Alf Sjöberg

Over the course of forty years Sjoberg made almost twenty films; busiest from 1940 to 1956 he became one of the finest and most important directors in the history of Scandinavian film. Sjoberg's greatest film is generally held to be his striking version of August Strindberg's play, "Miss Julie" (1951), which shared the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with Vittorio De Sica's "Miracle in Milan." The film's intermingling of past and present and its manipulation of space showed just how far-ranging the influence of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941) was; on its own, "Miss Julie" clearly influenced not only Bergman (especially in his "Wild Strawberries" 1957) but also the larger European art cinema of the 1950s and 60s. Sjoberg later another fine film from another Bergman screenplay, "The Last Couple Out" (1956) and his last film was another Strindberg adaptation, "The Father" (1969).