Edvard Munch [Masters of Cinema] [DVD] [1974]

I got this film from a high street shop-reduced from about £40 and a bit higher than the bargain Amazon price asked now.which is a bargain. I didnt view it from the directors or filmic point of view as i dont know the historical facts surrounding Munchs life.. From the point of view that Munch as an artist received abusive criticism from much of his kinfolk and elsewhere, year in year out ,and yet persevered through his own ill health , escaping death by the skin of his teeth and suffering the mortalities of those close to him -whilst scarcely diverting from his own sacred belief that he was born to be an artist and nothing else- is both inspirational and moving at the same time. This is what real art is about-suffering for ones art and beliefs, and I mean really suffering. You cannot come away from this film without feeling intense admiration for the art of Munch and with a sense of gratitude and praise for the director who produced this art film. I cant recommend it highly enough to those of a real artistic sensiblity.

The is one of the most moving, experimental films I have seen.
Peter Watkins' political understanding of the times and his
compassion for the struggling, alientated artist is superb. He
has a unique method of linking the present to the painter's
traumatic past, namely the deaths of his mother and sister from
tuberculosis, when he was a boy. The camerawork and close-ups of
individual faces are excellent. Munch's grief, when he loses the
woman he loves, leads to his best works and a premature death.
No other director has made a film about the inner and outer
worlds of the artist as well as this. I highly recommend the
film. Ingmar Bergman described it as 'a work of genius.'

This was the first subtitled film i ever saw; back in 1977 or 78 i think it was. I remember watching on BBC2 till about 2 in the morning and teeing my dad off (cus he needed me to go to bed for some reason)

It obviously made a big impression; soon after I was off to Birmingham Arts Centre to see films by Werner Herzog and Ingmar Bergman et al. I'd realized there was a wonderful world of film out there that actually included more of the world than that giving by yer usual English speaking fodder. And that world was complex, as complex as i felt i wanted to be. And it felt like i was joining a culture of "culture" - watching these obscure cult art house films of the 70's. A vital, and necessary, part of my "sentimental" education these cult films were.

So would this film be living up to my expectations 30+ years on? Yes it would. It did. I was pulled right in, was there as my younger self once again feeling absorbed into the cultural milieu of late 19th century boho intellectuals; various artists, writers, poets, philosophers, all agonizing and dying in their 30's and 40's of consumptive angst etc.

The most angsty and agonized of them all of course is Edvard. Has trouble with the ladies. Falling in love with liberal proto-feminists who mostly want a bit of extra-marital. A gamut of repressed feelings; which have to get released onto canvas, this inner tumult expressed as paint.

It was all marvelous meaty melancholy for my 19 year old inexperienced untutored self to feast on, be indulged by. The unfulfilled sexual desire, the emotional turmoil, echoing, exaggerating, expressing, what lay latently aching but unexpressed inside me. I was bedazzled, kind of bewildered, probably lost inside this sensually poeticized found world. Mesmerized.

Ok. I'm a more sophisticated "critic" of films 30 years on. Less inclined to be bedazzled. All that unfulfilled sexual desire and emotional turmoil has settled own, evened out, become less achingly significant. So this film doesn't have quite the import or impact of back then. And it does go on a bit. And the fast free- associative juxtapositions of the editing, which for an hour had felt fluid with felt lived life, get to feel - on occasion - tiringly repetitive.

Still, what an enriching and engrossing film to have seen all those years ago. No wonder my immature impressionable self was so impressed.