La légende de Gösta Berling

I have to change my previous review as I have watched the true version with a pretty darn good soundtrack that Kino released onto DVD and about time too. All I can say is that if you have seen the atrocious VHS version then do yourself a big favour and buy this one, there is simply no comparison, if you haven't seen the VHS version, well, do yourself a favour and get the DVD anyway. Garbo is very young in this and quite unrecognisable, but, she is very good as Elisabeth. You can see why Lars Hanson was later hand picked by Lillian Gish to star with her in "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Wind" and hopefully this will increase his fanbase. And you're left wondering why director Mauritz Stiller never became the success that another Swedish director Victor Sjostrom was.

Like most silent film fans I had endured the bad, dupey, chopped-up 90m version of this film on VHS and wondered why it has such a famous reputation. Thank goodness for KINO & the Swedish Film Institute for finally making this 184m version available in a beautiful print with a complimentary musical score. This film reminds me of a silent version of WAR & PEACE meets GONE WITH THE WIND in its size and scope with elements of Shakespeare-like plot twists. An alternative title actually sets up the story better, "The Atonement of Gosta Berling." SPOILERS: The narrative opens during a drunken party where the star, Lars Hanson (best known as Lillian Gish's costar in THE WIND, 1928), is sharing the story of his downfall with his friends. In flashback, we see Gosta (Hanson) as an unsure priest with a drinking problem being defrocked in an embarrassing public scene. Shamed, he is later hired by an unscrupulous and wealthy woman to be a tutor to her step-daughter. Secretly the "Noble" woman hopes the two will marry and thus revoke the step-daughter's right to inherit her father's estate by hooking up with the commoner, making the way clear for her foppish son to earn the inheritance. There is another grand dame in our plot at the nearby Ekeby estate, run by the head-strong matron Margaretha Samzelius (Gerda Lundequist) in a larger-than-life performance that reminded me of Louise Dresser in THE SCARLET EMPRESS. She takes in outcasts and calls them her "Knights," inspiring respect from almost all who know her. I loved the way she commands attention, but when she is broken and has to ask her mother to remove a curse put upon her in her youth, the rebuke she gets breaks your heart. Nearly one third of the way through the story, we are introduced to a very young Greta Garbo. Her role starts out small but becomes very important in the ending resolution. Filled with wonderful, nuanced performances by all the actors in the diverse and large cast. Amazingly, there are many on-location outdoor shots and outstanding scenes including an out-of-control fire that destroys a huge estate (reminding me of a similar incident in Hitchcock's REBECCA) and a long chase scene of a horse-drawn sleigh by wolves across a huge frozen lake, filmed at night that must be seen to be believed! Now that this grand epic has finally been released as it was meant to be seen, it will be re-discovered by silent film fans around the globe as they share this masterpiece with their friends. To sum it up, this is the film I have been waiting for to give film preservation its annual shot-in-the arm! Two years ago it was the uncensored BABY FACE; last year the lost film KIKI (Norma Talmadge version) was finally restored, and for 2006 it will be "The Atonement of Gosta Berling."

One of the big things this has going for it is 18-year-old Greta Garbo; this was the film that got her noticed and brought to Hollywood the following year ... so if you're a big Garbo fan, this is probably must-see.

The title character is interesting, though the performance from Lars Hanson is too simple, and doesn't adequately convey the passion of a defrocked preacher who has several women fall for him (Mona Mårtenson, Jenny Hasselquist, and Garbo). Better is the performance we get from Gerda Lundequist, who plays a middle-aged married woman with a thinly veiled secret from her past, an old lover who bequeathed her wealth when he passed away.

There is a theme of the consequences to bad decisions in love that runs through these characters, some of which seem crazy (Hasselquist's father locking her out in winter over a single kiss), and others of which are age-old problems (Garbo's marriage to another man despite not loving him, and Lundequist's situation of having a lover and a husband). The women of the film seem to bear the brunt in unfair ways, and there may a feminist message in showing this (or it could be I'm just projecting that, I don't know).

There are some epic scenes which are impressive on the screen, including one with a horse-drawn sleigh running across the ice at night while pursued by wolves, and another with an impressive fire when a mansion is burned down, even though neither seem to make all that much sense.

And unfortunately that's at the heart of the issue I had with the film - it rambles on in exaggerated ways, lacking cohesive vision, and is at times ridiculously melodramatic. It's also far too long at over 3 hours, making it quite a slog to get through.

Mauritz Stiller's amazing film The Saga of Gosta Berling is proof to me of just what an edge the European filmmakers had on the Americans. The cinematography here is often breathtaking. The pacing never flags, and when you're talking about a 180 minute film, that's no small feat. The Kino version I watched, which was the recent restoration by the Swedish Film Archive, also featured a beautifully done soundtrack, something I find that makes such a huge difference -- some of the recent restorations I've watched have featured soundtracks that sound way too contemporary, and I just find that annoying and distracting. Not so here.

But the biggest thing I noticed on my second go-round with this beautiful film was the emotional realism that so many of these wonderful actors brought to their characters. They make mistakes, they regret. They love, they hate, they envy. They are real, believable people, something that wasn't always happening in American films of 1924. Garbo, at this early stage in her career, is already showing star quality. And the now largely -forgotten Lars Hanson is handsome and riveting. Don't let the length deter you from watching this fine and beautiful film.

Greta Gustafsson grew up in an environment that offered scant hope for a little girl who loved to act. Youngest of three children, Greta remembers living in a small Stockholm, Sweden apartment where in the evenings after work "my father would be sitting in a corner, scribbling figures on a newspaper. On the other side of the room, my mother is repairing ragged old clothes, sighing." She claimed there was always tension in the air, making life for the sensitive girl not very pleasant.

Later, as an 18-year-older, her acting ambitions were slowly realized. Greta was able to get her foot in the door primarily because she possessed a pretty face. Gustafsson appeared in several print advertisements before she popped up in a brief filmed scene while attending the Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm from 1922 to 1924. Director Mauritz Stiller, famous for his cutting-edge 1919 'Sir Arne's Treasure' and 1920 'Erotikon,' spotted Greta and signed her to play a part in his March 1924 "The Saga of Gosta Berling."

It was this movie that Louis B. Mayer, who had just merged his production studio with Metro and Goldwyn's Pictures to create MGM Studios, was in Germany looking for new talent. Swedish director Victor Sjostrom, recently hired by Mayer, recommended he see the work of his friend Stiller. There's differing accounts on what happened when the film producer saw "The Saga of Gosta Berling," but Myer's daughter recounts him saying upon seeing Gustafsson, "This director is wonderful, but what we really ought to look at is the girl ... The girl, look at the girl! It's her eyes. I can make her a star."

Gustafsson eventually went to Hollywood, where she was given a new name. Studio executives kept the Greta, but her last name became Garbo. The Swedish actress would become the fifth greatest actress in cinema, according to the American Film Institute. Not bad for a girl who never attended high school, which was par for the course for working class Swedish school girls, something that for the rest of her life Garbo claimed gave her an inferiority complex.

"The Saga of Goat Berling" has been tabbed the Swedish version of America's epic "Gone With The Wind" for the breath and scope of its plot. Gleaned from Selma Lagerlof's 1891 novel, the movie's about a Lutheran minister who's fired by church elders for his drinking habits as well as for his controversial sermons. Gosta Berling receives a job offer to become a tutor to a countess' daughter, Ebba. The countess hopes her new tutor will marry his pupil before her son, Henrik, whom she despises, gets the countess' inheritance. Henrik soon returns from Italy with his supposed new wife, Elizabeth (Greta). Towards the end of the movie, which is chock full of flashbacks and intrigue from a number of participants, Elizabeth sours on Henrik, but not before she's in an exciting chase on a horse-drawn sled with Berling trying to outrun a pack of hungry wolves on a frozen lake.

It had been noted that since she was so new in front of the camera Greta needed a good dose of champagne before her big scenes. Most of "The Saga of Gosta Berling" production was without her. But her first appearance, 40 minutes into the three-hour plus film, and a reappearance in the last 15 minutes, changed forever the girl who grew up in relative poverty in a Stockholm slum.

"The Saga of Gosta Berling" pretty much marked the end of 'The Golden Age of Swedish Silent Cinema." With highly-regarded Sjostrom already in Hollywood and Stiller with Greta and actor Lars Hanson, who played Berling, soon departing for California, the leaders of Sweden's film industry were gone. With the exception of Garbo, the rest of Sweden's superstar directors had only a modest success in the states, unlike in their native country.