Miss Julie (1951)
"Fröken Julie" (original title)

Late 19th century. The young miss Julie lives in a mansion with her father. She has recently broken her engagement but is attracted to one of the servants, Jean. They spend the midsummer ... See full summary »

Director:

Alf Sjöberg

Writers:

Alf Sjöberg, August Strindberg (play)

Stars:

Anita Björk, Ulf Palme, Märta Dorff

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Anita Björk	...	Miss Julie
Ulf Palme	...	Jean
Märta Dorff	...	Kristin, cook
Lissi Alandh	...	Countess Berta, Julie's mother
Anders Henrikson	...	Count Carl, Julie's father
Inga Gill	...	Viola
Åke Fridell	...	Robert
Kurt-Olof Sundström	...	Julie's Fiancé
Max von Sydow	...	Hand
Margaretha Krook	...	Governess (as Margareta Krook)
Åke Claesson	...	Doctor
Inger Norberg	...	Julie as a child
Jan Hagerman	...	Jean as a child

Storyline

Late 19th century. The young miss Julie lives in a mansion with her father. She has recently broken her engagement but is attracted to one of the servants, Jean. They spend the midsummer night together, telling each other their memories and of their dreams. Realizing that an affair between a man of the people and an aristocrat is impossible, they plan to escape to Switzerland.

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Plot Keywords:

mansion | midsummer | servant | seduction | flashback | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish

Release Date:

30 July 1951 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

Miss Julie

Filming Locations:

Dalarö, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sandrews

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Swedish censorship certificate # 078560 renewed in 1953, 1976 and 1978.

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Connections

Version of Miss Julie (1999)

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Soundtracks

"Den blomstertid nu kommer"
Texts by Israel Kolmodin (1694), Johan Olof Wallin (1819)

User Reviews

a pick for best cinematic translation of Strindberg to screen

Alj Sjoberg's Miss Julie is superior film-making to the kinds of expected adaptations of iconoclastic plays one might usually see. This Miss Julie moves, when at its best, like a real MOTION PICTURE (not to overstate it, just to put the words in bold), where Sjoberg's camera moves in fast and smooth, transfers between present and past with one simple sweep (this part seems the most influential in future post-modern films), and combining music, lush outdoor locations (it IS midsummer night after all) and acting that's fit for the screen just as much as for the stage if not more-so. Reading the play years ago, I was struck by how it would be hard to translate this past the one-room setting, where Julie and Jean confront and have the wild possibility of leaving everything to chance and becoming lovers elsewhere. This was the case with the 1999 adaptation- a respectable but unremarkable turn- but in this much older case it's a sweeping saga of romance plagued by class distinctions and just plain old childhood problems still sticking their claws into present affairs. It's surprisingly fresh in its old-fashioned sense.

At first it looks like Sjoberg could be deviating from the bulk of the tone of the Strindberg play and start to make a much livelier version of the material (how that could really be *done* I can't say), with the horde of people dancing and rollicking in frivolity like it's the last days before the new century. But it's a very wise move of contrast: while all the townspeople and others among the Count's lot go into a delirious frenzy here there and everywhere, there's Julie and Jean all abound in their neuroses and dangers of new-found existential connection. While Sjoberg doesn't have much trouble in translating the tone of the basic material- of the difference between rich and poor struck away by the desire to just see these two talk like human beings, warts and all, without the confines of their set places and alignment with those they should be with (Jean with Ingrid, Julie with Lord knows whom)- the trick Sjoberg had was with his style and casting.

On both fronts, as luck would have it, he has it made. Anita Bjork is an excellent Julie, and the actor playing Jean is also fantastic at displaying an apt trait of showing off as at times being sincere and not sincere, confusing and riling up poor dear Julie, taught from her youth to hate and be wary of men by her hateful mother. Even little parts that might have been left shorter run in the original play are given further depth, Luke Julie's father, who's seen as something of a conflicted character as a man in power who ends up being much more caring (up to a specific point of incident) than her mother. As for the style, as aforementioned, it's often breathtaking; sequences like the young Jean running away from the lot of adults after him for stealing is shot, edited and composed like something not quite of the early 1950s. If it's a little dated here and there it should be expected, but Miss Julie is a delightful exercise in the unimaginable: an adaptation that lives up to the controversial and exciting spirit of the source.