The Father

Sweden's first woman director, Anna Hofman-Uddgren, filmed August Strindberg's 1887 naturalist tragedy with actors from the playwright's own Intima Teatern, and Strindberg, who knew her husband, gave them the rights for nothing. Of the six films she made in 1911-12, only this one survives. Cavalry captain Adolf (August Falck) wants to send their daughter Bertha to the city to train as a teacher; his wife Laura (Karin Alexandersson) wants the girl kept home as an artist. Adolf invokes a husband's legal rights. Laura tells the family doctor her husband is going mad, then hints that Bertha may not be his child. The rumor takes hold. Adolf ends in a straitjacket. Static, theatrical, and invaluable: the first screen Strindberg, and the sole remaining work of a pioneer the histories forgot.