Edvard Munch (Film)
- Gro Fraas: Mrs Heiberg
- Lotte dough: Munch's Aunt Karen Bjølstad
- Eli Ryg: Oda Lasson
- Morten oath: Sigbjørn Obstfelder
- Kåre Stormark: Hans Jaeger
- Peter Watkins: spokesman
Edvard Munch is a Norwegian- Swedish television movie from the year 1974 on the eponymous Norwegian artist. Directed the staged documentary style with agents biopic, Peter Watkins.
Action
The film follows Munch's artistic career in Oslo, Paris and Berlin from the early 1880s until the turn of the century. His drawn from a severe illness childhood, his mother and several siblings of early death and the unfortunate relationship with an older married woman are determining influences on his work characterized. Another focus is on the reception history of Munch's work, which has long been rejected by the critics and the bourgeois audience.
Background
The idea for a feature film about Edvard Munch came Watkins 1968, when he visited the Munch Museum during a retrospective of his films at the University of Oslo. Because of several years of negotiations with potential donors he could begin his research until 1971.
Watkins understood his film as a challenge to the " limited" view of art historians, who focus more on artistic influences directed the focus instead on the relationship between personal biography and work. Critic Robert Keser discovered parallels in the restlessness and the never-ending attacks on the work of Munch and director Watkins. Watkins became more evident when he spoke of a " great commonalities with Munch's experience on a deeply personal level ", "I knew I would make a film about me. "
Edvard Munch is a joint production of the Norwegian radio station NRK and Swedish station SVT. The gambling scenes were filmed in Norway in Oslo and Åsgårdstrand February to June 1973, 16- mm film. As usual with Watkins, the roles were exclusively occupied with amateur actors. Also tried out in his earlier films such as style Asked interviews, voice-over of the director or the actors frequently make eye contact with the camera, respectively, the spectators were used.
Despite positive reactions following the pan-European television broadcasts (starting with Norway and Sweden in 1974 ) held NRK the film after its first use under lock and destroyed even the original tapes, including the final mix, which is why Watkins and a sound engineer for the preparation of the minutes for approximately 40 had to remove the shorter theatrical version the sound of 16 -mm magnetic sound film prints. The movie was released in May 1976 during the International Film Festival of Cannes out of competition and on September 12, 1976 for the first time in New York. In Germany the film was not shown.
Reviews
Vincent Canby of The New York Times, who had gone with Watkins ' earlier films, some of them very harshly, ruled enthusiastic after the New York premiere: " A moving, complex, empathetic portrait [ ... ] one of the few that successfully the interaction captures of sensitivity, emotional chaos and discipline, which accounts for the special character of a great artist. "
John Simon of New York Magazine reviewed the film ultimately a failure, but presented respectfully states: ". , If a filmmaker [ Munch ] can do justice, then Peter Watkins, the [ ... ] answered obsession with obsession " the "excesses " of the film were not the " masturbatory " a Ken Russell, but an attempt to " too many facts of any kind, whether significant or insignificant less important, in pack " to still show the " finest branches of its subject matter ." "A company such boundless, manic scale is doomed to fail [ ... ] But [ ... ] it is the most brilliant failure I 've seen in years. "
The Daily Telegraph wrote to the British Air Date: "I can not think of a more urgent film about an artist. [ ... ] Watkins operates quietly and restless, straightforward and disorderly, and without contradiction. "