THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING

Set around 1820 in Varmland (south-west Sweden), the film tells the story of Gosta Berling (L. Hanson), a pastor expelled from his parish for alcoholism, who joins the brotherhood of the ‘Knights of Ekebù’, a dozen noisy, party-going adventurers, a sort of bodyguard for the very rich Commander Margaretha (G. Lundequist) who takes them in at her expense at Ekebù Castle. Gosta becomes the tutor of the young Elizabeth (a not-yet-twenty-year-old Greta Garbo), married to Count Dohna and secretly in love with him. Repudiated by her husband, Margaretha sets fire to the castle, which will be rebuilt by the knights and Gosta, to whom, released from prison and widowed, the Commander will entrust the management of her ironworks and reveal his love for Elizabeth, now free. Considered the swan song of Swedish silent cinema, Stiller’s film boasts admirable cinematography, remembered by Karl Feund and other German cameramen of the late silent years. Also known as ‘The Legend of Gosta Berling’, it was the second film by the very young Greta Garbo, who also teamed up with Lars Hanson in his third Hollywood film ‘Flesh and the Devil’.