Restored Print!

Jon Mirsalis on Piano

(Vingarne). Vingarne, one of Stiller's most conceptually interesting films, is unfortunately only preserved in fragmentary form although an attempt has been made to reconstruct the structure by combining surviving fragments and stills. The film's name is derived from a Carl Milles sculpture that stands at the center of this very free adaptation of Mikaël, a novella by Danish writer Herman Bang. A famous sculptor (who looks conspicuously like playwright August Strindberg) gives his masterpiece to the model he has befriended, who in turn rebuffs the artist's attention and sells the statue to finance his girlfriend's expensive habits. This story is framed by a daringly metafilmic narrative in which Mauritz Stiller (who plays himself) and his crew film a movie called "Vingarne." The self–reflexive structure was too disorienting for many contemporary audiences and the frame-story was cut for international export. More recently the film has received critical attention as both a drama about muted homosexual love and a stylistic anomaly for this period with its nuanced mixture of close–up and long shots as well as its atypically early use of a smooth editing style.