Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: The Phantom Carriage (Korkarlen,Victor Sjostrom, 1920)

When I wrote to Bo Florin, Stockholm University, author of the volume Transition and Transformation: Victor Sjostrom in Hollywood 1923-1930, asking him if he had a favorite film directed by Victor Sjostrom he responded with, "Concerning favourites. I guess my favourite Sjostrom is the same as was Bergman's ("the film he saw at least once a year") 'The Phantom Carriage'."

With the subtitles Sweden Strikes a Lyrical Note, Garbo is Lost and Found, and Sweden Studio is Re-Born, in 1947 author Leslie Wood, in her book Miracle of the Movies, noted the contribution of Victor Sjostrom and his Film “The Phantom Carriage” to the aesthetic of silent filmmaking at a time when both he and Mauritz Stiller saw film mostly as an artistic expression rather than a money-making machine consisting of “angles” and formulas. “Made In 1920, the film was instrumental in making countries outside of Sweden aware of the artistic scope of the Svenska Biograph organization. Their screen work was particularly brilliant. Natural light, even on interior settings was far ahead of the work achieved on open air stages elsewhere. Their technicians had the happy thought of building the sets on locations which would provide fine vistas of natural scenery when glimpses through open doors and windows and the shafts of sunlight falling into a room would be the real thing. With motes and breathtakingly beautiful because of its naturalness. Seastrom’s direction sometimes strained a little too much to include the beautifully simple and the simply beautiful- slow sheep toddling away at the approach of lovers, or the graceful movements making a servant in performing the everyday, ordinary rites of preparing breakfast in a sunlit kitchen.” Wood provides a thematic synopsis of the film with, "with an eerie forcefulness and an abscence of the macabre, an unconscious man sees the misery he has wrought".
The Victor Sjostrom film “The Phantom Carriage” was the first movie made at the Filmstaden studios at Rasunda, Sweden and it is evident that the Studio was designed for filming; the Little Studio, newly renovated and open to the public for tours, was comprised of rehearsal rooms and filmstudios, one on the top floor having a roof and walls made of glass to use daylight when filming, as well as a rotatating stage. A small cinema on the bottom floor has been named after Ingmar Bergman and has been kept as a screening room. Leslie Wood notes, "The Svensk studio, beside a lake at Rasunda and twenty minutes by train from Stockholm, was a large but simply arranged wooden building set amongst pine trees, its cloistered atmosphere."

Filmstaden was used by director Ingmar Bergman to make the images of silent film, and their extratextual context, come to life while filming “The Imagemakers” (“Bildmarkarna”) for Swedish Television during 2000. Also included within the play is a screening of “The Phantom Carriage”, it being an adaption of the writing of Per Olaf Enquist that transpires as interaction between Victor Sjostrom, novelist Selma Lagerlof, cameraman Julius Jaenzon and actress Tora Teje during the making of the film. One theme of the film is artistic authenticity, a theme well articulated by Ingmar Bergman during his films of the 1950’s. Actress Anita Bjork starred as Selma Lagerlof and actress Elin Klinga starred as Swedish Silent Film actress Tora Teje.

Forsyth Hardy, in his volume Scandinavian film, praises the contribution of cameraman Julius Jaenzon to the film, "Julius Jaenzon's work for 'Korkarlen' helped both to enrich the director's expression of his theme and to bring international recognition to the technical achievement of the Swedish films."

Anthony Battalgia recently for Film Comment explained the spatio-temporal structure of the film directed by Victor Sjostrom ,”It is hard to overstate the storytelling sophistication at work here: flashbacks fork off from stories in the act of being told, mixing tenses untill all Time seems in The here and now.”, which is fitting for the re-enactment of what he labels to be “nominally, a ghost story”. Directed by Victor Sjostrom from his own screenplay, "The Phantom Chariot" has often been compared to the opening symbolic sequence of the film "Wild Strawberries", directed by Ingmar Bergman; Victor Sjostrom stars in both films.

Author Forsyth Hardy compliments director Victor Sjostrom own onscreen acting, its having been less historionic than in other films. “The exaggerated guestures of some of the early films had gone, but the intensity of feeling was still there.” Hardy characterizes the film as being "memorable".
The film stars actresses Hilda Borgstrom, whom had appeared in the films “Ingeborg Holm” (1913) and ”Domen Icke” (1914), both directed by Victor Sjostrom, Concordia Selander, who appeared in the film “Torsen Fran Stormyrtorpet” (1917), directed by Victor Sjostrom, Lisa Lundholm and actress Astrid Holm. Charles Magnusson produced the film. The multiple or layered double exposures were developed by cameraman Julius Jaenzon. On the film resulting from the dynamic between Julius Jaenzon and Victor Sjostrom, Bo Florin, Stockholm University, in his paper From Sjostrom to Seastrom, writes, "An important device in this respect is cutting across the 180 degree line to a completely reversed camera position, which occurs in most Swedish films of the period, but is particularly frequent in Sjostrom ; for example it may be found on eighteen different occaisions in 'The Phantom Chariot'." It is in fact a use of filmic spave that involves the spectator with a repeated similar image. Bo Florin adds that typical in the cannon of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film was the feature of staging in depth, "the use of tableau-like composition with static camera where frequent cuts have replaced mobility."

The British periodical Picturegooer arranged for an interview with Victor Sjostrom during 1922 in London while he was travelling. "He was extrenemely reticient as to the splendid double exposure work and other effects in 'Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness, conenting himself (not myself) by observing thst the weird under the sea scene (like most of the others, too) was made in the studio. Also that the man who photographed it was in the next room. He was. I saw him. I saw him when we left. He was a grave bearded man who looked as though he took life very seriously indeed." By all accounts, this could have been Julius Jaenzon who had photographed almost all of Victor Sjostrom's films in Sweden, much like D.W. Griffith and G.W. Bitzer in the United States.
Author Lars Gronkvist notes that after taking eight days to finish the script, Director Victor Sjostrom delivered, read and performed the script for two hours in front of novelist Selma Lagerlof before the two of them had dinner.


The film having being remade twice, first by Julien Duvivier in 1939, and by Swedish Film director Arne Mattson in 1958, author Aleksander Kwiatkoski, in his volume Swedish Film Classics, compares the subsequent versions to Victor Sjostrom's original adaptation of "Korkarlen", "None of the subsequent screen versions of Selma Lagerlof's novel has reached the power of expression of this one. Sjostrom's film is not as inventive in its psychological stratum but his social and moral interests are curiously interwoven with his personal experiences."

Actress Hilda Borgstrom during 1920 returned to Dramaten to appear in Gudmunger Kambar's play Vi Modare Emellan. Actor Tore Svennberg, who appears in "The Phantom Carriage", went on to become manager of the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten), Stockholm, between 1922-1928. Other managers have included Pauline Bruinius, Olof Molander, Ingmar Berman and Erland Josephson. Greta Garbo and Victor Seastrom


Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller

Victor Sjostrom Playlist

Scandinavian Silent Film playlist

Cover Letter: Scott Lord on Silent Film https://garbo-seastrom.blogspot.com

The website hosted at garbo-seastrom.blogspot.com is a specialized digital archive, scholarly repository, and critical blog authored by researcher Scott Lord. Dedicated primarily to the history, aesthetics, and cultural impact of early international cinema, the site focuses heavily on the golden age of Swedish and Danish silent film, alongside the artistic trajectories of legendary figures such as Greta Garbo, Victor Sjöström (often referred to historically in American contexts as Victor Seastrom), Mauritz Stiller, D.W. Griffith, and other pioneers of early motion pictures.

Core Themes and Subject Matter

• The Golden Age of Swedish Cinema: The blog provides deep-dive analyses into the monumental era of Swedish silent film, particularly the pioneering work produced by studios like Svenska Bio and Biograph. It explores how directors like Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller transformed cinematic art through deep integration of landscape, naturalism, psychological intensity, and folkloric motifs.

• Greta Garbo and Early Collaborations: A significant focus of the archive centers on Greta Garbo's transition from her formative Swedish roots—such as her breakthrough performance in Stiller's Gösta Berling's Saga (1924)—into her iconic Hollywood career. It investigates the intricate web of creative influences between Garbo, Stiller, and the broader Scandinavian cinematic diaspora.

• Lost Films and Archival Recovery: Much of the commentary engages with the phenomenon of "lost films in found magazines," utilizing historical print culture, contemporary reviews, trade papers, and photoplay editions to reconstruct, analyze, and contextualize deteriorated or entirely vanished celluloid artifacts. This extra-textual approach examines how contemporary audiences, critics, and novelists experienced and interpreted early cinematic adaptations.

• Cross-Cultural and Transnational Influences: The essays map the reciprocal artistic exchanges between European cinemas and Hollywood, exploring how Scandinavian directors and actors shaped American film grammar during the silent and early sound eras, as well as how American directors like D.W. Griffith influenced international filmmaking techniques.

By merging rigorous historical scholarship with a deep appreciation for archival ephemera, the blog serves as an invaluable digital resource for film historians, silent-era enthusiasts, and researchers studying the transnational history of early narrative cinema.

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter (Victor Seast...

What is most important to Bo Florin, Stockholm University is the question of film style when looking at Victor Sjostrom directing in the United States as Victor Seastrom, the films an inevitable transformation from his having established the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film with director Mauritz Stiller. It might also be irresistable, Sjostrom having made two films with actress Lillian Gish, to evaluate the work Victor Sjostrom to that of D.W. Griffith, who, during 1926 was filming "The Sorrows of Satan" with Carol Dempster. Peter Cowie in fact likens Victor Sjostrom to D.W. Griffith by noting Sjostrom's admiration for Griffith with the observation thst both directors saw "the human conscience as a register of emotion". Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema" goes so far as to write that of the films Sjostrom directed in the United States only the two films Victor Sjostrom made with Lillian Gish are of "lasting importance". Cowie explains that even Sjostrom himself felt that the films he directed after the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film would in fact be "transformations". "Everyone praised the visual beauty of the film, but many in it a decline of Sjostrom's vitality. 'Det Omringade huset' (1922) and 'Eld omboard' were disappointing, and in 1923 Sjostrom left for Hollywood on account of the lucrative offer from M.G.M and because of an urgent need within himself to find the magic for producing pictures of an international appeal." It had been Victor Sjostrom who had convinced Mauritz Stiller to depart for America in order to meet his artistic aspirations. Admittedly, the films made in the United States are transformations of genre in regard to narrative conventions and transformations of genre in regard to literarary adaptation if in a sense of transnational analysis in the use of genre by an auteur, the auteur Seastrom/Sjostrom with whom Stiller had given up filming comedies after "Erotikon" to film "particularly Scandinavian drama". Of "The Scarlet Letter" Peter Cowie writes,"Both this film and 'The Wind' are given an undeniably Scandinavian character by the intensity of Sjostrom's direction."

Actress Lillian Gish, in her autobiography The movies, Mr. Griffith and me, writes, "I found Victor's Seastrom's direction an education in itself. The Italian school of acting was one of elaboration, the Swedish was one of repression. Lars Hanson played his scenes in Swedish, I in English, neither of us understanding the other."

Paul Rotha in his volume The Film Till Now looked at Victor Sjostrom in the United States directing as Victor Seastrom, "The theme of 'The Scarlet Letter' was gloomy, but Seastrom raised its gloom to moments of great beauty....Seastrom's sweeping sense of landscape, evident in his early Swedish pictures was expanded and gave an enchanting atmosphere to the first love scenes between Miss Gish and Lars Hanson....This feeling for depth and space was common to all the Scandinavian directors in their pre-American work."

Puritanism itself can be reflected in the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Sewall, Edward Taylor, Michael Wigglesworth and Cotton Mather, The Puritan Errand, the Scarlet Letter having taking place during the two decades after 1630 when most of the oldest cities near Boston, where Elizabeth Pain the inspiration for Hester Prynne, is buried, were first incorporated.

Although within the historiography of silent film review and theory, Joe Franklin, author of Classics of the Silent Screen, a pictorial history, may be seen more as a proponent of silent film, a poularizer of silent film during the advent of television using publicity still to raise the public's consciousness of the heyday of the art form during the era of Paul Killiam and William K. Everson, he is correct while reviewing "The Scarlet Letter" when writing that there "were no fewer than three more versions were made before the Lillian Gish version for M.G.M. in 1926." He does not list them, but they were: "The Scarlet Letter" (one reel, Tucker, Smiley, Independent Moving Picture Company, 1911), "The Scarlett Letter" (David Miles,1913) with actress Linda Arvidson as Hester Prynne, "The Scarlet Letter" (fives reels, Carl Harbugh, 1917) for the Fox Film Corporation with Mary Martin as Hester Prynne and "The Scarlet Letter" (1922, Challis Sanderson) with Sybil Thorndike as Hester Prynne. The periodical The Moving Picture World praised the Kinemacolor version of 1913 and its direction, "He has gone to great pains to recreate the early colonial atmosphere: he has succedded , especially in his backgrounds, his settings and his costumes....Linda Griffith gives a splendid portrayal of Hester Prynne. She is the embodiment of Hawthorne's creation-the high type of woman who under a calm exterior conceals her suffering as she conceals her love.". Motion Picture World praised the 1917 adaptation as being "as authentic, as exalted, and as appealing as the immortal book from which it was taken...Mary Martin as Hester Prynne, the sufferer from the stern Puritanical judgement, is as sweet a figure as was ever crushed by justice gone wrong." When pieced together within the historiography of film reviews leading up to the Victor Sjostrom adaptation with Lillian Gish there seems a hint of the star system just beginning with the novel being a character driven narrative, the earlier versions lacking a commercial commodity that could be exploited within the audience expectations of the developing genre of historical costume drama but the story of "The Scarlet Letter" allowing for a dynamic protagonist.

Victor Seastrom

"It was Hawthorne's first sustained effort and of all his works, we still read first the supreme romance of the Puritan conscience in self-torment, 'The Scarlet Letter', with its climax of penance and demoniac triumph at Dimmesdale's shame."

The book below, printed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was only sold in theaters where the film was being shown as a souvenier program.

Victor Sjostrom

One quote that can be excerpted explains that although Victor Sjostrom's directing depicted man's relationship to the enviornment, his personification of landscape itself into a character dynamicly delineating the protagonist as the story unfolded, his directing in the United States, after having left Sweden took a turn toward relecting the psychological interior of the character. "With the production of 'The Scarlet Letter', Sjostrom becomes known as the first director to experiment with and successfully accomplish the strange feat of photographing thoughts--putting on the screen what goes on inside man's mind."

When advertizing 'The Scarlet Letter' along with its many other productions soon to be featured on the marquee, the M.G.M. studio proclaimed that the film was of "legitimate attraction size.".

The souvenier program points out that during six years as an actor at Swedish Biograph,Lars Hanson had worked with both Sjostroms, with the director Victor Sjostrom in the film "Jerusalem", and with Mrs. Victor Sjostrom (Edythe Erastoff) in "Song of the Blood Red Flower", prior to that his having portrayed the titular role in Auguste Strindberg's Gustav the Third.

During 1927, actress Lillian Gish was assigned director Fred Niblo, who directed her in the film "The Enemy", photographed by Oliver Marsh, the photoplay having been written by Agnes Christine Johnston and adapted from play described by author Gary Cary as a "virulently anti-war play" in his volume Lost Films. The film was at the time of the 1970 publication of Cary's volume a Lost Silent Film. Eight of the films nine reels have been since found.

Perhaps it makes it easier when thinking in terms of Lost Film, Found Magazines to speculate on what the missing footage of "The Enemy" looked like on screen due to the missing reel having been the last reel of the film and it requiring us to find out about how the ending was written. H.A. Potamkin described the on screen acting of Lillian Gish in the periodical Close Up, "If, on rare moments, Lillian Gish seems to have achieved genuine condensation of power, that is simply because her habitiual mincing acting has coincided with the necessities of those moments...her clipped movements, timed to the surimpression of the soldier's march, appear to explode with compressed anquish."

Victor Sjostrom