""It appears to me that heaven is much nearer to us than we think" ""perhaps because I'm closer to it!" ""I'm not mistaken about my approaching end." ""It seems to me more likely than ever." "Although I don't know why!"" ""My soul rejoices at the thought that there's a place up there" ""resembling this quite beautiful earth" ""for to pass directly to an infinite realm has never appealed to me."" ""I imagine it to be like Switzerland" ""and shall never forget my first impression of Switzerland" ""as the train descended from the Jura." ""I thought I was seeing cloud formations of a wondrous beauty" ""but then it dawned on me:" "They were the Alps!"" ""It's heaven itself, said my children." "And my wife burst into tears."" "Well." "There you are." "Iwas almost certain you would come." "So you called then?" "I felt it." "Why are you sitting here?" "Well." "I know of no other place to sit while I wait." " What are you waiting for?" " If only I knew..." "I've waited 40 years for happiness, or rather the end of unhappiness." "Listen again to this dismal music." "Don't go." "I'll be scared if you go." "Strindberg wrote the play The Freethinker in 1869." "It is one of his first plays, perhaps the very first." "He wrote under the pseudonym Herrved Ulv." "During this period Strindberg studied in Uppsala and applied to get into Stockholm's School of Dramatic Arts but was not accepted." "At this time he was at odds with his father who wanted him to be a chemist." "The play is about a young man who breaks with his family's traditions and leaves his country to follow his own conscience and ideals." "In the preface Strindberg quotes Jesus:" ""I came not to bring peace..." ""but a sword."" ""Beloved Mummy..." ""Thank you for your warm, friendly, loving letter." ""It did my wounded heart good to know you still feel tenderness towards me" ""and I hope that in the future." "Though humanity may condemn me" ""you will always love me as your daughter and believe me." ""August has never been my lover." ""But my firm intention is, as soon as the law allows, to become his wife." ""It's hard to describe." "For I have a very strange nature." ""It's hard to describe what is going on in my heart." ""The person who once enters it will, however." "Never leave again." ""Even though I appear cold and hard, I have a rich measure of affection" ""and gratitude towards those who have been good to me."" "Siri von Essen born August 17. 1850" "August Strindberg born January 22, 1849" "THE FREETHINKER" "Merely to sit here... just to spend an hour with you..." "This would be comfort to any soul." "It is for mine." "For a soul that burns as mine does... the relief is indescribable." " Beautiful words." " But you are beautiful." "So beautiful you deserve to hear beautiful words again and again." "In Berlin." "Strindberg meets with Stanislaw Przybyszewski. "Popoffsky"" "In Berlin." "Strindberg meets with Stanislaw Przybyszewski. "Popoffsky"" "Polish author, Satanist." "And brilliant pianist... who once rewrote the First Book of Moses to read" "Is it Forsberg?" "Who once rewrote the First Book of Moses to read who once rewrote the First Book of Moses to read" ""In the Beginning there was Sex..."" " Stop now!" " You and your damned lesbiansl "In the Beginning there was Sex..."" "You're ridiculous!" "Can you answer me?" "You lie so much you believe yourself!" " Can you answer me?" " I have never lied to you!" "You do nothing else!" "How many times have you deceived me?" " The time's come." " Stop now!" " Can you stop lying." "Woman?" " You're mad!" "Bend forward." "Sooner or later the truth will out." "So you may as well tell me now!" "Strindberg." "Engaged to be married" "What do you get out of this?" "With the young Austrian journalist Frida Uhl with the young Austrian journalist Frida Uhl has an affair with Popoffsky's fiancée, Dagny Juell." "I won't take this any morel has an affair with Popoffsky's fiancée, Dagny Juell." "Has an affair with Popoffsky's fiancée, Dagny Juell." "Don't hit me!" "Has an affair with Popoffsky's fiancée, Dagny Juell." "Has an affair with Popoffsky's fiancée, Dagny Juell." "Two weeks later he marries Frida." "How many times?" "With whom?" "How many times?" "Two weeks later he marries Frida." "Two weeks later he marries Frida." "Can you answer me?" "Two weeks later he marries Frida." "Two weeks later he marries Frida." "Can you answer me?" "Open the door!" "With whom?" "He believes that Popoffsky will kill him and writes that he hears the Pole playing through the wall." "1894." "Frida Uhl and Strindberg separate after six months marriage." "August Strinberg and Frida Uhl's child Kerstin is left in Austria with Frida's grandparents." "Kerstin will never see her father again." "1896." "Strindberg is in Paris." "He has no money." "He has now abandoned writing dramas and novels and is painting and experimenting in various fields of science." "He photographs the moon without a camera or lens." "He turns to alchemy, trying to make gold by mixing copper and sulphate of iron." "Strindberg is now deep into the existential and religious crisis which will become known as the "Inferno crisis"." "His hands are bleeding." "Now I'll read a little from Inferno which I'll write a year from now." ""Back once again in my miserable student's room in the Latin Quarter" ""I delved into my trunk..." ""and drew forth from their hiding place" ""six crucibles of fine porcelain which I had robbed myself to buy."" "I'm expected to work here... expected to work in a room that is... that grows smaller every second." "After 15 years of marriage with August Strindberg" "Siri von Essen returns to her homeland, Finland... together with their three children." "Karin." "Greta and Hans." "Out there in the yard just outside my damned window there are a hundred toilets." "Take note, they have built a hundred toilets outside a hotel." "Did you ever hear of such a thing?" "How could anyone be so stupid as to build a hundred toilets just outside a wall where people live?" "And they expect you to pay for it!" "And these damned toilets will flush up and down all night long!" "People will shit and drip..." "It drips through the window here too." "Karin." "Strindberg wants Karin to come and live with him and Frida" "Read this." "It's from Daddy." "Strindberg wants Karin to come and live with him and Frida" "Strindberg wants Karin to come and live with him and Frida to take care of their child and teach Frida Swedish." "During March" " April 1993." "Peter Watkins published an article regarding the mass media and placed it in the Orion Theatre at the time of our filming." "Extracts read as follows:" ""The need for alternative audio-visual material and processes" ""within global cultures is now painfully clear." ""The problem has become essentially that of power." "Personal power."" "Free me from my suspicions and I'll give up the fight." "What suspicions?" "About who Bertha's father is." "Are there any doubts about that?" "Yes, I have some." " And it's you who've raised them." " I?" "Free me from uncertainty." "Tell me straight:" "It is true." "And I will forgive you in advance." "I can't confess to something I haven't done." "What does it matter to you?" "Do you think a man would trumpet out his shame publicly?" "If I say it's not true." "You won't be convinced but if I say it's true." "That would convince you." "You want it to be true." "Do you have any grounds for your suspicions?" "Yes and no." "You want me to be guilty, to be rid of me and get full control of the child." " But I won't fall into that trap." " Laura..." "You don't understand." "You want power over the child." "But still keep me as a provider." "Yes, power..." "What's this life and death struggle been about if not power?" "For me." "Since I don't believe in a life to come... my child was my after-life." "My idea of immortality, perhaps the only one with any basis in reality." "Take that away and you cut off my life." "Why didn't we separate in time?" "Because the child bound us together but the bond became a chain." " Who is the father?" " You!" "No, I am not." "A crime lies buried here and it's beginning to stink." "And what a hellish crime!" "I've served 17 years hard labour and I was innocent." " How can you repay me for that?" " You're completely mad." "1879." "Strindberg writes The Red Room a devastating exposé of corruption and hypocrisy in contemporary Swedish life combined with lyrical descriptions of Stockholm the city he so loves." "Attention!" "Company, forward." "March!" ""The Katarina Church bell rang 7 times." "Then Maria with its splenetic descant." ""And the Great Church and German Church chimed in with their bass" ""and soon all space quivered with the sound of the city's 7 bells." ""But when they grew silent." "One after the other" ""in the distance there was still one singing its peaceful evensong." ""It had a higher tone." "A purer ring" ""and a quicker tempo than the others." "For that is what it has." ""He listened and tried to discover where the sound came from" ""for it seemed to awaken a memory in him." ""Then his features became pliant" ""and his face expressed the pain a child experiences" ""when it feels it has been left alone." ""And he was alone" ""because his mother and father lay in Klara Cemetery" ""from where the bell could still be heard." ""And he was a child" ""for he still believed in everything, both in truth and in fairy-tales."" "In the summer of 1875 August Strindberg is 26 years old." "He works as an assistant at the Royal Library in Stockholm and studies the roots of the Chinese language." "He had worked as a journalist the past few years and also written his first plays... including The Outlaw" "The Freethinkerand his future masterpiece Master Olof... which was refused by the Royal Dramatic Theatre." "Afew weeks earlier a friend had been in touch with Strindberg." "An opera singer who asked him to look after his girl-friend while the opera singer went to Finland." "The girl's name was Ina Forsten." "Looking after this girl turned into an amorous summer adventure." "And one day Ina takes Strindberg on a shopping tour in Stockholm." "This is the beginning of some scenes from Strindberg's marriage to Siri von Essen." "12 years later these scenes appeared in A Madman's Defence." "Oh." "Hello." "Hello." "Ina." "This is Baroness Wrangel." "And this is Mr. Strindberg." "How do you do?" "I hope you received my invitation." "Thursday..." " I'm looking forward to it." " I'll expect you at seven." "That'll be fine." " Goodbye." " Goodbye." "Baroness." ""It was on Drottninggatan, one burning summer's day" ""we met on the crowded pavement, you and I."" "Excuse me." "May I ask you a question?" "What are you doing here?" "It's to be an apartment house." " An apartment house?" "For whom?" " For the rich." "For the rich?" "How do you feel about that?" " There should be housing for all." " Sorry, I didn't hear you." " There should be housing for all." " For all?" "Yes, so the poor could live better." "Is it usual for women to work on buildings?" "Yes." "We have to earn as much as we can." "These are hard times, so we must." " How much do you earn?" " Less than the men." " Less than the men?" " Yes." " Do you have a family to support?" " Yes." "Four children." "So it's hard." "1850." "There are 20.000 children born in wedlock in Stockholm." "And 15.000 illegitimate children." "Over 40% of the children born in Stockholm at this time are to unmarried mothers." "Almighty God and Father." "We are in need and know not what to do." "Hide not Thy face." "Carl Oscar Strindberg." "Aged 44" "Abandon us not and take not Thy hand from us." "Carl Oscar Strindberg." "Aged 44" "Abandon us not and take not Thy hand from us." "Abandon us not and take not Thy hand from us." "Commissioner for a steamship company commissioner for a steamship company" "You can not have forgotten to be merciful commissioner for a steamship company" "You can not have forgotten to be merciful" "You can not have forgotten to be merciful carrying freight and passengers on Lake Mälaren." "Carrying freight and passengers on Lake Mälaren." "Nor out of wrath can You refuse us Your compassion." "Carrying freight and passengers on Lake Mälaren." "Nor out of wrath can You refuse us Your compassion." "Punish us for our misdeeds but help us still, for Thy name's sake." "Ulrika Eleonora Norling, aged 32, earlier a serving girl" "You are with us still." "Lord." "We are Thy children, baptized to be Thine." "Ulrika Eleonora Norling, aged 32." "Earlier a serving girl" "You are with us still." "Lord." "We are Thy children, baptized to be Thine." "You are with us still." "Lord." "We are Thy children, baptized to be Thine." "Later Carl Oscar's house-keeper and mistress before they married." "Later Carl Oscar's house-keeper and mistress before they married." "Restore our joy and lift us from misery." "Later Carl Oscar's house-keeper and mistress before they married." "Later Carl Oscar's house-keeper and mistress before they married." "Whatever comes..." "later Carl Oscar's house-keeper and mistress before they married." "Withdraw not our comfort that you are our Father." " For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen." " Amen." "In the poor district of Södermalm 20 of the 26 drinking wells are unusable." "The high infant mortality rate has lowered the average life-span for a man living in Stockholm to 20 years, for a woman to 26 years." "Because of sanitary conditions in Stockholm 30% of all children die before they are one year old." "We have to educate ourselves." "We must organize." "Just a moment." "Look what we have already." "We have the pillars of our society." "We have the new general school regulations." "Relief for the poor and all this to help serve the less fortunate." "Police and soldiers fill the streets and we don't have a chance." "Calm down." "We'll work this out." "Stay calm." "There may be police here." " How does poor relief help us?" " You have the poor percentage." " What?" " The poor percentage." "We are left in a room where we may get a little food." "Food from you." "But what else do we get?" "Nothing!" "We're barely treated as humans." "We are animals!" "You want to live in the Palace?" "Born in shit and you'll die in shit." "And there's no way you can get out." "That's the way it is." "Now I'll tell you what happened this morning when you'd gone to school." "I was dressed and came out... and then the doorbell rang." "And not just a little trinkie." "The way Aunt Liset rings." "It was a firm, rather long ring." "I was quite scared." "Mother went and opened the door." "Just imagine:" "It was the police!" "The police?" "Yes." "The police!" "The newspaper industry in Stockholm is expanding." "In the fight for readers." "Newspapers use social conditions as a weapon to shape opinion for or against the need for change in society." "We must organize." "We must see that we get people in parliament who can speak for us." " How shall we do that?" " The daily press can help us." "We have Aftonbladet." "An excellent newspaper." "We must see that the paper and its ideas get wide circulation." " Did you say Aftonbladet?" " Yes." " That liberal rag..." " It's liberal but it isn't a rag." " Stockholm's Dagblad..." " That's a rag!" " I've never heard anything so dumb." " Then there's a lot you haven't heard." "Chapter 1 Afraid and Hungry." "Now I'm going to read a few lines from Part 1 of The Son of a Servant." "It's about Strindberg's childhood until he was a student and he described it as the story of the development of a mind." "He wrote Part 1 of The Son of a Servant in about 4 months." "In April he sent the manuscript to Bonniers for publishing. 1886." "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." "Thy kingdom come." "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." "Give us this day our daily bread." "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory." "Forever." "Amen." " Father wants to speaks to you." " Yes." "Wait." "Sit down!" "I've something important to say." "When I came home from work today" "I noticed someone had drunk wine from the bottle in the cabinet in the hall." " The children have been..." " Don't interrupt!" "Someone has drunk the wine." "August, you look guilty." "Well?" ""Rearing a child consisted of scolding and hair-pulling" ""'I pray the Lord my soul to take' and 'Do as you're told!" "'" ""The child had duties, not rights." ""Everyone else's wishes were heard." "His were ignored."" ""He could do nothing without doing something wrong" ""go nowhere without being in someone's way" ""utter no word without disturbing someone." ""Finally he did not even dare to move." ""The supreme duty and greatest virtue was to sit on a chair and be quiet."" " Confess." " August!" "I'm sorry." "Father." "There's a pot." "Guess what's in it?" "Can you imagine what it contains?" "Urine." "A pail of urine standing in the room day in and day out." "It is here." "A pail of urine in the middle of my room, where I live and work." "Here a man is expected to concentrate with the permanent stench of his own excrement stinging in his nose." "Is this worthy of a human being?" "Is this worthy of a human being?" "You have known Luther?" "Yes." "I want to do his work in my country." " Is that all?" " What do you mean?" "It's too little." "Luther is dead." "He began." "We'll go further." "Where will you lead me?" "Far." "Far." "Olof!" " I'm afraid of you, Father Gert." " Yes, yes." "You should be afraid." "You see?" "You see?" "How people crawl on their knees to the two persons sitting on thrones?" "The greatest one is the Pope." "He has two keys in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other." "Now he lifts the thunderbolt and thousands of souls are damned." "The King's palace in Stockholm the largest royal building in the Northern hemisphere is guarded and policed by a large military garrison." "Close ranks..." "Eyes fronti is guarded and policed by a large military garrison." "Is guarded and policed by a large military garrison." "Attention." "Stand to." "Shoulder arms." "Eyes left." "At this time." "The monarchy is trying to crush the forces of social reform as represented by the liberal paper Aftonbladet." "The King sponsors the conservative paper Svenska Tidningen to attack Aftonbladet." "At the same time the King also sponsors two radical papers" "Folkets Röst and Söndagsbladet, to attack the liberals from the left." " Tell us about your play." " The one I'm writing now?" "May, 1875." "For the first time August Strindberg visits" "It's a revision of Master Olof May, 1875." "For the first time August Strindberg visits" "May, 1875." "For the first time August Strindberg visits which I wrote a few years ago." "May, 1875." "For the first time August Strindberg visits" "I'm trying to do a new version." "The home of the Baron and Baroness von Wrangel." "The home of the Baron and Baroness von Wrangel." "It was refused for some reason." "The home of the Baron and Baroness von Wrangel." "Is it similar to the other one you wrote, The Freethinker?" "Yes, there are certain parallels." "You are interested in the problem of religion." "I believe?" "Yes." "But, at the same time, it's about a person... who dares to change habitual patterns." "A man who defies conventions." "Seeks new ways and challenges..." " That's exciting..." " They're the ones who..." " The theatre is fascinating." " Skål, Sofia." "My wife's interested in the theatre." "As a child I dreamt of being on stage." " Now you're a wife and mother." " Yes." "I am." " Imagine if I had children..." " That will come." "The Reform Bill of 1865." "The four-tiered Parliament is abolished and a two-chamber one established." "The First Chamber is for the nobility, the clergy bureaucrats and affluent businessmen." "The Second Chamber is for citizens and farmers." "Despite the political reform only 5.5% of the male population over the age of 25" "The way to get rid of the military..." "The way to get rid of the military..." "have the right to vote." "The king and the military are only a symptom of the disease of our society." "The belief that humans aren't equal..." "I believe all human beings are equal." "So the working class must have a say in shaping society." "If our children are to grow up." "We must have better housing." "We must be able to heat our homes." "We must have water... the opportunity to be clean..." "ourselves and our homes..." "For this, we must have a say in shaping our society." "If we can't." "Nothing will happen." "If I may say so, all you need is patience because the government and king know exactly what the problems are." "As I said." "We now have poor relief." "We have new school regulations." "This is the way it is and, as this century progresses people will be better off, with greater equality but we must have order." "Our regiment will get new horses in two weeks." "How nice." "A couple of dozen new coursers that we'll train." "There'll be an inspection in a month." "And the Defence Ministry complains that they don't have any money." "Right." "We should have a larger share of the national budget." "Things are in a sorry state." "Do you know that the Swedish Army has the worst rifles in all of Europe?" " After Portugal, of course." " Father says that too." "There are many reforms coming now and of course it costs money." "This is something that is really in the nation's interest:" "A strong defence force." "He turns to his neighbour on the other throne and they both smile." "The years 1868 - 1870 are the hardest in Sweden." "80,000 people emigrate." "But then." "Olof." "There is a murmur in the air a kind of grumbling from the people." ""Who grumbles?" the Pope calls, shaking his thunderbolt." "And the Emperor shakes his sword." "No one replies, Olof." "But the grumbling and murmuring continues, calling. "Think!" "Think!"" ""Who's shouting 'Think!" "'?"" "The Emperor asks." "Turning pale." ""Bring him here and I'll take his life," the Pope cries." ""Bring him here." "I'll take his soul."" " Rabble!" " That's what they are." "This has nothing to do with you." "It's a police matter." "Damn!" "Long live the king!" "Silence!" "Hit me but don't touch her." "Silence!" "November 1868." "A spectators' stand is built in Stockholm in readiness for the unveiling ceremony of the statue of Karl Xll." "The stand is reserved for paying spectators." "A demonstration develops." "Stones are thrown at the police." "The troops are sent for and there are many arrests." "Republican sentiment is strong." "On the same day that we filmed these scenes in 1993 the Danish police in Copenhagen opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators." "I shall read a few paragraphs from The Swedish People." "The Swedish People was one of Strindberg's most important works." "And there are many reasons for this." "First of all... criticism he suffered then and later over The Swedish People affected him very deeply." "He was outraged and crushed and it marked him... so that he suffered from it most of the rest of his life." "The island of Kymmendö in the Stockholm archipelago." "The Swedish People also has another significance in that it has been very important to the writing of history generally." "This is the first time anyone told the history of the lower classes a writer describing the way of life of ordinary people." "It had never been done before, so." "In this sense it was a completely pioneering work as regards the study and writing of history." "The Swedish People became the most lavish literary work of the decade." "It was illustrated by Carl Larsson and, as we said, it was an attempt to write the history of ordinary people the perspective of simple people on their own lives and environment from the 9th Century onward." "This is what Strindberg writes about the Middle Ages..." ""The common fate of ordinary people in the Middle Ages was oppression." ""They worked and with their work they supported not just themselves" ""but also the vast luxury of court, state and church." ""As if this were not enough..." ""the farmer." "Who seems doomed always to bear the heaviest burden" ""will too be oppressed by those it pleases the king" ""to appoint as county governors." ""The Swedish people are patient" ""but it has happened now and again that they have broken their chains" ""and taught the king and nobles what their tranquility dependent upon." ""Let us never forget that our greatest medieval hero was Engelbrekt" ""and that he and men like him showed the powerful they could go too far..." ""in their oppression."" "Amongst Strindberg's friends at this time are a number of radical young writers acutely aware of the need for a modern literature which will sharpen the debate on social issues." "They call themselves "Young Sweden"." "My name is Ann-Charlotte Edegren Leffler." "I am a writer." "I was born in 1849." "I am married to District Judge Gustav Edegren." "My background is middle class." "My father is a member of parliament and a headmaster." "I have two brothers." "Gösta and Fritz." "One is a professor of mathematics." "The other of linguistics." "They inspired me very much while I was growing up." "I myself have not studied, since I am a woman." "I always wanted to be a writer." "I told stories at the age of 6 although I couldn't yet write." "But." "At the age of 20." "Iwas helped by my father to publish a book of short stories, By Chance." "That was my debut." "In her series of novels." "From Life." "Ann-Charlotte Leffler attacks social, religious and moral conventions and unmasks the hypocrisy of contemporary society." "How important is the feminist movement?" "And unmasks the hypocrisy of contemporary society." "And unmasks the hypocrisy of contemporary society." "It is very important." "Without it..." "That's why I write." "I believe that every woman also has a right to education to choose her profession." "To have an occupation." "To set herself free." "I suffered greatly when my brothers studied and I sat idly at home." "If I had a daughter." "I would raise her the way my brothers were." "She'd go to school, at least until 20." "My name is Alfhild Agrell and I am also a writer." "I've lived in Stockholm a few years but I was raised in Härnösand." "In Norrland." "It was there I began to write." "My sister got a clever idea." "She decided." "When we were only 10 or 12, to publish a newspaper written just by girls." "About things that interested girls." "And it could only be bought for girls." "I got married when I was 19 to Per Ahlbin Agrell just after my father died." "Then I lived in Sundsvall for a few years." "When I came to Stockholm 5 years ago I began to write again." "And after a few years I had an article published in Dagens Nyheter which gave me the will to continue." "So lately I've mostly written plays one of which has been performed at the Dramatic Theatre." "In my plays I try to reflect the middle-class woman's marriage." "Today she lives in a cage." "Like a bird that can't fly away." "With our legal system and all the reactionary ideas a woman has no freedom." "She is locked into marriage." "locked into her husband's estimation of her." "My way of changing this is to write plays that show the truth about the real situation." "Strindberg's autobiographical novel, A Madman's Defence covers the period from when Strindberg first meets Siri von Essen in 1875 to the time of its writing in 1887 - 1888." "At the beginning, the novel describes their romantic and passionate meeting." "Passages of tenderness and longing stand in contrast to the hate-filled descriptions of his wife which form the remainder of the book." "The many good times spent by the couple on Kymmendö in these years are never mentioned." "Instead, Strindberg characterises this period in their marriage by quarelling, growing suspisions of infidelity and the prolonged episode of the dog..." ""First there was a dog." "A King Charles spaniel."" ""A monster with running eyes."" " Can't you hang the laundry later?" " It won't get dry." "The dog." "Your skirt will get dirty." ""I hate dogs."" " This is incredible!" " Stop it!" "How can you sit for hours playing with a little dog?" "Can't you stop playing with that disgusting beast?" " Don't talk like that." " Why can't you let him go?" "I haven't washed my feet for 2 weeks!" "Two weeks..." "In shit and dung!" "In shit and dung!" "Siri had a good childhood." "She was the only child." "So she was loved and spoilt by all." "They lived on an estate called Jackarby." "Outside Borgå." "The main Helsinki to Petersburg road passed through the estate." "She played lots of boyish games as a child." "She was quite a wild little girl." "She climbed trees and rode horseback." "Her mother didn't approve." "She worried about Siri's clothes." "She slept with curlers in her hair so that she could be a nice little aristocratic lady during the day." "As Siri grew up her mother thought she should speak French with her." "She also had to write letters in French to her girlfriend." "Constance." "But they used to write to each other secretly in Swedish." "At 10, she composed solo dances." "She liked dancing very much." "She gave performances always of a romantic figure like an angel or an elf." "Her father spent most of his time in the libary with his books." "When she wanted to be a dancer, he said" ""Of course you can when you grow up, my child."" "She liked her father very much." "He liked most of the things she did." "But he felt she should be hardened and develop moral courage." "So he let her go alone up into the attic at Jackarby even though they said there were ghosts." "It was scary." "But she did it all the same." ""Fate is strange!" ""It was the same old apartment in which my parents had lived" ""the house in which I had spent the most miserable years of my childhood."" "Welcome, Sofia." "It's so nice to have you here." "It's nice to be here." "It's so scary." "It's a different world." " You too." "Mr Strindberg." " I'm sorry?" "Welcome." "It's nice to have you here this evening." "Thank you." "It's nice to be here." "It's as if there were ghosts in here." "Perhaps you haven't noticed?" " No." " Exciting." " What sort of ghosts?" " We haven't noticed." "I lived here as a child." "When memories come..." "When you return after many years... it's as if they moved about the walls." "Did you see anything?" "Sofia In de Betou." "Aged 19, cousin of Siri von Essen." "Some people claimed to." "Sofia In de Betou." "Aged 19, cousin of Siri von Essen." "Sofia In de Betou." "Aged 19, cousin of Siri von Essen." "Do you know anyone who has?" "Sofia In de Betou, aged 19, cousin of Siri von Essen." "I've heard of people who have." "There's a young woman who can certainly drive out ghosts." "Miss Forsten." ""Presently the Baroness returned with her little girl" ""and began to put her to bed in her small iron cot." ""The little child began to cry and refused to sleep." ""After a few futile attempts to calm her" ""her mother threatened her with the rod."" ""I cannot bear to see a child being spanked without losing my temper." "A little more?" ""I cannot bear to see a child being spanked without losing my temper." ""I cannot bear to see a child being spanked without losing my temper." "Not for me." ""I cannot bear to see a child being spanked without losing my temper." "Strindberg?" ""I can remember scolding my own father about it on one occasion." ""I can remember scolding my own father about it on one occasion." "Thank you." "I've had enough." ""I can remember scolding my own father about it on one occasion." ""Filled with an almost uncontrollable rage, I was forced to intervene."" "1909." "Strindberg writes to his daughter Kerstin for the last time." ""I am 60 years old and live in a boarding house..." ""But I am a writer" ""and life is to me simply material for plays." "Mostly tragedies..." ""Adieu!" "And think of me only as a memory." "Your Father."" "Quiet!" "Gather round here all of you and see the miracle." "Come." "Come closer." "Look, the perfect image of her mother." "I must take this opportunity again to cheer for the lovely young Greta and her beautiful mother and... her pleasant father." "Let us raise a cheer for all of them." "The history of rulers!" "Sweden's history..." "We have a history and we must try to..." "We shall try to write it, since it hasn't been done yet." "The idea behind The Swedish People that the history of Sweden is the history of the Swedish people is in opposition to the ideas of the conservative historian Erik Gustaf Geijer that Swedish history is the story of its monarchs." "I'll crush those bloody fools!" "Silly professors!" "We'll piss on them!" "Shit on them!" "We'll go down and dig up shit." "We'll see history as it really was." "The history of the people..." "ordinary people." "Those who slaved for thousands of years to build this country up." "Those who really deserve to be mentioned." "It's them, my dear Carl." "It's their history and it's for them we'll write history." "It's just that those damned professors." "They're so scared." "Popular science, popular culture." "It's a popular work we want to do." "It's important that people understand." "And, my dear Carl." "You shall sketch." "Paint." "Illustrate." " People will get involved..." " We'll get paid too." "No bloody monumental paintings of kings on fat horses and other shit." " What do you want?" " The truth!" " What truth?" " Somewhere." "Somewhere..." "What truth are you searching for?" "Simple human truth, unadorned." "Truth that isn't romantically improved upon... that doesn't praise the ruling class." "That is the truth we want." "But, if we return to the point, which points shall we make?" "Besides those already mentioned." "We've discussed women's rights..." "I want to discuss literary matters... new literature that liberates human beings..." "We must discuss culture generally." "Connect it with a naturalistic view..." "Culture today is like children's fairy-tales:" "Short, sweet stories." "We must attack the Swedish Academy and the persons there." "Or at least one person:" "Af Wisén..." "We've seen how Europe has developed:" "Denmark and Norway are ahead of us." "There's a similar situation in other areas." "Someone rules..." "They've succeeded." "Carl David af Wisén, conservative critic and secretary to the Swedish Academy." " They've come further." " It's the establishment." "Carl David af Wisén, conservative critic and secretary to the Swedish Academy." "Carl David af Wisén, conservative critic and secretary to the Swedish Academy." "A bureaucracy, many institutions." "But..." "Wisén is the villain in this." "We must attack them." "He can't decide things for all of Sweden." "We must break new ground too." "We can't stick to the old ways." "That's why we've gathered here:" "To air our views for once." "We translate books." "That's one way." " That is one way." " Yes." "And we publish our own newspaper." "Should we separate the two things?" "Is it right to try?" " The one gives the other." " It's the same thing." " We must have both." "Right?" " Yes." "Of course." "The important thing is that women have voting rights." "There's child labour, too." "The one doesn't exclude the other." "But we must keep them separate." "It's important to take up these problems and air them so the people see how things are:" "The situation of women what child labour entails, how the working class really lives." "I thought of something that's very effective in the church:" "How they describe the beginning of Christianity." "It's about equality." " I think it would be hard..." " Very good." " Everyone equal?" " Yes." "Now we're jumping from subject to subject again." "What do you mean." "We separate things?" "I mean don't mix up women's rights with the problem of the proletariat." "They belong together." "Child labour does too." "How?" "I don't think we change subjects much." "It's part of the whole society." "I just wanted to..." "Yes, it all hangs together but it doesn't make it easier if we try to consider all things at once." "It can be overwhelming." "We may not be able to find our way." "We must be specific." "What is the primary thing?" "Where shall we begin?" "The "Young Sweden" writers want Strindberg to take up their banner and lead them in their struggle for social reform." "But Strindberg is reluctant." "And writes to a friend" ""I want to be free!" "I don't want to be hounded out" ""and bound hand and foot to a programme..."" "Art was an excuse to get fucked." "To be honest." "I don't know what the hell I'm doing now." "Then it's time we began working on something important something we're committed to." "We can kick the chairs out from under these damned bigwigs who talk about "reality"." "Knock them off their high horses!" "What is art to you then?" "What is art to you?" "It's accepting... that truth is subjective, not to follow some damned leader to be completely free, free of all conventions of all bloody norms..." "Everything." "Total freedom." "That's the basis... of all artistic work, of artistic expression." "Everything you can say that's really worthwhile... that has any value." "Peter Watkins: "Much concern has been expressed in recent years" ""at the growing concentration of economic and social power" ""within the world's mass media..." ""For example." "The phenomenon of 'media barons'" ""such as Kerry Packer (Australia), Robert Maxwell (Britain)" ""And Rupert Murdoch (Australia" " USA)." ""This concentration of media ownership into fewer and fewer hands" ""should not surprise us." ""After all, the mass media represent raw power" ""in economic, political." "Corporate" "The ruling class is the problem in Sweden today." ""In economic, political." "Corporate" "The ruling class is the problem in Sweden today." "The ruling class is the problem in Sweden today." ""Social and personal terms..."" "That's a fact." "They can talk for 7 hours on Swedish television about the economic crisis, as they did last week." "There wasn't one person on that panel who defended what you called the labour problem the cause of low-income workers." "The real losers in this crisis." "They only talk in various modes:" "Cheese-paring economists and power-saw economists saying the crisis must be paid for by the majority." "And the media are just as domineering as in those times:" "A single class interest." "You shouldn't chuckle with embarassment." "I know you do it because of talk of a confidence crisis in socialism." "Capital is part of that vocabulary but capitalism is still the problem." "The emperor's more naked than ever." "That's what's happening now and they try to hide it with talk shows that take up half the TV time." "And yet Svante Nycander at Dagens Nyheter is not satisfied." "He'd give the economist prophets more hours of unchallenged TV time." "How bad the crisis really is or how much is merely discussion of a crisis in the mass media..." "That's something." "We are greatly manipulated by the mass media." "And since we talk all the time of an economic crisis, everyone debates it." "Ten years ago it didn't exist." "It is scary to see the twists and turns of emphasis on economic questions." "Let us just take the most extreme recent example." "There are many examples of severance clauses but you said we will go through this crisis together." "How can Volvo workers, hundreds of whom have been laid off..." "How can they go through this crisis together with the CEO who gets 75 million in severance pay and never has to work again?" "How can they agree on a common solution to this crisis?" "One solution would be to take the 75 million from this old man." "He's not old." "Actually he's 42." "When they say go jointly through the crisis they mean we should 'jointly' back up the richest 10% of the people in the country." "I feel that 'jointly' is the wrong word here." "What would you do about culture?" "If you compare the situation today, what would you do?" "Write plays?" "What about?" "Whose side would you be on?" "How would you go about it?" "Street theatre?" "Could you tell us?" "New forms." "Try a variety of views." "Try to make it sparkle with a lot of different views." "Seek new forms." "It seems now as if we're tied to a single perspective." "There's a lot of apathy." "No one has the energy." "We need a new will." "We must find some kind of hope." "In those days there was some hope for the future and an optimism that doesn't exist now." "There was also a belief in progress which we don't have now." "The media is also a problem." "TV is the most powerful influence and it's completely engaged by quiz shows today." "That really should be changed." "Such entertainment drowns the will to change society." "Watkins' statement continues by describing the repression exercised by global television to prevent public debate about this concentration of power." "Watkins describes also how the mass audio-visal media deliberately use a rapidly edited and fragmented language-form (pictures and sound)" "To manipulate audiences to stay in front of the screen." "An extract from The Swedish People" ""Lately we have noticed that the press is not living up to its task" ""of dealing with the big questions of our time." ""Lts misdemeanour is that it has made the people accustomed to deal" ""with small and petty interests which takes their attention" ""from the bigger issues."" "What do you have to say?" "Nothing?" " What can one say?" " There's nothing to say." " It's a sick man's fantasies." " It's shocking to hear." "Strindberg, the most important writer of our time..." "But not our most important historian." "That's it." "The Swedish People pretends to be a history book." "This is a sick man who had problems in his childhood and he tries to redress this through self-promotion" "with sarcastic attacks in his book." "The attack on Geijer is shameful." " I agree." " One of our time's..." "If one has scientific pretensions, one should be scientific." "There is nothing scientific about The Swedish People." "Science is not the point." "It's to involve the population." "Not just professors and experts." "A literary monstrosity!" " It's nothing." " Strindberg represents a new..." "Nonsense, it's not history." "It's not a novel." "It's nothing!" "To a large part of the population it's an important book." "The majority don't give a damn that you in the Capital sit drinking punch." "Most people can't afford this book." "It encourages many people to begin reading." "To learn to read." "1865 - 1875." "The Stockholm press expands its output tenfold." "Many weekly magazines." "Such as The Family Journal and The Family Friend target directly the middle-class." "These weekly magazine invite an escape from reality in the form of horror stories, romances and many illustrations." "The number of children born in wedlock in Stockholm begins a sharp climb." "The age of the so-called "nuclear family" has begun." "Hello, my boy." "The age of the so-called "nuclear family" has begun." "The age of the so-called "nuclear family" has begun." "Hello." "Father." " What are you doing." "August?" " Playing with nuts." "I see that." "Where did you get them?" " I found them." " Found them?" "Where?" " On my way home from school." " Such fine nuts?" " Where on the way?" " By the roadside." "So these fine nuts..." "You can't find nuts like that just anywhere." "Tell me now where you got them." "August!" "At the wagonmaker's." " Did he give them to you?" " No." "They were on the ground." "They are his property, not yours." "Did you steal them?" "What is the truth about Strindberg's parents?" "Were they the despots he makes them out to be?" "Can we trust his version?" "He says himself this is not an autobiography." "Nor is it pure fantasy but simply the story of a mind's development." "What is true?" "What is fiction?" "We can never know." "And the question poses itself." "What is the artist's responsibility when he presents us with such a story?" "The artist's freedom versus his responsibility." "Excuse me." "I'd like to ask you a few questions if I may." "I'll begin with you and Siri." "When you went away into exile." "Did you discuss it together?" "Of course we did... since I was, in fact, forced to leave." "Was Siri happy to go with you?" "I think you are trying to insinuate something that..." " No, no..." "...there was no discussion at all." "I thought she was working in the theatre..." "Can you shut up?" "It was simply this:" "I felt I was forced to get away because I was under attack from just about everybody." "But I think it was hardest for Siri and the children." "They were subjected to terrible persecution because I was attacked and they were being attacked indirectly." "You must see." "I find it strange." "She wanted to be an actress and she had worked in the theatre." "Was she happy giving it up?" "It wasn't a question of being happy." "The situation was forced on us by circumstances." "All right, forget that." "I have another question." "You often accuse Siri of being unfaithful." "True?" " Not accuse, I just state a fact." " Were you unfaithful to her?" " Why should I answer that?" " All right, forget it." "I'm asking the questions but if you refuse to answer..." " Why ask such personal questions?" " Because I want to know." " I think it's important." "Don't you?" " Important to know I was unfaithful?" " I think it means something." " Have you ever been unfaithful?" "This film is about you." " Have you ever been unfaithful?" " That's irrelevant." "The film is about you." "You have no reason to question me." "Don't I?" "Jesus!" "If you ask questions." "I have every reason to query your questions." "Especially your motives." "Why is it interesting if I've been unfaithful?" " You're an interesting person." " It's a personal question, isn't it?" "All right." "No personal questions." "What do you think of this?" "There are two sides." "Conservatives think you're sloppy." "Unscientific." "It's precisely those old fools in their academic chairs..." " Calm down." "There are others." " What do you mean?" " "Fresh." "Lively" Handelstidningen." " Handelstidningen!" "The most rigid conservatives!" "Absolute imbeciles." "Idiots!" "How can they be given space in newspapers?" "It's incredible!" "The reviews are not all bad." "It's all bad when my friends and colleagues refuse to defend what I write." "They all belong to the same damned coterie." " Some of them think it's good." " Oh?" "Yes. "Fresh and lively." Surely that's good?" ""Fresh and lively." I've spent a whole year working and it's a fresh and lively tale!" "Thank you very much!" "But read what that damned Eichorn wrote." "Read this!" "And he's a prominent man with the right to write in a newspaper." "I am Carl Oscar Strindberg." "I was born in 1811 in Stockholm." "The youngest of three children." "My brother Johan Ludvig became a wholesaler." "He's dead now." "My dear sister Liset married Samuel Owen." "When I was still young." "I started work in my father's spice shop." "He sold spices." "But also cloth." "Wine and other things." "My father Zacarias was a well-known merchant in the city." "In 1846 I started my steamboat commission at Riddarholmen." "My brother-in-law Samuel helped me to get started." "We have many boats in operation." "We've done well, except for some financial problems a few years ago." "There's the Sigtuna boat." "10:30." "Right on time." "I'm married." "Eleonora." "My beloved wife." "She's given me 11 children." "Seven are still alive." "Thank God." "We're doing well." "We have a few troubles." "One of which is the damned hole in my leg." "A sore that never heals." "We have some problems with the children." "It'd be odd if we didn't." "1861." "Probably in this year Carl Oscar Strindberg starts to keep a diary." "His first entry." "For 1811. consists of three words: "I was born."" "We have a thief in the family." "Do you know what happens to boys who lie and steal?" "August, you are a thief!" "You accuse your parents in "The Son of a Servant"." "It's severe criticism of them, isn't it?" " Yes." " It's there to read." "But the way you treated your children..." "I must say, your parents were angels... compared with the way you treated your children." "In letters to your 9-year old daughter Kerstin, for instance." "You write:" ""Adieu!" "And think of me only as a memory." "Your father."" "A 9-year-old!" "Christ!" "How could you?" "In this scene, we mistakenly referred to Kerstin Strindberg as aged 9 when Strindberg wrote to her that she must forget him as a father." "In fact, she was aged 15." " Are you human?" "How could you?" " Do you know the circumstances?" " The letters are there." " You know nothing of the situation." "You have a couple of letters from which you draw many conclusions." " Have you ever?" " You can't possibly..." "Just try to answer the question, for God's sake!" "If you want, take a pen and write it instead!" "You know nothing about the situation." " You have a couple of letters..." " The situation..." "What do you know about the circumstances?" "How the hell could you write that to a 9-year old girl?" "I don't understand." "You call yourself a man!" "What's that got to do with it?" " You call yourself a man..." " Ah..." "A man is a person who doesn't write certain things to children?" "Can't you answer?" "How could you write that to a child?" " Because the situation was..." " The situation!" "So the situation releases you from all responsibility as a human being?" " Of course it doesn't." " No." "You called." "I felt it." "Why are you sitting here?" "What are you waiting for?" "My friend." "We met yesterday for the first time." "We talked alone for 4 hours." "You aroused my sympathy but you mustn't abuse my kindness." "Enemies everywhere, alone everywhere." "Why did you leave your wife and children?" ""Not as a step-daughter" ""but rather as my wife's teacher in the Swedish language." ""This proposal is simply to make things easier for your mother." ""And assist you." "Karin." "To make your way in the world" ""without missing her like a child."" " I don't want to go to Germany." " You don't have to." " I don't want to leave here." " You don't have to go to Germany." "I don't understand what he means." "You want power over the child but still to keep me as a provider." "Yes, power..." "What's this life and death struggle been about if not power?" "For me, since I don't believe in a life to come... my child was my after-life." "My idea of immortality." "Perhaps the only one with any basis in reality." "Take that away and you cut off my life." "Why didn't we separate in time?" "Because the child bound us together but the bond became a chain." " Who is the father?" " You!" "No, I'm not!" "A crime lies buried here and it's beginning to stink." "And what a hellish crime!" "I've served 17 years hard labour and I was innocent." " How can you repay me for that?" " You're completely mad." "That is your hope." "I've had my suspicions a long time but I dared not hear them confirmed." "I have suffered this for you What will you do for me?" "What can I do?" "I swear before God and all that's sacred that you're Bertha's father." "What of it?" "You've said that a mother can commit any crime for her child?" "But I don't want to go." "I beg you." "Tell me everything." " I don't know what he means." " I'm as helpless as a child." "Can't you hear I'm begging, as if to my mother?" "Can't you forget I'm a man?" "Are you crying?" "Yes, I'm crying although I'm a man." "Karin, we'll do this." "Write a letter." "I'll help you." " What shall I write?" " I'll help you." "Begin with the date." "Helsinki." "May 8, 1894." "By now, Siri von Essen had ceased to write to her former husband and it was Karin's duty." "As the eldest child to reply to Strindberg's letters." "Usually Karin wrote a draft which Siri corrected and changed before Karin wrote the final letter." "Siri says. " Karin writes in such a cold way that you shiver."" "1900." "Strindberg meets Harriet Bosse, a 22-year-old Norwegian actress." "She works with the new method of acting introduced by Stanislavsky." "Strindberg casts Harriet Bosse for the lead role of The Lady in his drama "To Damascus"." "He spoke about how hard life has been for him how he longed for a ray of light for a woman who could reconcile him with humanity and women." "Then he placed his hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes." "Then he asked..." ""Would you like to have a baby with me, Miss Bosse?"" "I curtsied and replied, completely hypnotised" ""Yes, thank you." And so we were engaged." "May 6. 1901." "Strindberg and Harriet Bosse marry." "March 25, 1902." "Harriet's daughter, Anne-Marie, "Lillan"" "with whom Strindberg develops a fond relationship." "Is born." "In the summer 1882." "Strindberg was on Kymmendö in the Stockholm skerries writing a book he called The New Kingdom." "The New Kingdom was a stringing attack on the whole Swedish establishment in all its guises." "He attacks the Royal Dramatic Theatre, the Swedish Academy the army, the university and all the state authorities." "He attacks the sacred cows of Swedish literature like Bellman and Geijer and particularly the critics of The Swedish People whom he derides with special vigour." "In a chapter called Moses he gives his scurrilous view of Swedish Jews." "In his autobiography The Son of a Servant he calls The New Kingdom his revenge." " Good morning." " Good morning, sir!" ""Your Bright Sun Comes Up Again"" "One." "Two..." "They were afraid finally to move, to make a sound." "Their primary duty and virtue was to sit still and stay silent." "August." "I didn't steal any damned nuts." "You mustn't swear." "Siri entered a religious crisis after her confirmation." "She began to feel totally powerless against sin and evil." "She viewed herself critically." "She began to condemn wordly books, thoughtless talk, jokes and games." "She had an enormous sense of guilt." ""One morning, after I had walked down the rue de Fleurus" ""to comfort myself by having a look in the paint-shop window..." ""I entered the Luxembourg Gardens" ""now in full bloom and lovely as a fairy-tale." ""There on the ground I found two twigs." "Broken off by the wind." ""They were shaped like the Greek letters for P and Y..." ""It struck me that these stood for Popoffsky." ""I called on Providence and recited the Psalms of David to my enemies."" "I'm going to read a paragraph from one of the essays entitled The Public Lie." ""Since the society is built upon broken agreements..." ""that is to say lies..." ""simple natural relationships are now so complicated" ""that 'the public sector' has become a singular necessity" ""a kind of silent social agreement" ""that cannot be broken without some anguish." ""Thus dreadful turbulence may follow a true word spoken at the right time." ""It's no joke that so indiscreet a man is called a danger to the society."" "So the talk about you and him travelling abroad is nothing?" "Yes, it worries me a little... a lot." "He gets these ideas." "Come on, you bastards!" "They write and talk about him so much now." "He feels a lot of pressure." "He'd like to leave right away." "What will you do?" "We'll go with him, the children and I." "But only for a short time." "I don't understand you." "One minute the theatre is best for you, then it is best here." "One minute he's jealous, the next there is nothing to worry about." "Then he wants to go abroad." "The next minute he doesn't." "Constantly hopping about." "But he sits in his writer's cottage." "Writing away, in his own world." "Then he steps outside and it's as if he doesn't realize this is another world here." "And he remains behind in his... unreal world." "And gets these ideas." "His jealousy is groundless." "If he's jealous of a dog." "Well..." "It's so ridiculous." "It's laughable." "But it's not pleasant when these outbursts come." "It's very trying." "Strindberg and Harriet constantly quarrel as their feelings for each other grow ever stronger." ""Unrighteous witnesses come forward." ""They question me about it." "That which I do not know." ""They reward me with eternal pain." "Forsaken is my soul." ""I wore mourning when they were ill." "I mortified my soul and I fasted." ""I prayed with my head bowed." ""I acted as if the man was my friend, my brother." ""I walked bent over like someone mourning their mother."" "If you reflect spontaneously on what... characterizes Strindberg's attitude to religion" "you can't fail to be struck by his enormous sense of guilt the huge burden of guilt... he seemed to contend with in various ways all his life." "One wonders... where this enormous sense of guilt actually came from and it's not far-fetched to imagine that something affected him very deeply in childhood the pietistic tradition... a strict." "Moral, law-abiding piety that influenced him in a deep sense during the whole of his life." "There is so much talk in Luther's theology of the law and the gospel." ""The law." "Commandments." "Norms..." ""serve the purpose," Luther says. " of making people aware of their guilt" ""aware of how impossible it is to adhere to this law" ""simply because human beings are what they are:" "Human."" "And it is this insight that adherence to the law is impossible that makes man realize his need for the gospel." "As Luther says, "The law drives man to Christ." "Towards atonement."" "In Strindberg's case." "It's as if... this law anaesthetizes him virtually all his life." "He mentions in many places that Christ is completely alien to him." "Particularly during his "Inferno crisis"" "he works so hard to identify with religious figures and interprets... and tries to grasp what is happening within him in metaphysical terms." "He says it is The Old Testament that gives him comfort and helps him interpret his inner experiences." "The New Testament leaves him cold." "He doesn't understand it." "Words like compassion mean nothing to him." "I believe it is a dark and dismal image of God that we find... in Strindberg's writings and in his attitude to religion." "But Strindberg is no theologian and he writes that when he returns to religion it is not a religion... of opinions based on theories." "It is rather." "He says, a stream of perceptions that condense into ideas a state of mind that he tries to deal with and understand." "And I feel." "At the bottom of it all there is a kind of existential point of departure which is this guilt that he can never be rid of." "August..." "You must promise to take care of your brothers and sisters." "And promise me one thing more." "Be very wary, August." "Wary of... of bad women." "Live by the word of God." "August." "Then life will be good to you." "I wanted to go to acting school." "You have that natural brilliance that so many actresses lack." "A kind of power, honesty." "I'm convinced you'll be excellent on stage." "The question is how passionately you want to and how strong your will is." "You're not talking about the theatre again?" "Haven't you given up those whims?" ""Beloved Lady!" ""You don't believe you have genius." "You think genius is a sharp brain." ""It isn't." ""I don't have the sharpest of brains but I have fire." ""My fire is the greatest in Sweden" ""and, if you wish." "I will set fire to this whole vile nest." ""You have fire." ""It's that hidden flame that worries and torments you" ""that drives you and has been glowing there for years" ""and that so many damned fools have sought to smother." ""Come." "Fulfill your high goals!" ""You can be an actress." ""I'll give you your own theatre." "I and Edvard B. And Frippe." ""I shall act with you and write and love you." ""You've a crime on your conscience." ""You wanted the rewards of genius." "But you refused martyrdom." ""And it is a sweet martyrdom." ""Fulfill your destiny." ""Be the greatest actress in this country!"" "premieres in Stockholm's New Theatre." "Siri is in the title role." "The drama does not please the critics and Siri's performance is judged the only redeeming feature." "Strindberg feels that Siri, succeeding where he has failed, has humiliated him." "1904." "Strindberg and Harriet Bosse divorce but continue their intimate relationship until January 1 907." "May 1908." "Harriet Bosse marries the actor Gunnar Wingård." "While I was pregnant with Ann-Marie" "Strindberg was kind and thoughtful to me the whole time." "He couldn't help stirring up the matter of women's rights occasionally." "Strindberg's whiskers quivered." "I cried." "He walked away to a washstand in his room." "He washed his hands a number of times. nervously and quickly which he always did when he was upset." "Then the storm was over." "Around the turn of the century." "the Swedish authorities erect elaborate triumphal arches to celebrate the arrival in Stockholm of "important Personages"" "such as Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany." "President Falliéres of France" "King Frederik of Denmark and the explorer Sven Hedin on his return from Tibet." "Some of these costly receptions are staged around the time of the Great Strike of 1909." "At the beginning of 1 910." "Strindberg engages in the last great struggle of his life, "The Strindberg Feud."" "Strindberg is angered by the recognition given to his rivals the explorer Sven Hedin and the writer Verner von Heidenstam and by their reactionary stand against the labour movement." "Strindberg begins a series of newspaper articles which are published as pamphlets by a social democratic youth organization." "These pamphlets. which attack militarism in Sweden and take up the causes of socialism and republicanism come from Strindberg's contacts with young socialists whose arguments for social commitment are drawn from Christianity thus enabling him to abandon the Inferno view of socialism as Godless." "What are you writing?" "I'm translating." " Read it to me." " l don't think you'll understand it." "Understand it?" "Isn't it Swedish?" "Yes, but it's too unmaterial for you." "Unmaterial?" "What's that?" "I don't think you'd fail to understand me if I told you." "If you don't grasp what I read." "you'll know what unmaterial means." "You read while I knit." "Well. listen carefully but you must forgive me if you find it boring." "I will understand. I want to." "" Matter abstracted from its form is completely without predicate" "" indeterminate and indistinguishable." "" Not purely non-being, but part of reality's non-being." "" That is to say that from being as a possibility. something may arise." "" Possible being is as little non-being as is reality." "" Every existence is therefore a realization of the possible." "" Thus. matter. for Aristotle" "" is a broader possible substratum than for Plato" ""who explains it as pure non-being." ""From this we can grasp what Aristotle understood as matter." " "Unlike form. a positive negativity--"" " Why shouldn't I understand this?" "Don't I have the same properties of mind as you." "Olof?" "I'm ashamed that you have a wife who doesn't understand what you say." "I'll stick to my knitting." "I'll clean and dust your work room." "At least I shall learn to comprehend the wishes in your eyes." "But I'll never understand you." "Siri follows Strindberg's advice to write and do translations." "She writes articles for Danish newspapers." "Siri has difficulties to continue in the theatre once she is pregnant." "There is also much unemployment amongst actors and she is forced to sew her own costumes." "Siri also does this work to improve the family's economic situation." "When Strindberg writes A Madman's Defence several years later he has changed his position regarding Siri and her career as an actress from immense support to cold contempt." "Can I never have any peace here?" "When you're home for once." "must you sit there sewing?" "You're never home, always running about with your theatre friends or philanderers and other low types!" "When you're home you spread your things over the whole damned table." "It's pathetic!" "You put so much damned energy into your clothes, it's ridiculous." "When will you realize that your acting career is absurd and phoney?" "Sometime you must realize that you will never be more than a mediocrity and see how much time you waste running about and fawning there." "And then you come home late at night and go to bed and sleep." "It's ridiculous." "You are and will always be mediocre, Siri dear." "When are you going to realize it?" "And you poke about and sew and toil and grumble." " You know the theatre is my life!" " Your life?" "My life!" "I've struggled a long time." "I worked in the theatre a year ago." "You know how times are now." "I'll work in the theatre again." "It's my life!" "I've dreamt of this." "You helped me work on the stage once and now you tell me I'm mediocre." "When will you realize it will never be anything more than dreams?" "It'll be more than dreams." "I'm going to work in the theatre." "I shall read something Siri wrote." "" Women have as much right as men to property, work and pay for their work." "" Since woman was created by God with an equally complete spirit" "" since every human being should be primarily human" ""and thus have the opportunity to earn a living and be independent" "" it is wrong to raise a woman to be company for a man." ""First of all, like him." "she should be a citizen." "" Then a wife and mother."" "Sit down." "Paragraph 3." ""Every prostitute is required, twice a week or more if necessary" ""to present herself at the bureau to undergo a health examination."" " l've done that." " Paragraph 6." "" lt is thus illegal for a woman registered under subsection D" "" to be out of doors after 1 1pm at any time during the year."" "I was on my way home." ""At no time during the year to be out of doors after 1 1pm."" "It just struck 11 ." " Name?" " Wilhelmina Pettersson." " Parish?" " Hedvig Eleonora." " Age?" " 31 ." " Approved?" " Approved." " Approved, yes or no?" " Yes." "" ln using streets with pavements" ""the prostitute should choose the pavements located on her left side." ""lf the prostitute fails to adhere to these regulations" "" she shall be charged in accordance with the Royal Edict as applied to vagrants" "" and as such may be sentenced to penal servitude" "" from one month to three years."" " l was crossing the street." " Were you outdoors after 11 pm?" " Yes or no?" " Yes." " Were you on the right or left side?" " l was crossing..." "Sentenced to penal servitude from one month to three years." "Christ..." "Who do you think is to blame?" "Well?" "I'm afraid." "I don't know what to do." "I'm afraid of men like him." "It doesn't matter what I say." "He won't listen to me." "He doesn't listen." "The truth is. I'm going to work in the theatre." "And I'll succeed as well." "I put my soul into this and I was good on stage." "I had good reviews." "I can't help it if people don't like what you write." "Good God!" "I had good reviews when I performed on stage and I'm going back." "You don't have the soul of an artist, Siri." " lf you ever go back..." " l've had enough of your bloody talk." " You believe I can learn your book?" " l'm convinced of it." "But you can't do it." "Am I to be kept in ignorance?" "No, listen." "The moment you understand what I do you will cease to respect me." " Like a god..." " Yes, if you wish." "But you'd lose that makes you greater than I:" "the power to suppress your will." "You'd be less than I am and I wouldn't respect you." "But understand me:" "our joy is to overrate each other." "Can we not keep that delusion?" "A letter to his sister Elisabeth in the summer of 1882." "Elisabeth suffered severe depressions and at this time lived with her father." "Strindberg advises her to write herself out of her depressions." "" Dear Sister, if your heart is full and you cannot speak. then write." ""Everyone has learned to write, to commit their thoughts to paper." ""You can write letters." "A good and true book is like a letter." ""Writing is not inventing something that never happened." "" To write is to tell about your life." "" But it is not merely to place events in sequence." "" You must have something to say that throws light on an aspect of life." "" The art of writing lies in ordering impressions. memories and experiences" "" in leaving out unimportant things and emphasizing the main ones." "" Do you know the secret of your life and my life?" ""We were too many children." "We felt unwelcome, superfluous." ""We received no love and therefore we were discontented and dejected."" "We put people in mental hospitals so that we don't have to see... what we have within us." "That is our fate, the writer's fate:" "to expose his soul to the powers that be and we will never..." "But if it's a madman who decides who's mad... lt's the madman who sets the framework for what madness is." "And that is sound, healthy. right." "The price the artist pays is always to bare his inner thoughts, his soul." "If the price is mental hospital, then perhaps we must pay it..." "Little Elisabeth... lt's hard because... this is a male world." "There are few female reviewers." "I don't have much education." "I received the education most girls in my situation get:" "a language or two. piano lessons." "And I feel sometimes that no one takes me seriously." "They don't think I can really write." "So I've experimented now and then writing under a male pseudonym." "Then I wasn't criticized as I was under my own name." "" lt was wrong of our parents to have so many children." "" To write or unburden your heart" "" that is the greatest pleasure and comfort." "" Your life is rich in experience and you should tell about it." "" Life has at least three periods:" "" childhood, youth and your experiences in the world." "" Each is a book in itself." "" Don't try to describe your problems to your friends" "" for they will only talk about their own." "" Trust only paper and writing." "Your friend, August."" "1896." "Kerstin Strindberg, still living in Austria with her grandparents is also abandoned by her mother." "Frida Uhl." "Frida begins to pursue famous men including the writer Frank Wederkind and the painter Augustus John." "" An unwholesome curiosity and perverted affection" "" drove me to try to contact my wife and child..." ""for l loved them both." "Small children always fall ill." "" A mother's heart always exaggerates the danger." "" l was quite unversed in even the simplest magic" "" but a fatal instinct whispered what I must do for my beloved little girl" ""who was to be my only consolation in a damnable life."" "Mr. August Strindberg is leaving Sweden in a few days to live abroad." "The reason, it is said. is an imminent mental disturbance." "One can only offer him best wishes on such a wise decision which must have been dictated by urgent necessity." "All Mr. S. can strive for is to try to be forgotten as quickly as possible." "Mr. Strindberg's latest book seems to describe the final station down the sloping abyss." "The fewer words wasted on the author of The Red Room the better since he will probably be invisible for a long time." "However one cannot avoid whispering." "as a farewell message the double-edged remark he used as a motto in his last book:" " "You are a humbug!"" " You know nothing." "How the hell can anyone write so venomously about one of our greatest authors?" "Because the bastard's gone too far!" " Who's gone too far here?" " Strindberg's gone much too far." "That conceited fool with his feminine hands and his pouting lips and ridiculous voice." " The future will show the opposite." " lt's incredible..." "He provoked you." "" Get rid of all your idols." "" Truth alone is worthy of our devotion."" "Brilliant!" "Perhaps you should publish a book like that yourself." "Maybe you're just envious." "But he merely hides behind these things so he can criticize." "It's just to get revenge on the people he doesn't like." " He tells the truth." " The truth!" " He hides behind a mask of words." " Society is founded upon a public lie." "" The present gods I've cursed." "I'll curse them on and on." "" The present gods I've blasphemed, I'll blaspheme in a song."" "In the summer of 1883 Strindberg writes" "Poems in Verse and Prose." "He mixes new poems with old material from his youth." "It was with this collection of poems that Bonnier's became his publisher and it was the last thing he wrote before his exile." "" No, I do not wish to praise you, nor sing for your food of late." "" No, I much prefer to curse you, with my vast delightful hate."" "September 12. 1 883." "The Strindberg family leaves for exile." "" ln my capacity as a writer of filth, I've made a study of hotel toilets." "" The most brilliant invention I discovered in Hamburg." "" There one shits into something very much like a soup bowl." "" Then. when you look. there's nothing." ""Yet you could swear you had excreted a yard or two." "" The bowl was so clean afterwards you could eat turtle soup from it." ""But there was no ripple of water when you sat down, as in Stralsund" ""when water began to flow." ""lt was pure magic." "Enough about toilets."" "" lt is a dreadful country, a nation of crooks." "" Butter costs 1 .70 per pound" "" and they take 30 centimes for a ride in an omnibus." ""100 francs lasts five days, so I must write till my pen is hot." "" No brandy. no beer, 5 centimes to piss and 1 franc to shit." "" Pajkulle and Ritarn were here a few days." "" They said a fuck was 10 francs." ""The latter doesn't concern me, but I still think it's too expensive." "" 'l won't rot here.' said the old hag, and fell down in the cemetery."" "Exile means different things for different people..." "Between 1860 and 1910. nearly one million Swedes leave their country." "What's your name?" " Annika Engström." " Where are you from?" " Stockholm." " And where are you going?" " To America." " Why?" "Times are bad and we can't support ourselves here." "Mother and my brothers and sisters and I are going." "You're not married?" "Are you leaving your parents?" "No, my father's dead." "but I'm leaving my grandparents." "October 2. 1883." "The Strindberg family is in the Passy area of Paris in a cold. crumbling apartment on the rue Franklin." "Siri von Essen's career as an actress is seemingly at an end." "She is pregnant again." "Siri is now beginning six years of exile with her husband six years of packing and unpacking in over 20 different homes." "" Dear Herr Thorsten Hedlund..." "" Nothing comes of nothing and fantasies. like dreams" "" possess full, higher reality." "" A person who has great powers eventually becomes aware of them" "" and will always appear conceited..." "" Someone with so-called persecution mania" "" is persecuted. either in actual fact or because he feels the hatred" "May I say something?" ""is persecuted. either in actual fact or because he feels the hatred" "May I say something?" "May I say something?" ""of his fellow men, which is real."" "" of his fellow men, which is real."" "When Strindberg's books are reprinted "of his fellow men, which is real."" "I'm convinced that... these shabby attacks you've written will be printed on the back page to show what simple-minded critics there were in these times." "It's your only chance to be remembered, gentlemen." "Gentlemen. be quiet now and you will hear some very silly stuff." "There's a poem here called Moonlight with the most fantastic rhymes." "" ln the valley of greening alders there bubbles a little stream."" "What kind of poetry is that?" "A serving-maid's letter." "" A sandpiper sits in the grass, beaming all a'dream."" "Unbelievable rhyme. " a'dream"." "" ln the valley a new-painted carriage doth gleam..."" "My God, there's another word he could have rhymed with." "When the Strindberg family leave Sweden Karin is aged three and Greta two." "You're driving me madI When the Strindberg family leave Sweden Karin is aged three and Greta two." "You rotten shit!" "Cowardly, egotistical, self-pitying!" "You are the most self-centred..." "You know I've tried to defend you, your childhood. all you write!" " What's your problem?" " My problem is you!" "Everything you write... all the things you accuse women of... and other people around you..." "It's all your own problems!" "I've tried to defend you." "your childhood. the child within you... that you are an artist and express exactly what we all want to express." "And, finally. you drive me crazy." "I've read your letters." "You abuse people." "You're totally without feelings." "You use and abuse those you love most." "like Siri and your children." "And you can't see it. even though you write so damned intelligently." "Can you explain these letters?" " Why I write intelligently?" " Yes." "Can you?" "No, don't bother." "That's not what I want to know." "I want to know why you write these damned unfeeling letters!" "I think it's like this:" "you've formed this image." "Here is August Strindberg." "the myth August Strindberg and my eyes see something containing a lot of wonderfully brilliant thoughts and ideas." "whatever..." "But then you scratch the surface and find a human being too with weaknesses, faults and flaws of every kind." "It's not that." "August." "I accept your weaknesses and your fears but I can't accept you abusing people in the despicable way you do." "You use people." "You lie to them." "You cause conflicts between people." "You manipulate them." "Then suddenly you're so intelligent." "It's so subtle." "" l accept all the weaknesses" but then you add up a lot of things that are just fear of weakness and you don't accept that." " You contradict yourself." " Okay. I'm sorry." "It's hard for me to accept that weakness in you." "That's true." " Which?" " Weakness?" "What weakness?" "Hurting so many people just to get what you want, which is to write." "It's damned hard to accept that." "C'est la vie!" "is that all you can say?" "I can't say anything except that I am a man, driven... by needs, by inner tensions" "and by pain..." "And ultimately I just try to be truthful to myself in a way that I may find some kind of self-respect." "If this sometimes leads to acts or behaviour... that are morally questionable. then... certainly... judge me." "But be fair in your judgment." "I believe that's all I can ask." "April 3, 1884." "A son is born to Siri von Essen." "The delivery is difficult and causes Siri bleeding for another two years." "The child's name is Hans." "" Women have a right to the same upbringing as men." "" Boys and girls should have common schools and learn about each other." "" Not as it is now. where boys think girls are angels" "" and girls think boys are knights." "" Girls should be free to choose their company as they wish." "" Women should have voting rights and be accepted in all types of work."" "Summer. 1884." "Strindberg writes the foreword to Married, Part 1." "He recommends rights for women and concludes:" ""The freedom she is now demanding is the same freedom that all men demand." "" We must get it together, as friends, not as enemies" "" for as such we shall get nothing."" "Will you be able to meet your grandfather later?" "I hope they'll both come." "maybe next year." "But I don't know if they can afford it." "Her father sat in the library with his books as usual." "He liked Siri to read aloud to him." "One evening..." "It was January 1 7." "When she was reading to him as usual... his heart just stopped." "As the day for Harriet's marriage to Gunnar Wingård draws closer" "Strindberg's tension increases." "Strindberg is charged with blasphemy for mocking the holy sacrament as a false ceremony in Married, Part 1 where he writes that the parson tries to trick people by passing off Lettström's wafers and Högstedt's Piccadon wine as the body and blood of Jesus of Nazareth" "an agitator who had been executed over 1800 years earlier." "October, 1884." "Shortly after Married, Part 1 is published the entire edition is confiscated by the State Prosecutor." "Strindberg is charged with" ""Blasphemy against God and mocking God's word and sacrament" ." "The maximum penalty for this crime is two years' hard labour." " The police?" " Yes, the police." "Strindberg returns from Geneva to Stockholm." "He is terrified of what will happen to him and spends part of the journey in tears." "We're here to welcome Mr. Strindberg back to Stockholm." " Incredible!" " He has such a strong personality." "We want Mr. Strindberg to go on writing." "We need freedom." "He is greeted by over 1 .000 people at Stockholm's Central Station." "To the cheering crowd, he declares he is glad that" "" Swedes have finally got some air in their lungs."" "I actually came just to look at the spectacle. lt's astonishing." "Strindberg. the man who drags everything into the dirt pulls things down, like the working class." "This is important to all Swedish workers and farmers." "We must support Strindberg against the bourgeoisie who stop free speech." "It's very important to all workers." "40,000 people emigrate from Sweden every year." "The Countess Lejonhufvud Adlersparre." "a leader in the women's movement writes Siri a letter of sympathy and encouragement." "Upon his return to Geneva, Strindberg reads this letter and begins to believe that his wife has been won over to the feminist conspiracy against him." "November 1 7. 1884." "Strindberg is acquitted." "But, in the words of the literary historian Martin Lamm" "" He was a broken man, physically and psychologically, and remained so."" "Has not a man eyes?" "Has not a man hands?" "Limbs. senses. affections, passions?" "Why should a man not complain?" "Why is this unmanly?" "Cry, my child, and your mother will be with you again." "Do you remember when I first came into your life as a second mother?" "Your great strong body lacked fibre." "You were an overgrown child." "You came into the world too soon or perhaps you were unwanted." "Yes..." "That's how it was." "Father and Mother never wanted me, so I was born without any will." "You and I became one and so you got the upper hand." "With you it was I who took orders." "I looked up to you, saw you as an elevated. gifted being." "I listened to you as if Iwere your backward child." "That's true." "And I loved you as if you were my child." "1885 - 1886." "Three new addresses." "Three new homes in Grez. outside Paris." "Search your soul, Carl..." "1885 - 1886." "Three new addresses." "Three new homes in Grez. outside Paris." "l. the artist. am of no interest." "It's what the artist portrays that's interesting." "That's definitely uninteresting." "There's no tension, no drama." "Many Scandinavian painters and writers formed an artists' colony in Grez." "These included the painter Carl Larsson and his wife Karin the sculptor Ville Vallgren and the painter Karl Nordström." " Do you have cigars?" " Would you like one." "Sofie?" "Marie David, a young Dane with ambitions to be a writer." "She comes from a wealthy Jewish family." "Sofie Holten. a Danish painter." " Shall I apologize?" " No. don't creep for them." "That's exactly what it is." "Leave us a moment." "I don't think an apology will help." "In April. 1 885" "Strindberg writes Married." "Part 2 a continuation of his reflections on marriage in Married, Part 1." "In August, the preface and all chapters are sent to the publisher." "The preface, from which I shall read contains perhaps the harshest and most rancorous criticism of women in Married." "Part 2." "Here we find the compressed critical polemic against women." "" While woman has lazed about." "man has worked." "" He has borne the whole burden, cultivated the land. refined metals" ""dispelled delusions, discovered all." "defended home and nation with his life" ""while woman relaxed and enjoyed the fruits of his pains and labour." "" And these useful members of society have now become ridiculous." ""This self-sacrificing husband who toiled for wife and children" "" he is now treated like a criminal."" "Skål!" "Have a little of mine..." "You're so good to me." "Listen." "" There is another deplorable side to woman's depravity." "" She doesn't want to bear children, They say. fine!" ""She doesn't want to marry but wants a husband's support" ""without fulfilling the duties that such support entails." "" This is fraud!"" "I do not agree with everything in Married or in the preface but in a way I do understand it." "I understand his reaction against the popular literature that simply pours out over us, just biased feminist literature." " So you think we should stop writing?" " No, we should be more varied." "There are more important subjects we need to emphasize now than this." "We should be grateful that it's been dealt with and that it's had such a big effect." " We've succeeded in some areas." " Absolutely." "But it's time now for something else." "something new." "But those who write well needn't stop because it's a popular subject." "Others can write about other things, write about this." " What have you written?" " Good God!" "We're discussing Strindberg now." "I think we shouldn't publish." "We may reject his view of feminism." "But I don't think we can proclaim publicly that we reject him entirely." "I think we need him." "No." "What do we need him for?" "Not the way he's acted." "He's renounced his own views." "What we've built, he tries to crush with one blow." "Leave me in peace." "I think of this often." "We seek equality with men." "Why should women be men's equal?" "Can't men be women's equal?" "Then we'd have equality." "Why are men the norm?" " Brother!" " Yes?" "And so you think it's damned good?" "I don't understand it but..." " ... it seems good." " Understand it?" "It's just a tree." "It's a tree." "There's nothing to understand." "Experience it!" "Do you try to understand trees?" "Experience trees?" "Do you understand music?" "I experience it." "The only thing I don't understand is those damned women." " l don't understand them." " Experience them." "During this period in Grez, Strindberg writes Part 1 of his autobiography." "The Son of a Servant." "" The mother had a nervous temperament." "" lt flared up quickly but quietened down soon enough." "" She was relatively content with her life..." "" She drank her coffee in bed in the mornings" "" and she had her nurses, two servants and her mother to help her." "" ln all probability she did not over-exert herself."" "Hello." "Siri." " How are you?" " Fine. I was just resting." " You look happy." " l was dancing in the village." "Come. let's dance." "It's a long time since I danced." "When Strindberg meets Marie David and Sophie Holten in Grez in 1885 he appears to enjoy their company and refers to them as "two lively Danish girls."" "Before the two Danes leave Grez in 1886, Marie encourages Siri to stand up to her husband and demand to be allowed to return to the stage." "By the time that Strindberg writes A Madman's Defence two years later he has entirely changed his " reality" of the view he paints of this period." "He bitterly attacks Marie David who he sees as the personification of all that he loathes in feminism." "He accuses Marie and Siri of having a sexual relationship." "Strindberg describes his methods of portraying women in his plays as:" ""Accuse them and abuse them so that they haven't a clean spot." "" That is dramatic!"" "And this is the method that Strindberg uses in A Madman's Defence not only against Marie David but also his own wife." "Strindberg blames his growing isolation on the writers of "Young Sweden"." "He tells himself that it was they who pushed him into writing his polemical works of the early 1 880s." "He believes that "Young Sweden" put his survival as an author at risk and feels the criticism by the young writers as a betrayal." "He says "yes" to reactionary impulses." "and feels the criticism by the young writers as a betrayal." "and feels the criticism by the young writers as a betrayal." "He hates and wants to destroy feminism." "and feels the criticism by the young writers as a betrayal." "He's fed up with feminism." "But it's just a contribution to the kind of debate he wishes to create." "No, it's an attack." "I feel it's an attack." "At the same time, he's very clear about what he thinks." "But a writer also has a responsibility to uphold human morality." "You can't just write anything at all as a writer." "Not just anything!" "Now you oppose everything we've built up." "Of course. a writer can write whatever he likes." "Not when he opposes human..." "No..." "Do you mean a writer has no moral responsibility?" "Of course he has." "Awriter must write what he personally believes and be prepared to be criticized for it." "That's everybody's right." "But he must realize the consequences." "He's responsible." "Then the reader also has a responsibility to resist, right?" "So the writer has no responsibility." "only the reader?" "If it's the writer's personal view." "the reader must react against it." "There's nothing in the preface that says it's a personal view." "It's generalization." "He expresses a kind of general truth." "When I got up this morning to sketch, who was there?" "Who was sitting there drinking?" "Marie with Siri in her lap and they were giggling." "What the hell is this?" "It's perverted. for God's sake!" " Perverted?" " What the hell are they up to?" " lt sounds rather sweet." " How the hell can August stand it?" "He has children and has to write." "With a wife like that!" "It's disgusting." "I find it hard to understand how Siri can stand it." "Strindberg has the right to write what he likes." "Now he's on the other side." "He's against us." "But. if we forget that." "he has a right to write what he likes." "Do you mean we should forbid him to write what he thinks?" "He has the right to say what he thinks." "We can't identify with him." "We can say goodbye to him now and continue on our own." "The problem is that people associate us with Strindberg." "Otherwise it wouldn't matter." "I think it's up to you then to see that they don't." " We must do something." " We must show we're individuals." "Should we have a new programme?" "We shouldn't give up our programme or realism." "But I feel the programme we wrote a few years ago has impeded us to some extent and people have opposed us too." "It's easy for you to say we haven't published anything and haven't produced more." "But we have had opposition." "But the programme's not the problem." "The problem is with you." "You've not made these points clearly in your literature." "We've tried." "You dealt with women's rights but only of middle-class women." "You haven't touched on the workers' situation." "But we write about the things we know." "that we're familiar with." " Of course." " But who will speak for the workers?" "I regarded it as an aspect of realism and that we'd eventually get around to the working class." "Eventually?" "Go into town and see what realism is for the majority of people." "First. the working class must be educated in school." "That's what we're fighting for." "describing things as they really are." "That's our task." "I can't be other than I am." "Iwas born in the middle class." "How can I change that?" "You describe reality." "For whom?" "The reality of a minority." "Sorry. did you say something?" "Calm down." "Stare if you like. but I'd like to roast you over an open fire." "You're as saucy as hell." "Strindberg suffers. for God's sake!" " He suffers?" " He's a genius." "A genius." "Siri should take care of her genius husband." " She's not his mother." " But she's his woman." "His wife!" " You're impossible!" " lm-posss-eeble?" "What are you doing here?" "is this art?" "You're an imbecile!" "What the hell?" "You... bloody whore!" "God!" "I'm trying to work here!" "I'm trying to create, for Christ's sake!" "And you, Carl. say nothing!" "I'm tired of this madhouse!" "" ln the meantime the friends carried on a brisk correspondence" "" and, one day. beside myself because of the celibacy they had forced on me" "" l seized one of the letters." "It was a genuine love letter..." "" That did it!" "" l stood up against my rival and on that same evening" "" Marie and I fought in the moonlight." "" She bit my hands and I dragged her to the river to drown her like a cat..." ""when suddenly I saw a vision of my children" ""which brought me to my senses." "I resolved to put an end to myself" "" but before doing so I determined to write the story of my life."" "That's true and that's why I love you like you were my child." "But when your feelings changed and you came to me as a lover I felt remorse and the joy of your embraces were followed by shame." "The mother became a mistress." "I saw that but didn't understand." "But when I felt your scorn for my unmanliness I wanted to win you by being a man." "Yes, that is where you failed." "The mother was your friend. you see." "The woman was your enemy." "Love between the sexes is a battle." "Don't think I gave myself to you." "I didn't give. I took what I wanted." "But you had one advantage." "I knew that and wanted you to know it too." "You always had the advantage." "You could hypnotize me awake, so I couldn't see or hear." "Just obey." "But I felt my honour was tarnished." "Iwanted to redeem it by a noble act... an achievement, a discovery." "or an honourable suicide." "Then I immersed myself in science." "for a man cannot live without honour." " And a woman?" " She has her children." "But he hasn't." "One more word about realities:" "do you hate me?" "Yes, sometimes..." "When you act like a man." "Come in." "What did he say?" "Nothing. I didn't tell him." "Why not?" "A home means a great deal." "It needn't be large but it should be bright, positive." "but it should be bright, positive." "Crowded. crowded..." "There, we'll use the top button." "Down there." "When Siri tells the children that she and Strindberg will divorce" "Karin asks. "Won't Daddy ever come home again?"" "When Siri replies. "Never", Karin is silent" "When Siri replies. "Never", Karin is silent feeling that she " could not show the sudden calm and peace that gripped her."" "You're unfaithful to me!" "You're unfaithful to me!" "Are you starting that again?" "You're unfaithful." "How could you?" " You're being ridiculous." " How can you do such a thing?" " You sit staring at nothing." " l won't listen." " You sit staring at nothing." " l won't listen." "You almost admitted it earlier." "Can't you answer me?" "Why?" "How could you do such a thing?" "I have a right to know how many and with whom." "Forsberg?" " ls it Forsberg?" " Stop, August!" " And your damned lesbians!" " You're ridiculous when you do this." " And your damned lesbians!" " You're ridiculous when you do this." "Answer me!" "You lie so much you believe yourself." " Answer me!" "Can you do that?" " l've never lied to you!" "You do nothing else!" "How many years have you deceived me?" " Now it's time for the truth." " Stop!" " Now it's time for the truth." " Stop!" " Tell me!" "Stop lying. woman!" " You're mad with your fantasies." "Give up." "What do you get out of it?" "The truth will come out!" "You may as well say it now !" "What makes you do this?" "What makes you do this?" "I won't take it any longer." "Do you understand?" "Don't touch me!" "You're mad!" "Stop now!" "How many times?" "With whom?" "How many times?" " Will you tell me?" " Stop now !" "Can you answer me?" "Open the door!" "With whom?" "Axel Lundegård remembers:" "" He came to me one morning looking like a complete madman." "" He says that he, that very night" "" had broken down the door to his wife's bedroom..." ""where she and the children had locked themselves in." "" The noise woke the children and they had sat up in their beds" "" staring with frightened eyes at their father." "" He then became completely subdued and crept from the room." "" He loved his children." "" Now he was plagued by guilt at having clouded their souls." "" He was especially haunted by the look in the eyes of his young son."" "Sodium chloride..." "To some scholars, Strindberg's chemical research in the 1890s is no more than amateur dabbling." "For others, it represents a complex search by Strindberg to find a coherent pattern in the chaos around him." "How many times have I told you I don't like peas?" " We do the best we can." " l've told you a thousand times." "They're cheap and nourishing and we have to take what we can get." "We could at least buy something other than peas." "Take your elbows off the table." "Why don't you ask the children how they are?" " How was your day today?" " Good." " Did you have any fun?" " Yes." "When I crossed the road I saw a deer." "It was really nice." "This bread is stale." "Can't we afford fresh bread?" " No. we can't." " Maybe you could economize." "If there was money coming in, we could manage." "Have I ever seen you keep a housekeeping book?" " Not once." " Well, I do keep a book." " Obviously not very successfully." " How can I?" "There's nothing." "The police chief was here the other day demanding a payment for bills." "I'm a writer, woman." "Don't you understand?" "My income varies." "That's the way it is." "If I'd gone on acting in the theatre, we might have a little money now." "Good God!" "How long is it since you worked there?" "Are you dragging that up now?" "We have to adjust to the situation." " What shall we do?" " We'll see." " Have you looked for anything else?" " Yes!" "Things were good for a while and they loved each other very much." "Then. when things are bad, you can't just say goodbye." "Things began to fall apart but you have to fight to make it work." "You hope this is a temporary crisis." "Then. when it continues. it's like being an alcoholic's wife and he comes crying and says it will never happen again." "I know what he was like once." "I know he has it in him." "He's there, right?" "And, sure, I believe in you." "Of course I do." "And then he just runs off and leaves these three children." "Separating from somebody you've lived with for 1 5 years..." "That's a hell of a big step." "A great big step." "I think it's awful when Mummy and Daddy fight." " Yes, it's hard." " They fight so much." "Yes. always about money." "We never have any money." " Watch it. it's running out." " Would you like some?" " Yes." " ln here?" "Thanks." " lt doesn't look like fudge." " Careful of my dress." " Now it's potato coffee." " Yes." " Watch your trousers." " Would you like a little more water?" "Greta. can you help me find Mummy?" " We'll be back soon." " Don't be gone long." "No." " A little more." " More?" "Then I won't have any water left to peel potatoes in." "I'll see how much is left." " A little." " l have a little more coffee." "I don't need that." " l need this for coffee." " Take a lot." "Do you want a little more?" "Will there be any coffee?" "Karin Smirnoff (Strindberg) writes in her memoirs about her brother Hans that he was " a nervous child." "who often twisted and turned" "" as he slept with half-open eyes" "" something that the maids said presaged an early death."" "Would you like to see what I'm doing?" ""something that the maids said presaged an early death."" "" something that the maids said presaged an early death."" "Sit here." "Do you see what this is?" " No." " lt's a head." "This is a description of the way we see things." "This is a tree out in a field." "Then we see the tree in our eye in here." "We all have this far in at the back of the eye but we see only the outer surface of the eye." "The eye is sunk in the head like this and is completely round." "And at the very back of the eye this is where you see the tree for the first time." "It's the tree that's out there and then it's upside-down." "It's rather strange." "When the light from this tree here strikes the eye, it's upside-down." "But then it changes just here and it turns right-side-up." "And a connection in the head goes up here someplace straight up here." "in the head... here." "When this signal passes through the eye and the tree turns upright and goes through this long canal all the way to here: bang!" "Then we see it in our head." ""Aha, a tree!"" "That's how it works." "I'll read from A Madman's Defence." "The general reflections about women and marriage that Strindberg expresses in Married" "are condensed in A Madman's Defence." "relating to his own life and aimed at his own wife." "" She is 37." "Her hair has thinned." "" Her breasts lie like waves after a storm." "" The stairs are too high for her tiny feet and her lungs pump weakly." "" And yet I love her more than ever" "" since she now belongs to me alone, to us" ""despite the fact that I look forward to a rejuvenation. my second spring" "" despite my own feeling of increasing virility and blooming health." ""Finally she belongs to me, forced to age under my care" ""protected from seductions." "sacrificing her life for the children."" "The split in Strindberg's personality was between emotions and intellect and the swinging pendulum was never still." "His struggle was always to find a balance between these two extremes." "And in the field of tension between impulsive emotions and intellect analysis. coldness, warmth, his dramas emerge." "Without the tremendous turmoil within him the dramas would never have been written." "One more word about realities." "Do you hate me?" "Sometimes." "When you act like a man." "That's like race hatred." "If we're descended from apes, it must be from two different species." " We're not alike." " What do you mean?" "I feel that in this struggle... one of us must go under." " Which?" " The weaker. of course." " And the stronger is in the right." " Always right... since he has the power." " Won't you come down to eat?" " l'm coming." "What are you writing?" "Don't you want me to see it?" " No. I'm sorry." " ls it about us?" "Yes." "Then I don't want to see it." ""ln the evening I saw Maria walking in the moonlit garden." "" l joined her. I kissed her." "" She did not repulse me." "She burst into tears." "" We walked for a few minutes." "" Then she accompanied me to my room and stayed with me..." "" making love until midnight." "Strange marriage!" "" ln the afternoon I struck her." "" At night we held each other in our arms!" "" Strange woman who kisses her executioner with hot and willing lips!" "" Why had I not known it before?" "" lf l had struck her ten years ago Iwould be the happiest of husbands." "" There's a piece of advice!" "" Remember it, fellow members of the league of deceived husbands!"" "Can a person write whatever he likes about anybody?" "I believe that... to understand in a meaningful way..." "Strindberg's description of his relationship with Siri von Essen in A Madman's Defence then you must see it against the background of his personality." "Somehow. I imagine his first play." "The Freethinker provides a key to his life and his relationship to things and events." "He is the Freethinker..." "A man for whom the sense of freedom." "the struggle for freedom... is a natural force which permeates everything he does and thinks." "And if there's anything this sense of freedom cannot dispel... it's dependency." "" Did I not tell you that I consider my research into the unknown forbidden" "" and that I have been punished for it?" "" Did I not give you to understand that my occultism" "" has cost me my health and almost my freedom?" "" And that I regard it criminal to go on?"" "In this dream play." "as in the earlier one, To Damascus the author tried to copy the incoherent but seemingly logical form of dreams." "Anything may happen." "Everything is possible and probable." "Time and space do not exist." "The imagination, with little basis in reality. weaves new patterns a blend of memories, experience." "invention. absurdity. improvisation." "Like dreams. largely painful." "less often cheerful." "There is a note of melancholy and sympathy with all living things throughout this staggering tale." "Sleep, the liberator. is often painful but. when the torment is worst, we awaken and are consoled by reality." "No matter how terrifying this is a moment of joy." "compared to the tormenting dream." "May 11 . 1912." "" At 1 0pm Dr. Philip wanted to give him his usual morphine injection" "" but Strindberg, who was not lucid, refused."" "" When he had lain for a while apparently sleeping, he awoke" "" and, as I saw his mind was now clear, I asked if he would like the morphine."" "Believe me when I say these days have not been good for you are as much my father as you are the baby's." "But to avoid facing an awful future filled with unjust pain for us both I leave you, with the lovely times you've given me fresh in my memory." "" 'Yes, a big dose,' and he rolled up his sleeve."" "Was he jealous of his wife's artistic abilities. her achievements or something similar?" "It does seem likely... when you analyse his attitude." "I personally know of some marriages in the artistic world that broke up because the wife was more gifted than her husband or vice versa." "Unfortunately it is most often the husband who's jealous." " And the stronger is in the right?" " Always. since he has the power." "Then I am right?" " Have you the power?" " Yes, the legal power... when I get a restraining order tomorrow." "Restraining?" "Then I'll bring up my child myself without listening to your visions." " Who will pay for her when I'm gone?" " Your pension." "How can you put me under a restraining order?" "With this letter." "A copy is with the Board of Guardians." " What letter?" " Yours." "An admission of insanity." "You've fulfilled your function now as a father and a bread-winner." "You are no longer needed." "You can go." "You can go." "Now that you realize my mind is as strong as my will. you won't admit it." "In the chapter The Redeemer in Inferno." "Strindberg writes" "" When Balzac, in his book Séraphita, introduced my sublime countryman" "" Emanuel Swedenborg as 'The Buddha of the North'" "" he showed me the evangelistic aspect of the prophet."" "" Now it was the Law that impressed me, overwhelmed me and set me free."" "" l wait until midnight, reading." ""An hour has passed and all in the house are fast asleep." "" At last the clock strikes two." "Nothing happens." "" Defiant. to challenge unseen demons or perhaps as a physical experiment" "" l get up. open both windows and light two candles."" "" You aren't aware of my last development." "" You don't know that I couldn't find consolation in The Book of Job" "" for l suddenly realized I was no Job..." "" l was no righteous man who must be tested" "" but a robber who had ended on the cross" "" because his deeds deserved it and who had to be punished."" "" Sitting with the candle in front of me. I offer myself as a target." ""With bared chest, I incite the invisible powers." "" Here I am. you fools." "" Here I am. you fools!" "Can you answer me?" "Emilia, take care of the children!" "Emilia, take care of the children!" "My hatred of women is theoretical!" "My hatred of women is theoretical!" "You want to strike the Pope but you forget the Emperor!" "Don't go, I beg you. I'm afraid." " Have you any reason to be suspicious?" " Ah, you know your lessons..." "Stinking. detestably rotten." "almost worse than Zola." " August was no one's favourite..." " Workers of Stockholm arise!" "Only a mistress..." "" My heart beats strongly. I resist." "" But immediately my body fills with a fluid" "" that smothers me and sucks out my heart."" "Bonjour, Monsieur." "Daddy is coming!" "Traitor!" "Traitor!" "" The hunt is on. I hide behind walls." "" l lie down beside the door frame in front of the stoves." "" The Furies search for me everywhere, everywhere." "" The anguish in my soul takes over." "" Panic. terror of everything and nothing overwhelms me" "" and I flee from room to room." "" l end up on the balcony." "I stop and crouch down." "In 1949 two British historians wrote a biography of Strindberg which began with these words:" "" The first and greatest of Strindberg's misfortunes was his birth."" "Here I am. you fools!" "April 21 , 191 2." "Siri von Essen dies in her apartment at Sjömansgatan 6." "Helsinki." "May 14, 1912." "August Strindberg dies in Stockholm of stomach cancer 23 days after Siri's death." "" l have judged that he that hath so done this deed" "" he shall be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh" "" that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."" "I've decided to go away tonight." "I must leave on my autumn travels." "Time is short." "It's important that I... leave as soon as possible." "I have to go up to the house and fetch the camera." "September 1 0, 1890." "Strindberg leaves Runmarö carrying books. binoculars." "brown pants, bed linen and an Eastman Kodak camera." "He will never see his wife again." "" Our parting time has come and the end draws near." "" Farewell, human child, dreamer and poet" ""who knows best how to live on wings hovering above the earth." "" You dive down to touch the ground briefly, not to stay." "" Now, in the moment of parting, when I leave a friend..." "" A place..." "" The sense of missing what I love rises" "" along with regret for what I've broken."" "Well. there you are." "I was almost certain you would come." " So you called then?" " Yes." "I felt it." "Why are you sitting here?" "I don't know. I know of no other place to sit while I wait." " What are you waiting for?" " lf only I knew... I've waited 40 years for happiness, or rather the end of unhappiness." "Listen to this dismal music." "Don't go!" "I beg you." "I'll be scared if you go." "My friend." "We met yesterday for the first time and we spoke alone for four hours." "You aroused my sympathy but don't take advantage of my kindness." "That's true." "But I beg you... I am a stranger in this city." "I have not one friend here." "And the few people I know seem remote to me, more like enemies." "Enemies everywhere." "Alone everywhere." "Why did you leave your wife and children?" "I don't know." "If only I knew why I existed at all." "why I'm standing here." "What should I do?" "Do you believe there are people who are doomed already in life?" "No, I don't." "Too bad." " Have you never felt any joy in life?" " No, no." "And when I seemed to enjoy myself it was a trap to lure me into greater misery." "Whenever I held the golden fruit in my hand. it was rotten or poisoned." " What is your religion?" " None." "When things become too hard." "I shall take my leave." " To where?" " into perdition." "Holding death in my hand gives me an incredible sense of power." "Oh." "God!" "You're playing with death." "As I played with life. I am a poet." "In an age when it is remarkable for any public debate to be sustained for 48 hours it is important to understand that the " Strindberg Feud"" "sparked a political debate that raged for over two years." "Strindberg himself realized that he had reached a turning point." "In the spring of 1912 he declared, "l am a Christian and I am a Socialist!"" "Greta Strindberg. who will become an actress and perform in some of her father's plays dies in a railway accident in Sweden in June 1912 one month after her father's death." "She is pregnant and aged 31 ." "Hans Strindberg, who will meet his father once more after 1 8 years declines in health and dies of a heart attack in 191 7." "He is 33." "Karin Smirnoff (Strindberg) writes two biographies in which she strongly defends her mother." "She dies in 1973, aged 93." "Let's cheer for all here." "When Strindberg heard about Siri's death he cried, went into his bedroom." "changed from his brown dressing-gown into an old black one and put on a white scarf as if to dress formally." "He has written about something that I think must be central to his life." "When he was a small boy and his father once bought home sweets he wilfully avoided his father." "He walked away." "So he didn't get any." "He repeated this all his life." "He sought a kind of martyrdom." "He couldn't enjoy himself." "When he succeeded as a writer." "he wanted to be a scientist and so on." "There are many such parallels." "He had to destroy everything good." "Then why wouldn't he destroy a good relationship with a woman?" "I mean. there's a lot of this:" "the way he reacted as a child, and went on doing this all his life." "That is very close to the theory we have touched on when we discussed the marriage." "There are some who maintain that he consciously..." "No, I don't mean consciously." "But when you talk about thinking with the heart or the head..." "The heart is about the emotions and I don't believe what Siri says that it would be good if people thought with their hearts because by the heart we mean the emotions and. if anything injures people when they're young, it is emotion." "So I don't think it was necessarily conscious." "Maybe he was able to look back and see what he had done." "This surprised him and he described the source as "invisible powers."" "He was able to blame things on these invisible powers because he could see the destruction these powers caused." "Despite the fact that he was in many ways a good psychologist he was very bad at understanding his own psychology." "Then he blamed invisible powers." ""'You see." "Baroness. I just tried to explain how imaginary everything is." "" 'There are no independent colours." "All depend on the nature of light." "" 'Everything is an illusion.'" "" 'Everything?" "' she asked..." "" facing me and seeing right through me with her large mysterious eyes." "" 'Everything,' l lied" ""shaken by this living vision of flesh and blood that scared me" "" at that moment by her extraordinary beauty."" "But I don't know now." "This... what we're doing here." "Who is he, really?" "I mean. there must be many different views on Strindberg." "THE FREETHlNKER adapted from an original script by Peter Watkins" "This film is the result of collective work during 1 992 - 1994 at Biskops Arnö, under the guidance of Peter Watkins." "Reasearch. script adaptation. casting." "photography. sound. lighting. set design." "props, costumes. make-up. location management, script persons, direction." "Editing and post-production led by Peter Watkins" "Cast" "Peter Watkins wants to express his warmest gratitude to all those who during 1979 - 1981 supported him in his research and in the realization of the original manuscript" "STRINDBERG his life and work" " Translations for subtitles - George Bisset." "Bjarne Hildebrandt, Peter Watkins with thanks to Andrew Bowden, Walter Johnson, Michael Meyer." "Arvid Paulson, Michael Robinson." "Mary Sandbach, Evert Sprinchorn for their translations of Strindberg's work"