For years Henning Carlsen's Hunger (1966) has had only limited availability, apart from an obscure video release a decade ago. It easily lives up to its reputation as one of the best films of the Sixties and as a uniquely successful literary adaptation. The source novel, by the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun (1859-1952), was a groundbreaking work in the modern psychological novel that mostly forgoes "dramatic" events, instead following the main character's tormented thought process, with all its sudden shifts and contradictions. In that respect, the book still seems aggressively modern. Although Hamsun was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1920 for his novel The Growth of the Soil (1917), his career ended in disgrace because of his support of the Nazi Party in Germany, and he subsequently died in poverty.
The film thankfully doesn't attempt to present a cinematic equivalent of Hamsun's prose. Lesser hands might have translated it into the kind of verbose voiceover monologues that plague Enchanted April (1992), or the gimmicky (but fun!) "first person" perspective that Robert Montgomery uses throughout The Lady in the Lake (1947). Instead, Hunger uses editing to shift fluidly between what Pontus sees and more objective views of him as observed by others. In its own way, it reproduces an important effect of the novel: while Hamsun takes us directly inside the artist's head, we are repulsed by his extreme behavior, and we find ourselves instinctively wondering how others must feel when they encounter him. This conflicted sense of viewer identification is something that film naturally expresses very well; other great directors such have Hitchcock and Polanski have exploited it with glee. Carlsen and his brilliant cinematographer Henning Kristiansen also use telephoto lenses and contrasty black-and-white film stock to provide an emotional equivalent to the protagonist's distorted frame of mind without ever becoming too obvious.
Hunger's greatness is also due to the unforgettable lead performance by Per Oscarsson, who really does look like he's starving; he manages better than just about any other actor I've ever seen to suggest a person on the brink of madness through his pained interactions with others. Gunnel Lindblom, a favorite actress of Bergman during the Fifties and Sixties, is memorable as "Ylajali," as are the faces of the various bit players. The costumes and set design work remarkably well at suggesting the period in an offhand manner; this is because the director Carlsen takes great pains to avoid flaunting the period details in the way that so many costume dramas can't resist, and the film feels all the more authentic for it.
Henning Carlsen may not have matched this film's success with his subsequent films, but this work is absolutely on a par with anything else done during that time. In comparison, the fellow Scandinavian's Ingmar Bergman's studies in artistic torment from that same period--namely, The Silence (1963), Persona (1966) and Hour of the Wolf (1968)--don't hold up as well now despite their evident mastery, because they try too hard to remind the viewer how profound and daring they are. The sense of real people, of real mud on the streets and real hunger that Carlsen somehow manages to evoke prevents his film from ever becoming a hermetic exercise.
The Project X titles distributed by New Yorker typically have high quality transfers, and this disc is no exception. Without the benefit of having seen an actual 35mm print, the contrast looks properly filmic and appears to reproduce the effect that Carlsen explicitly intended. The aspect ratio, as is typical for European films of the period, is presented at 1.66:1 with anamorphic enhancement. In the special features section, Henning Carlsen speaks engagingly about the process of making the film and the rationale behind it as a literary adaptation. This segment is also generously illustrated with production photos. In another segment, the novelist Paul Auster, who is an avowed fan both of the film and Knut Hamsun's novel, has an extended conversation with Regina Hamsun, the Nobel laureate's granddaughter. The disc also includes a stills gallery and a Henning Carlsen filmography. Hunger may not be an easy film to watch, but it's essential viewing for anyone interested in the expressive possibilities of the medium.
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by James Steffen
