Word: watkinses
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch lived for 80 years and painted for most of them. His work-striking, fearful, startling-was the vanguard of expressionism; indeed, Munch is, with Van Gogh, frequently considered the progenitor of the whole movement. Peter Watkins' film of Munch's life concentrates solely...
Watkins first furnishes some rather elementary biographical details. Munch (Geir Westby) was born in Oslo in 1863, second of five children in a family much battered by medical tragedy. Denounced and vilified at the outset of his career. Munch was accepted, even extolled, as he grew older. Watkins also tries...
Along with this already daunting prospect, Watkins wants the audience to share Munch's own furious insights and tilted perceptions. So the movie becomes as gloom-ridden, as frightened and obsessive as the youthful artist himself. Watkins fragments the film, fords the stream of consciousness, forsaking the obvious for...
Sinister Sensuality. Watkins is more interested in establishing the sensual details of Munch's painting: the sound of a brush dashing paint, a blade peeling pigment off a canvas. Munch's formative affair with a married woman (Gro Fraas) is here devoid of dramatics. Watkins wants us to...
Watkins attempts too much: he wants Edvard Munch to be biography and documentary, criticism and speculation, psychological analysis and lyric flight.