Analysis Of The Film Edvard Munch - 1052 Words

Edvard Munch is an artist that has been traumatized and haunted by death throughout his entire life. His works of art are both terrifying and mesmerizing. In the film Edvard Munch, director Peter Watkins does an excellent job at showing the life of Munch as if it was Munch telling his life. The film is a mixture of documentary and a drama about Munch’s life, and how his torments were reflected in his art. The film has a very grey and cold tone throughout its run. It definitely helps set the mood of Kristiania (Oslo), Norway where Munch grew up. The film’s depiction of Munch was that of a very shy, and reserved young man, in fact he hardly ever spoke. It also portrayed him as a sort of outcast in his family, as his father was a doctor, and his other siblings were also aspiring to be doctors. During this time, we can see that Munch’s early studies of his family always showed the side of people’s faces. There was no eye contact. In the film it not only shows those paintings, but it also shows Edvard and his father always arguing and they never make eye contact with each other. He began working on a portrait of his younger sister in 1884. The painting only illuminated her face and her hand, everything else was black. The critics in Kristiania called it a â€Å"frightening ugly portrait.† This negative criticism would follow Munch’s work for the next fifteen years, affecting even his painting of The Sick Child which is a painting of his older sister’s death. In the film Edvard is