Original subtitles

The words spoken by Edvard Munch during this film in the dialogue

and in the commentary are taken directly from his diaries.

You can meet me after dinner.

Consumption is widespread in Kristiania nowadays

especially amongst the poor

and in crowded areas.

How long are your working hours?

From six to six with an hour's break for lunch.

- How much do you earn? - Fifteen crowns a week.

Bless us, O Lord

and these Thy gifts

which of Thy bounty

we are about to receive. Amen.

I work in a factory too. I have to be up before five

to make breakfast for my husband and children.

- Do the children work? - Yes, they're at the factory too.

Eleven hours a day.

- Help yourself. - I'm too tired.

Sophie has asked me

to write down my last will for her.

I've called my testament My Exhortations.

"My dear children. I am so afraid that in Heaven

"I shall miss you who are so dear to my heart here on earth.

"But, trusting in the Lord, I shall beg for your souls

"as long as He grants me life."

Father walked to and fro across the floor.

Then he sat down beside Mother on the sofa.

They whispered to each other and leaned against each other.

Karlemann looked at them

and wondered why tears ran down their cheeks.

Mamma's full name

was Laura Cathrine Munch.

Mamma was very weak.

She died a year after I was born.

Isn't it nice to be

together on an evening like this?

"Death and the kingdom of death were cast in the fiery sea.

"This is another death. If not written in The Book of Life..."

How long have you had it?

Three weeks.

- Is your throat sore? - Yes, a little.

Open wide and I'll have a look.

The first symptoms are fatigue and poor appetite,

an evening temperature and a hint of a cold.

When the disease develops, one's temperature rises

and the cold grows worse.

One begins to sweat at night.

Haemorrhage results in more than 50% of the cases.

What happens to those who believe in God

if they give way to masturbation?

- The unfortunate wretches go mad. - This applies to everyone.

We all have a sexual instinct. Everyone masturbates to some degree.

- Women too? - Women too.

What do you do out so late every night, Edvard?

You weren't home until the small hours last night.

So you've been spying on me?

I hear when you come home. I also know by the smell.

All evil can be traced to Christianity.

Christianity suppresses man's vital desires.

What is a "respectable human being"?

One who is not out at night drinking with people like that.

Be quiet, so that I may speak with Edvard.

Have you told your parents you don't believe in God?

I don't want to say I don't.

Why not? Can't you follow your free will?

Are you out drinking?

- Drinking? A glass of beer? - You smell of spirits, too.

That dreadful Jæger you mix with...

he's the Antichrist incarnate.

If there's no evil outside Christianity...

Of course there's evil but it comes from moral concepts.

Today's society would be happier if people

were allowed to develop their lusts and desires.

- I understand you. - Do you? You don't seem to.

You never do what I want. You follow your own course.

You don't understand me!

Much better than you think.

No, you don't.

We never seem to understand each other in this house!

I'll never be done with you,

since you never do what I want.

- I'm tired of this! - Now you be quiet!

The children missed school a lot because of illness

and I tried to study with them at home.

We can sit by the fire until the water gets hot

before you go to bed.

My sister Sophie

also died from tuberculosis.

She was 15 years of age.

"And I saw the dead stand before the throne

"and books were opened. The Book of Life was opened

"and the dead were judged in accordance with their deeds

"and the sea gave up its dead..."

My sister Laura was very talented.

She learned languages and mathematics effortlessly.

She got honours in Latin.

But she was born with a difficult and nervous disposition

so she could never

make use of her education.

It's so dreary at home! What did you do when you were young?

That doesn't concern you. At any rate I wasn't out and about.

You get no inspiration from those people. And that woman...

It would've turned out better if I hadn't been scolded at home.

Edvard, I want to talk to you.

Your aunt said that a plate was broken.

Was it Peter Andreas?

- No, it was Laura. - No, it was Edvard.

The Bible says that you're punished! Onan was punished.

It also says that man

must replenish the earth.

One doesn't do that by masturbating!

That was nice and warm, wasn't it?

Now we'll wash our ears.

Half of the adults in this country are women.

They are also citizens but they are placed under guardianship

and are tyrannised by men and by society

emotionally, legally and economically.

I must make sure that there aren't too many bills at once.

In the workplaces where we're admitted, industries and schools,

we get one-third of the wages men get for the same work.

What sort of work do they do?

They work at putting together matchboxes.

Their fingers are burned by the phosphorus.

How much do they earn?

One crown a day.

How old are the children?

The oldest is 14. The youngest girl is 12.

The most important thing in art

is its own means, like colour.

It doesn't matter what you paint. You can paint horse dung.

- Then you paint for yourself? - The colour must be a joy to see.

Who wants to look at horse dung?

The paint can be an aesthetic pleasure for you.

But the public need not regard it as an aesthetic pleasure.

He must concentrate on art!

People must undergo an experience looking at art.

But which people? The bourgeoisie.

They can afford

to buy works of art.

But what about those who queue for food?

"To Norway, giants' native land Let's drink this toast of honour"

There has been a lot of illness

and death in our family.

Mamma died of tuberculosis when she was 30 years old

and Granny died of the same disease when she was 36.

I have a dream of founding a school for young women

who are morally confined.

Just look at the bourgeoisie

and all the middle-class girls that suffer from anaemia.

It's a good cause. I mean... founding a school for them

and teaching them to develop their feeling for love.

They can become capable of feeling.

All the virtuous little misses

will trip down the Karl Johan.

His father walked back and forth. He kept his hands clasped.

I consider marriage

to be based on something which is completely impossible for me.

One is obliged to love another human being all one's life.

It seems utterly absurd. No one can order me

to love someone I have grown to hate.

What do you think of the Bohemians' conduct?

One might characterise their conduct as follows:

I consider it to be extremely unprepossessing

and a distinct danger for certain easily influenced souls.

I'm not talking about prostitutes but human beings who can love.

The only thing they seem capable of is so-called free love.

But rabbits are capable of that too.

"I love you, love you. Take me, kiss me, hold me and then

"embrace me, hug me so that I never breathe again.

"Your kiss is so fiery tonight.

"Fever takes you in command.

"Your tears run slowly down and burn into my hand."

"Do you think that I've tired of you?

"Oh no! Smile happily as you did before.

"Stay with me tonight.

"Let my arm curl close about your waist."

How were sexual matters

dealt with in your home?

They weren't dealt with at all.

Everything was kept secret around me.

I understood nothing until it was too late.

In her testament, Mamma asked us to be good

and to love Jesus.

I try to obey my lusts.

We have only one life and

we must develop our ability to feel and to love.

Sophie, shall we sing a Christmas carol?

Four of Granny's eight children died before they were 16.

The Kristiania Bohemians say, "Thou shalt

take thine own life." What are your views on that?

I think it is wrong.

We don't have a right to throw away the lives God has given us.

They should be used for Him and our lives do have a meaning.

Tell us about his work.

Edvard Munch is a talented young painter.

But he's more interested

in painting light and shadow than social conditions.

What sort of a person is he?

Very reticent, almost aristocratically so

which creates a distance to the other members of the group.

We must take part in

what is happening around us

and, what with poverty and need and children who have to work,

we must join forces with the people

not with the bourgeoisie.

Painters mustn't be led astray by new ideas...

My Lord!

...but sacrifice themselves for their painting.

Painting?

Yes, but his painting emerges from his own person.

He is the one who paints.

So art must express the subjective view

of the artist on reality.

Edvard, my brother,

almost died too from the same disease.

Lord God, I beg you...

Has all the suffering

in your family affected your faith?

I don't think it's for me to interfere in God's will.

He loves us and we must be grateful.

"Our Father who art in Heaven

"Hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdom come

"Thy will be done in earth As it is in Heaven."

Munch's family is puritan.

Everyone who's seen his father knows that.

When he's with us

he has to go home for family evening prayer!

"Lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

"For Thine is the kingdom The power and the glory

"For ever.

"Amen."

- Have you met his family? - I've not seen him pray either.

He sits there like a monk!

It was distressing for the older children

to see so much illness and death.

Are you sick?

"If anyone worships the beast's image

"and receives a mark on his forehead or hand

"he shall drink the wine of God's wrath

"poured unmixed into the cup of his anger

"and he shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels."

To be free on Sundays I have to work 17 to 18 hours the other days.

It's hard work.

Some of my friends, after working hours,

make so little that they often take to the streets.

Look at prostitution in Kristiania today.

According to Christian morals there is no prostitution today.

It's typical that prostitution is controlled by the police.

But you're for making people live on prostitution.

No. In my society there is no room for prostitution.

It's the bourgeoisie who gain from prostitution.

Yet bourgeois morals do not allow it to exist:

"Thou shallt not commit adultery."

What are your views on marriage?

In my opinion

marriage is an incalculably important and necessary institution

which undoubtedly forms the foundation

of our social and cultural structure.

Without marriage, rootless and chaotic conditions would arise

which in turn, I fear,

might easily lead to anarchy.

In brief, if we want to maintain peace and order,

it is essential to support and expand our institutions.

The way society is today, if one marries and has a wife,

she is just as prostituted as "the girls from Viken".

Sit there.

Those who are prostituted are excluded from society

by the same people...

Lean back.

...who've put them in that situation.

That's the bourgeoisie's love of humanity.

A little wider. Raise your feet higher.

- Name and address. - Line Pedersen.

When I ask for your name, I want your surname first.

- Pedersen. - Name...

Pedersen.

Because of my illness, I'm grateful for the girls in Viken

but I don't use them any more than Mr Average uses his wife.

To me marriage is legal prostitution.

You can go now.

I assume the present assembly

is well aware of who it is

that uses prostitutes: The bourgeoisie and the police.

Once, when Grandfather came home from a business trip,

he found Granny behind a screen together with

three dead children.

Hello.

You live quite close to here? Then we're neighbours.

- Will you visit me one day? - I'd like to.

Some ladies are visiting today. Perhaps tomorrow?

- Aren't you hungry? - Yes, I am hungry.

Beautiful landscape here.

It's so blue.

All the things he'd wanted to say! He felt awkward and afraid.

They walked on in silence. His cheeks burned.

She spent time in bed

coughing into a handkerchief.

Did blood come this time too?

- I kissed you. Are you angry? - No.

Kissed your neck...

If you're angry, you can beat me.

I'm not angry.

Perhaps you'll let me kiss your mouth?

I'm in a fortunate position, married with no children.

One is free when one is married and has no children.

But what about your husband?

He's nice. He lets me do as I please.

- Is he as nice as that? - He's awfully nice.

I probably hurt him but I can't help it. I have to.

Stand still like that. Let me see you.

How picturesque you are in this light.

I'm so restless at night. I can't sleep.

I have such dreadful dreams.

I sleepwalk. I have such a longing to come to you.

I do so like the dark. I can't stand the light.

It should be like tonight. So mysterious.

I could do the most awful things in the dark. Anything.

He looked at the worn steps.

He remembered all he had heard about her,

all the lovers who had passed here and quarrelled with her husband.

He looked well, he thought.

It was so heavy and dark and subdued.

He'd heard she usually lay on the couch all morning.

The light in here was favourable.

Have you seen how the hair grows out of his ears?

Now he felt shy.

He could find nothing to say.

When they were near he felt that she waited for him

to throw his arms about her.

We got these last spring. They were rather expensive.

But he thought it was... he felt cold.

It was the same shyness.

He longed to be out in the fresh air.

This is where my husband works. He's very orderly.

Daddy, what I'm spitting up is so dark.

Everything has its place.

I made that for him.

- Shall we go out? - No, I can't.

Perhaps this evening?

It's blood, Daddy.

I don't want to!

He stroked his head. Don't be afraid, my son.

I don't want to!

What? Don't you want to? Come here.

Are you crazy?

Don't be so frightened.

What a wretched idiot you are.

A cowardly wretch!

Why are you so set on becoming a great painter?

You're going to die anyway. Then you'll be gone.

How quiet it is in the forest.

Imagine living here, not alone but with someone else.

It's so mysterious here.

Shouldn't he sit a little closer?

But he remained where he was, staring at Mrs Heiberg.

At table Petra said,

"I saw you talk to Mrs Heiberg.

"Wasn't it Mrs Heiberg?"

"Yes," he said carelessly and reddened.

"She looks dull," his father said. "She behaves badly to her husband."

People talk so much.

What a ridiculous dream

it has been all these years.

A great painter... It's better than being a doctor.

But, compared to a king, it's nothing.

And a king is no more than a tiny microbe.

I've started work on a few canvases

and there is one of them I think

I can get something out of.

I think it is going to be

a good painting. I'm already very pleased with it.

I've been thinking of you.

In the colours especially, I can develop myself.

It's something new. As I said, I think it will be good.

Is something troubling you?

I do have a lot on my mind. I have worries too.

I have my work to think of.

The beautiful pale face with its soft full mouth,

half closed eyes and throat.

He had to own it again,

to look into those eyes, so often hard.

Sophie and Edvard...

I shall soon be leaving you

and I'm so afraid of what will happen to our family.

That's why I want to talk to you

and I hope you can promise me

to take care of Laura, Andreas and Inger

so that I can go to heaven with an easy mind.

- Will you promise me, Sophie? - Yes, Mamma.

- Will you promise me, Edvard? - Yes, Mamma.

I feel you in here very strongly.

- Have you had physical relationships? - Many.

Do you feel that you've fulfilled yourself as a human being?

I try. But there are many obstacles.

- Do you achieve satisfaction? - Now but not before.

When one is born one knows nothing.

One is surrounded by adults one looks up to,

adults full of words and prejudices.

Particularly in my family which is very bourgeois.

I was filled with lots of admonitions.

You mustn't do this. Do that.

Things that I wanted to do

were considered wrong and conflicts arose.

I've been thinking of you all night. I haven't slept.

A plate was broken today.

Was it you?

- No, it was Sophie. - Sophie, did you do it?

No. Edvard.

- Sophie, was it you? - No. Edvard.

"I went down on my knees

"and stretched my hands with my gaze resting on her eyes.

"Her eyes retained their shy expression.

"Then at once they grew large and tender.

"And she drew me up to her, put her arms about me

"and rested her head against my shoulders.

"I leaned my head against hers and kissed her black hair."

"She lay there with her head back and her beautiful throat exposed.

"I kissed it and wanted to carry her to the bed.

"But the touch of her soft limbs

"took all strength from my arms."

And that married woman - you shouldn't be seen with her.

Have you got something besides your work to think of?

I feel much calmer. I sleep at night too.

That's fine.

You know that I need you.

I'm so happy you came.

What wonderful lips you have.

I waited for half an hour on the Karl Johan.

And when at last she came

she simply walked past.

She scarcely looked at me.

It's a good thing I don't like her any more.

When I try to live according to what is right for me

and try to find my freedom and live according to my rules,

the only thing the bourgeoisie are interested in

is how many love affairs I have.

Only my friends look at and talk about what I do...

talk about my paintings.

She talked about how he had not greeted her on the street,

how she was just as good as other ladies.

Look at Mrs Pettersen who went with the lieutenant to Paris.

It made him shudder to hear of her affection.

Her hand was large and coarse. She placed her cheek against his.

He turned his head away

so their mouths didn't meet.

She was too repulsive.

I'm so glad you came.

I saw you out with another man.

Just a friend.

Just a friend?

I'd been waiting half an hour and you walked straight past!

I was with Lt. Lund.

He's just a friend.

Don't shout.

Everybody can hear.

Damn it, I have hundreds of things to think of. This can't go on!

I waited for more than half an hour!

- Who was it? - The banker.

Perhaps if I tell her that it's all my fault...

Perhaps then she'll like me...

If I tell her I could die for her...

This is nothing to laugh at!

Don't take it so much to heart.

There are plenty of women with her qualities.

I find it difficult to know what life I should lead.

Even if I try to live freely with men, they don't change.

They consider that a woman should behave

in such-and-such a way, which I can't do.

It's long past midnight

and you're out every evening.

Will you answer?

- Don't push me! - Are you drunk?

What do you do when you're out?

He's just a friend.

This can't go on!

I feel that if ever I am to find myself

I can't adapt myself to their standards.

Men I am with, who say that they are free,

have beliefs too, which obstruct my freedom.

In fact I don't even know what my freedom is.

I can't take any more of this. You know that!

We mustn't speak to each other like this. We mustn't.

You're a human being in a society oppressed

by standards and prejudices in every direction.

Painters can't take notice of political programmes.

You have to paint something as you see it.

You can't sit down and paint details.

If you come from a bedroom into the living room in the morning

and see everything as if in a bluish light,

even the darkest shadows,

that's how you should paint it. As you see it.

Colour means a great deal. Colour is the mainstay of painting.

Mood as well.

She let herself be drawn closer. Right up against him.

He held her gently about the waist. She reached up towards him.

He felt a warm mouth against his throat, a wet mouth against his

and his mouth slipped in towards hers.

"A feeling of sweet impotence poured over my shoulders

"and flowed through my limbs.

"I knelt and pressed her tight against me

"and kissed her uncovered throat like one possessed."

Something I don't understand occurs again and again

and that is that a relationship starts strongly.

And I know what passion is.

I don't know what love is but I know what passion is.

The odd thing is that it begins with the feeling

that all is worthless

without this one person.

We should not have spoken of it.

And gradually, without you noticing what is happening,

this person becomes the one who holds you back.

She looked into my eyes with her fair hair

and her pale, delicate skin.

We had a good time when last we met, didn't we?

- I like you. - You're sweet.

I've been thinking of you.

The whole time.

- I like you too. - How beautiful you are.

You're strange.

But you're a fine person. You're sweet.

What do you think of women

who have extra-marital relationships?

In my opinion a woman is and ought to be a defenceless

and beautiful little being, both in body and soul,

who needs the protection and security

of a man.

If you think this is funny, it's...

She smiled with her pale lips and white teeth.

We suit each other, don't we? You're so strange, Munch.

I received a copy of the book from the police in Kristiania

with certain parts underlined.

I telegraphed at once to ask all the police commissioners

to stop publication of the book.

In this part the lead character in the book

addresses himself to a very young girl,

so young that she could be his daughter.

She is sitting on his knee.

This will give you an idea of what it's about.

"Listen, I said to her while I patted her on the cheek.

"Let's have a sensible little chat.

"Do you know what this is? I had taken a condom from my pocket.

"No, she said. Well, I'll tell you..."

"...and it doesn't pass through because...

"And I blew up the condom. Not even air passes through."

I could read more but I think that suffices.

Does imprisonment influence your work?

No, it has no influence whatsoever.

That good people, who use literature for diversion,

scream and cross themselves means nothing. I knew they would.

It provokes the bourgeoisie who live their cozy, false life.

It provokes them to see free women.

Everything outside the fence they have raised around themselves

is so terrifying for them

except perhaps in their dreams, when they indulge in fantasies.

But, because I live openly and freely,

I think they become terrified.

The so-called free women we're always hearing about,

they can't be quite normal

but they can become normal if they discover their real capacity.

Half an hour before she came

and she just smiles as she passes by...

with another man.

Oh, damn!

Finally I finished, exhausted.

I had brought out a lot of the first impression,

the trembling mouth,

the transparent shine and the tired eyes

but the colours were not finished.

It was pale and grey. The painting was heavy as lead.

The public won't accept that sort of madness.

When one passes

people stand laughing at the painting.

Some people always set themselves up as guardians over others.

In literature they decide what is decent and indecent.

A human life is decent

but writing about human sexual life is indecent.

As long as I can write,

I'll combat society and its rules to create a society

in which literature is free.

Who has the right to stop anyone writing about his emotional life?

No one!

The best way to judge Munch's picture is to see it at a distance.

The colours and contours appear most clearly on cloudy days.

If one really wants to get a better impression

of this extremely strange painting,

one should look at it like this, between two fingers.

I'm faltering. I think I am falling.

But he has been lured into throwing away his talent

in such a useless way

and encouraged to follow this path which leads nowhere.

I have no feeling in my legs. They won't carry me.

Everyone passing looks alien and strange.

I think they are all staring at me.

My whole body is shaking.

Sweat pours from me.

I have received an anonymous letter in my capacity as critic

in which the writer claims to see nothing but meaninglessness

and an attempt to be original in Munch's work.

All I can say to this person is that he get himself

a new pair of eyes.

Anyone who can't see that here we have a great

and genuine talent, has no right

to judge art at all.

I want life, that which is alive.

What do I care whether the chair is properly made?

What I wanted to bring out is what cannot be measured.

The tired movement in the eyes, in the eyelids.

The lips must seem to have whispered something.

It must have been painted by one almost mentally deranged

who sees hallucinations as if in a fever.

I lay down on a sofa in the corner. I lay half asleep.

I hated them for looking at me.

It is possible that Munch can speak in some way or other

to those with a sick emotional life.

But I think it's one of the most dreadful things I've ever seen.

One would have expected that a painter who presents his paintings

at a public exhibition, would respect people's taste

in a totally different way.

Why do you think I shouted so angrily

and said I couldn't see you again?

It was because you lied!

It's your inaccessibility that makes me so angry!

You said I shouldn't come so often.

Yes, but then I didn't know how much I liked you.

You've forgotten me now. You have someone else.

I love you.

If I'd only known that you went to somebody else to punish me.

It's the uncertainty that makes me so nervous, so furious.

You demand more and more love from me.

Don't you understand I can't give you more than I have?

The moment you show your feelings, it seems like

you want to take something stolen back.

Is it for your art you save yourself?

You need a woman and yet you don't want one.

I like you but we really can't meet like this.

You follow me everywhere. You plague me.

Jealousy is possessiveness.

Your jealousy is driving me to other love affairs.

You can't own a woman.

It's impossible.

They kiss each other, just now, at this moment,

and she says she is fond of him.

Hidden behind the stairs, she whispers to the lieutenant

the same words as she previously whispered to him.

Do you want to hold my hand? I'm so alone.

No, not here.

You know that I like you, but...

...more as a friend.

Friendship is...

Friendship is so little. Life is short.

This is very serious. We should notify them.

I don't know where they live.

I feel so young.

I try to see life optimistically.

We have different views on life.

You seem a little gloomy.

You seem weak, a little tired of life.

I don't want to kiss you.

They looked at each other without speaking.

At that moment he had a feeling that life's greatest happiness

had slipped from his grasp.

There were tears in her eyes.

Have you seen Miss C. since she married?

I expect things are difficult for you.

It must feel strange when you think of her.

Why has Munch's work changed so much since The Sick Child?

I can only guess something must have happened to him,

which made him lose faith in himself and his art,

poor criticism and other factors.

Society accepts that a man has a mistress

but, if a woman has a lover, it's quite different.

Later perhaps... Perhaps we can meet then.

Everything could be different.

We mustn't take it so casually.

If I marry, I must live for my husband.

A woman often marries because she needs to be supported.

She can't earn what she needs to live.

What was she thinking as she sleepwalked along?

A Madonna-like beauty.

That's the way it goes, year after year, a sort of trap.

Having now promised to live together in matrimony

and vouchsafed it before God and this congregation, I declare you...

Was she now thinking also of the pale man behind the column?

...and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

What God has joined together,

let no man put asunder.

She forced her way between me and my ideal,

my art!

Yet I can't stop loving her.

I can't put up with

any more of her lies!

Her love is poisonous!

She has feelings, too.

I don't give a damn!

Damn it, I said to her, you're lying on white sheets.

Your body will be deformed by disease and rot.

You're going to die ugly and stinking!

I'll laugh while I drink wine with beautiful women.

My joy will be even greater than the despair she brought.

I shall laugh, laugh, laugh!

We wish to thank the men, women and children

of Oslo and Åsgårdstrand who appear in this film.

We are very grateful for invaluable help from

Additional thanks

We wish to thank the staff at the Munch Museum in Oslo

without whose help this film could not have been made.

Directed and Edited by PETER WATKINS and written in collaboration

with the cast, many of whom express their own opinions.

Dr Munch's death was a hard blow to the family.

We had just moved to Hauketo

and Dr Munch liked it very much out here.

The Sunday before he became ill

we took a walk home from the church

and the rest of us could not keep pace with him.

There is a city in the city, the city of the dead.

There the graves lie side by side.

There you'll find hovels and palaces.

There quiet people live, the dead.

It's a popular city.

The bones make way for new.

What does it matter if one dies?

"Naught but sorrow and torment, misery and strife.

"There is not much more to be had from life.

"You pay a price too high for joys too brief.

"Our pleasures are bought by torment and grief.

"If to love's pleasure your body surrenders

"The source of all pains a new life is engendered."

When I light the lamp

I suddenly see my own enormous shadow

over the entire wall

up to the ceiling.

In the mirror above the fireplace I see myself

the face of my own ghost

and I live with the dead.

All it said was, "Dearest, come at 8 o'clock tomorrow."

I stared at each letter, each stain, for the marks of her fingers.

Did she love me or was she pretending?

Did she love me or the other or both at the same time?

"You are the vampire

"which sucks my sparkling blood,

"from the channels of my heart

"with icy draining looks.

"My body glows like desert sand burned and charred

"and the dry Sirocco of madness rages

"and my blood flows."

We didn't even know each other and yet was it because

she took my first kiss that she took the fragrance of life from me?

Was it because she lied and deceived

that she suddenly

took the scales from my eyes?

There was to be no more painting interiors, people reading and knitting

but living people who breathe, feel, suffer and love.

She closes her eyes and listens

to the words he whispers into her long hair.

I'd depict it as I saw it now, but in the blue haze.

I remember something Munch once said a couple of years ago.

He had discovered that the Greeks regarded death as blue.

It says somewhere in The Iliad, "Blue death closes his eyes."

"Here in the grey gloomy North," Munch said, "we see death as black.

"But in sunny Hellas they regard it as blue.

"Why shouldn't it be blue?"

Those at home, my aunt, my brother and sisters

think that death is just sleep,

that my father sees and hears.

On Monday he suffered a stroke and within a few days

he lost the power of speech and then consciousness.

Now and then we think he recognised us for he smiled and pressed our hands.

I can do nothing but let my sorrow run out

into the dawn and into the dusk.

The use of the first person in literature is introversive art

which breaks with naturalism in a psychological, mysterious way.

Things can be said in the first person which were unsaid before.

This form

is born of a desire to get right to the bottom

of the human being, or the mood one is faced with.

It becomes like a vision or hallucination

and it would be strange

if this form of intensity did not make people shudder and tremble

and listen to what the poet wants to say.

There is a rupture between the comprehensive view of realism

and the new personal form. Art for the sake of art

and for the satisfaction of the artist.

At last someone is willing to listen to the heart.

This painting which is called Night

makes such demands on one's ability to guess

that few people go to the trouble of studying it more closely.

The atmosphere around the painting is so faintly designated

that it seems to disappear before one can grasp it.

The painter himself follows his own path in a misty

and shapeless world of dreams.

Munch is primarily

a lyric poet in colour.

He feels colours, feels in colours but he does not see them.

He sees sorrow

and crying and brooding

and withering.

"The river flows so slowly Flows and flows and flows.

"And daylight goes, goes.

"Night will soon be here.

"The light shines out of my room.

"Turns to regard me in silence and in anxiety.

"It knows he is coming."

Was it that she was so much more beautiful than others?

No, I don't even know if she was beautiful.

Her mouth was big. She could be ugly.

In my article in the Mercure de France

I refer to this work by Gauguin.

I explain that it is the duty of the new artist to choose between

the numerous elements which make up objectivity.

He is also entitled to distort, to emphasise,

to exaggerate line, form and colour

in accordance with his personal vision

and individual subjectivity.

She was affected, a liar and a whore!

There seem to be rules demanding that women sacrifice themselves.

The best thing one can say about a woman

is that she is self-sacrificing.

I can't put up with it anymore.

I am so fond of her but why is she so angry with me?

It's so difficult at times.

I know that I lose control.

I wonder if something

is going on between her and Jæger. What shall I do then?

At any rate, I believe that the idea must be

to live according to

one's particular possibilities,

that one has a duty to develop

these possibilities,

that one has a duty to expand oneself,

to acquire more knowledge, a greater breadth.

I think that leads to greater freedom in the long run.

Look how she's on top of it all.

Cheerful and smiling, while the men all lie and perish.

Not everyone can have feelings for each other all their lives.

When a relationship no longer works, one should be able to break it off

before it changes to bitterness and gnawing hate.

I walked along the road with two friends.

The sun went down.

I felt it like a melancholy sigh.

Suddenly the sky became blood red.

I stopped.

I leaned against the fence, tired to death.

I saw the flaming sky

like blood, like a sword over the fjord and the town.

My friends continued on. I stood there shaking in anguish.

I felt it like

a great endless scream through nature.

The entire exhibition is a mockery.

Every painting!

The man must be mad.

The colours are so unnatural.

We haven't had a revolution!

Just think of people's reaction! To invite someone who...

This rubbish doesn't belong here.

We must be united on objective grounds.

That's nonsense! No!

We'll withdraw from the Society

if the exhibition is closed down.

I went to the Rotunda for a laugh.

But, by God, I didn't laugh.

I found a great deal that was strange, even disgusting

but I also found tones that were delicate, almost too sensitive.

A dark room washed through with moonlight.

Lonely roads.

The secretive Norwegian summer night.

I felt as though I heard the breathing of melancholy people

struggling with their problems.

No sound came from their breasts.

They sat alone by the shore.

By God, I did not laugh.

There are paintings everywhere in Munch's hotel room,

on the sofa, on the cupboard and on all the chairs,

even on the stove and on the washbasin.

I have little faith in your struggle

for emancipation.

The equality which you strive for means that I cut off my penis

and you put it into yourself and then we're all equal.

Right now all women hate Buddhas,

hate and humiliate them,

well knowing that they will never become Buddhas.

On the other hand, she feels a sort of instinctive sympathy

for beggars, braggarts, liars and dogs,

especially mangy ones.

Being married is the only way women have to survive.

You simply can't exist without a man.

If we leave you, you fall like ninepins.

You want the women

submitted to you.

I can manage with or without them.

- Are you sure? - Absolutely.

Why is there a woman beside you then?

I do as I please.

Not the slightest artistic tradition

or affinity with accepted artistic ideals

can be found in Blunch or his colleagues.

"I run on. I am filled with increasing anguish.

"No one speaks to one another. No one smiles at one another.

"They rush off as though whipped."

So it is difficult to distinguish a human form

or even to determine the nature of an object at all.

But he was so frightened.

He felt the blood run through his chest.

When he breathed it felt as though his chest had come loose

and all his blood poured through his mouth.

Jesus Christ!

I feel better now.

May I look out the window?

God bless you, my child.

- Something to drink? - Yes, please.

Do you have a nice hotel room?

What do you think of the girls?

Perhaps you'd like a chubby girl?

In her will

Mother asked us

to be good

and to love Jesus.

We all had to promise her

that we would go on believing in Jesus.

I am so fond of the dark.

Is it the whole night or only half an hour?

The night.

30 marks, please.

Good you have time.

It's much better.

Thank you.

"A kiss, a kiss is not a sin."

I need you.

Well, Strindberg?

What do you think of love and marriage?

Have you known love in marriage?

- I can't see my children. - Do you miss your children?

- Yes, very much. - Is that love?

All women are bloody whores.

It's so calm.

May I kiss you?

Do you sleep better now?

The last Sunday Pappa and I went up Liabrubakken to church

I remember that I said, "You're very like Edvard today."

"Am I?" he replied happily and straightened himself up.

Look what I bought from Helgelandsmoen, Edvard.

Is it wine? It doesn't look very good.

When he comes home at night, he often starts to paint

and if you visit him in the morning, you may trip over a palette

and a new painting in some crazy position.

Did you know how I suffered? Did you understand why I was hard?

I wasn't myself. She was in me, in my blood.

Inger promised for all of us

that we'd be true to God.

A man can't live

more than three or four years with the same woman.

One must make new discoveries.

By loving one, can't we love many at the same time?

You want to be men,

not human beings.

One should strive to be a human being.

Both men and women derive strength

from being united in front of everyone.

Women have become more and more manly.

They strive for humanity but in that they see only manliness.

Has anyone tried to love a woman who walks like a man,

talks like a man, moves like a man?

It's like loving a man who acts like a woman.

Disgusting!

He was very happy that Edvard had received the scholarship.

But he was sorry he had forgotten to send Edvard's Bible.

I've written to Edvard to say he must buy one.

It's far too dangerous to share a woman with another man.

If a man mounts a woman who has just been with another man,

the preceding man's sperm will enter the organ of the man now mounting her.

You're disfiguring yourself! You'll die. Ugly and stinking.

And I, I shall drink wine with exultant women.

I shall laugh

even more!

This can't go on. I can't put up with any more.

Emotions. I can't have emotions.

I wait and then she comes and simply walks past with a smile.

"I look. I look at the white sky.

"I look at the grey-blue clouds. I look at the bloody sun.

"So this is the world. This is the home of the planets.

"A drop of rain.

"I look at the high buildings.

"I look at the thousand windows, at the distant church spire.

"So this is the world. So this is the home of mankind.

"The grey-blue clouds gather. The sun disappears.

"I look at well-dressed gentlemen. I look at smiling ladies.

"I look at leaning horses and the grey-blue clouds grow heavy.

"I look. I look.

"I must have come to the wrong globe. Everything is so strange."

I placed the paintings together and it was as though

each was connected to the others.

Then came a tone, a musical tone, linking the pictures together.

So, if a relationship between two people is to be sound

and I think it can be so

even if not for ever,

it must be based on mutual regard,

on tolerance.

I have a friend who got married.

After two months he was a mess!

As if his wife

had drawn his teeth.

And his wife, then?

She was a dreadful bitch!

That's what she was!

Wasn't she disappointed?

She took everything from him. She treated him like a dog.

She said come and he came. She said go

and he wanted to go.

We had to pull him out of her embrace

from between her breasts.

His eyes were quite ashen. They were empty!

She was a dreadful bitch!

You talk about your friend.

How do you think his wife felt after an unsuccessful relationship?

Has she emerged from it proudly, undamaged? Is she not marked?

She is thriving.

English doctors have proved that, if two children lie together,

the weaker will absorb strength from the stronger.

Which of them loses by it? In bed, I mean.

The stronger.

And the male is

the one who is stronger?

Yes.

Who did he get those ideas from?

Why does he see things like that?

I don't understand.

If you love a woman and she loves you

it's a reciprocal relationship.

The tension which passes from one to the other

also goes in the opposite direction.

I can't understand him.

But the future...

Must there be a struggle between the sexes?

Must it be man against woman, woman against man?

Since our souls were saved together for Jesus' sake,

God be with you, Sophie,

little pale Edvard, Andreas

and Inger

and you, my kind, dear, unforgettable self-sacrificing husband.

I have also written something to Edvard, my eldest son.

"Do not covet that which is on earth,

"but rather that which is in heaven.

"Keep watch and pray.

"Your mother."

I can't go on.

Colours, brushwork and lines express so much.

They're fantastic. No artist can compete with him.

To be honest, I don't like these paintings at all.

I'm no art expert but they don't say anything to me.

I don't like his art at all.

So unnatural, the colours are not natural. Blue trees...

I don't like it.

His figures are no more than suggested.

Munch makes a powerful impression on me.

He reflects a great deal of humanity in his paintings

and shows brutal reality,

as life is.

I'm a compatriot of Munch and I've heard it said of him

that he's an awful, dreadful man. But I like it.

He says something about human beings

and he speaks to me.

I know a little about the situation. I feel that he speaks the truth.

This is how I really believe it is.

I met a young woman

on the street one evening.

Her eyes attracted me.

They were large childish eyes.

I looked at her. She turned and we walked together.

"Do you want to come up?" I said.

In my room she seemed a little shabbily dressed.

Her face was a little harrowed but her eyes

were beautiful.

"Why did you come with me?" I said.

"That's why I walk the streets."

"Then you'll come tomorrow?"

"Yes."

She hid the flowers.

Neither her sister or father had noticed.

They would have laughed.

He thought of her all day.

She looked tired.

But she was kind.

Was it true?

Sorrow... Sunset...

What would I not give if only I could once

put my arms about him and tell him how fond of him I am.

Shyness always came between us.

He had a stroke on Monday evening and died three days later.

The book written by Meier-Graefe,

Przybyszewski and the two other critics

becomes a milestone

in understanding Edvard Munch's work.

A paraphrase of a line by Goethe

provides the best formula

for the impression which it radiates:

"Here and now

"a new phase begins in the history of art

"and you can say that you witnessed it."

"How dark it grew at once.

"How vast and black the sky grew.

"Endless, listening, the stillness of death.

"Close, close and far, far away.

"How dark it grew. Stay with me tonight.

"My soul is frightened and anxious.

"The dark holds

"such strange shadows

"and the stillness such strange tones.

"My friends leave and I sit alone, deep into the night.

"What grows bright over the mountains?

"What glows over the sea? What glints in the dark?

"What burns in the wind?

"Not clouds against the red sky.

"Not the reflected light of a dead day.

"It is fire which licks and blood which runs.

"A fiery sword and a fire-red river.

"It is the anguish of doomsday and the torments of death.

"A scripture which blazes through the halls of night.

"With the mysterious anguish of life.

"Deep in the night I sat alone.

"I felt how a pain-filled scream

"passed over the Godforsaken world."

All the others, some with faces red from tears and others white,

rang in Christmas, while outside the bells tolled.

In the other room stood the Christmas tree,

so gay and so sad.

Jesus, help me.

Will I go to heaven if I die?

I think so, my boy, if you have faith.

Can't you stay? It's so lovely here.

- No, I can't. - Don't you want to?

No.

How strange you are. Not like others.

He slept little that night. His lips burned.

He pressed his hand against them. He was back amongst the trees.

He felt again

how she gave way,

how everything disappeared

and the tickling softness against his mouth.

How often have you sat at home

and waited for your wife, listened for every step?

She said she was going to meet a woman friend...

a woman friend she seldom met.

This is amongst

the worst I've seen. I don't understand any of it.

The colours are so ugly.

Besides, it's highly immoral.

One almost has to sneak in by the backdoor.

How can a young man who looks so nice create things like this?

One can't take one's family along and enjoy the art.

I don't advocate censorship but why should this be exhibited?

Children might see them.

Abroad people will wonder what sort of morals we have.

It's not just ugly.

He paints such unpleasant things

that one doesn't speak of, at least my husband and me.

I regard this as something which must come to an end.

Munch seeks peculiarity, mystery in everything he sees.

He sees the world in wave-lines, trees, shorelines,

female hair, trembling bodies.

Like no other Norwegian painter,

Munch aims at making our innermost tremble.

Your paper has mentioned Munch's paintings as

"confused and inarticulate, dreadful

or nauseating distortions."

Yes.

Isn't that rather strong language?

Yes, it is. What we feel for Munch's painting is expressed

in a footnote I added personally to our review:

"It is true the public is annoyed by these disgusting works.

"How regrettable then that such exhibitions draw full houses.

"An empty gallery would best control these extravagances."

I agree with Aftenposten. This is not art, it is dirt.

Look at these streets.

Human creatures set upon one another.

Buses run with countless human souls.

They look indifferently on the happy man, alone outside.

Did you notice me much before?

Yes, I often looked at you.

I thought you looked like Christ.

Sit here.

We wish to thank the men, women and children

of Oslo and Åsgårdstrand who appear in this film.

Director of Photography

Lighting Supervisors Sound Supervisors

Production Designer Properties Supervisor

Costume Design Make-Up

Production Manager

We are very grateful for invaluable help from

Additional thanks

We wish to thank the staff at the Munch Museum in Oslo

without whose help this film could not have been made.

Directed and Edited by PETER WATKINS and written in collaboration

with the cast, many of whom express their own opinions.