Victor Sjöström Films

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moira finnie
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Victor Sjöström Films

Post by moira finnie »

Swedish director and actor Victor Sjöström (1879-1960) will be popping up in two films on TCM starting at 12:15 AM ET early Monday, April 27th in The Phantom Carriage (1920) (aka "Körkarlen").
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Victor Sjöström as a young filmmaker in the '20s.

This will be followed by his last appearance as an actor in Wild Strawberries (1957) (aka "Smultronstället") at 2 AM ET. While most of us are probably familiar with his silent directorial landmarks such as He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Scarlet Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928), I've loved Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries since I first saw it.
Image
As the elderly man, trying to make sense of his life as it draws to a close in Wild Strawberries.

All this makes me eager to see a much younger Sjöström in The Phantom Carriage, a movie that has been described as one of the inspirations for Ingmar Bergman's career. The film, described as "a haunting tale based around a legend that the last person to die on New Year’s Eve is fated to become the spectral driver of the titular cart, travelling the land for a year and collecting the souls of the newly departed" is a TCM premiere, I believe.

Wouldn't it be lovely if TCM could have a day or night devoted to this man's work?






Cool.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Ann Harding »

Sjöström is great favourite of mine. As an actor, he was equally brilliant. I absolutely adore Terje Vigen, The Outlaw and His Wife and The Phantom Carriage. Like Stiller, he was light years ahead of his time. Thanks to Kino, now quite a few of his early silents are on DVD. If you haven't checked them yet, run to do it! :D
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I have to second what Christine has said, his films are worth the purchase price. I've seen Korkarlen twice and each time I was bowled over by it, it has a powerful message.

It's a while since I watched Wild Strawberries, I do need to see it again, I have the feeling that it's a film that will grow on second viewing.

The Scarlet Letter is a great adaptation from a important work of literature. I found Sjostrom's film far more powerful than the book and Lillian's Hester Prynne is perfect. Never did see Demi Moore's version.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by MichiganJ »

moirafinnie wrote:
All this makes me eager to see a much younger Sjöström in The Phantom Carriage, a movie that has been described as one of the inspirations for Ingmar Bergman's career.
Bergman discusses Sjöström's influence in the documentary Victor Sjöström (1981 d. Gösta Werner), which is included on the Kino DVD of The Outlaw and His Wife. Bergman actually talks at great length about The Phantom Carriage, which certainly had a great impact on him.

CCF wrote:
It's a while since I watched Wild Strawberries, I do need to see it again, I have the feeling that it's a film that will grow on second viewing.
You may notice that the (awesome) dream sequence early in the film has direct references to Dreyer's Vampyr, a film both Sjöström and Bergman greatly admired. (And who wouldn't?)
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Jezebel38 »

My introduction to Sjostrom sounds just like your's Moira - first seeing He Who Gets Slapped ages ago on AMC I beleive, and thinking how unusual a film for MGM in that period and how poetic I found it - it is still one of my favorite Chaney performances. I wish it would get restored and with a suitable soundtrack. And then I saw WIld Strawberries, and got that same reaction I'd had to HWGS, and was so impressed with the elderly Sjostrom's performance. Then the Cinema Europe series by Brownlow introduced us to his contributions as a pioneering actor/director of the Swedish film industry, and tantalized us with clips from Outlaw and Phantom Carriage. So now we have DVD's and companies like Kino where we can access some of these films, and I did recently watch Outlaw & His WIfe and the documentary MichiganJ mentions.

There is another later Swedish film I've seen that Victor Sjostrom appears in which I enjoy quite a bit -Walpurgis Night (1934) with Ingrid Bergman and Lars Hanson. I was most interested to see this film to hear what Lars Hanson's speaking voice was like (dreamy!) and VS gives a wonderful performance as Ingrid Bergman's papa.

Tomorrow's broadcast of Phantom Carriage will be my first viewing and I am so looking forward to it - along with the earlier Lubitsch film you mentioned in your other thread, Broken Lullaby.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by charliechaplinfan »

MichiganJ wrote:
CCF wrote:
It's a while since I watched Wild Strawberries, I do need to see it again, I have the feeling that it's a film that will grow on second viewing.
You may notice that the (awesome) dream sequence early in the film has direct references to Dreyer's Vampyr, a film both Sjöström and Bergman greatly admired. (And who wouldn't?)
I watched Wild Strawberries before I saw Vampyr, the copy of Vampyr I have is the dodgiest version released, I learned this after the fact from comments on Amazon. It will be interesting to see Wild Strawberries again after seeing Vampyr.

I look forward to hearing your reviews of Korkarlen, it stayed with me for days after first viewing. He's such a great actor too, I've seen him act in Terje Vigen and The Outlaw and his Wife. It amazes me that one person can be such a great director and actor.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Synnove »

They are showing The Phantom Carriage at the Stockholm Cinematek with live music by Matti Bye. I think Victor Sjöström's best performance by far was in Wild Strawberries, with his performance in The Phantom Carriage coming as a close second. They are pretty similar stories even if it's not apparent at first, about a man who when threatened with his impending death has to look back at how his life went wrong and find redeem himself to his family. Of course, in tPC he has a more obvious problem, which suits the time when it's set.

He really was a good actor, he had an amazing expressive face. I've seen some of his rarer films too, I Lifvets Vår (1912), Thomas Graals Bästa Film (1917) and Thomas Graals Bästa Barn (1918). He was pretty good in all of those, he gave a quite modern understated performance. In films like The Outlaw and his Wife he could get a bit on the melodramatic side, but he learned and improved. He is one of my favourite silent film artists, definitively.

Right now one of the films I would like to see the most is Valborgsmässoafton (Walpurgis Night), it has a pretty daring subject matter and Lars Hanson, Ingrid Bergman and Victor Sjöström are in the cast. Where can I find it, I wonder?
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Jezebel38 »

Right now one of the films I would like to see the most is Valborgsmässoafton (Walpurgis Night), it has a pretty daring subject matter and Lars Hanson, Ingrid Bergman and Victor Sjöström are in the cast. Where can I find it, I wonder?
Synnove - a VHS series of Ingrid Bergmans early Swedish films was released in the US about 10 years ago, including Walpurgis Night, Count of the Old Town, A Woman's Face & Only One Night. My local library had the copy of Walpurgis Night, and it also played once on TCM.

I've also found another early film with Ingrid & Lars which has been posted on Youtube - Pa Solsidan (1936). I've watched the whole thing and enjoyed it alot even without any English subtitles! I've posted a link below:

[youtube][/youtube]
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by moira finnie »

Jezebel38 wrote:And then I saw WIld Strawberries, and got that same reaction I'd had to HWGS, and was so impressed with the elderly Sjostrom's performance. Then the Cinema Europe series by Brownlow introduced us to his contributions as a pioneering actor/director of the Swedish film industry, and tantalized us with clips from Outlaw and Phantom Carriage. So now we have DVD's and companies like Kino where we can access some of these films, and I did recently watch Outlaw & His WIfe and the documentary MichiganJ mentions.

There is another later Swedish film I've seen that Victor Sjostrom appears in which I enjoy quite a bit -Walpurgis Night (1934) with Ingrid Bergman and Lars Hanson. I was most interested to see this film to hear what Lars Hanson's speaking voice was like (dreamy!) and VS gives a wonderful performance as Ingrid Bergman's papa.

Tomorrow's broadcast of Phantom Carriage will be my first viewing and I am so looking forward to it - along with the earlier Lubitsch film you mentioned in your other thread, Broken Lullaby.
I've only seen He Who Gets Slapped once a few years ago. I must admit that I was a bit distracted at the time, and think I should see it again. Walpurgis Night (1934) (aka Valborgsmässoafton) is one of those early Ingrid Bergman films I've not seen and I usually find it enlightening to see non-English speaking actors appearing in films in their native language. Though the print I saw had it's flaws, A Woman's Face (1938) (aka En Kvinnas Ansikte) was fascinating to see how differently Ingrid acted in this film and to compare it to the American version, (which I liked too)> So glad that you mentioned the superb, enlightening Cinema Europe series by Brownlow, Jez. Btw, you can see parts of that series in a separate thread, found here.
Synnove wrote:Right now one of the films I would like to see the most is Valborgsmässoafton (Walpurgis Night), it has a pretty daring subject matter and Lars Hanson, Ingrid Bergman and Victor Sjöström are in the cast. Where can I find it, I wonder?
Synnove, it appears to be available on Amazon as a VHS, but not as a dvd, though I'd keep looking around the internet.

Wild Strawberries is a movie that I've seen about once a decade since childhood. My reaction to it and understanding of each of the characters has changed each time. I'm looking forward to seeing it again to see how I react to Ingrid Thulin, Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson and the others, each of whom gave touching performances as individual characters at different stages of their lives. Alison, I really think that you would get a great deal out of this film.

All your comments about The Phantom Carriage are making me think I should stay up till midnight to see this one. Thanks very much for all your feedback.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Synnove »

If you do you can tell us what the new soundtrack is like. I wonder if it could possibly be an improvement over Matti Bye's. To me it would be hard to imagine the film without that soundtrack, it's pretty unique.

I don't always like Bergman. I can see why Wild Strawberries and other films by Ingmar Bergman don't work for some people, like my sister who hates it. On the other hand Wild Strawberries had a powerful effect on me the first time I saw it. It's one of my favourite films. It holds up with repeated viewings.

Jezebel38 - thank you for the info about the VHS! I know about region-coded DVDs, I wonder if there was a similar restriction on videos? Perhaps I should wait until it makes it to DVD here, they are getting good at releasing old classics on DVD now all of a sudden. Ingrid Bergman considered På Solsidan to be a good film experience. Thanks for posting the clip.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by MichiganJ »

Synnove wrote:
I think Victor Sjöström's best performance by far was in Wild Strawberries, with his performance in The Phantom Carriage coming as a close second. They are pretty similar stories even if it's not apparent at first, about a man who when threatened with his impending death has to look back at how his life went wrong and find redeem himself to his family. Of course, in tPC he has a more obvious problem, which suits the time when it's set.
I hadn't thought about the similarities in themes of The Phantom Carriage and Wild Strawberries, but you are absolutely right. It was a good pairing for TCM! I always think of Phantom Carriage as a close relative to Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Phantom is much darker, of course, but if you substitute Christmas Eve with New Year's Eve, the stories do share a lot of similarities.
If you do you can tell us what the new soundtrack is like. I wonder if it could possibly be an improvement over Matti Bye's. To me it would be hard to imagine the film without that soundtrack, it's pretty unique.
Unfortunately my DVR cut off the film right at the end credits, so I don't know who did the score, but it was really quite good. Some dissonance when things got a bit "spooky", and some great themes which carried through the film.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Looks like I'll be watching Wild Strawberries soon :wink:
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Well I thought I'd dust off Wild Strawberries and watch it again. I did like it much more on second acquaintance, I recognised more of the actors too. Victor Sjostrom is a marvellous actor, I felt absolutely drawn to his portrayal of the Professor. Such a kindly man but the subject of and witness to animosity within his family. The first conversation he has with Marianne, even though she has been living in his house is quite revealing, I'd expect them to be better acquainted and that is the point of the journey, they become acquainted and Marianne starts to understand and like her father in law. The professor also becomes better acquainted with himself, his life, how others see him. It's a great reflective film on a man looking back and making peace with his life. I did catch the resemblance of the dream to the earlier Vampyr.

I tihnk Marianne is a lovely name.
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by Synnove »

Yes indeed, it's a beautiful name. I like the character too. In Wild Strawberries you get to mostly see the professor's good side, you have to infer from the people around him what he can be like. That he pretty much kills people with kindness, showing too much mercy to his wife and making it seem that he doesn't care about her, and making his sweetheart feel horrible through his virtuousness. A bit too holier than thou, and not caring enough about the people around him to show them any real affection.

MichiganJ wrote:
I hadn't thought about the similarities in themes of The Phantom Carriage and Wild Strawberries, but you are absolutely right. It was a good pairing for TCM! I always think of Phantom Carriage as a close relative to Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Phantom is much darker, of course, but if you substitute Christmas Eve with New Year's Eve, the stories do share a lot of similarities.
I thought about A Christmas Carol too, it's very similar isn't it, although the tPC is as you say darker - less Christmas and more Death!
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Re: Victor Sjöström Films

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I think that's what makes it such a great film. We are only witness to the kindness, like the three students but from Marianne, Evald and Miss Agda as well as the flashbacks the viewer gets a fuller picture. All credit to Victor Sjostrom for his portrayal. Marianne is the pivotal character in all this, she provides much of the spoken information about what he can be like and is she the key to unlocking his dreams about Sara, as her marriage unravels does it drive Professor Borg to subsconciously examining his own failed relationships.
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