Friday, 8 January 2021

The five- and three-hour versions of Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander) (1982) : Some points of comparison (work in progress)

The five- and three-hour versions of Fanny och Alexander (1982) : Some points of comparison

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

7 January

The five- and three-hour versions of Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander) (1982) : Some points of comparison (work in progress)






Noted from re-watching both versions, on DVD, starting from Christmas Eve 2020

* A shorter sequence (?) with Alexander, for some reason not realizing that he is alone at home, and with the statue moving

* No sad moment with Helena [Ekdahl], his grandmother, showing the woman behind the maternal 'front', before the family arrives from the theatre, and anticipating her late-night Christmas-morning tête-à-tête with Uncle Isak [Isak Jacobi, her former lover]


* No build-up, in the auditorium of the theatre, to the nativity-play, and, after his brother Gustav Adolf ('Gusten') has processed with the flaming punch-bowl, a shortened speech by Oscar

* No time spent with the Christmas meal, after their broher Carl (who. chivvied by his wife Lydia, arrive late), so the famous dance around the building becomes more prominent / significant

* Truncated Christmas-night scene in the nursery - no story told by Oscar (a tale that mirrors the mummy that Aron will later show Alexander at Uncle Isak's)

* Shorter bedroom scene with Gustav Adolf and Maj, to which a much shorter one with Carl and Lydia, arguing in their bedroom, first cuts, then cuts back

* A shorter rehearsal scene at the theatre, when Oscar is playing Hamlet's father's ghost

* Fewer (?) early signs of Alexander's reluctance to see his dying father ; no shots of the incidentals of Oscar's dying (e.g. the dirty pail and cloth), and ; fewer death-bed words from Oscar (including to his wife Emilie (Fanny and Alexander's mother) about the future management of the theatre

* More violent swearing from Alexander, to Fanny's amusement, and for longer on exiting after the grand funeral (which we have not heard, in this version, the dying Oscar say that he did not want)


* A shorter time (?) with the Bishop and Alexander about Emilie's having heard news of Alexandr's stories, at school, about having been sold to the circus

* A shorter duration (?) to Emilie's first visit to the Bishop's palace, with Fanny and Alexander, and meeting his mother, sister and aunt, and the servants

* Is there a sign that the Bishop is more cut to the quick by what Josephina reports Alexander telling her (guilt, or being bothered how Alexander knows ?) ?

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* No ghosts in the attic, and just going directly to when Emilie wrests the key to it from the Bishop's sister and rescues him

* After Isak has smuggled the children out in the chest and taken them to safety, no confrontation of the Bishop by Carl and Gunsten

* A shorter conversation, both between Emilie and the Bishop, when she is leaving the palace for good, and then with the visiting police officer, who tells her what has happened







Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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