victor-Y!

There are these strange noises in my ears (*huiiishwhooompwhooomp*) and I think I'm hallucinating: letters and phrases swirling around me! I guess my brain is not really used to reading at a speed of some 250 pages per 5 hours - and I'm not talking about the easy-to-read literature you grab when you're waiting for the hairdresser to give you a makeover or the doctor to check you!
It's not very respectable yet I need to praise myself for today's work, otherwise I'll never get myself to do it again - although I really need to (tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after the day after tomorrow, ...) Can you believe that all this reading is necessary to write a 5-pages-essay?

But at least my grey matter is stuffed with facts about this genius called Victor Sjöström (or Seastrom, as Americans have re-named him). Please, go and watch one of his movies because I don't have the time to. As far as I read Ingeborg Holm, The Phantom Carriage, Name the Man, He who gets slapped, and of course The Scarlet Letter, are totally recommendable (don't watch He who gets slapped, though, if you happen to be afraid of clowns). It's almost tragicomic that I could give you a detailled overview on Sjöströms achievements and his importance for the development of film as an independent art form without ever having seen any of his work.

But maybe I just discovered one of the beautiful side-effects of studying: one can talk a lot and still be a total ignorant.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the films mentioned above are silent movies. But this is not an excuse to go past Victor Sjöström! Watch Bergman's Wild Strawberries instead (Sjöström plays the central character) - you'll love it. At least I did.