The Outlaw and His Wife
- Screenplay:
- Victor Sjöström
- Sam Ask
- Play:
- Jóhann Sigurjónsson
- Victor Sjöström
- Edith Erastoff
- 1 January 1918 (1918-01-01)
- Silent film
- Swedish intertitles
The Outlaw and His Wife (Swedish: Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru) is a 1918 Swedish silent film directed by Victor Sjöström, based on a play from 1911 by Jóhann Sigurjónsson.[1] It tells the story of Eyvind of the Hills, an 18th-century Icelandic outlaw.
The film was groundbreaking for its portrayal of wild nature.[citation needed] It was shot in two sessions in the spring and late summer 1917, with Åre and Abisko in northern Sweden acting as the highlands of Iceland.[2]
Plot
A stranger who calls himself Kári comes to a farm in the north country. He is hired as a laborer, and the widowed farm owner Halla becomes infatuated with him. The local bailiff, who wants to marry Halla, becomes jealous of Kári. Another man tells the bailiff that Kári is in fact a thief and fugitive named Eyvind. Kári at first denies being Eyvind and then defeats the bailiff in a wrestling contest as a measure of his sincerity. However, when Halla proposes marriage, he confesses the truth of what happened in his earlier impoverished life as Eyvind.
When the bailiff returns with others to arrest Eyvind, he and Halla abandon the farm for the bare, cold highlands, where they live for many happy years. They have a baby girl and are accompanied by their friend Arnes.
However, around when the girl is three, Arnes confesses his loneliness and love for Halla. Halla does not share his feelings, and he decides to leave them. As he is walking away, he sees a group of men approaching and runs back to warn Eyvind and Halla. The men arrive at the same time, and a fight ensues. In fear of capture, Halla throws her child off the cliff into the river below.
Eyvind and Halla escape into the hostile winter. Some time later, they are holed up in a small cabin with no food. They are crazed with hunger. Eyvind considers abandoning Halla but does not. When Eyvind goes for firewood, Halla wanders out of the cabin and freezes in the snow. Eyvind finds her and holds her until he has died, frozen by her side.
Cast
- Victor Sjöström as Eyvind of the Hills
- Edith Erastoff as Halla
- John Ekman as Arnes
- Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson as Guðfinna
- Artur Rolén as Farmhand
- Nils Ahrén as Björn Bergstéinsson
- William Larsson as Bjarni Sveinbjörnsson
Critical reception
Jeff Stafford shared the following thoughts in an essay on the film written for the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival:[3]
While The Outlaw and His Wife (1918) is not as well known [as his later films], it is considered by many film historians to be Sjöström's silent-era masterpiece and, nearly a century after its release, is enjoying a revival that should elevate its stature in the director's pantheon... The Outlaw and His Wife is also infused with a kind of pantheism and puritanical morality that came to mark Swedish cinema. As social renegades the lovers feel their transgressions are subject to the laws of an indifferent universe and when cornered by their pursuers, Halla makes a personal sacrifice that reflects an Old Testament sense of vindication... Film critic David Thomson noted a recurring quality in Sjöström's best work of "wild feelings bursting through moral and social inhibition" and that is an apt summation of the universe of The Outlaw and His Wife where passion and intolerance coexist.
References
- ^ "Progressive Silent Film List: The Outlaw and His Wife". Silent Era. Archived from the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
- ^ Comment and summary (in Swedish) at the Swedish Film Institute
- ^ Stafford, Jeff (2013). "The Outlaw and His Wife". silentfilm.org. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
External links
- The Outlaw and His Wife at IMDb
- The Outlaw and His Wife at the TCM Movie Database
- The Outlaw and His Wife at AllMovie
- v
- t
- e
- A Ruined Life (1912)
- The Gardener (1912)
- Marriage Bureau (1913)
- Laughter and Tears (1913)
- Lady Marion's Summer Flirtation (1913)
- The Voice of Passion (1913)
- The Conflicts of Life (1913)
- Ingeborg Holm (1913)
- The Miracle (1913)
- Half Breed (1914)
- The Clergyman (1914)
- Judge Not (1914)
- The Strike (1914)
- A Good Girl Keeps Herself in Good Order (1914)
- Children of the Streets (1914)
- Daughter of the Peaks (1914)
- Hearts That Meet (1914)
- The Sea Vultures (1915)
- Guilt Redeemed (1915)
- In the Hour of Trial (1915)
- The Price of Betrayal (1915)
- The Ships That Meet (1916)
- Kiss of Death (1916)
- Therèse (1916)
- A Man There Was (1917)
- The Lass from the Stormy Croft (1917)
- The Outlaw and His Wife (1918)
- Sons of Ingmar (1919)
- His Lordship's Last Will (1919)
- The Monastery of Sendomir (1920)
- Karin Daughter of Ingmar (1920)
- A Lover in Pawn (1920)
- The Phantom Carriage (1921)
- Name the Man (1924)
- He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
- Confessions of a Queen (1925)
- The Tower of Lies (1925)
- The Scarlet Letter (1926)
- The Divine Woman (1928)
- The Masks of the Devil (1928)
- The Wind (1928)
- A Lady to Love (1930)
- Father and Son (1930)
- Under the Red Robe (1937)
![]() | This article related to historical films is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e
![]() | This article related to a Swedish film of the 1910s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- v
- t
- e