Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch (1974)

A superlative film

Edvard Munch's childhood is overshadowed by death: he suffers the loss of his sister and mother, while enduring serious illness himself, almost dying. At university, Munch discovers his talent as a painter. As he immerses himself in the art world, he becomes part of a cultural revolution led by the likes of nihilist Hans Jæger.

Date of release
1974-11-12
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (81)
Runtime
2h 54m
Genres
TV Movie, History, Drama
Director
Peter Watkins

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Oslo and Åsgårdstrand

Edvard Munch is a 1974 Norwegian biographical psychological docudrama film written, narrated and directed by English filmmaker Peter Watkins. It is about the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch. It stars non-professional Norwegian actor Geir Westby as the painter. Watkins appears as an English-speaking voiceover narrator to imbue the film its documentary style. It was originally created as a two-part miniseries co-produced by the Norwegian and Swedish state television networks NRK and SVT, but subsequently gained an American theatrical release in 1976.

Production

In 1968 Watkins had made a visit to the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo where he was deeply moved by the artist's work. He was also later moved by "Death and the Child", which in its time, was attacked as being "incomplete" - a criticism given to many of Munch's works. According to Watkins it took three years to persuade NRK to fund the film, which only happened after SVT convinced them to participate in a co-production.

Oslo served as the main shooting location, with other shots being done at Asgardstrand and the Musée Rodin in Paris. The exhibition scenes were done at the Munch Museum and The National Gallery in Oslo, and original Munch paintings and prints were used during production. Watkins was to use an amateur cast of 360 people, several of them giving their honest opinions of the paintings in the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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