416 Miss Julie

[zedz]

If you liked Miss Julie, I recommend tracking down Sjoberg's Karin Mansdotter (which I believe is out in Sweden with English subs). It's probably less successful overall - it pointedly lacks Miss Julie's unity and stylistic integrity - but it's wildly inventive and extemely cinematic, mashing up a half-century of filmmaking modes and at least twice that amount of theatrical ones. Hardly any other directors were being this stylistically audacious in the 50s.

[quequeg]

I too enjoyed this film very much, despite low expectations. I expected it to be dreary and boring, but it held my interest throughout. It is filled with visual surprises. My only complaint would be the ending. I feel like it did not fully convey the tragedy of the story.

[Davidspector]

Be warned - the Swedish Karin Mansdottir DVD is unwatchable, and for a film this good (saw it on screen at Washington's National Gallery in an excellent print), I'm willing to make allowances. But this was like watching a bootleg VHS. Wish it were otherwise.

[Tommaso]

I've seen some sized-down caps from that dvd somewhere, and thought they looked fine at the time. So what exactly are the problems with "Karin"?

[Davidspector]

Tommaso -

I watched about five minutes of it and gave up - details were rather smeared in mid-shot and anything closer was soft (and not by design); the cinematography looked washed-out, which it isn't. Viewed on a Panasonic 50" plasma with an Oppo. Purchased a Swedish transfer of Kvinnodrom in the same shipment and found it more than acceptable, both print and transfer quality. Any recommendations you might have for available Sjoberg or Bergman transfers w/ English subtitles would be appreciated (I have the Criterions & the Eclipse set, and, while those may be benchmark, I don't expect to find their like in the non R1 world).

[Tommaso]

Thanks David; well, I have no other recommendations for Sjöberg films aside of the two released by CC/Eclipse. For more Bergman, the Tartans are usually fine, though not exceptional (and I'm not sure how many of them are still in print). Aside from that, the R1 Bergman-MGM box is also more than acceptable, though not quite up to CC standard (but who expects that, anyway).

[Davidspector]

Forgot about the MGM discs, which I have except for The Touch and The Serpent's Egg. Though I've heard not even a whisper about the possibility of an Eclipse Early Bergman Volume 2 set, that would be a very welcome surprise; in the meantime, I await a Criterion Monika, Summer Interlude, and The Magician.

[tojoed]

You can get good Tartan discs of Monika, Summer Interlude, and The Magician. They are region free and quite cheap.

[HistoryProf]

This is really one of those films that makes me glad the Criterion Collection exists, b/c I never would have known it existed otherwise.

This is exactly (seriously...verbatim) what I said to my wife today when I was telling her about this film. I popped it in late last night while up alone and was really quite taken aback by how it drew me in and slowly built into a far more emotional experience than I ever expected. The ending really threw me for a loop and left me a bit staggered. It's a wonderful film, and one I know i'll revisit again and again...just lovely. The flashbacks in particular were so well done, especially Jean's. As for Julie's, as it unfolded I simply wasn't prepared for how sinister it all became...in the end it felt more like a story of mental illness than one of love and the ineffable battle of the sexes that it is billed as. It feels so light and almost comedic in the first scenes I felt like I had been a bit snookered by the set up - but in that wonderful way only possible in great cinema.

And was the stable attendant Max Von Sydow? sure looked like him if not.

[HarryLong]

My only complaint would be the ending. I feel like it did not fully convey the tragedy of the story.

A question of interpretation, perhaps?
I don't know the film (it's in my towering to-be-watched pile), but when I first read the play back in college I got the feeling that Miss Julie was a spolied rich kid who came to the end she deserved.

[mfunk9786]

Apparently a remake starring Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell is in post-production

[swo17]

More importantly, it's directed by Liv Ullmann!

[matrixschmatrix]

Directed by Liv Ullmann, no less, which kind of brings the Strindberg->Sjöberg->Bergman influence chain full circle. Though I'm never clear on when something qualifies as a remake and when it's just an adaptation of an already-adapted work; surely one wouldn't call a film of Macbeth a remake?

edit: Oh, man, I got beat to the punch while googling for the correct accent marks on Sjöberg

[mfunk9786]

True re: calling it a remake, was more of an easy word to use than anything. I recall getting kind of exhausted by that when True Grit was released and people kept talking about what was changed from the John Wayne one

[domino harvey]

Interesting that Chastain shares a physical similarity to Saffron Burrows who played the role in Mike Figgis' take on Miss Julie (which I heartily recommend as supplemental viewing regardless of if this one wins-- it's OOP but available right now fulfilled by Amazon for nine bucks)

[Mr Sausage]

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[jindianajonz]

Whoa now, don't everybody post at once!

Can anybody explain the scene where Jean and Julie flee a crowd into Jeans room, and suddenly Julie asks Jean to shoot her? That whole bit came out of nowhere, and seemed out of place.

All in all, I really enjoyed the film, but I'm having a tough time summing up my thoughts on it. It was definitely a film filled with conflict, not just between sexes or between classes, but also between the conflict of classes and the conflict of sexes- in the early parts of the film, it was interesting to see how sex would trump class or vice versa in establishing the power relationship between Jean and Julie. I thought the dreams of Julie and Jean (Julie falling deeper and deeper while Jean climbs a tree) were particularly apt in this regard- the imagery is yonnic/phallic respectively while also illustrating the two characters social statuses (statii?).

I also had time to read the first essay in the booklet and watch the documentary on the film included on the disc. I thought it was quite unfortunate how (at least in these two cases) Ingmar Bergman managed to overshadow the supplements by emphasizing how Bergman's career has always overshadowed Sjoberg.

[Drucker]

I have a few notes jotted down in my notebook at home, but I was, if not quite blown away, pleasantly surprised by this film. I was, perhaps unfairly, expecting something more similar to Bergman who I've never been into, but this was more fun, warmer, and funnier.

Again, I have a few notes jotted down at home to share, but my roommate had an interesting reaction to me when I summarized the plot, so I'll pose the question: What do you come away with since the mother was labeled a feminist? Does the film take an anti-feminist tone by painting her in such a poor light?

[movielocke]

This was damned hard to get hold of, no BNs had it in stock, I had to special order it to the store and it didn't show up until after the sale. But I've finally got it and hopefully will get around to watching it tonight.

[movielocke]

I'm not sure I'd say the tone is anti-feminist so much as it is carrying over an anti-feminist tone from the source material. That said, it's a blurry distinction at best, and the ending is a pro-feminist counterpoint ala The Awakening. I related the mother as similar to the wife in Jane Eyre, but that is probably only because of the association created by burning down the mansion in wrath/protest. I think the film asserts its own measure of feminism by the way Julie is aware of the patriarchical traps she's caught in, and that even running away with a lover does not represent any new freedom, just another sort of trap. By going so far as to kill herself, the story allows her actions to condemn the system much more effectively and accurately. So the story has both a feminist protagonist and a feminist antagonist, but the antagonist is fighting the same enemy as the protagonist, the culture of patriarchy, they are allies, in a sense, even if their tactics and motivations are very different.

The visuals, particularly with the fluid-through time camera movements, were absolutely astonishing. The sexual symbolism of many of the visuals was also rather shocking in its forwardness. In a way this feels like a more cynical and bitter spiritual sister to Smiles of a Summer Night.

[Drucker]

I'm not sure I'd say the tone is anti-feminist so much as it is carrying over an anti-feminist tone from the source material. That said, it's a blurry distinction at best, and the ending is a pro-feminist counterpoint ala The Awakening. I related the mother as similar to the wife in Jane Eyre, but that is probably only because of the association created by burning down the mansion in wrath/protest. I think the film asserts its own measure of feminism by the way Julie is aware of the patriarchical traps she's caught in, and that even running away with a lover does not represent any new freedom, just another sort of trap. By going so far as to kill herself, the story allows her actions to condemn the system much more effectively and accurately. So the story has both a feminist protagonist and a feminist antagonist, but the antagonist is fighting the same enemy as the protagonist, the culture of patriarchy, they are allies, in a sense, even if their tactics and motivations are very different.

The visuals, particularly with the fluid-through time camera movements, were absolutely astonishing. The sexual symbolism of many of the visuals was also rather shocking in its forwardness. In a way this feels like a more cynical and bitter spiritual sister to Smiles of a Summer Night.

Have to agree with you on the visuals. From the opening scene of a girl, trapped, looking out at the world around her having fun, the movie was gorgeous. And for a film that with such a great story, the visuals are really what stand out. I often find myself labeling films as "theatrical" and they can put me off a bit (I found Gertrud very difficult to enjoy on first viewing, for, among other reasons, it's theatricality). But this film did such a phenomenal job of melding the close-ups and interior monologues with background flashbacks, and mixing them together, I never felt disengaged with the film.

Overall, for me the film's theme was about being trapped and bound by one's nature. Looking at my notes, at some point the main male protagonist says something to the effect of "It's the damned servant in me." Miss Julie can't help but be this chaotic mixture of her mother's rebellious spirit and her father's desire to please others and it's ultimately her undoing.

Edit: I wrote this at work while running reports/multi-tasking. I should clarify that I quoted the servant to show that Miss Julie isn't the only person who is, truthfully or by their own perception, trapped by social rules. And movielocke, I can certainly see the comparison of this to Smiles For A Summer Night.

[domino harvey]

I must again recommend watching Mike Figgis' 1999 adaptation in tandem with this, as it stylistically couldn't be more different (it IS stagebound and even goes De Palma into split screen if I remember correctly) and makes for an interesting companion piece. I hope to rewatch both and contribute to the thread, but I'm glad to see some positive remarks thus far!

[movielocke]

I've read both essays now, and wow, talking about the misogyny is so prevalent in both, particularly the second, dealing with Strindberg. It's fascinating to me that I was relating this to texts like Jane Eyre, Rebecca and The Awakening, in a sense I was automatically resisting the misogynistic constructions and interpreting the film by running it through opposite constructions of my own associations, and what's fascinating is that I didn't even realize I was doing it.

[colinr0380]

I must again recommend watching Mike Figgis' 1999 adaptation in tandem with this, as it stylistically couldn't be more different (it IS stagebound and even goes De Palma into split screen if I remember correctly) and makes for an interesting companion piece. I hope to rewatch both and contribute to the thread, but I'm glad to see some positive remarks thus far!

Yes, the Figgis film goes split screen for the sex scene inside the pantry. I thought this made for a fascinating contrast to Figgis' just-prior film Timecode which involves cameras and characters often geographically very far from one another, but which occasionally has a couple of cameras 'team up' to have characters cross from one screen into the other, or again at a key moment they show a sex-scene side by side as if tied to one individual in the embrace and showing their separateness-while-together (or being a tenuous couple together for a moment against the outside world), before drifting apart again. The split screen in Miss Julie is isolated to that one scene and interestingly kind of isolates actions and body parts within such a confined space.

[jindianajonz]

I went to look up the Mike Figgis film on IMDB, and apparently Liv Ullman is doing a remake in 2014 with Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell. Actual project, or imdb nonsense?