Beauty and The Beast

The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924)
Friday October 16, 8pm, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle

(Lars Hanson and Francis Cardinal Spellman)

"You won’t escape by turning yourself into a beautiful corpse. Don’t you know that most people are dead already?"
A charismatic young priest with a penchant for liquor is defrocked and roams the countryside. Gösta Berling (Lars Hanson) finds work as a tutor, but is scandalized when his past is discovered. Rescued by a wealthy and powerful matriarch, he joins her band of wayward noblemen and becomes an agent of social change.

By scope and ambition, director Mauritz Stiller’s romantic epic The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924) represents the zenith of silent era film in Sweden. Based on Selma Lagerlöf’s popular novel and photographed by Svensk Filmindustri’s brilliant cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, The Saga of Gösta Berling has moments of operatic spectacle, thrilling action and intense scenic beauty, but suffers from distracting and fragmentary editing. The eventual fame of Stiller’s protégée, cast in a supporting role, has also warped modern perceptions of the film. Hanson’s performance, his best on film, is profoundly moving. Leading an accomplished ensemble cast, Gerda Lundquist as the major’s wife is mesmerizing.

(Gerda Lundequist)

Northwest Film Forum presents, The Saga of Gösta Berling, parts I and II, on Friday, October 16 at 8pm for one show only, featurring live musical accompaniment performed by Murl Allen Sanders.