Through a mixture of primary documents and art analysis, Edvard Munch: The Scream Life serves as a brief but satisfying introduction to the life and career of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Professors of art and art history will especially appreciate this accessible documentary from writer/director Sandra Paugam, which uses Munch’s journal entries, voiceover narration, closeups of his paintings, and photographs to bring the artist’s influences and biography to life for students. Since Munch’s life covers several major art movements, The Scream of Life touches on Naturalism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, and even the garish color palettes of Fauvism, contextualizing Modern art history through the lens of one artist’s career.
Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life works on two levels – as a biography and as an analysis of the characteristics of Munch’s art that he used to convey recurring themes, such as death, sex, illness, heredity, and ultimately, love.
Edvard Munch struggled with health issues and deep loss throughout his life, beginning in his youth as multiple family members passed away from illness, including his mother and several siblings. He was prepared to die young until he discovered painting as a creative outlet. He used nature to express his inner turmoil, painting scenery, and indoor scenes with family members. Critics were not kind initially, except for appreciating his use of the natural landscape and color to express melancholia. Color, nature, and Expressionism proved to be defining characteristics of Munch’s artworks.
The loss of his sister Sophie at the young age of fifteen haunts Munch enough for him to return to the scene of The Sick Child for over forty years. “Most of what I have done since had its genesis in this picture,” he comments. Despite the morbid subject matter of this painting and other famous works, Munch considers his artwork a healthy, productive coping mechanism. “To explain a painting is impossible. It is precisely because one cannot explain it that it must be painted.”
Throughout his life as a working artist, Munch travels from his home country of Norway to Paris to Berlin, though his obsession with death follows him. He began to work with lithographs and printmaking, which encouraged him to experiment further with his trademark use of color. He falls in love – twice – and discovers a new emotion to express through his art: jealousy. It’s after his second tumultuous love affair that Munch turns to alcohol and, eventually, gets admitted to a psychiatric clinic.
It’s not all illness and death, though. After his recovery from alcoholism, Munch settles in the Norwegian countryside and feels reborn in the sunshine. He finds institutional acceptance in his home country as his work turns lighter and less morbid. Nature takes center stage in his work again, as it did at the beginning of his long career. Transformation and rebirth become his revisited themes, rather than the grim reaper that has haunted him all the way to the clinic.
Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life features a chilling soundtrack and surprisingly morbid subject matter for an art history documentary. Modern horror fans and emo kids at heart might find a kindred spirit in Expressionist artist Munch, with his morbid obsessions and cathartic acts of creation. Despite the documentary’s title, there is a surprising lack of time spent on his most famous painting - The Scream. The film’s short runtime serves as a jumping-off point for art students, especially contextualizing Munch’s painting series The Frieze of Life – but it is not an all-encompassing survey.
Paugram’s documentary works as a brief overview of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s biography, but mainly as a visual essay on the main themes of his painting career. Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life reveals visual details otherwise unknowable to the casual Google searcher and provides context that deepens the viewer’s appreciation and understanding of Munch’s portfolio. Art history professors would be wise to utilize this documentary when introducing their students to Modern art, more specifically Expressionism and Symbolism.
What kind of film series would Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life fit in?
Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life would be an enjoyable screening for the artist’s birthday, December 12. It would also fit into a film series about various Modern artists or as a double feature with the 1974 TV movie Edvard Munch. (Especially since that film is three hours long and this one comes in at under an hour – the combined runtimes make for a long but enjoyable screening).
What academic subjects would Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life be suitable for?
Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life would be suitable for art history courses, especially on Modern art history syllabi. The context filmmaker Paugram gives to Munch’s work will help students better understand how the artist used color and new ideas about art to express his existential dread.
What unexpected responses do you think audiences would have to Edvard Munch: The Scream of Life?
Audiences will be surprised to discover Munch’s emotional relatability and catharsis through art. For an artist from another century entirely, Munch remains relevant to artists and their appreciators.