Hamsun (film)

Movie
Original title	Hamsun
Country of production	Germany , Norway , Sweden , Denmark
original language	Norwegian , Swedish , German , Danish , English
Publishing year	1996
length	159 minutes
Rod
Director	Jan Troell
script	Per Olov Enquist
production	Erik Crone
camera	Mischa Gavrjusjov; Jan Troell
cut	Ghita Beckendorff; Jan Troell
occupation
	Max von Sydow : Knut Hamsun ; Ghita Nørby : Marie Hamsun ; Anette Hoff : Ellinor Hamsun; Gard B. Eidsvold : Arild Hamsun; Eindride Eidsvold : Tore Hamsun ; Åsa Söderling : Cecilia Hamsun; Sverre Anker Ousdal : Vidkun Quisling ; Erik Hivju : Dr. Gabriel Langfeldt ; Edgar Selge : Josef Terboven ; Ernst Jacobi : Adolf Hitler ; Svein Erik Brodal : Holmboe; Per Jansen : Harald Grieg ; Jesper Christensen : Otto Dietrich ; Johannes Joner : Finn Christensen; Finn look - doctor;

Hamsun is a German-Norwegian-Swedish-Danish biography from 1996 by director Jan Troell about the last 17 years of the life of the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun .

action

In 1935, Marie and Knut Hamsun's marriage seems to have broken down. Marie strongly reproaches her husband for having given up his ideals, seriously neglecting her and her family through his work and thwarting her career as an actress and children's book author. As a result, the couple split up and Knut moves into a pension.

In 1936, Marie Hamsun attended a speech given by Vidkun Quisling in which she said she recognized her husband's old ideals. When he learns that it is the wife of the famous Nobel Prize winner, he makes an appointment with her. He succeeds in convincing Marie that her sacrifice for the family was by no means pointless and that her marriage to Knut must be a model for all Norwegians. Marie then asks Knut to move back with the family, but at the same time makes it clear that she has lost all respect for him.

Marie becomes a member of Quisling's fascist party Nasjonal Samling , which is initially not very successful in Norway. In contrast to Knut, Marie speaks fluent German and can therefore emerge a little out of his overpowering shadow as her husband's voice in Germany . She undertakes extensive reading tours through Germany, during which she recites from the novel Segen der Erde , for which Hamsun received the Nobel Prize in 1920. She is flattered that, due to the growing popularity of Hamsun in Germany, her almost forgotten children's books are being read again. Knut sees Germany as an important ally against communism and the English, against whom he has always harbored strong resentments. His pro-German newspaper articles make him a traitor in the eyes of most Norwegians.

After the German occupation of Norway, Knut Hamsun met Reichskommissar Josef Terboven to campaign for captured Norwegian resistance fighters, including his old friend and publisher Harald Grieg . Because of his lack of knowledge of German, his son Tore Hamsun serves him : interpreter. He argues that the Nazi crackdown in Norway is doing more to harm than good for German interests. Instead of going into it, Terboven confronts Hamsun with the question of whether he thinks he is a bigger man than Hitler . Hamsun responds with a quote from the novel Mysteries :

“For me, whether someone is tall or not is not related to the size of their movement, but to the taste they leave in my mouth. A great man can teach all these fools what power is, these supermen with power like Caiaphas, Pilate, the emperor. I am not a democrat. You can empower the mob to take control. Give them a butcher's knife and they will rob, murder and win. Whip them long enough and you will win the election. But the mob can never win intellectually or advance the world. Superman can lead the mob, but great spirits don't ride horses ... "

Tore dares not translate the last sentences for the Reich Commissioner. Hamsun finally disgusted Hamsun with the compliment that he was a great artist and that they just had to be there and didn't need a translation. It becomes clear that, in contrast to Hamsun, Terboven is well aware of irreconcilable ideological differences, but Hamsun is too important for German propaganda to be dropped.

In 1942, Hamsun made another attempt to stand up for Harald Grieg, this time with Vidkun Quisling, who was meanwhile made Prime Minister by Terboven. Quisling refers Hamsun back to Terboven, only he can do something for Harald Grieg. Quisling then expresses his thanks to Hamsun for having finally positioned himself clearly on the Jewish question. To prove it, he quotes a newspaper article by Hamsun:

Roosevelt is a Jew and is paid by Jews who are the driving force behind the American war of gold and Jewish power.

To Quisling's horror, Hamsun replied that he was not an anti-Semite and did not understand Hitler's anti-Semitism. When Quisling asked whether he had not read Mein Kampf , Hamsun replied evasively that he had not gotten around to it yet, but had read reviews. Quisling's question as to whether Hamsun believes that Norwegians and Germans belong to the same race, Hamsun affirms, but insists on replacing the term race with people . Quisling then informed Hamsun about the plan to "banish" the Jews, since these are Orientals and do not belong in Europe. When Hamsun asked what to do with the Jews, Quisling evasively replied with re-education . When Hamsun asks what exactly is meant by this, Quisling, like Terboven before, evades flattery that this is only a word, and great poets like Hamsun are better at using words.

When young resistance fighters from Hamsun's hometown of Grimstad are arrested and tortured, the mother of one of his kitchen maids urges Hamsun to stand up for her son, who is sentenced to death. Hamsun refuses and says he has no influence on the Germans. The woman then insults him as a Nazi pig. Hamsun asks his wife Marie to stand up again at Terboven for the condemned and for Harald Grieg, as she may be able to achieve more with him than he can. The latter refused at first and confronted him with one of his propaganda articles in which he wrote that every Norwegian who was pro-British would have to face the consequences himself. When Hamsun's son Arild volunteers as a soldier on the Eastern Front against the will of the family, she makes one more attempt to influence Terboven together with Tore (who this time is not needed as an interpreter). She tells him that Hamsun is a kind of patriarch in his hometown and that the executions would hurt him very much. Terboven finally assures her cynically that the two whom Hamsun knows will be “given special treatment because Hamsun intervened for them”. It turns out, however, that this only means that the two will be executed first.

After this incident, Hamsun is finally convinced that Terboven should leave Norway. He believes that he can achieve this through his high reputation with Hitler, and Hitler actually grants him an audience in Obersalzberg. Before that, Hamsun speaks at a large press conference in Vienna and is frenetically celebrated for an anti-British war propaganda speech, which he has his translator read out in German. This is counteracted by the fact that he gives the opening speech in almost perfect English. The visit to Hitler turns into a scandal: Hitler wants to talk “from artist to artist” about the creation of the novel Blessing of the Earth , but Hamsun does not go into it, but complains to Hitler excitedly about Terboven and the situation in Norway. The translator tried again to mediate, but Hitler was so angry that he broke off the conversation and had Hamsun thrown out with the words “I never want to see such people here again”. Nevertheless, Hamsun continues to stand by Hitler and even wrote an obituary of praise after his death.

After the war ended, Marie Hamsun was sentenced to three years of forced labor. Because of his age, Knut is not taken into custody, but first transferred to an old people's home and then to a psychiatric clinic. Professor Langfeldt wants to prove Hamsun's mental weakness in order to prevent a court hearing - requested by Hamsun himself - which, in his opinion, Hamsun would not survive. However, Langfeldt speaks to colleagues of a unique opportunity for science to explore the soul of a great poet. The month-long examination becomes an ordeal for Hamsun. In the clinic, he is also confronted for the first time with film footage from concentration camps, which stirs him very much. He begins work on his last novel On Overgrown Paths . After a long delay, the trial finally takes place and Hamsun is sentenced to a heavy fine.

When Marie is released, Knut refuses to continue living with her under the same roof. She had told Langfeldt intimate details about which he had refused to speak, which he considered treason. In a telephone conversation, Marie complains to Langfeldt that he published these details against her will despite the promised confidentiality and thus destroyed her marriage. When Langfeldt objects that, after everything he knows about their marriage, it could hardly be saved anyway, Marie accuses him of having no idea about human relationships. Langfeldt then breaks off the conversation, clearly disturbed.

Despite her banishment by Knut, Marie campaigns for the publication of Auf übergrown Pfaden . After a long time, the couple finally reconciled and Knut is lovingly cared for by Marie until death.

production

The first plans for the film go back to 1979, when Thorkild Hansen , author of Processen mod Hamsun , wanted to film his book as a television series together with Troell. Max von Sydow was already scheduled for the role of Hamsun at that time. However, the project was dropped because it was feared the issue was too controversial.

In 1993, fourteen years later, von Sydow succeeded in getting the Danish production company Nordisk Film interested in the project, this time with Per Olov Enquist as the scriptwriter. The shooting took place in spring / summer 1995. However, the film was not released until the fall of 1996, a year later than planned, as another film about Hamsun was released by Norwegian television that same year.

The use of different languages is unusual: Sydow and Nørby speak Swedish and Danish in their respective mother tongues, while the rest of the film was shot in Norwegian and German.