Gösta Berlings saga

There is, as I think I mentioned the past few years, a "National Silent Movie Day". With an occasion like that, it's unsurprising that TCM would show a day full of silent films, including some that don't get very many airings. Last year, I recorded a couple of those lesser-seen silents, including a Swedish film, Gösta Berlings saga.

It's the 1820s (roughly; I think early intertitles suggest the action happened a century ago and the movie was released in 1924) in the province of Värmland, which is in the western part of Sweden on what is now the border with the southern part of Norway -- take a train from Stockholm to Oslo and you should go through Värmland. There's a manor house called Ekeby right near a group of iron foundries, and Ekeby has now been given over to a group of "Cavaliers". These "Cavaliers" are men who had some sort of adventure followed by misfortune and, having suffered such misfortune and having no other home, are allowed to live here.

Among the Cavaliers is the titular Gösta Berling (Lars Hanson). A flashback story in a later act of the movie (the movie is divided into two parts and about ten "acts") tells how Berling was a country priest in the Lutheran church, although he was given to drinking heavily. Enough that his parishioners petition the bishop to relieve him of his duties. Berling does indeed get sacked, although not quite for his drinking. Instead, it's because he calls his parishioners hypocrites since they're all given to drinking too much on various occasions as well.

Gösta then gets hired by Märta Dohna to be the tutor to her stepdaughter Ebba. Märta's real reason is that there's a clause in her late husband's will that the estate should go to Ebba, instead of Märta's son Henrik. However, if Ebba marries a commoner, the estate will go to Henrik. So Märta would love Ebba to marry a commoner. Henrik had been spending time in Italy, where he, under no such restrictions, married an Italian girl Elizabeth (Greta Garbo in the role that made her a star).

At this point the movie starts to get complicated. The woman who owns Ekeby and the foundries, Margaretha, reveals that she was in an illicit relationship and that this resulted both in ostracism, and in getting Ekeby because the previous owner was the man she loved but couldn't marry. Elizabeth realizes that she too might have a thing for Gösta. This would normally be a huge problem, until Henrik gets word from Italy that because certain documents weren't signed properly, he and Elizabeth are technically not legally married even though they've been living together under the belief that they were in fact married. Imagine the fun the Production Code office would have had with that if the movie had been made in Hollywood in the Code era. Events continue like this until an eding that you can probably guess.

Having watched Gösta Berlings saga, I can see why audiences in Sweden in 1924 would have loved it. Apparently it was released in two parts in Sweden, while for international audiences it was edited down. What we have today is the most complete reconstruction known to exist from extant materials. This version is one that, I'm sorry to say, is going to be a bit tough to get into, largely because the movie is way too complicated for its own good. Not only is it long at a shade over three hours; I felt like it had way too many characters and subplots that it's difficult to keep everyboy and their individual subplot straight. The flashbacks definitely don't help in that regard. Still, Gösta Berlings saga is the movie that made Greta Garbo a star, and for that reason alone it's a movie that should probably be seen at least once.