Following a rough chronology from 1884 to 1894, when Norwegian artist Edvard Munch began expressionism and established himself as northern Europe's most maligned and controversial artist, the film also flashes back to the death from consumption of his mother, when he was five, his sister's death, and his near death at 13 from pulmonary disease. The film finds enduring significance in Munch's brief affair with "Mrs. Heiberg" and his participation in the society of anarchist Hans Jaeger in Christiania and later in Berlin with Strindberg. Through it all comes Munch's melancholy and his desire to render on canvas, cardboard, paper, stone, and wood his innermost feelings.
Made for Norwegian TV in 1974, this long but fascinating biopic by Peter Watkins mixes dramatic and documentary techniques to profile the man who painted The Scream. A documentary voice-over in English examines Munch in a calm, academic tone, observing trends in the European art world and citing notable world events to give a sense of the context. At the same time, dramatic scenes are played in subtitled Norwegian by nonprofessional actors who often stare mutely at the viewer like figures in the paintings. With fluid free-associative editing, Watkins weaves together moments from Munch's past and present as the young painter crafts his eerie domestic studies, touching on his affair with a married woman and his loss of his mother and sister to tuberculosis. Though haunting, the film is also admirably precise in its documentation of Munch's work process, with a fine tactile sense lacking in most movies about two-dimensional artists.
Made for Norwegian TV in 1974, this long but fascinating biopic by Peter Watkins mixes dramatic and documentary techniques to profile the man who painted The Scream. A documentary voice-over in English examines Munch in a calm, academic tone, observing trends in the European art world and citing notable world events to give a sense of the context. At the same time, dramatic scenes are played in subtitled Norwegian by nonprofessional actors who often stare mutely at the viewer like figures in the paintings. With fluid free-associative editing, Watkins weaves together moments from Munch's past and present as the young painter crafts his eerie domestic studies, touching on his affair with a married woman and his loss of his mother and sister to tuberculosis. Though haunting, the film is also admirably precise in its documentation of Munch's work process, with a fine tactile sense lacking in most movies about two-dimensional artists.