31 Days of Halloween, Day 15- The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Directed by: Victor Sjöström

Top 8 Cast: Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Astrid Holm, Tore Svennberg, Lisa Lundholm, Concordia Selander, Einar Axelsson, Olof Ås

Plot: The unlucky last to die before the clock strikes midnight on a new year must drive death’s carriage for all that 365, each night and day feeling like a hundred years for this new reaper. David was a good man but drink, ache and hatred lead him to a life of crime and he lost it all. Upon dying and getting Tim-Allen-Santa-Claused into his new role as Auld Sickle Wielder his first stop just so happens to be the death bed of the only person who never stopped believing in him.

Response: Ghostly figures sit graveside over one of their cold meat husks. Discuss what went wrong. Death as repentant alcoholic. Does God give a fig for you or your twaddle? Tots picking daises in the life that could have been. A husband and wife cry in each other’s arms. Death walks the sea floor. Is hate and revenge stronger than love? Death must have his driver.

Background: Victor Sjöström was a cinematic heavy-hitter. He directed 72 pictures in his lifetime! Eventually he made the transition from Sweden to Hollywood and from silents to talkies, going on to direct such luminaries as Greta Garbo and Lon Chaney.

This one was a personal favorite and perennial watch of Ingmar Bergman’s. I’ve seen it written that it’s the film that inspired him to get into directing! He would go on to star in Bergmans Wild Strawberries (1957).

He pulls double duty as an actor here as well. While I was watching I was thinking, “I’ll have to look up who this lead is, he’s phenomenal!” Innately watchable! Legend has it he slummed around Stockholm’s poor district dressed as a pauper to prepare for the role.

The film has more than a few rings of Christmas Carol in it. It was based on Nobel-prize winning author Selma Lagerlif’s novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness aka Körkarlen.

Totally innovative at the time, the film used a double exposure technique to painstakingly capture it’s ghostly effects (other optical technology did not exist yet)

I watched the version on Criterion which I believe has the Matti Bye 1998 score, Whatever it was it was a perfect accessory to the film’s images. Beautiful and jaunty which great violins and clarinets giving it an at-times Klezmer vibe.

Last thing to note here is that if you’ve seen The Shining you’ll immediately recognize an iconic moment that you might not have otherwise known was Kubrick visually quoting Sjöström. Adds a whole layer of resonance with that film as well. So cool.

Analysis: I got misty a couple of times during this powerful feature. I think our more critical age might have a hard time with some of the themes of forgiveness, especially how they come at the expense of female sacrifice. I myself was like, “not sure, bro.” But boy, does this film ever earn any hope it try to give us. Hurtling us always into dark waters where we can’t help but understand the motivations of the characters even when we’d really like them to be doing something else.

Second Opinions:

“Why do I weep for this man? His redemption is costly and inadequate. His life was lived at the expense of women; the saddest moment in this is not the moment of death but the moment Sister Edit blames herself for this man's sins. His sins were never hers; her interest in his redemption (and her love for him) is a cruelty done to her (by the storyteller). If he returns to his wife, that is an affliction on wife and child. Yet I weep for him, because he weeps.” - Sally Jane Black on Letterboxed

“One of the greatest films of the silent era. Entirely free of the typical experssionist hyperboles in the acting style of that era, it delivers a superb moral story, elevating thus the horror elements to mere appendages of the melodramatic, yet never maudlin, message. The palette of Sjöström's acting is admirable by any standards…” - dionysus67 on Mubi

“Wherever it is shown it will help to add dignity and importance to the art of cinema.” -Bioscope review from the time

Score:

Autumn Vibes: 0/5

Scares & Chills: 1/5

Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 5/5

Monster Action: 1/5