Tuesday, January 29, 2008

One Freethinker Meets Another


In the late seventies I first encountered Peter Watkins' three hour film about Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch. One could not view this work casually. Viewing it was committing yourself to a jagged world not disimilar to the lines in his painting. "Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life." is how Munch described key elements in his life that was presented by Watkins as if a 20th century filmmaker would step back into late 19th century Norway with the techniques and equipment of the modern documentarian and classical montage editing. Unsettled images of dark blue hues of Northern skies, claustrophobic pubs and death rooms, and one feel as though they were round after round of unrequited love torturing an artistic soul linger with the viewer long after the film is over.

Twenty years later, Watkins created another film about a nineteenth century artist, August Strindberg, that was more challenging in scope and approach than the Munch film. Remarkably it was created in full collaboration with Swedish students. The five and a half hour long The Freethinker is an immersive experience with similarities into his prior excursion into the world of Munch, but also is a precursor to his most ambitious work to date, an over six hour reenactment of the Paris Commune uprising, mostly framed as if there was a modern 24 hour news network on the scene.

So you can clearly see that there is nothing conventional about subject or creator on this one. But there is such a richness to the experience here as we travel between various stages of Strindberg's life, hear and watch his works be reenacted, and watch actors talk about the lives of their characters. Social movements of 1870s Sweden are presented and explored. The viewer is asked to linger over facts, quotations and old photographs.

The most memorable of The Freethinker's performers is Lena Setterval playing Strindberg's suffering wife Siri, who Watkins reveals online essay about The Freethinker was a student of ecology at the Nordens Folk High School when he cast into this role. Setterval's expressive face and presence is reminiscent of Liv Ullman and others of Bergman's actresses.

You have to want to be challenged to sustain interest to screen Freethinker or Commune 1871. Watkins has always been an iconoclast with projects and intentions never mainstream. Detailed passionate essays fill his website where he talks about the media crisis which he defines as "the increasingly irresponsible manner in which the mass audiovisual media (MAVM) function, and to their disastrous impact on society, human affairs, and the environment."

I include his statement on Freethinker as a way to scan your interest. If you are intrigued by this, then visiting Watkins world of The Freethinker or Commune 1871 could be rewarding experiences for you. If not, I still recommend The War Game or Edvard Munch as pathways to checking out this filmmaker.

‘The Freethinker’ endeavours to show: a) how non-orthodox filmic language forms can expand our view of history, and our way of relating to people on the screen, and to each other b) that there are ways to produce audio-visual material other than according to the rigidly centralized methods used by the MAVM c) that, contrary to what we see on TV, there are potentially alternative processes for viewers as well - through which they can become individual participants instead of hierarchically dominated, passive receivers.'

Regardless, of rewards of immersing oneself in Watkins, Strindberg was not an easy person to spend time with over the past few days. He broods. He thrashes against 1870s Sweden and meddles in alchemy. His language is exceptionally violent to Siri and those closest to him as he continues the cycle from his own cruel upbringing.

So it is time to cleanse the palette. I recall the great feeling I had viewing What's Opera Doc? after completing my first time at the Ring Cycle in the early eighties. In that spirit, I present one of the Flash adventures of Strindberg and Helium. Check out the others online if you have not done so.

posted by well-executed buffet at 12:32 AM
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