There is no question about the valued impact that Edvard Munch's painting, "The Scream" has had on modern value, and there is no denying him his rightful place in art history, BUT is a 210-minute long made-for-TV movie really the best venue to best express his full, unexciting life? Director Peter Watkins feels like it does, and with that he fearlessly jumps head-first into this bland bio-pic beginning with the religious upbringing and devoted sexual pleasures. Yet, before any of you die-hard art students decide to go out and rent this two disc feature, be aware. Edvard Munch is a strangely developed film that does have heart, and perhaps is winded by the overall "time" of 1974, but fails miserably. Was it me? Probably. But Edvard Munch felt like a blend of a softcore internet pop-up using 1970s colors and grain with an actor who chose to pursue Munch as an emo-esque tween vs. disjointed heartthrob? Is this a perfect blend? I will let you decide if you choose to watch, but it doesn't make for easy viewing. Watkins' style is short jabs of visuals combined with sordid double entendra that doesn't fit within the overall scheme of the film. His flash-backs are flash-forwards into an unknown time without markings or reason. It is easy for a viewer to get lost in this film, and I sure did. Using the documentary-style approach (which, in my opinion, is the best and worst decision for this film), we talk directly into the camera to everyone involved in Munch's life, either living, already dead, or about to die. Again, lacking in the rhyme or reason, we are left to only assume the chaos that surrounded this pained artist. One of Munch's infamous lines was, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity." Eerily, that is how I felt when I watched Edvard Munch.
Quickly about the documentary-style element to this film. Visionary for 1970s, I liked that Watkins wasn't afraid to tackle this endeavour. Using both Munch's friends speaking directly to us bring us further into his life, I will not argue with that, but when Watkins decides to add an additional layer to this, by inserting an English speaking narrator (suddenly this feels like a program on the discovery channel, not a film) and attempting to stay true to the language by subtitling the rest, Munch just felt too overloaded. It was a nice technique to begin, but ultimately Watkins' decisions to keep adding and adding and adding muddied the effect of the original. The voice-over was the worst element, randomly interjected, we are pulled in and out of the world being created by this annoying voice of fact. It felt as if Watkins could not find a way to sequence all the scenes together into coherancy, so he just decided to have someone speak over it all. Bad choice. Like a fever dream, we are left with a disjointed view of Munch's life, without reason or intent, we walk the path of this film only to be continually lost again and again and again. I was eager to learn about this artist's life, but Peter Watkins' ruined it for me.
Epic failure.
Found in my Videohound's World Cinema: The Adventurer's Guide to Movie Watching by Elliot Wilhelm. Here is what he had to say about this utter dissapointment:
"I've never been completely sure why this extraordinary film casts the spell that it does, yet its eerie, documentary-like quality does seem to constantly be on the brink of capturing some cataclysmic, violent eruption, which, of course, perfectly mirrors the temperament of the tortured artist who is its subject. British director Peter Watkins made a number of acclaimed films prior to Edvard Munch. The best of them - Culloden and The War Game - were portraits of wars past and future and were filmed in the style of documentaries (his style was so convincing that The War Game, his fictional, 47-minute what-if portrait of nuclear disaster in a British town, won the 1966 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature). His nearly three-hour, Norwegian production Edvard Munch sticks pretty much to the early years of the life of this seminal, 19th-century giant of the Expressionist movement. It does what biographies of this sort should never do - analyze the works in relation to specific portions of the artist's life - yet Watkins' film is so assured and convincing that it packs an irresistible psychological punch. This is an eye-opening, groundbreaking biography, and an entertaining one to boot."
I believe it is ok for me, Cinema AG, to disagree with Mr. Wilhelm and Mr. Watkins.
Mark: Yellow with a black line. Never to be watched again.
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