Swedish Silent Film: Monastery of Sendomir (Klostret I Sendomir, Victor Sjostrom,1920)

Bo Florin, Stockholm University, in his volume Transition and Transformation, Victor Sjostrom in Hollywood 1923-1930, points to Victor Sjostrom's use of dissolves in the film "Monastery of Sedomir" as "transformatory devices", to thematiclly link two images. "The dissolve works, in other words, as an independent device, which does not in this context recieve any clarifying support from any other narrative patterns." The character, and the setting in which he placed, change as motif with the dissolve.

Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema adds that the film "is not easily recognizable as a film by Sjostrom, for landscape and countryside play no part in it at all."
"The Monastery of Sendomir" (Klostret i Sendomir) was written and directed for Svenska Biografteatern by Victor Sjostrom during 1920. Photographed by Henrik Jaenzon the film starred actresses Rene Bjorling, Jenny-Tschernichin-Larsson and Tora Teje in the first film in which she was to appear during a year in which she would star with actress Mary Johnson in the film "Familjens Traditioner" under the direction of Rune Carlsten, however meteoric her career might seem. The screenplay to "Monastery of Sendomir" was adapted from a short story by Franz Grillparzer that, despite whatever reason Sjostrom had for choosing the material, had been filmed a year earlier, in Germany, by director Rudolph Meinert, starring actress Ellen Richter.

Victor Sjostrom

The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjostrom, 1920) Please screen the films below directed in Sweden by Victor Sjostrom as any double feature you see fit.

Greta Garbo

Swedish Silent Film: Love and Jornalism (Karleck Och Journalistik, Mauritz Stille...

Mauritz Stiller directed "Karleck och Journalistick", a comedy based on the writing of Harriet Bloch, in 1916. The film stars Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson, Stina Berg, Gucken Cederberg and Karin Molander.

The most widely known films directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1916 were "The Ballet Primadonna" (Balletprimmadonnan), starring Lars Hanson, and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson and "The Wings" (Vingarne), a film in which both photographer Julius Jaenzon and director Mauritz Stiller appear on screen, starring Lars Hanson and Lilli Bech.

The film "The Ballet Primmadonna" was phtographed by Julius Jaenzon and featured one of the only two photoplays written for Svenska Biografteatern by Djalmer Christophersen.

When "The Wings" was recently screened by curator Jon Wengstrom of the Swedish Institute, Mauritz Stiller was commended for his onscreen appearance by virtue of his adding a self-reflexive scene with the on the set filming of a film to the framing structure when adapting the original story written by Herman Bang. The film currently screened by Wengstrom at Silent Film Festivals is in fact a restoration of an incomplete print which includes the footage of Stiller and Jaenzon, which had been unpopular and neglected as a lost film sequence. Wengstrom writes, "The erotic drama, and the delightful play of ancient myth and urban modernity is framed by a prologue and epilogue where Stiller gets the idea to the manuscript, casts and shoots the film"

In outlining the initial differences between Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller, the former having a propensity toward serious, artistic film, the latter making more comedic satires, Aleksander Kwaitkowski, in his volume Swedish Film Classics looks at the technique used by Mauritz Stiller as the film "Love and Journalism" unfolds, "Stiller's narration is purely visual (only twenty five intertiles in the whole picture), streamlined, lucidly carrying the plot forward."

Although there have been films directed by Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller that have been rediscovered, restored and preserved during the twenty-first century, the 1916 film "The Fight For His Heart" (Kampen om hans hjarta) directed by Maurtiz Stiller and starring actresses Karin Molander and Anna Diedrich is lost with no surviving copies or fragments. Also directed that year by Stiller and also lost is the Swedish Silent Film "The Lucky Brooch" (The Lucky Pin/Lyckonalen), photographed by Hugo Edlund and satrring Greta Almroth and Stina Berg.

In regard to Lost Films, Found Magazines, according to Peter Cowie, author of the volume Scandinavian Cinema, the film "Love and Journalism" directed by Mauritz Stiller, taken with Stiller's film "The Wings", is one that has "miraculously survived", the bulk of the films made by Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjostrom before 1916 now lost with no surviving copies existing.

Of "Love and Journalism" Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema, writes, "Only about a half hour in legnth, it remains sparkling fresh and worldly-wise."

Mauritz Stiller and Victor Sjostrom
Silent Film

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Thomas Graal’s Basta Barn (Mauritz Still..

Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Cinema, writes, "The domestic relationships and erotic byplay in Stiller's comedies posses an application and validity beyond their immediate setting- and generation." In his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, Peter Cowie opines, "There is a spirited mischievousness about the performances of Victor Sjostrom and Karen Molander in 'Thomas Graal's First Child' that makes other acting of the period seem academic and ponderous.

Scholar Laura Horak, Carlton University, in the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, points to Mauritz Stiller having between 1913-1918 directed "feminism comedies" and having "used comedy to explore controversial issues and contest the melodramatic tenor of sexual debates by modelling a light-hearted, cosmopolitan attitude towards social change".

Directed by Mauritz Stiller during 1918, the photoplay to ""Thomas Graal's Basta Barn" (Marriage ala Mode) was written by Gustaf Molander and the cinematographer to the film was Henrik Jaenzon. Starring with Victor Sjostrom and Karen Molander was actress Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson. Gustaf and Karin Molander were married from 1909 to 1919. Gustaf Molander continued as a writer and director of the third film in the series, "Thomas Graal's Myndling", photographed by Adrian Bjurman and starring Vera Schmiterlow, Gull Natrop, Tekla Sjoblom- although Molander was criticized for later directing comedies it may be that he was more recognized for continuing films in the series of adaptations by Victor Sjostrom of the works of Selma Lagerlof, making him more of a protogee of Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller by his having included himself in the Golden Age of Silent Film, which again he quickly absconded from after the advent of sound film.

It almost goes with out saying that that year Victor Sjostrom would gain worldwide recognition for Mauritz Stiller and himself with the protypical first classic film of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film, "The Outlaw and His Wife", which he directed and in which he starred on screen. He and Stiller both would soon be directing adaptations of the author Selma Lagerlof

Mauritz Stiller would not attempt to direct comedies in the United States before returning to Sweden, adhering to the "genre" he and Sjostrom had established together.

Victor Sjostrom playlist Mauritz Stiller Love and Journalism (Mauritz Stiller)