I cavalieri di Ekebù

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.

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.

Gösta Berling is a young and attractive minister. Because he is an alcoholic and his preaches are far too daring, he is finally defrocked. He leaves the town in disgrace and arrives at countess Marta's manor. His new job there is to be a tutor to countess' beautiful stepdaughter.

In 2006, the film was released for the first time on DVD by Kino International with the support of the Swedish Film Institute. The new release includes English subtitles, the new music score by Matti Bye, and restoration of the film to a length of 185 minutes. While it is somewhat imposing in length, it really is the only way to see it.

Garbo is a larger than life figure. She has achieved immortality, due in part to roles like this. Though not everyone can name a movie she is in, almost everyone has heard of her. That in itself is quite a feat, considering the great actors of the time who are now forgotten except by the biggest movie nerds.

Together with Stroheim and Murnau, Mauritz Stiller is one of the great directors in cinema history who solely directed silent films during his whole career. Even though the majority of his work has been lost forever, some titles have survived: Herr Arnes Pengar (1919), Sangen Om Dem Eldröda Blomman (1919), "Erotikon" (1920) and "Gunnar Hedes Saga" (1923). These famous films are enough to confirm that Mauritz Stiller has been and are one of the best directors of the seventh art through its long history. He has been able to elevate the "silent art" to that great level that we can still now enjoy and appreciate.

One important turn in his work was his last movie made in Sweden: "Gösta Berlings Saga". This film had disastrous consequences for his career, as this Germanic count will narrate later on.

Stiller, together with Victor Sjöström, were the "father founders" of the Swedish cinema. Together with Sjöström, he is the most famous film director of the 20's. This notoriety was not only in his country because his film "Sangen On Den Eldröda Blomman"(1918) made him world famous, a status confirmed definitively with that masterpiece "Herr Arnes Pengar" (1919).

It is very difficult to write about Stiller, even in Germanic, because it is not easy to find all the adjectives to define his great career; his work had the beauty of a great stylist able to make master pieces in such different genres as "saga" (those great stories of the Swedish literature) or that most sophisticated comedy ("Erotikon" (1920) ). He was a director who had a big influence, even on German directors as Herr Lubitsch who was then defining his unmistakable "touch".

The legend of Gösta Berling is related to the "epic" part of his work. There are big stories replete with character with different backgrounds in several situations that the Nordic director manages very well.

The film is an adaptation of a book written by the famous Swedish author Selma Lagerloff, who by the way, had many disagreements with Stiller's adaptation (ah…., the eternal "auteur" ego problems, almost as classic among the aristocrats'!). Changes were made due to Stiller's lack of respect for the text, who changed it according to the necessity of the film, more specifically, according to the "visual needs" of it. As this Germanic count mentioned before, Stiller is a great stylist, always looking for visual beauty (although it is important to mention that he does not look for hollow images or simple postcards). His interest is very different. In a way, he is delighted on the aesthetics of certain scenarios to show us the most miserable side, the squalor of the whole surroundings.

In spite of those stylistics disagreements between author and director, this Teutonic count asserts that the cinematographic adaptation is excellent. Keeping in mind the fact that it is a very dense and complicated novel, filled with characters.

The Leyend of Gösta Berling tells us the story of Gösta, a drunkard minister who is expelled from the priesthood for his "habit" (weird Nordic tradition, those expellings…). But the bigger problem with his parish is his truthfulness. Jobless, Gösta finishes in Värmland, a state managed by the people of Ekeby.

Gösta's strong personality and his special charm with women will bring him many problems. Two powerful families full of hypocrisy, lies and adultery; rule two estates in Värmland and they will surround Gösta with plenty of intrigue, confusing him and costing him a lot of problems to which he was a stranger to begin with.

Only at the end of the movie, will our hero will get his redemption from the hand of Elisabeth, performed by the fascinating Greta Garbo.

It has to be mentioned that for many long-haired, Stiller is still "only" known as the finder and creator of the divine Greta Garbo; which it is true because thanks to Stiller, Ms Garbo got her first great film performance due to her appearance in this movie. This is a great injustice because reduces Stiller's creations to a second place.

It is compulsory to praise all the actor's great interpretations in this movie. They were really memorable, not forced at all if we take into consideration that around that time it was something very difficult to obtain with certain adaptations or argumentative plots that tended to excesses. It is a movie where also big natural spaces predominate, another of recurrent theme of Stiller. This movie combines the beauty of the frozen landscapes with the danger in them.

As this Germanic count said before, the success that "The legend of Gösta Berling" brought to Stiller and Ms Garbo had a different repercussion in their future careers: for her, the beginning of a mythic career, a cinematographic icon that prevails and still impresses us. For him, the beginning of the end as a director when he started a new phase in the United States that lasted for four unhappy years.

Watching the formal and stylist beauty of "The legend of Gösta Berling", one realises, even the oblivious Germanic aristocracy, the great loss for the cinema that occurred with Stiller's premature death. He was a fundamental director for both the Nordic and global cinema. His great work has been timeless.

And now, if you allow me, I have to leave you momentarily because this Germanic count has an appointment with a Swedish sweetie.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

The golden age of Swedish cinema (1913-1924) and the rapid growth in Svensk Filmindustrie were influenced by the works of two directors still remembered among many movie buffs today: Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller. They made a primary contribution to early films' style and, more importantly, their careers spread to Hollywood in the first half of the 1920s. Most importantly, both of them based some of their works on the source novels by Selma Lagerlof, a Nobel Prize Winner, an eminent figure in the Sweden of the early 20th century, a muse of Swedish silent cinema. However, the directors' results from the cooperation with the eminent author were quite opposing.

While Sjostrom, as a typical diligent Swede, won Lagerlof's heart (his timeless THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE), Stiller was not so successful being nearly 'persona non grata' due to his 'liberal attitude' towards the source materials (he tried to interpret it rather than film it). Even the adaptation of her GUNNAR HEDE'S SAGA did not meet with the author's enthusiasm. Therefore, the task to film GOSTA BERLINGS SAGA occurred a hard venture because Stiller had an investigating approach, his directorial attempts were loose, he changed some parts of the storyline, some characters for the sake of the new phenomenon that cinema was. That is the very basic fact about his GOSTA BERLINGS SAGA. Consequently...the strong points of the movie do not, indeed, lie in the faithfulness to the novel but elsewhere...

At first, it is important to note that for many years the film has been viewed on weak copies, which resulted in serious shortcomings within critical reviews. The new formidably restored Kino version (which I had pleasure to see during its premiere on Polish TV on two consecutive frosty evenings) with the lovely musical score recaptures its potential and makes this silent film not only 'endurable' but overwhelming and unforgettable. No doubt many reviewers find the restored version much more appealing. But where does the film's popularity lie?

For many, the film is remembered merely as Stiller's radiant discovery: Greta Gustafsson later known to the world as Greta Garbo. And, as a Garbo fan, I admit that knowing Greta Garbo's films without seeing GOSTA BERLINGS SAGA equals to having an apple tree in the garden and not tasting its apples. It is a must to see Garbo in this role of Elizabeth Dohna: a young, still inexperienced newcomer under the constant dominance of her tutor Mauritz Stiller from the time when, as some of her biographers say, in order to shape her, it was enough for the director to look into her eyes... Yes, Stiller noticed something unique in her and brought it out, to the light of camera. And there are some lovely scenes that capture her radiance, including the first close-up in the sleigh sequence, Garbo picking flowers in the garden and walking downstairs in shadowy interiors. However, the specific feature of the movie is its episodic structure and, what results from it, its numerous characters. In that way, saying that the film is worth seeing due to Garbo would be an unforgivably limited view. The film is a lovely representation of various characters and their lives in the 19th century Sweden. Those truly unique performances are handled by Lars Hanson and, above all, GERDA LUNDEQUIST!

Lars Hanson, a mainstay in Stiller's movies before leaving for Hollywood, gives a captivating performance here as a 'defrocked man of God' depicting his character's frustration, guilt, even curse and constant search for redemption. His wandering from the priest through a tutor, then one of the cavalier fellows to the owner of new Ekeby is filled with breathtaking moments. Women he loves disappear, things he owns gradually decline and nothing seems to be left at certain moments. However, a truly haunting part is portrayed by Sweden's Sarah Bernhardt - Gerda Lundequist as Margaretha Samzelius, the 'Majorskan.' With lots of flashbacks, the vibrant and subtle interpretation of her character leaves a viewer stunned. Perhaps the most memorable factor of her plot is the mother-daughter relation and her mother's curse she strives to get cleaned. Characters have much in common with one another (this aspect of the family relations is also developed in Marianne Sinclair's plot). Among the supporting cast, Karin Swanstrom as Gustave Sinclair and Ellen Hartman-Cederstrom as Martha Dohna are worth noticing, particularly due to the striking features of different female characters.

But what primarily makes GOSTA BERLINGS SAGA a captivating experience are its visuals. Great credit to the terrific cinematographer Julius Jaenzon. The picturesque depiction of Swedish climate and its idyllic landscape (many scenes depict the peaceful images of snow), the artistic use of light and shadow in the interior shots, the elaborate sets and bizarre wardrobe make many scenes real feast for the eyes. Top notch art direction by Vilhelm Bryde! Mind you that clothes are the undertone of characters' features (Martha Dohna with her peacock's dresses and weird hairstyle). The most memorable scenes of the film include the fire at the Ekeby Mansion (in particular Gosta saving the life of Marianne Sinclair), the famous Elizabeth/Gosta's sleigh scene on frozen Lake Lofven (consider the wolves and the formidable final shot of this sequence), Margaret Celsing approaching the house of her mother, Marianne Sinclair knocking at the door of her home, Gosta and his sermon, the banquet at Ekeby and the unforgettable finale at Broby Inn and new Ekeby.

The only flaw that does not allow the film be labeled as 'masterpiece' is its continuity caused by editing and shortening of scenes.

Much more could be said about 'Sweden's GONE WITH THE WIND.' It was a great surprise for me to see it in its restored version with the voice over that helped me follow the plots. A highly riveting silent movie, not merely for Greta Garbo fans. Intensely beautiful symphony of cinema with visual splendor! 9/10