Knut Hamsun ranks among Europe’s leading novelists. His works have been adapted for film and television in many countries. A total of over 20 films have been produced, in addition to several short films, teleplays, 2 documentary films and 2 biographical films about the author himself. The periods in which his novels were adapted for film are: the Scandinavian National Romantic era in the silent film decade of the 1920s, the German National Romantic era in the 1930s, various independent works in the 1960s and 1970s, and a new Nordic period in the 1990s. Hamsun was filmed also in Russia before 1917, and in the Czech Republic, but the films are considered lost. In the first period we will, besides GROWTH OF THE SOIL, find the first version of PAN, filmed in Melbu in Northern Norway and in Algeria. Harald Schwenzen was the director and the film was produced by the new municipal company Kommunernes Filmscentral A/S, who had been operating as distributor since 1919 and started  film production some years later. The film premiered in 1922 and music by Edvard Grieg was used as a score. The third silent film from this area was IRON WILLS based on the short story DREAMERS. The film was made in Sweden, directed by John W. Brunius and produced by Svensk Filmindustri AB. Besides being shot in the company’s studio in Stockholm they also went to Brønnøysund in Northern Norway.

The second period counts two German films, VICTORIA (1935) shot in Bergen and surroundings, and PAN (1937), which premiered in Norway in a dubbed version. Leading Norwegian actors gave their voices to the story.

The independent films from the 1960s counts, beside HUNGER, a German version of THE LAST CHAPTER from 1961, shot in Geiranger, Lom and Gudbrandsdalen and a new version of PAN (1962) starring Scandinavian stars like Jarl Kulle, Bibbi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. This film was shot at Kjerringøy, close to Bodø, a place that later should become a frequent place to make Hamsun’s adaptations. The 1970s include a Dutch-French production of MYSTERIES (1978) and Bo Widerberg’s VICTORIA from 1979, also with locations from Northern Norway.

The new ”Hamsun on the screen wave” in the Scandinavian countries started with WANDERERS in 1989, continued with THE TELEGRAPHIST (1993), the fourth version of PAN (1995) and the two biographical films HAMSUN (1995) and THE ENIGMA OF KNUT HAMSUN (1996). Three short films named THIRST were also produced, by Norsk film A/S, based on the short stories CRIMES OF THE FUTURE.

Why are film directors so fascinated when reading Hamsun? From a literary point of view his writings are challenging to translate to the screen. Behind the stories lies a psychological landscape with no beginning or end, containing no logical or “normal” behaviour. The novels HUNGER and PAN made him famous, at first in Scandinavia, later in Germany and Russia.  But only HUNGER turned out to be a masterpiece on film, although PAN has been filmed four times and VICTORIA three. His irrational and double-focused stories, in an often existential framework, require a particular technique of storytelling. In HUNGER, the director Henning Carlsen used a personal storyteller; the protagonist himself, directly from the novel. But he also provided HUNGER with the artistic strength of a modern film, with an almost expressionistic film language. HUNGER turned out to be a genuine film classic. Per Oscarsson received the Best Male Role award at The Cannes Film Festival, and the film has been screened at numerous festivals and sold to many countries. In style and aesthetic consequence, HUNGER belongs to the modernist period of European film, along with Antonioni and the Polish and French new waves. The film was important to new Norwegian film, with Erik Borge, newly appointed General Manager at Norsk Film A/S, as co-producer, with Anja Breien as responsible for the continuity of the shooting and with several Norwegian actors and film workers. HUNGER has been compared to JEANNE D’ARC, a silent classic directed by another Danish master, Carl Theodor Dreyer, in 1927.

Not many writers have been considered great masters immediately after their revival novel, like Knut Hamsun was after presenting HUNGER in 1890. This was also when modern society, industry and urban life started developing into a psychological, sociological and humanistic challenge. Literature ventured from naturalism into expressionism. The anonymous protagonist of HUNGER is a lonely young writer in Christiania, the former name for Oslo. His hunger and despair shatters the normal and logical protective wall surrounding every decent, respectable citizen. The protagonist (Knut Hamsun himself) evolves from a state of ecstatic happiness to utmost despair, alone in the city. The novel was soon translated into many languages and published in many countries. When re-launching the novel in the US in the late seventies, Isaac B. Singer stated in his preface that: ”Hamsun is the founder of modern literature. Reading HUNGER is not only interesting, it is hypnotizing.” And Paul Auster, who is also shown in conversation with Henning Carlsen on the DVD of the film, regards HUNGER as a “starving piece of art,” an existential journey into nothingness, into the 20th century.

From the final period of Hamsun’s novels, THE GROWTH OF THE SOIL proved to be an excellent representative of silent film, produced in 1921, only one year after Hamsun received the Nobel Prize of Literature. The film was the first literary prestige production in the national romantic film area. The landscape as a dramatic tool was widely utilized in this film, as in WANDERERS from 1989. Also the film THE TELEGRAPHIST, based on the short story DREAMERS from 1904, should be mentioned in this connection. This film obtained great success both domestically and internationally after being selected for the main competition at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 1993. However, many literates and academics claim this is not exactly an authentic Hamsun film. The film is more the creation of screenwriter Lars Saabye Christensen, a famous Norwegian writer, who worked closely with director Erik Gustavson and developed Hamsun’s discreet love fantasies into a rather erotic film unfolding in the course of the mysterious Northern Norwegian midsummer nights. Nature and natural scenery was also highly present in the early period, especially in PAN, which is available in no less than four film versions.  In general most of the Hamsun adaptations have had great importance for the use of nature and landscape as a dramatic tool in Norwegian cinema.

Knut Hamsun was, according to the biographer Øystein Rottem, very satisfied with the results (Knut Hamsun – a filmography, Norsk filminstitut, Oslo 1995). But according to the film historian Trond Olav Svendsen in the same publication, the film was not a big success. It was shown in the USA, and Variety noted that ”the story is unfolded in dull, disoriented style”. Luckily a not complete print was kept until 1971 where it was discovered at a University. The restoration process could begin.

All films based on Hamsun’s novels are challenged by the author’s irrational and complex storytelling, his dreams and his yearning for an existential focus on life. These are fascinating love stories, but never logical ones; they are developed through various layers of time; they are subjective, and thus not extremely well suited for the language of a feature film. A language, which frequently requires a logical and story-driven form.

Hamsun on the screen includes two documentaries and two biographical films, depicting the life and work of the author himself. HAMSUN, a film from 1995 directed by Jan Troell, is the most internationally recognized among them. Knut Hamsun, born in Lom in 1859, grew up on a small farm at Hamarøy in Northern Norway, a community that now hosts a Hamsun Centre as well as an annual festival. The beautiful and magic nature in and around Hamarøy, clearly had an influence on him which is reflected in many of his novels. Troell’s film does not relate the complete story of his life, as seen in the NRK teleplay THE ENIGMA, directed by Bentein Baardson, based on a script by Robert Ferguson, a well-known Hamsun biographer. In the Troell film, as well as in the book by Torkild Hansen, THE PROCESS AGAINST HAMSUN, the focus is on the problematic years around World War II. Hamsun sympathized with Germany and the Norwegian National Unity Party of Vidkun Quisling, and this was exploited by the German propaganda system in order to facilitate the acceptance of the occupation among good Norwegians. Hamsun was never a member of the party, a traditional farmer’s party fascinated by old Norwegian history and rural life. Both the party and the German Occupation Authorities needed him. They approached his wife Marie in order to get him more involved, and to persuade him to travel to Germany to meet Der Führer.

To obtain an understanding of Hamsun’s political preferences, one may regard his behaviour as typical of many insecure and irrational Norwegian intellectuals at the end of the 1930s and during the occupation. They were yearning for German culture, and resented the Soviet Union and Great Britain and the countries’ worldwide imperialism. They also believed that the National Unity Party was the only solution which could save Norway from an even worse German occupation, and that a new Norway could exist within the Great German Reich.  But Hamsun’s sympathy for Reich’s commissar Terboven and for Hitler himself was not that strong. He even opposed Hitler in the case of mass deportation of the Jews. When Norway was liberated Hamsun was arrested and later declared having severe damages on his soul, probably the worst diagnosis you could apply to one of the world’s greatest novelists. His entire fortune was confiscated by the State.

Already during the trial, Hamsun started writing down observations, which eventually grew into a book. It was published in 1949 under the title ON OVERGROWN PATHS. The book turned out to be a sensation. The famous author, now 90 years old, had once again written a story brimming with charm and poetry, with self-irony and humour. The book was written in self-defence, but first and foremost this is a novel about a lonely human being, with no friends or family, somewhat like his first novel HUNGER. ON OVERGROWN PATHS was filmed in 1974 by Peter Zadek, based on a stage play by Tancred Dorst. This was a German-Norwegian co-production.

Oslo, May 11, 2009

Jan Erik Holst

Executive Editor