The Early Years of Film
Greta Garbo
Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was born on September 18, in 1905 in a cold-water flat in Bleckingagatan, the poorest district of Stockholm. At the age of 5 she predicted "I'm going to be a diva, and after that
I shall become a princess." When she was fourteen she had to escort her father to a charity hospital and watch him die from kidney failure. To help support her mother, brother and sister, she then had to take work in a barbershop applying lather to mens faces. She survived her abbreviated youth and grim surroundings in solitude. "As early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone," she said later, I detest crowds, don't like many people. I used to crawl into a corner and sit and think, think things over. When I was just a baby, I was always figuring, wondering what it was all about, why we were living...when I was thinking and not wondering what it was all about, I was dreaming, dreaming how I could become a
player."
I shall become a princess." When she was fourteen she had to escort her father to a charity hospital and watch him die from kidney failure. To help support her mother, brother and sister, she then had to take work in a barbershop applying lather to mens faces. She survived her abbreviated youth and grim surroundings in solitude. "As early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone," she said later, I detest crowds, don't like many people. I used to crawl into a corner and sit and think, think things over. When I was just a baby, I was always figuring, wondering what it was all about, why we were living...when I was thinking and not wondering what it was all about, I was dreaming, dreaming how I could become a
player."
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Mauritz Stiller
The director was born 07/17/1883, died 18/11/1928. Director, screenwriter, actor, producer. Maurice Stiller was born in Helsinki. In 1899-1909 he worked in theaters in Finland in 1910-12 led the pilot Lilla-theater in Stockholm. From 1912 he worked in the movies. Best films Stiller: adaptation of novels Selma
Lagerlöf - Money Mr. Arne (1919;), Gunnar Hede Saga (1922), The Saga of the Jost Beurling (1-2nd Edition, 1923 - 1924) and E. Linnankoski - Song of the purple-red flower (1918). For Stiller is characterized by a deep mastery of realistic detection and customization of characters.An important role in his films is the atmosphere of action, nature, becoming a kind of party kinodramy, one of the active elements of the narrative. Set as light comedy, which combined the techniques of the sitcom with a subtle psychological development of characters. Along with W.Shestremom Stiller - the leading producer of so-called classic Swedish film school. In 1925-1928 he worked in Hollywood, where he staged a few movies that had success, but inferior in depth and skill of a film, implemented in Sweden. For his 1924 film Gosta Berling Saga, Stiller cast the unknown Greta Gustafsson, a Swedish native in which he saw great potential, in the lead role. Convincing her to change her name to Greta Garbo and crafting her screen persona himself. The two left for Hollywood , California U.S.A, and Stiller with hopes of gaining real world renown as her director. Garbo would go on to become the icon he envisioned her as, but MGM quickly tired of him and he was fired not halfway into the filming of her second Hollywood feature, The Temptress, in 1926. Returning to Sweden, he died two years later on the 18th of November 1928 in Stockholm from pleurisy, caused by his untreated tuberculosis.
Lagerlöf - Money Mr. Arne (1919;), Gunnar Hede Saga (1922), The Saga of the Jost Beurling (1-2nd Edition, 1923 - 1924) and E. Linnankoski - Song of the purple-red flower (1918). For Stiller is characterized by a deep mastery of realistic detection and customization of characters.An important role in his films is the atmosphere of action, nature, becoming a kind of party kinodramy, one of the active elements of the narrative. Set as light comedy, which combined the techniques of the sitcom with a subtle psychological development of characters. Along with W.Shestremom Stiller - the leading producer of so-called classic Swedish film school. In 1925-1928 he worked in Hollywood, where he staged a few movies that had success, but inferior in depth and skill of a film, implemented in Sweden. For his 1924 film Gosta Berling Saga, Stiller cast the unknown Greta Gustafsson, a Swedish native in which he saw great potential, in the lead role. Convincing her to change her name to Greta Garbo and crafting her screen persona himself. The two left for Hollywood , California U.S.A, and Stiller with hopes of gaining real world renown as her director. Garbo would go on to become the icon he envisioned her as, but MGM quickly tired of him and he was fired not halfway into the filming of her second Hollywood feature, The Temptress, in 1926. Returning to Sweden, he died two years later on the 18th of November 1928 in Stockholm from pleurisy, caused by his untreated tuberculosis.
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The Saga of Gosta Berling is a 1924 Swedish romantic drama filmed by Mauritz Stiller and stars Greta Garbo in her break out role on Film. The film is based on the 1891 debut novel of the same name by Swedish author an Nobel Prize winner Selma Logerof. The film was originally released as two parts in Sweden, Gösta Berlings saga del I on 10 March 1924, and Gösta Berlings saga del II seven days later. The two-part version was also used in Finland and Norway, but for the rest of the world a shorter, one part export version was made. In 1927 the film was recut, shortening it by almost half the running time. This is the version that was archived for the future. In 1933 a sound version was released theatrically in Stockholm with the intertext cut out, along with additional cutting and altered chronology for some of the scenes. |
Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Erik Bergman, a Lutheran minister and later chaplain to the king of Sweden, and Karin (Åkerblom), a nurse. He
grew up with his older brother Dag and sister Margreta surrounded by religious imagery and discussion. His father was a conservative parish minister with strict parenting concepts. Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for "infractions" like wetting the bed. "While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed, sang, or listened", Ingmar wrote in his autobiography Laterna Magica: "I devoted my interest to the church’s mysterious world of low arches, thick walls, the smell of eternity, the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls. There was everything that one’s imagination could desire — angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans." |
Bergman out did himself with this "Avant Garde" thriller he called it a poem in images but the lighting is thanks to the collaboration with the great Sven Nykvist the master of light, manipulator of natural light. The perfect combination.
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Fanny & Alexander
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