; he was clearly absorbing a lot from France and Hollywood and developing his own distinctive cinematic language. The film was premiered in Stockholm only two weeks before Terje Vigen (1917) and it’s understandably overshadowed by the latter - even had it all survived and been in circulation for as long! That said, at the time, this film represented his breakthrough in France – not surprisingly given the influence and the narrative innovation – and was a big hit overseas being sold to 38 countries.

The Svenska Dagbladet was not alone in being impressed, highlighting the dircetor's acting as much as his skill behind the camera; "Excellent staging... It is Victor Sjöström who simply shines his demanding roles as well as the director. , becomes extremely exciting and interesting."

Along with The Gardener (1912), Ingeborg Holm (1913) and Judaspengar / The Price of Betrayal (1915) the two films above represent the only extant remains from the director's first 30 films and from this point, the survival rate is far higher as the quality rises with some of the defining films of the era. These early survivors do, however, indicate how he began to develop the techniques and themes that were to dominate the golden age of Swedish silent film and beyond. As an actor and filmmaker he was pretty much peerless and I'm sure Selma Lagerlöf would agree even if Mauritz Stiller would not.

The woman always pays… The Gardener (1912), Victor Sjöström 1912-1917 (Part One)

We are lucky that almost all of the feature films Victor Sjöström made after A Man There Was (Terje Vigen) (1917) through to his last in Hollywood, A Lady to Love (1930) survive and that there are only two missing, one from the US and another, The House Surrounded (1922), from Sweden. Yet, of the thirty films he made from 1912 to 1917, only five survive… and even these are sometimes incomplete.

The main exception is, of course, Ingeborg Holm (1913) – reviewed elsewhere on this blog – along with the recently rediscovered and restored Judaspengar / The Price of Betrayal (1915), screened at last year’s Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone. Most of the others were lost in a fire in the vaults of Svensk Filmindustri in 1941 although the damage was far worse for Mauritz Stiller’s work.

Half these films were shorts and the remainder were features of up to an hour or so in length – as with Ingeborg Holm and Terje Vigen -  and, whilst we can only wonder at the possibilities of the quality matching those two films, it is well worth viewing what remains.

Lili and Gösta go boating

The earliest survivor and, indeed, the director’s second film, is The Gardener (Trädgårdsmästaren) from 1912 also known as The Broken Spring Rose the first Swedish film to be banned for reasons that will become clear. This was the year when Svenska Bio’s Charles Magnusson hired theatrical actor-directors Sjöström and Stiller and the latter provides the script for this film as well as popping up as brief romantic interest for the lead character. The triumvirate of leading lights is completed by cameraman Julius Jaenzon, who captures some stunning locations and moves his camera with some assurance for 1912.

Originally three reels and some thirty minutes, what remains is just over 23 admittedly running a little fast on the YouTube copy I saw transferred from a VHS too; in these times it’s so difficult to pop over to Sweden isn’t it?

Lili Bech plays our young Spring Rose who is seen frolicking at the film’s start with Gösta Ekman (later to star in Faust, Intermezzo and many more) who is the son of a well-to-do gardener played by Victor Sjöström. The two are in love and a perfect pair only the grumpy gardener does not agree pulling them apart even after his son returns from college. He has designs of his own though and in still harrowing scenes, pursues the young woman through his greenhouse…

The Gardener (Victor Sjöström) takes an interest...

Next, we see Rose she is distraught and has a tear in her skirt, she has clearly been molested – hence the film’s ban. The gardener then throws her and her father off his land and they have to travel to the city to live in poverty. Luckily, an old General (John Ekman) Rose previously befriended at the café where she worked, lends them a hand and offers her work at his home. After her father dies, she is adopted by him but can’t cement her place in society so, when he too passes on, his family unite to kick her out and she is once again alone.

This is going to be another in the timeless strand of films in which the woman pays… there’s no doubt where the filmmakers’ sympathy lies and, pre-figuring the social concern of the following year’s Ingeborg Holm (1913), Sjöström is asking questions about a woman’s rights to live unmolested and secure in tenancy as well as providing a critique of class prejudice: she’s not good enough for the Gardener or his son and she’s not good enough for the General’s family or money.

Unable to fit in with polite society...

There’s a lot packed into the story and already Sjöström’s control of narrative is firm even allowing for the tableaux form and title cards that give away the action to come rather than reflect dialogue; it’s like an early “demo” with some rough edges but clearly leading up to the expertise of his first album, or at least the earliest left extant, Ingeborg Holm.

The scenes of rural life – the café, the boating and the marker gardening are also well captured and the director’s concern with these details prefigure cinema verité and neo-realism even with the technology and technique of 1912. Far more was to come of course but the including of these details allied to Jaenzon’s glorious sweeps of land and lake, add so much satisfying depth to the tale.

Mauritz is onboard!

Landscaped intimacies

Wild at heart… The Outlaw and His Wife (1918)

Sometimes you might find yourself feeling comfortably detached when watching silent film only to be jolted back to your senses by on-screen events that still ring fiercely true. Mostly it is the exceptional skill of the actors but here, Victor Sjöström’s acting combine with his uncompromising physical bravery, his screenplay and direction to bring moments of genuine shock.

Sjöström used the coastline to stunning effect in Terje Vigan, but here he moves inland and upwards. Brilliantly photographed by Julius Jaenzon, The Outlaw and His Wife allowed Sjöström to play out his story against the rugged north Swedish countryside with his characters existing on the land and being shaped by it.

Victor Sjöström

Outlaws live in the mountains, the wild and untameable together in fragile compromise whilst flat, regulated society rules on the plains. Sjöström’s Eyvind is at his happiest clinging gloriously onto a high ridge with his wife and child or plunging into crystal pools to catch the biggest fish.

Jóhann Sigurjónsson’s 1911 play was set in Iceland but the War having rendered it impossible to use the original location, Sjöström used the barren edges of Lapland as a stand-in: Åre and Abisko in northern Sweden. Sjöström had previously directed the play in which has also played Eyvind and knew the role inside out as well as the way he was going to truly externalise it…

Eyvind arrives in a small town encountering a wool poacher Arnes (John Ekman) just about getting away with his haul hidden under lichen (makes great soup apparently: how sparse was their existence). He gives the fellow a fright but tells him that he has nothing to fear from him.

Arnes directs him to the farm of a well-off widow called Halla (Edith Erastoff) who would be able to offer him work. Calling himself Kari he soon begins to make his mark, his strength and intelligence marking him out as a superior worker.

He also begins to catch the eye of Halla, in spite of younger, prettier competitors for his affection, he tells one that it would take a much bigger farm than Halla’s to make him interested in her: character was more important than looks.

In the mean exchange economy of the time, a widow like Halla, approaching her middle years, had to form relationships like commercial alliances. The local Bailiff, Björn Bergstéinsson (Nils Ahrén) offers her a partnership; he is 47, at a loose end…and assumes she will readily align herself with his wealth and position. But Halla is still living in hope or at least has enough pride to want to stand alone when the only options are men like the Bailiff.

The Bailiff learns the secret as Arnes looks on

She begins to openly favour Eyvind and the Bailiff’s bitterness grows. In church, one of his cronies recognises Eyvind as an outlaw from the South and the Bailiff wastes no time in confronting Halla with the news.

Rather than fall at his mercy though, Halla goes straight to Eyvind and tells him of the challenge and that the Bailiff will wrestle him if he is not believed. Put on the spot Bergstéinsson tries to wriggle out of the challenge but has no option but to face the man he is accusing.

Eyvind wins and the Bailiff is sent with his tail between his legs, swearing vengeance.

Halla learns the truth from her lover as he confesses that poverty had driven him to steal a sheep to feed his starving family as his calls for help were ignored by his wealthy neighbour. He is discovered and sent to prison but escapes off into the mountains.

This reflects something of the social conscience of Sjöström’s earlier films and it’s interesting that he doesn’t shy away from Eyvind’s criminality: society has left him with no choice and, rather than be alarmed, this only increases Halla’s love and respect. She offers to run away with him to the hills and to leave her farm behind… as well as the prospect of having to marry the Bailiff… Halla’s Choice…

But in the wilderness lies happiness as the couple are shown five years’ later living in natural harmony with a bonny young daughter to share in their hard-living idyll.

Jaenzon’s camerawork is superb here, highlighting the actors against the raw beauty of the landscape, atop vertiginous cliff faces or staring out across glaciated valleys: life in all its harsh simplicity away from the mean constraints of a society that placed the value of livestock higher than its citizens.

Arnes wants to help with the washing...

One day they are joined by Arnes who has had to retreat from the Law himself. He is welcomed by the couple but becomes infatuated with Halla. Eyvind slips as they climb a cliff face and his friend considers killing him in order to gain his wife but relents, pulling him to safety.

Sjöström was a committed physical performer having climbed rigging in Terje Vigan and rowed in the rough sea. Here he dives into icy pools and clings onto the mountainside… it is really him dangling from the cliff as Arnes dithers. He had a safety cable attached but the rigging almost failed as he clambered to the top.

Valiant Victor...

Arnes has to leave after confessing his feelings to Halla but just as he is one his way, the Bailiff’s men catch up with them. In the desperate struggle that follows, Halla flings her daughter over the cliff, preferring to take her life rather than let her be captured. It’s a horrible moment that reflects how much these lives were lived on the edge: if Halla wasn’t going to be able to protect her child it was kinder in her mind to kill her.

Happiness is transitory and families live happily only as long as they are able: once happiness is removed life is not always possible and it is better to take charge of the process.

Halla and Eyvind escape again to the higher mountains, haunted by their loss but with their devotion intact right to the very last…

It’s not a straightforward slice of happiness but it is a testament to the strength of love: what else is there for people whose slightest misdeed can affect their entire life?

Halla and Eyvind almost at breaking point

Victor Sjöström proves once again that he was one of the strongest actors of the period and well beyond. There are some fascinating comments from Ingmar Bergman in the documentary accompanying the film as he reveals how totally his friend and mentor was able to switch into character, even when denied his evening gin and tonic by the tardiness of upstart directors!

Edith Erastoff

Edith Erastoff is a very skilled actress and her scenes, especially at the close are especially compelling: intelligent and subtle. Almost certainly there was more than just acting in evidence as she became pregnant during the filming and went on to become Sjöström’s third wife in 1922. This film is perhaps as much about their relationship as that of their characters: “their only law was their love”.

The Outlaw and His Wife is available on a Kino DVD, the print is decent but could certainly be improved on and I eagerly await a UK screening of the SFI’s fuller-lengthed restoration as recently screened in San Francisco and Italy.

For the original performance a full orchestra performed accompanying music based on themes from Sibelius, here Torbjorn Iwan Lundquist provides a stirring score borrowing the same spirit of epic Scandinavian mountain music.

Also included is Gösta Werner’s 1981 documentary on the director which features lengthy excerpts from his career as actor and director including those insights from Ingmar and a tantalising excerpt from Vem dömer, Sjöström’s lavish period epic about love and religious devotion

Now when are they going to release that one!?