Miss Julie

"That woman is by nature meant to obey may be seen by the fact that every woman who Is placed in the unnatural position of complete independence, Immediately attaches herself to some man, by whom she allows herself to be guided and ruled. It is because she needs a lord and master. If she is young, it will be a lover; if she is old, a priest."

Schopenhauer was stating a very popular view in this quotation from his "Essay on Women." Strindberg, though he corresponded with Nietzsche, never read that writer's much misunderstood "Zarathustra." However, in a letter to Georg Brandos in 1888, the year Froken Julie was written, he mentions Schopenhauer in the same paragraph that he outlines the forces actuating Miss Julio. It would be hand to discover how much Strind-berg's views on women derive from the German pessimist, for long before in the Swedish playwright's childhood influences were working to make him (until the modern "oddfellows" novel) the greatest woman-hater in literature.

Zola still survives but Naturalist drama is not quite so lucky. Hauptmann. Wedekind, must of Ibsen and Strindberg dates badly. What can explain the survival as a convincing tragedy of "Miss Julie"?

Strindberg's theories on heredity, on female emancipation and evolution, are all confused in this play. He believed that a new Nietzschean Superman would arise from conflict between the stronger and weaker members of society—Jean the servant is strong enough to will Miss Julie to suicide but is a sorry enough specimen. He is possibly an emergent Superman, full of vigour, and will to power, but still withal servile and resigned to his servility.

The difficult roles of the main protagonists Jean and Miss Julie are played to perfection by Ulf Palme and Anita Bjork. The director, who in this film version out-strindbergs Strindberg by his use of symbolism (the dogs by the lake, the ornate privy) succeeds best in his film modifications of Naturalist stage technique. The influx of dancing peasants, in the play a device to differentiate between acts, becomes in AIf Sjoberg's hands a way of securing montage. The peasants' joy seems to contrast forcibly with the tragic capriciousnes of Lady Julie.

The sequence in the barn when Miss Julie observes a more natural expression of midsummer madness deserves special mention. She mounts the steps to see more clearly the groom and his companion and horrified yet under compulsion gazes over the wall at them. We can see in her curiosity and disgust both her eventual seduction and equally necessary; revulsion. This also reflects Strindberg who would have women exist for men's pleasure and yet desire them to be still pure and mother-virginal.

Though all the dialogue of this film was in Swedish. Miss Julie is yet another case where sub-titling is of negligible value.

To sum up, what did this film achieve? in Greek tragedies such as "Oedipus" or the "Trojan Women" it is the foreknowledge of disaster that creates the dramatic effect. The knowledge of inescapable fate gives the characters breadth and universality, they persist, as all humanity, against the threat of doom. The art of Strindberg, unlike that of the classics, does not render life more noble and logical; clear-cut moral conflicts do not appear.

Motivation la diversified and as Strindberg claimed in his preface to the play, the characters are modern insofar as they are characterless, being fluid, complex, and indeterminate. Because modern men have realised the complexity of the human personality, the fate of the confused Miss Julio seems of more than ordinary relevance.

—R.A.K.