O God, grant that my soul may ripen before it is gatheredin.
For years now I’ve had in my head the plan to write aChristmas story of the kind that Dickens used to write…*
After a few years of this silent film business, you haveseen most of the cannon and have your own list of The Greats but all suchclassifications are blown out of the window when you see a screening liketonight’s with the right venue, the right audience and a supernaturalaccompaniment from Mr Stephen Horne that not only sent chills but brought outthe full flavour of Victor Sjöström’s film and, indeed his own performance.
Not only was Sjöström probably Sweden’s finest silent filmmaker, he ranks as one of the finest of any era. Here with his fourthadaptation of one of Selma Lagerlöf’s works, he shows again why he is such agood interpreter of her work. Selma’s work is passionate and poetic anddeceptively complex in expression and narrative form – trust me, I’m reading GöstaBerling yet again! Sjöström takes his time and makes her key points withprecision and power: his two films based on her magnum opus, Jerusalem, useonly the first 70-80 pages whereas Gustaf Molander gobbles up the remaining400+ in his action-packed brace.
Perhaps Sjöström was more concerned with meaning and, as hisstunning performance shows, he may well have had a personal connection withthis story as Chris Bird suggested in his introduction, for the Swede’s fatherwas abusive and alcoholic just as Sjöström’s David Holm is. For most of thefilm, Holm seems irredeemable, not just continuing to fall back into his oldbrutal ways but actively enjoying his cruelty in ways that suggest extremes ofself-hatred. It seems that nothing will make him change, even when his actionsthrow his family into poverty, even when he is given another chance by hislong-suffering wife played with high-intensity and the last flickers in thesaddest eyes by the wonderful Hilda Borgström – who had previously starred inSjöström’s Ingeborg Holm (1913).
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| Hilda Borgström andVictor Sjöström |
Both Borgström and Sjöström can create so much atmosphere,soundlessly signifying the break-up of their marriage, hiding from each otherand seeking oblivion in different ways and good as he is, nothing makesSjöström’s Holm so frightening than Borgström’s reactions to him as he bashesdown the door in their apartment she is exhausted and just drops to the floor.This is a film about domestic violence and the ties that suffocate.
The film is based on Lagerlöf’s 1912 book Thy Soul ShallBear Witness! (Swedish: Körkarlen) after she had been commissionedto write it by the Swedish Tuberculosis Society* as a means of public educationabout tuberculosis ("consumption"). Holm has consumption and whilsthe self-medicates with alcohol, he is also happy to cough in other’s faces tobroaden his revenge on the world; sadly, this doesn’t sound so unlikely afterour experiences with the Pandemic. As her recent translator Peter Graves hassaid, in The Phantom Carriage she manages to keep two balls in the air – the ghostlyplane alongside the gritty slum story – without lessening the impact of either.Her director is able to maintain this ingenuity.
Holm is Swedish for Day, and appropriately enough, theaction largely takes place over the course of a day – New Year’s Eve - with apotentially complex series of flash-backs deftly used to explain more of thebackground to Holm and the supernatural events that will be used to show himthe reality of the world he has made.
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| Astrid Holm andLisa Lundholm |
Chris Bird rightly lauded the cinematography of JuliusJaenzon especially his ability to create the ghosts through in camera trickeryand multiple exposures. Knowing that they were using wooden Pathé cameras –hand-cranked – makes the effects even more impressive. Chris read out a numberof letters from Sjöström to his wife complaining about the slow progress on therequired night-shooting and repeated takes but the results are ground-breakingin the cinematic world of 1921.
The story begins on New Year's Eve at the death bed of asalvation army worker, Edit (Astrid Holm), who calls out for a last visit ofone David Holm (Sjöström). But Holm won't come, preferring to carry on gettingsloshed in the graveyard with his drinking buddies. He tells them of a tale concerning a carriage driven by thelast person to die in each year, which takes the spirits of the dead to theirafterlife. A fight breaks out and Holm himself becomes the last fatality beforethe clock strikes midnight. He is greeted then by the phantom carriage and itsghostly driver, his friend and the man who first related the tale, Georges(Tore Svennberg). George it was who first led Holm into the life of drunkendepravation and here he has come to collect Holm's mortal soul and take it toaccount for the life he has led.
It is now that the real horror begins as we learn about theun-making of the man through the intricate flash backs that gradually tie upthe backstory. We see Holm’s estrangement from his wife and his pursuit of themacross Sweden and how he ends up seeking refuge at the Salvation Army hostel run byEdit. She tries to help him by mending his jacket but he cruelly rips apart herhandiwork and tells her he needs no saving… a defiant act of calculated crueltybut he’s picked on the wrong Christian, Edit won’t stop trying.
This is as uncompromising a film as you’ll find and it takesany lazy preconceptions by the throat and hands them back to you in pieces. Thetrue horror is not ghostly carriages but in what people do to each other andthemselves and the chances they let go. The film's prayer quoted at the top seems to me a veryhumanistic sentiment as much as religious: let me comes to terms with who I am before it is toolate.
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| Victor Sjöström times two plus Tore Svennberg |
Chris said that a 24-piece orchestra accompanied the film’sBritish premier in Leicester Square and tonight we had the closest it’spossible for one man to get with Stephen’s multi-dimensional accompaniment.There were the potent emotional lines you’d expect from his piano playing also,plucked strings, harmonium and flute with a spine-tingling reverb set up tostretch the latter’s pure notes to maximum uncanny affect. The man in front ofme couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing and looked away briefly from thescreen to check that there wasn’t a group of ghostly musicians playing along…
The Phantom Carriage is full of camera trickery andwe also had a fabulous fantasy from Georges Méliès, the man who invented somany in-camera tricks, here with the 16-minute epic The Kingdom of theFairies (Le Royaume des fées) from 1903. This is Méliès in excelsis withhand-coloured frames – courtesy of a Madame Elisabeth Thuillier according to Chris Bird –and which bring out so much delight in this relentlessly imaginative film. JohnSweeney played along in complementary style, full of contemporary flourishes andrich detail to match the unparalleled invention on screen.
Another evening of pure quality all round at the Bioscope, epicin fact… thanks to all involved!
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| Great job Madame Elisabeth Thuillier! |
*A letter from Selma Lagerlöf to her friend Sophie Elkanasper Peter Graves in the publication below…
**From Helena Forsås-Scott’s introduction to Selma Lagerlöf,The Phantom Carriage translated by Peter Graves, Norvik Press (2011)
