Edvard Munch

Peter Watkins (The War Game, Punishment Park) produced more than just a film biography of the iconic Norwegian expressionist painter Munch. In his masterful television film, Watkins initially focused on Munch”s formative years in Kristiania (now Oslo) in the late 19th century, to continue with a lively portrait of the emotional, political and social upheavals to have influenced his art.

As a young artist Munch (Geir Westby) had an affair with a married woman, Mrs Heiberg (Gro Fraas), which was to leave a lasting mark on him. Both the critics and the general public scorched his work, and he was forced to leave his native country for Berlin, where together with the celebrated Swedish playwright August Strindberg he became part of the cultural storm that swept Europe.

The cast mostly consists of non-professional actors. By carefully studying Munch”s unpublished diaries and periodicals, Watkins managed to reconstruct the painter”s creative process as well as his anxieties, his inhibitions and his desires. The docudrama covers three decades in the life of Munch, focusing on the external influences that shaped his art. The illnesses and deaths that affected his family and his youthful affair with the married Mrs Heiberg especially left their mark in his paintings.