#416: SJÖBERG, Alf: Miss Julie (1951)

SJÖBERG, Alf (Sweden)
Miss Julie [1951]
Spine #416
DVD

Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg's visually innovative, Cannes Grand Prix-winning adaptation of August Strindberg's renowned 1888 play brings to scalding life the excoriating words of the stage's preeminent surveyor of all things rotten in the state of male-female relations. Miss Julie vividly depicts the battle of the sexes and classes that ensues when a wealthy businessman's daughter (Anita Björk, in a firecely emotional performance) falls for her father's bitter servant. Celebrated for its unique cinematic style (and censored upon its first release in the United States for its adult content), Sjöberg's film was an important turning point in Scandinavian cinema.

90 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Swedish

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2007

Director/Writers

From the play by August Strindberg.

Alf Sjöberg was 48 when he wrote and directed Miss Julie.

Other Sjöberg films in the Collection:

Eclipse Series 1: Torment (1944)

The Film

First, Strindberg:

He wrote the play in 1888.

Like much Swedish art, it takes place on Midsummer's Eve, around mid-June, during the four or five days that the weather is actually pleasant in Sweden ... seriously, think about two great Bergman films: Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) {Spine #0000A/#237} and Wild Strawberries (1957) {Spine #0000A/#139} -- for just two examples.

A naturalistic play ...

The literary theoretician, Émile Zola, proposed the theory of "naturalism" for the theatre:

1. Faire vrai: The play should be realistic and the result of careful study of human behavior and psychology. The characters should be flesh and blood; their motivations and actions should be grounded in their heredity and environment. The presentation of the play in terms of the setting and performances should be realistic and not flamboyant or theatrical. The single setting of Miss Julie, for example, is a kitchen.
2. Faire grand: The conflicts in the play should be issues of meaningful, life-altering significance -- not small or petty.
3. Faire simple: The play should be simple -- not cluttered with complicated sub-plots or lengthy expositions.

Combining this with his own ideas, he wrote the play which is one of the most-performed in the history of the theatre.

Now, let us consider that the play is misogynistic and sexist -- something which almost everyone who critiques the play agrees upon ...

Why is it performed so often -- even today?

Perhaps because the over-arching story of class struggle trumps even the horrid sexism -- and besides, who says art doesn't frequently have a sharp edge to it?

**

Sixty-three years after the play was written, Sjöberg's 1951 film is no less obnoxious; the screenplay is taken nearly verbatim from the play.

He does take us out of the kitchen frequently enough -- and uses the outdoor setting to reinforce the stereotypes with phallic symbols all over the place ...

... but yet, it is a fine film, a fine adaptation. He uses a lot of close-ups, more to shine a light on the characters' inner feelings ... and the acting is superb:

Anita Björk completely inherits Julie, whose character flashes between extreme emotional ranges in milliseconds ...

Ulf Palme (Jean) is terrific in a devilish role ...

Märta Dorff (Kristin) is great as the frumpy, but earthy cook ...

Lissi Alandh (Countess Berta) easily plays the madwoman ... but as Peter Cowie says (below), her painting which glares down on the characters, is more than sufficient to convey the character in its complete stillness!

A 21-year-old Max von Sydow -- in only his second film -- plays a minor role as a farmhand who, without a uttering a word, conveys the feeling that he knows everything that's going on!

DP Göran Strindberg (August was a cousin of his grandfather) captures the whole thing with sharp, incisive B&W imagery -- and even uses foggy smoke to great effect in a scene where Jean and Julie are in a rowboat, frantically trying to get away from the mob.

Film Rating (0-60):

53

The Extras

The Booklet

Featuring essays by film scholars Peter Matthews and Birgitta Steene.

Matthews:

"The 1950s wasn't a halcyon period for gender politics either, and unsurprisingly, Sjöberg does nothing to tone down his forebear's sour misogyny. In some ways, he amplifies it -- choosing, for instance, to close the film on a portrait of the smirking matriarch, as if that sewed up the case. And when, in retrospect, the vengeful she-devil orders the male hands to do humiliating women's chores (and vice versa), Sjöberg's concrete imaging of an abberation merely reported in the text seems to render the evidence all the more irrefutable."

Steene:

"Strindberg's famous preface to Miss Julie, one of the milestones in the study of modern drama and stagecraft, was written as an afterthought at a time when his first marriage was heading toward a separation. His misogyny increased, and this affected his cocky, pseudo-scientific presentation of the charcters in the preface, where Julie is described as a 'half woman' and Jean as the man of the future ... when attention has been paid to the gender-conservative voice of the preface, Strindberg's play has tended to take on sexist overtones, as in the case of Sjöberg's film adaptation. The moment Sjöberg departs from Strindberg's play text, his screen version becomes slanted in an overstated misogynous direction, for instance by his adding the caricatured portraits of Julie's 'feminist' mother and of her father as a helpless male victim."

Commentary

None.

Video essay

With film historian Cowie.

Cowie is his usual succinct and informative self.

Archival television interview

With director Sjöberg.

Very short clip of a somewhat hostile interviewer.

Television documentary

From 2006 about the play Miss Julie and dramatist Strindberg.

Excellent doc, focusing on other productions of the play, including the 1969 stage version with Bibi Andersson.

Theatrical trailer

Great trailer because it gives nothing away. Lots of review quotes.

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

53 + 34 =

87

By Director
By Spine #