The Outlaw and His Wife

(Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru, Victor Sjöström, Sweden 1918, 100 min., 35mm)

Silent Tuesdays. A classic of Swedish cinema, directed by grandmaster Victor Sjöström (The Phantom Carriage, The Wind). The film, based on the 1911 play by Jóhann Sigurjónsson, follows Ejvind, who has been forced into stealing food to support his starving family. Escaped and on the run, he comes to work at the farm of the widowed Halla. The two fall in love, but as his past is revealed the pair flee into the Icelandic mountainous wilderness and remain outlaws. Rightfully hailed for its stunning outdoor cinematography and painterly obsession with landscapes and people within them, this film is also remarkable for the emotional honesty that Sjöström brings out of the players. Himself an actor (and he continued as such for many years after his directing career ended), Sjöström paid a great deal of attention to the process of acting, and requested several takes of some scenes until he felt he had gotten to the emotional core. As members of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives), George Eastman House and the Swedish Film Institute engaged in an archival exchange of material to bring this cinematic classic into our collection. 

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