Word: oscarsson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HUNGER. This Swedish tale of a writer on the skids in a big city is given depth and resonance by the performances of Per Oscarsson and Gunnel Lindblom...
...rural writer (Per Oscarsson) arrives in the city to become a journalist. There are various kinds of starvation, and he soon experiences them all. First he is deprived of recognition, then money, and at last of enough nourishment to endure...
...mind and the world's will. At first he is euphoric. But with steady rejection and growing poverty, he becomes like his pencil, inexorably worn away until only a stub remains. Though there is an abortive erotic interlude with a woman (Gunnel Lindblom), for the most part Oscarsson is left alone to disintegrate in the worn suit and the bare room that are the boundaries of his life. Within them he creates a solo performance of unbearable power. The shiny eyes dance behind rimless glasses, the arguments with God become a grudge fight, consciousness and the dream state...
Hamsun remembered the abject misery that he found in a lawful, ordered society. His writing gave it voice, and Oscarsson gives it substance-articulating the agonies of all the poor, as when he gags on a bone that he has begged. "Damnation," he cries, "is there nothing one may keep for oneself...
...haggard, laggard spy, Harvey is a stereotypical pawn of the politburo; as his most persistent bedmate, Mia Farrow is a soft sprite whose eyes are larger than her role. The stars are outshone by the supporting players, including Tom Courtenay as a psychotic British agent and Per Oscarsson as his junkie Russian counterpart, hopelessly in love with the heroin. Fortunately, they give Aspic some flavor as it moves toward a credibly tragic end, when Harvey suspects the game is up and utters the burnt-out lament: "I feel like a whore in a creaking...