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KINO ON VIDEO TO RELEASE THREE HISTORIC TREASURES FROM LEGENDARY SWEDISH DIRECTOR MAURITZ STILLER.
Kino on Video is honored to present, for the first time on American home video, three films from the vaults of Sweden's famed Svensk Filmindustri, directed by stylistic pioneer Mauritz Stiller: the rousing period drama SIR ARNE'S TREASURE (1919), the saucy sex comedy EROTIKON (1920), and the highly anticipated 3 hour restoration of THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING, heralded as the film that launched Greta Garbo to stardom. Prebook of all three titles begins May 9th, 2006 with a street date of July 6th and a suggested retail price of $29.95 each.
Unknown to today's casual film viewer, in the first quarter of the 20th century, Sweden and its Svensk Bio studios rivaled � and sometimes bettered � the early Hollywood of Griffith and DeMille. Though not the very first director to emerge from Sweden, the Finnish-born Mauritz Stiller (along with Victor Sjostrom) has come to epitomize the first "golden age" of Swedish moviemaking with his remarkable sophistication, style, and lavish eye for productions.
Despite having helped mature the language of cinema and later influencing directors as diverse as Ernst Lubitsch and Ingmar Bergman, Stiller's legacy has often been reduced to the role of Pygmalion to the Galatea of Greta Garbo, as it was he who brought the Swedish siren into the international limelight with his GOSTA BERLING.
Although company heads were unsure of the then-plump Swedish starlet, Stiller insisted that Garbo be included when he was courted by MGM in the mid-20s. Ironically, then, while Garbo ascended to become the defining star of Hollywood, Stiller did not mix well, and was fired from the set of Garbo's second U.S. vehicle, The Temptress.
Stiller subsequently helmed several Pola Negri vehicles - still butting heads with studio execs � before despondently returning to Sweden in 1928, dying at age 45 only several months later. Though it was pleurisy, not the American studio system, that ended Stiller's life, his inscription into history has largely been defined as just another chapter of Hollywood tragedy, at the expense of a body of truly innovative works, represented here by Kino.
 THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING
Previously available in the U.S. only in a severely truncated version, Mauritz Stiller's THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING -the film that made Greta Garbo a star-has been restored to its proper luster by the Swedish Film Institute.
Lars Hanson, one of Sweden's biggest stars, plays Gösta Berling, a defrocked priest who encounters a series of adventures and loves in his tumultuous journey to redemption. Along the way, he encounters the beautiful Elisabeth, played by Greta Garbo in her first major screen role, but who already looks very much the movie star. The epic production is punctuated by stunning set pieces, including the burning of the massive Ekeby estate, and a magnificent chase across a frozen lake, with the lovers pursued by a ravenous pack of wolves.
"At once a summary and a swan song of the Swedish film" (Arthur Knight, The Liveliest Art), THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING was the last major film produced during Sweden's first golden age. Soon after, many of Sweden's leading stars and directors, including Stiller, Garbo and Hanson, were coaxed to Hollywood, and Sweden would enter a decades-long drought during which few of its films would receive international attention.
Now, after more than 80 years, THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING can be revisited and appreciated as one of the pinnacles of early Swedish cinema. Kino's DVD edition of THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING presents the film in a newly remastered version, and is accompanied by a magnificent new orchestral score.
SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:
Excerpts from Garbo's early films, including "Luffarpetter"
"Rediscovering Sweden: Peter Cowie Introduces the Films of Mauritz Stiller"
Newsreel footage of Garbo's departure from Sweden
THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING
Sweden / 1924 / 184 minutes
B&W / 1.33:1
Directed by Mauritz Stiller
With Lars Hanson, Greta Garbo and Gerda Lundequist
 EROTIKON
Labeled an "insolent romp" in a recent article by The Village Voice and praised for its "risqué wit and cheerful amorality" in John Wakeman's World Film Directors, EROTIKON is quite possibly the cinematic granddaddy of all sophisticated comedies and one of the finest achievements of Swedish director Mauritz Stiller.
EROTIKON surely pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on the screen in 1920: Irene, the bored wife of a distracted entomologist, pursues a womanizing aviator, but she may actually be in love with Preben, her husband's best friend. Meanwhile, her husband seems to be getting unusually close with his own niece. Stiller obviously delights in teasing his audience with each scandalous plot twist and every salacious leer, and the result is a deliciously subversive comedy that was very much ahead of its time.
EROTIKON has been cited by Ernst Lubitsch as an important inspiration for his own style, and it surely had an influence on Chaplin's A Woman of Paris, Renoir's Rules of the Game and innumerable comedies of the 1930s and beyond. The film stars some of the biggest names of the Swedish silent cinema, including Tora Teje (Karin, Daughter of Ingmar), Karin Molander (Thomas Graal's Best Film) and, most notably, Lars Hanson (THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING), who would later relocate to Hollywood and star opposite Lillian Gish in the silent classics The Scarlet Letter and The Wind.
Kino's DVD edition of EROTIKON presents the film in a completely remastered version, and it is accompanied by a new score.
SPECIAL FEATURE:
"Rediscovering Sweden: Peter Cowie Introduces the Films of Mauritz Stiller"
EROTIKON
Sweden / 1920 / 97 minutes
Color tinted / 1.33:1
Directed by Mauritz Stiller
With Tora Teje, Lars Hanson, Karin Molander
SIR ARNE'S TREASURE
A key film from Sweden's first golden age of filmmaking, SIR ARNE'S TREASURE (Herr Arnes pengar) has long ranked among the most famous-and famously hard-to-find-classics of the silent era. Now restored by the Swedish Film Institute and featuring a magnificent orchestral score by Matti Bye and Fredrik Emilson, this landmark work by master filmmaker Mauritz Stiller can finally be seen in its glory.
In 16th-century Sweden, the lives of three Scottish mercenaries and an aging Swedish vicar and his family intersect, and in the unspeakable crime that results, a small coastal community is forever altered. As the three mercenaries struggle to escape from the town, they find that nature has conspired against them-all outbound ships are frozen in the ice-forcing them to remain until the tragic tale reaches its catastrophic conclusion.
Made at a time when Sweden was a dominating force in international cinema, Sir Arne's Treasure shows Mauritz Stiller at the peak of his filmmaking powers, working with Nobel Prize-winning author Selma Lagerlöf. Aided by the pioneering cinematographer Julius Jaenzon (Sjostrom's THE OUTLAW AND HIS WIFE, available from Kino), Stiller fills every frame with ice and snow to emphasize the oppressiveness of the freezing conditions and the forbidding terrain. Rarely has winter seemed so threatening, and rarely has the landscape of Sweden been used to such magnificent effect.
SPECIAL FEATURE:
"Rediscovering Sweden: Peter Cowie Introduces the Films of Mauritz Stiller"
SIR ARNE'S TREASURE
Sweden / 1919 / 107 minutes
Color tinted / 1.33:1
Directed by Mauritz Stiller
With Mary Johnson, Richard Lund, Erik Stocklassa
Mauritz Stiller selected filmography
1912:The Black Masks / De Svarta maskerna
The Gardener / Trädgårdsmästaren (writer only; directed by Victor Sjöström)
The Tyrannical Fiancée / Den Tyranniske fästmannen (also writer, actor)
1913:
- The Child / Barnet
- The Conflicts of Life / Livets konflikter
- (writer only; directed by Victor Sjöström)
- The Modern Suffragette / Den Moderna suffragetten (also writer)
- The Vampire / Vampyren (also writer)
- When Love Kills / När kärleken dödar (also writer)
1914:
- Because of Her Love / För sin kärleks skull (also writer)
- People of the Border / Gränsfolken
- The Shot / Skottet
- When the Mother-in-Law Reigns / När svärmor regerar (also writer, actor)
1915:
- Ace of Thieves / Mästertjuven
- His Wife's Past / Hans hustrus förflutna
- Madame de Thebes
- When Artists Love / När konstnärer älska
1916:
- The Avenger / Hämnaren
- The Ballet Primadonna / Balettprimadonnan
- His Wedding Night / Hans bröllopsnatt
- Love and Journalism / Kärlek och journalistik
- The Wings / Vingarne (also actor, writer)
1917:
- Alexander the Great / Alexander den Store (also writer)
- Thomas Graal's Best Film / Thomas Graals bästa film
- Thomas Graal's First Child / Thomas Graals bästa barn
1919:
- Sir Arne's Treasure / Herr Arnes pengar (also writer)
- Song of the Scarlet Flower / Sången om den eldröda blomman (also writer)
1920: Erotikon (also writer)
1921:
- The Exiles / De Landsflyktige (also writer)
- Johan (also writer)
1923: The Story of Gunnar Hede / Gunnar Hedes saga (also writer)
1924: The Saga of Gösta Berling / Gösta Berlings saga (also writer)
1926: The Temptress (U.S., started by Stiller, completed by & credited solely to Fred Niblo)
1927: Hotel Imperial (U.S.)
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