Hitchcock (2012) or, When Hitchcock Made Psycho

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A formidable cast assemble on this scarlet red poster full of slanted angles and promises of fine entertainment, - for Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock, arguably the world's best filmmaker, feels a metal fatigue after his successful thriller North by Northwest (1959), and in an attempt to recapture the experimental freedom of youth again, he throws himself into making a film about the world's most gruesome serial killer, Wisconsinite Ed Gein. 

Hitchcock is written by John J. McLaughlin (Death Collector (1988)), adapting the non-fiction book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho (1990) by Stephen Rebello (Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! (2020)), and directed by great English filmmaker, debuting Sacha Gervasi (Anvil (2008, documentary)).

Somehow I still feel that good old Hitch deserves a more epic treatment for a biopic than this, - but I may be wrong... In any case Hitchcock is darned well-made, and it specifically concerns an inarguably important period in the master's life.

Helen Mirren (The Clearing (2004)) is excellent as Alma Reville, whom this film credits as the capable, rock-solid support at her husband's side through thick and thin, and Anthony Hopkins (A Chorus of Disapproval (1989)) has a late star turn in his remarkable career here. He is expectedly perfect, - in formidable makeup and prosthetics, - as Alfred Hitchcock. Scarlett Johansson (The Spirit (2008)) is delightful as Janet Leigh, and so is Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name (2017)) as Lew Wasserman. Danny Huston (Hotel (2001)) is ideal as a friendly scribe. Danny Elfman (Dumbo (2019)) has spun an appropriately cinematic score.

Hitchcock is a luxurious gift from Hollywood: Funny, sharp, moving (the portrayal of Reville and Hitchcock's marriage) and a captivating, great story. The premiere scene in the end is especially satisfying. In hindsight it feels like Hitch erected a Freudian Gobelin for the unprepared masses with Psycho (1960). Both to him and the good people behind Hitchcock; bravo!

 

Related post:

 

Top 10: Best Hollywood-set movies

Watch a short trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 15 mil. $

Box office: 27 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.8 times its cost)

[Hitchcock premiered 1 November (AFI Fest, US) and runs 98 minutes. Mirren had met Hitchcock and been offered a murder victim part in his penultimate film Frenzy (1972) but had turned it down (and later regretted it.) Development began in 2005, first as a miniseries. Shooting took place from April - June 2012 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #22 to a 287k $ first weekend in 17 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #13 in 561 theaters and grossed 6 mil. $ (22.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Colombia with 4.9 mil. $ (18.1 %), - but this seems like it must be a mistake, since Colombia is not normally a sizable market, - and Australia with 3.7 mil. $ (13.7 %). The film was nominated for the Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar, lost to Les Misérables. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs and a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Gervasi returned with November Criminals (2017). Hopkins returned in RED 2 (2013); Mirren in Phil Spector (2013, TV movie), with a voice performance in Monsters University (2013) and in the flesh in The Audience (2013); Johansson in Don Jon (2013). Hitchcock is fresh at 60 % with a 6.20/10 average rating at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hitchcock?

Hannibal - season 2 (2014) - More twisted twists in Fuller's busy baccanale

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Hugh Dancy is locked away with extreme prejudice on this bright poster for the second season of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal

FBI special investigator Will Graham has been placed in a psychiatric hospital and is suspected in several murder cases. Though in an impaired state, Graham is grappling with the understanding that his former psychiatrist and confidante Hannibal Lecter may be the real culprit.

Hannibal is a horror/crime TV-series created by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me (2003-04)), based on Thomas Harris' (Black Sunday (1975)) Hannibal Lecter novels, Red Dragon (1981), Hannibal (1999) and Hannibal Rising (2006).

The second season opens with a long and very violent fight between FBI agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne (Contagion (2011))) and Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen (The Three Musketeers (2011))), before it jumps back some months to Will's (Hugh Dancy (Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011))) incarceration, and an internal FBI investigation looking at whether Crawford pushed his detective into becoming a mass murderer. FBI agent Beverly Katz (brilliantly played by Hettienne Park (Don't Look Up (2021))) is taking a big risk in seeking out truths in Lecter's basement, and regrettably ends her days as a consequence.

Now a rather absurd menáge à trois plot comes to life, between Will, his girlfriend Alana Bloom and Lecter, as Will gets out of the hospital and doesn't effectively move his suspicions against Lecter out of his head and into real-world action. Instead he descends into murderous madness and discussions of death and God with his unhealthy therapist.

The plot gets entangled to the point of confusion. The final episode leads us back to the fight in the first episode, more confusing character developments and a culmination that can most aptly be described as an orgiastic death climax. A final cliffhanger scene sees Will on a plane with Lecter's former psychiatrist, Bedelia Du Maurier.

There are plenty of bodies and disturbing, yet fascinating aestheticized horrors in season 2, including a human mural, a lobotomizing acupuncturist murderer (Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction (1994)) is the show's first female murderer), a flower murderer (!), a murderer who dresses up as an extinct bear (!!) and a bird buried inside a woman buried inside a horse (!!!), but the highlight may be when Mason Verger (Michael Pitt (The Dreamers (2003)) in a dashing performance as the pig-obsessed maniac) is led by Lecter to cut his own face off, under the influence of drugs (episode 12: Tome-wan). The gory, odd gimmicks are sick details on top of the underlying trove of psychopathy and the erratic workings of the human mind that are the central thematic playing ground for Hannibal.

Regrettably the plot gets drawn out from episode 5 onward, as it seems to become too thick, too unlikely and too much, the universe becomes too narrow in a sense, and at the same time dramatically somewhat insufficient. Intrigues are injected that seem to mainly be there to prolong the story for the necessary length. The series stumbles. As Graham and Lecter's therapy begins again, I couldn't help but start to zone out a bit.

 

Best episode:

 

Episode 2: Sakizuke - written by Jeff Vlaming (Teen Wolf (2011, TV-series)), Fuller; directed by Tim Hunter (American Horror Story (2011, TV-series))

A yucky episode, in which Graham recollects disturbing goings-on at the hands of Dr. Lecter, and Hannibal's own therapist (Gillian Anderson (The X-Files (1993-18)) is glorious as the self-medicated, blond cougar Du Maurier) ends their sessions and seeks out Will. Meanwhile Hannibal locates the season's new murderer. 

 

Related posts:

 

Hannibal Lecter franchise: Hannibal - season 1 (2013) - Fuller successfully introduces network TV to twisted serial killers 

Hannibal Rising (2007) - Harris returns famed cannibal in sub-par origins flick

Hannibal (2001) - Grisly highlights in low-yielding Scott sequel 

Manhunter (1986) - Perhaps the best criminal profiling picture ever 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the season here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: None - TV-series

= Uncertain

[Hannibal season 2 was first shows from 28 February - 23 March on NBC and runs 13 episodes of on average 44 minutes, coming to 572 minutes. Fishburne was reportedly paid 175k $ per episode, totaling 2.275 mil. $. Shooting took place from August 2013 - ? in Ontario, including in Toronto. The season's highest rating came on episode 1 (3.27 mil.), but the ratings then slipped, and the lowest rating came on episode 11 (1.95 mil. ). The season averaged 2.54 mil. US viewers, down 12 % from the first season. It was renewed for season 3 (2015). IMDb's users have rated the film in at #215 on the sites TV Top 250 list, sitting between Mob Psycho 100 (2016) and Community (2009). In 2014 Mikkelsen also starred in The Salvation; Dancy was not in anything else; and Fishburne was in Ride Along, The Signal and Rudderless. Hannibal season 1 is certified fresh at 98 % with a 9.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hannibal season 2?

Hidalgo (2004) - More respectable than rousing

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Stars, swordplay and horseback riding allures from this sand-colored poster for Joe Johnston's Hidalgo

The true story of a mixed-race American master horseman's participation in a race through the Arabian desert.

 

Hidalgo is written by John Fusco (Crossroads (1986)) and directed by Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)).

It is a handsomely produced major picture with skillful production design and good-looking pictures (cinematography by Shelly Johnson (Captain America: The First Avenger (2011))). But alas, no-one stands particularly out from the cast, and neither romance, the horses nor the race are extremely beguiling.

 

Related posts:

  

Joe Johnston: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

The Wolfman (2010) - Johnston's luxurious, effects-driven remake 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 100 mil. $

Box office: 108 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 1.08 times its cost)

[Hidalgo premiered 17 February (Texas Film Festival) and runs 136 minutes. Viggo Mortensen (Daylight (1996)) was paid 2 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from August 2002 - ? in Morocco, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma and in California. Mortensen bought one of the horses in the film after shooting, and Fusco bought the main stunt horse. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit The Passion of the Christ and fellow new release Starsky & Hutch, to a 18.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#4) and grossed 67.3 mil. $ (62.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 7.5 mil. $ (6.9 %) and Germany with 4.2 mil. $ (3.9 %). Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. The film's claim to a true story is debated. Johnston returned with The Wolfman (2010). Mortensen returned in A History of Violence (2005). Hidalgo is rotten at 46 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hidalgo? 

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) - Beauty and passion in the midst of devastation in Resnais' striking images

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A muscular man's back, a woman's red lips and a backdrop of stirring, passionate red indicates strong sexuality on this poster for Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour

A beautiful French actress ventures into a heartfelt affair with a local man in Hiroshima, Japan, where she spends a short visit, and their relationship is reconnected later in the new city built up after the nuclear bomb.

 

Hiroshima Mon Amour is written by Marguerite Duras (Le Camion (1977)) and directed by Alain Resnais (Ouvert pour Cause d'Inventaire (1946)). The original French title translates to 'Hiroshima my love'.

A poetical narration and a visual side that packs several scenes that radiate clean beauty are linked to footage of the horrors of the nuclear bomb and its at times horrific consequences, - as life inevitably goes on, not undisturbed by these horrors, but nevertheless still, as here, in the guise of a beautiful, loving couple.

The plot side of the film becomes distant and unreal, but the strong camera work (by cinematographers Michio Takahashi (Itohan monogatari (1957)) and Sacha Vierny (Stavisky/Stavisky... (1974))) keeps one fixed on this remarkable, unique film.

 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain but likely a big hit

[Hiroshima Mon Amour premiered 8 May (Cannes Film Festival) and runs 90 minutes. Resnais was reportedly commissioned to make a documentary on the nuclear bomb attacks in Japan in the vein of his Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1956). Shooting took place from September - December 1958 in France and Japan. The film was kept out of the main competition in Cannes out of a fear that it would offend the Americans with its representations of the devastation caused by their nuclear attacks. The film's box office performance at the time is regrettably not reported online, but it was likely highly successful, not least due to its erotic allure. It has also been re-released numerous times. It was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, lost to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond for The Weekend. It also won 1/3 BAFTA nominations and a National Board of Review award, among other honors.  Together with The 400 Blows (1959) and Breathless (1960), Hiroshima Mon Amour was among the most important films in the French New Wave. Resnais returned with Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Emmanuelle Riva (For Sasha/Pour Sasha (1991)) returned in Le huitième jour (1960); Eiji Okada (Lady Snowblood/Shurayukihime (1973)) in Subarashiki musumetachi (1959). Hiroshima Mon Amour is certified fresh at 98 % with an 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hiroshima Mon Amour? 

High Fidelity (2000) or, Record Store Romance

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Different hairstyles on an vinyl record cover adorn this poster for Stephen Frears' High Fidelity

Record store owner Robert is left by his blond girlfriend Laura, and in the process of reassessing his own break-up story realizes that he has to win her back.

 

High Fidelity is written by D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink (Grosse Point Blank (1997), both), Scott Rosenberg (Happy Town (2010, TV-series)) and co-writer/star John Cusack (War, Inc. (2008)), adapting the same-titled 1995 novel by Nick Hornby (Slam (2007)), and directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Frears (Gumshoe (1971)), whose 12th feature it is.

The story is related mainly through Cusack's Robert's narration directly to the camera, and Cusack and Frears get this to work at times. But the technique is overused and also get annoying at other times. 

A side note: If you are not convinced that the 1990s was the ugliest decade fashion-wise in modern history, I'll recommend you to look at the dubious robes in High Fidelity. 

The film seems to come to its conclusion, - but then it actually has a good 10 minutes more of babble in store for us. What makes High Fidelity worthwhile nonetheless are the good performances from Cusack and Iben Hjejle (Klovn (2005-09)) as Laura, along with Jack Black (Jesus' Son (1999)), who is allowed to give a lovely musical number in the end, and Joan Cusack (Freaks of Nature (2015)). The latter two are both funny here.

 

Related posts:

Stephen Frears:   Top 10: Best dramedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) - Streep, Frears and Co. drop us a delightful present 

Top 10: Best UK movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Philomena (2013) - Dench astounds in Frears' powerful true-story drama

Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) or, Wartime Swinging London 

Dirty Pretty Things (2002) - Good performances anchor Frears' flawed, overrated illegal immigrant drama

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: 47.1 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.57 times its cost)

[High Fidelity premiered 17 March (South by Southwest Film Festival) and runs 113 minutes. Black was paid 250k $ for his performance. Shooting took place from April - July 1999 in California, New York and in Chicago, Illinois. The film opened #5, behind holdover hit Erin Brockovich, fellow new releases The Road to El Dorado and The Skulls and holdover hit Romeo Must Die, to a 6.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 27.2 mil. $ (57.7 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for a BAFTA, won an AFI award, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Grammy, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 3 notches over this one. A same-titled TV-series version was made with Zoe Kravitz in the gender-swapped lead and canceled after 1 season in 2020. Frears returned with Fail-Safe (2000, TV movie) and theatrically with Liam (2000). Cusack returned in America's Sweethearts (2001). High Fidelity is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of High Fidelity? 

Hannibal - season 1 (2013) - Fuller successfully introduces network TV to twisted serial killers

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+ Best Cannibal Title of the Year + Best Crime Thriller of the Year + Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Psychological Horror of the Year

 

Mads Mikkelsen dressed to the nines wipes his mouth with a fancy cloth as the title character on this poster for the first season of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal

 

FBI Special Investigator Will Graham is initially hunting a killer of girls, as he initiates contact to noted psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter for insights, and the good doctor is only too keen to assist him, although he carefully keeps certain details of his life away from Graham ...

 

Hannibal is a horror/crime TV-series created by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me (2003-04)), based on Thomas Harris' (Black Sunday (1975)) Hannibal Lecter novels, Red Dragon (1981), Hannibal (1999) and Hannibal Rising (2006).

The show establishes its really icky, unnerving tone in its pilot (Aperitif), in which we witness Graham's investigative technique of putting himself in the mind of the killer with closed eyes, imagining that he is doing the horrific killings himself. By the second episode, in which young, red-headed, scrupulous journalist Freddie Lounds (played by the beautiful Lara Jean Chorostecki (X Company (2015-17))) is also introduced, we have already been dealing with two bizarre serial killers, - beside the doctor himself, whose homicidal tendencies and cannibalistic tastes will be known to most viewers beforehand and are mostly teased to us in the show, as in dinner scenes with Special Agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne (Apocalypse Now (1979))), where Lecter serves Crawford suspicious delicacies. Crawford's beautiful wife (Gina Torres (Suits (2011-18)) later starts therapy at Lecter, and the couple are quite moving, when Crawford learns that she has overcome lung cancer without telling him about it.

The show is very dark, and it comes to a dark climax in episode 4 (Oeuf), in which a woman manipulates kidnapped teens into murdering their families! By and by we come to narrow in on the central serial killer of the season, the so-called Chesapeake Ripper, and could he be Eddie Izzard's (Ocean's Thirteen (2007)) incarcerated Dr. Abel Gideon?

Shrinks often have their own shrinks, as we already know, and Lecter's is Gillian Anderson's (Tristram Shandy (2005)) delectable Bedelia Du Maurier, whose doctor-patient confidentiality clause later becomes a point of contention, as Lecter becomes a person of interest in connection to more than one murder case.

Lecter hides from Graham that he is suffering from a brain infection, which causes him to have blackouts. SPOILER In the final episode such a blackout proves disastrous for Graham, as he wakes up coughing an ear up, with blood under his fingernails, getting him locked away in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane!

Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt/Jagten (2012)) first struck me as very Danish as Dr. Lecter, and the pace of the show somewhat rushed. The plot is strange and far detached from any reality audiences will be used to, but it strikes a handsome, nightmarish tone. It takes a while to get into the show's creepy thrills, but I was there by episode 7, especially as the weird triangle of trust between Graham, Lecter and Du Maurier begets suspense. Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy (Our Idiot Brother (2011)), - whose youthfully pretty face actually works against him in a character as heavy and adult as Graham, - and Fishburne all turn in formidable work. Graham's character is constructed carefully and credibly.

The show has a phenomenal grip on digital effects, lighting and photography, which is sublime, always pushing the gross and nauseating plot details to our subconscious examinations. (Cinematography by James Hawkinson (Running Wilde (2010, TV-series)) and Karim Hussain (Ascension (2002)).) It ends on a real high note with a terrific cliffhanger. There hasn't really been a TV-series like it before: Hannibal slow-burns its way assuredly towards goosebumps, nightmares and a strong viewer investment in its horrific plot.

 

Best episodes:

 

Episode 8: Fromage - written by Fuller, Jennifer Schuur (Hellcats (2010-11)); directed by Tim Hunter (Glee (2011, TV-series))

A male couple, who are both violent and homicidal, go through the hands of Lecter and Graham, whose mental stability is under pressure. SPOILER Hannibal kills both the men after a wild battle, and hides the fact from Graham.

 

Episode 9: Trou Normand - written by Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher (2017-19)); directed by Guillermo Navarro (Narcos (2015, TV-series))

A nauseating human totem (!) is discovered, and Lance Henriksen (Hard Target (1995)) plays the psycho culprit. But the episode is more about Graham's instability and a young woman, the daughter of a now defeated monster, whose own sins are buried by Lecter and Graham collectively.

 

Episode 13: Savoureux - written by Fuller, Lightfoot, Scott Nimerfro (Pushing Daisies (2007-08)); directed by David Slade (Hard Candy (2005))

Graham further incriminates himself, - or someone does it for him?, - in connection to the presumed murder of Abigail Hobbs. He is locked away, while his girlfriend suspects that a physical ailment is in play, and Graham himself gets closer and closer to realizing the true, horrific capabilities of his psychiatrist, Dr. Lecter.

 

Related posts:

 

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

Hannibal Lecter franchise: Hannibal Rising (2007) - Harris returns famed cannibal in sub-par origins flick

Hannibal (2001) - Grisly highlights in low-yielding Scott sequel 

Manhunter (1986) - Perhaps the best criminal profiling picture ever

 

Mikkelsen and Dancy on the red carpet in a short clip here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: None - TV-series

= Uncertain

[Hannibal season 1 was first shown from 4 April - 20 June on NBC and runs 13 episodes of on average 44 minutes, coming to 572 minutes. Fishburne was reportedly paid 175k $ per episode, totaling 2.275 mil. $. Shooting took place from August 2012 - ? in Ontario, including in Toronto. The season's highest rating came on episode 2 (4.38 mil.), but the ratings then slipped, and the lowest rating came on the final episode (1.98 mil. ). The season averaged 2.9 mil. US viewers. It was renewed for season 2 (2014). IMDb's users have rated the film in at #215 on the sites TV Top 250 list, sitting between Mob Psycho 100 (2016) and Community (2009). In 2013 Mikkelsen also starred in Charlie Countryman and Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas; Dancy with voice performances in Poe and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return; and Fishburne in The Colony, Man of Steel and Khumba. Hannibal season 1 is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hannibal - season 1?

Hamsun (1996) - Sydow towers in overlong biopic

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The two big Scandinavian stars are set against a handwritten page on this poster for Jan Troell's Hamsun

Norwegian national author and recipient of the Nobel prize for literature Knut Hamsun develops, with support from his alienated wife, from a nationalist to a Nazi in the period leading up to, during - and after - World War II, which comes with grave consequences for the two.

 

Hamsun is written by Per Olov Enquist (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Eroberen (1987)) and co-writer/director/co-cinematographer, Swedish master filmmaker Jan Troell (Here Is Your Life/Här Har Du Ditt Liv (1966)), whose 10th feature it is. It is an adaptation of Thorkild Hansen's (Coast of Slaves/Slavernes Kyst (1967)) non-fiction book Processen mod Hamsun (1978).

The deeply illusory, Norwegian madness that the couple live in in Hamsun is frustrating in a way that makes the viewer want to physically grab them and shake them out of their delusions. Max von Sydow (The Final Enquiry (2006)) is masterly and very credible here, whereas Ghita Nørby (Ulvetid (1981)) by his side seems to have troubles portraying the Nazi wife, and in my opinion Nørby lays too much of her sympathetic self into this part.

Hamsun is especially valuable for historically interested and for those interested in portrayals of troubled, great artists. It is a bit overlong: SPOILER Hamsun waits to die throughout the film, and in the end we also want it for him, if only so the whole ordeal would end. Hamsun is a serious but not emotionally overpowering film from Troell.

 

Related post:

 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 40 mil. SEK, approximately 3.99 mil. $

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain (but most likely a sizable flop)

[Hamsun was released 19 April (Norway) and runs 159 minutes. The film had been in development many years earlier but failed to find support in Norway due to its controversial topic. It was Danish company Nordisk Film's involvement that finally got Hamsun into production. Shooting took place in the Spring and Summer of 1995 in Norway, including in Oslo. The most expensive scene shot, in which Hamsun's wife Marie witnesses the sinking of the German cruiser Blücher in Oslo Fjord in 1940, was eventually cut from the film. 147,148 paid admission to the film in Denmark, one of its 4 co-producing countries (the other being Norway, Sweden and Germany). It made 50k $ in North America, where it debuted #24 to a 7k $ first weekend in 1 theater. Other release details are regrettably scarce, and this makes it impossible to determine its theatrical status, though I suspect it was a sizable flop. It won a Robert (Danish Oscar) and 4 Guldbagge (Sweden's Oscar), among other honors. It became Denmark's Oscar entry of the year but did not get nominated. Troell returned with 2 documentaries and a documentary short prior to his theatrical return with Så Vit Som En Snö (2001). Sydow returned in Jerusalem (1996); Nørby in Bryggeren (1997, miniseries) and theatrically in Sekten (1997). 1.6k+ IMDb users have given Hamsun a 7.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Hamsun?