Pan (1922 film)

Pan
Directed byHarald Schwenzen
StarringHarald Schwenzen
Hjalmar Fries
Hans Bille
Gerd Egede-Nissen
Rolf Christensen
Lillebil Ibsen
CinematographyJohan Ankerstjerne
Thorleif Tønsberg
Edited byKommunenes Filmcentral
Release date
  • 1922 (1922)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryNorway
LanguageNorwegian

Pan is a 1922 Norwegian film directed by Harald Schwenzen. It was the first of four film adaptations of the novel of the same name by 1920 Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun, and one of the earliest Scandinavian adaptations of a Hamsun work (preceded only by a 1921 film of Growth of the Soil). It tells the story of a romance between a wealthy woman and a soldier, and was filmed in Nordland and in Algeria (standing in for the Indian locations in the novel).[1]

According to author Donald Dewey, Pan was popular with the Norwegian public, but when Hamsun himself was asked for his reaction, he commented only, "I don’t understand film and I am in bed with the flu," and hung up.[2] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune describes it as "A fine film and a real discovery".[3]

  1. ^ Arne Lund, "Knut Hamsun at the movies in transnational contexts", Nordlit, vol. 25, pp. 42-43.
  2. ^ Donald Dewey, "Edging Out of Darkness" Norway’s Long Struggle to Establish a Thriving Film Industry" Archived 7 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Scandinavian Review (The American-Scandinavian Foundation), Autumn 2010, pp. 18, 30.
  3. ^ Wilmington, Michael (21 February 1997). "Knut Who? Hamsun Retrospective Shows Talents Of Norwegian Novelist". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 29 February 2012.