Cinema
Elvira Madigan
Bo Widerberg · 1967
Synopsis
Sixten Sparre is an officer, married, with two children. Elvira Madigan walks the tightrope in her stepfather's circus. They meet, and they leave together. They live for a few weeks in the woods and inns of Denmark, cut off from everything, without money, on whatever they can find; the army is looking for the deserter and the family is looking for the girl. As the summer goes on, they will have to decide what to do when there is nothing left.
Context
The story is that of a news item from the summer of 1889: a married Swedish lieutenant, Sixten Sparre, and a Danish tightrope dancer, Hedvig Jensen, known as Elvira Madigan, run away together to Denmark; the film draws on a book by Johan Lindström Saxon. Music was to be composed for it, but the director set the score aside and chose at the last moment the slow movement of Mozart's twenty-first piano concerto, which has been called the Elvira Madigan concerto ever since. The cinematography is by Jörgen Persson.
Who it is for
Ninety-one minutes, in Swedish and Danish. A title card at the beginning announces how the story ends.
Prizes and reception
Prize for best actress at Cannes in 1967 for Pia Degermark; it was its author's first success outside Sweden.