We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Sjostrom returned to Selma Lagerlof for the themes of his next films. Ingmarssonerna (1918) was made in two parts and he followed it a year later with Karin Ingmarsdotter , all stemming from the epic novel 'Jerusalem' These stories of peasant life had the qualities which had come to be expected in the Swedish films: a stern and exacting moral code, an expressive use of landscape, and a consciousness of the power of the elements. It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of Selma Lagerlof's contribution to the Swedish cinema. Her novels had their roots deep in the country's culture and in this, and in the breadth and sweep of their treatment, they gave the directors what they needed.
Sjostrom never lost his interest in the film as a medium for the expression of inner conflicts and for the revelation of character from within. In this style he made Klostret i Sendomir (The Monastery of Sendomir) (1919), an adaptation of an Austrian novel by Franz Grillparzer, and Mdsterman (1920), from an original story by Hjalmar Bergman. He followed these with the memorable Korkarlen (Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness) (1920), based on Selma Lagerlof's novel. This story of the redemption of a drunkard through the love of a pious young girl and of the tragic consequences for his wife and children would have made a moving film whatever its treatment; it was made outstanding by the place given to the supernatural in the expression of the theme. The scene in which the drunkard meets his former companion, who had died on New Year's Eve, and takes his place as driver of the ghostly cart collecting the souls of sinners, made the film famous all over the world. There had been a hint of this technique in Herr Ames Pengar, but here it was elaborated until it became an integral part of the film. Some of the scenes of the ghostly cart moving along a shadowed road had a strange beauty which has never been equalled in the cinema. From the beginning the Swedish cameramen — in particular, Julius Jaenzon and his brother Henrik — had served the directors well, bringing a flow of sensitively evocative pictures to the screen. Julius Jaenzon's work for Korkarlen helped both to enrich the director's expression of his theme and to bring international recognition to the technical achievement of the Swedish films.
Sjostrom 's performances were seldom less than powerful, but his acting in Korlarlen showed a studied restraint. The exaggerated gestures of some of the early films had gone, but the intensity of feeling was still there.
Sjostrom made three more films before leaving Sweden for America. They were Vem Domer} (Who Should Judge}) (192 1), an elaborate and spectacular historical film from a scenario by Hjalmar Bergman, Det Omringade Huset (The Surrounded House) (1922), based on a play La Maison Cernee by Pierre Frondaire adapted by Sjostrom and Ragnar Hylten-Cavallius; and Eld Ombord (Fire on Board) (1922) from a Hjalmar Bergman scenario and including Matheson Lang in the cast.
Although Sjostrom 's work in Hollywood was uneven and often indifferent in comparison with his achievement in his own country, he did leave a distinctive
12