Mai Zetterling (1925-1994) started directing in the early 1960s at BBC, after having lived in England for well over a decade, acting in films: in the coming years she directed a series of trailblazing and envelope-pushing feature films, the last of which (Flickorna, 1968) caused an international scandal of such magnitude that she was unable to get any further projects off the ground. So she returned to her roots – to the BBC, for whose Omnibus series of ambitious arts documentaries (where among others Ken Russell had just been working) she made in 1971 this curious little film, where Hammer-horror regular Michael Gough is preparing to play Vincent van Gogh. Gough’s voiceover accompanies a cinematic journey through Europe, pondering on van Gogh’s life as well as questions of art and acting. The actor sinks gradually into the role of the artist as the journey proceeds inevitably towards the well-known tragic turns of his life. With free invention Zetterling intercuts for example contemporary artists working in their studios and documentary footage from along the trip. This notable but almost unknown work by one of last century’s greatest filmmakers unfortunately only seems to survive in a digital copy (for whose loan we warmly thank cinematographer John Bulmer). (HT Nuotio)
Language: English, no subtitles / French, subtitles: Finnish
The screening is prefaced with Alain Resnais’ Academy Award -winning short film Van Gogh (1948) projected from a 16mm film copy.