Stellan Skarsgård Movies
A Swedish actor who has become known to American audiences thanks to roles in Breaking the Waves and Good Will Hunting, Stellan Skarsgård is one of Scandinavia's best-known and most well-respected performers. Renowned for giving measured characterizations that draw their strength from a delicate complexity, Skarsgård is one of those rare actors who is able to do strong work regardless of the quality of the material he is in, displaying the sort of quiet fortitude that allows him to survive even the worst screen fiascos.Born in Gothenburg on June 13, 1951, Skarsgård became a star in his country, when, as a teenager, he was cast on the TV series Bombi Bitt och jag. After his film debut in 1972, he did years of stage work with Stockholm's Royal Dramatic and made a number of dramas with the director Hans Alfredson, the most notable of which, Den Enfaldige Mordaren, featured Skarsgård in a Silver Berlin Bear-winning performance as a misunderstood man with a deformity. In 1988, Skarsgård got a tentative introduction to a transatlantic audience with a small role in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being; two years later, he had a similarly minor role in another international hit, The Hunt for Red October.
Skarsgård's true international breakthrough came courtesy of his role as Emily Watson's husband in Lars Von Trier's highly acclaimed Breaking the Waves (1996). The actor more than held his own opposite Watson, who gave one of the year's most lauded performances, and he found previously unimagined opportunities available to him in Hollywood. In 1997, he starred as a frustrated mathematician in Gus Van Sant's award-winning Good Will Hunting and was also featured in Steven Spielberg's Amistad; his work in both films culminated in an Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema award from the European Film Academy. Later that same year, the actor appeared in My Son the Fanatic as a German businessman with the unfortunate surname of Schitz -- he also gave a stellar portrayal of a detective who slowly loses his mind while investigating a murder in the Norwegian film Insomnia.
A prolific actor, Skarsgård appeared in a number of small ambitious projects in 2000, including Passion of Mind with Demi Moore, Mike Figgis' Time Code, and Harlan County War. The following year, while he showed up in the poorly-received thriller The Glass House, Skarsgård gained critical praise for his performance in Taking Sides.
2003 saw Skarsgård taking a role in Lars von Trier's highly anticipated Dogville and signing on for the oft-plagued The Exorcist: The Beginning. After several debacles, the prequel to the horror classic finally found its way to movie theaters in 2004, the same year the actor costarred in Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 1988
Someone has tried to murder Mr. Perfect (Dinshaw Daji) and now the beleaguered Inspector Ghote (Krishna Shah) must figure out who tried to do it. Set in Bombay, India, this rollicking crime drama centers on Ghote's search for the would-be killer. Mr. Perfect was knocked out with a candlestick in the home of the jovial Dilap Lal, his employer. As there was no sign that the assassin forced his or her way into the home, Ghote assumes the prime suspect is Lal or one of his family members. Unfortunately, the pressures from his other cases that include a ring of jewel smugglers and a bureaucrat's purloined piece of costume jewelry prevent Ghote from giving his full attention to Perfect's assailant. That Ghote must also entertain the meddlesome Axel Svensson (Stellan Skarsgård), a renowned Swedish crime scientist, does nothing to help matters. To make matters worse, Lal's clan belongs to the upper caste, making it nearly impossible for him to get answers to his questions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dalip Tahil, Madhur Jaffrey, (more)
- 1988
John (Dennis Christopher) is a legal assistant who investigates divorce cases in this offbeat comedy drama. He looks forward to marriage to his fiancee Sally (Edita Brychta), but his daydream is interrupted when a model plane crashes through his window. A bratty kid enters the room, followed by the child's parents, another brother, two daughters and the grandmother. The family ignores John's protests and threats to call the police. Although he has never seen these people before, everyone assures John he is among friends. He is seduced by the oldest daughter, and the son make a pass at Sally before the youngest daughter makes a pass at John. His once-predictable world is turned upside down with the arrival of his mysterious "friends." ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Christopher, Sven Wollter, (more)
- 1988
A young boy wandering with a band of gypsies is endangered when a royal proclamation grants people permission to shoot gypsies on sight. Benny Haag plays Inge and his twin brother Arild, the latter who fights with his father against the "undesirables." The father sends mercenaries to wipe out the gypsies, unaware his own son is among those slated to be executed when captured. The gypsies are portrayed as the heroes, while the blonde Swedes are clearly the enemy. Although this story takes place in the 16th century, parallels between the story and the intolerance of Swedes to foreign workers in the 1980s is evident. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Benny Haag, Melinda Kinnaman, (more)
- 1987
In Sweden, the popular post-WWII newspaper cartoon strip created by Steve Terry was known as Jim & The Pirates instead of Terry and the Pirates, its U.S. moniker. In this children's story based on some of the stories from that strip, a pre-teen boy receives counseling from his dead father's ghost on how to cope with new developments in his life -- from his mother's getting a new boyfriend, to the fine art of chopping onions. The boy learns a pretty good trick from his father's shade which enables him to use his imagination to turn a boring birthday party into an ocean adventure among pirates. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ewa Fröling, Stellan Skarsgård, (more)
- 1987
This plodding, depressing drama concerns the 19th-century painters who were collectively know as the Skaw (or Skagen) Colony. The group rejected the Impressionist style of painting, opting for the realism of natural light and using the lives of the poor fishing villagers as their inspiration. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stellan Skarsgård
- 1986
A challenging and powerful adaptation of a novel by Torgny Lindgren, this drama objectively examines the quiet courage of impoverished people whose faith in God's word enables them to uncomplainingly endure the gross injustice inherent in their culture. Set in the 19th century in the rugged countryside of northern Sweden, the tale centers on Tea, a young woman who is forced to submit to the sexual desires of her landlord. Her situation is not unusual for the times, and whether or not the woman was married, it was considered a morally acceptable means of paying the rent in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible. If a woman refused to sleep with her landlord, she and her family would be evicted. The tale is told from her perspective. Tea was a young bride the first time her landlord Ole Karlsa came calling, and upon her return home she finds that her husband has hung himself. Over the years, Tea has borne many of Ole Karlsa's children, none of whom he officially claims. Despite her years of sexual service, she remains poverty-bound, but this has neither stolen her pride nor broken her spirit. She staunchly refuses to allow Ole Karlsa to get close to his illegitimate brood. Eventually the landowner dies and soon afterward his son Karl Orsa comes to collect his "rent." In between visits, Tea finds happiness for the first time in years when she becomes lovers with a romantic wanderer. Her joy is short-lived, for the drifter is arrested for stealing. More trouble comes when Karl Orsa decides that Tea is too old and that her oldest daughter, in accordance with the custom, must take her place. He refuses to listen to Tea's pleas that to sleep with her daughter would be incest, and this sets up a series of tragedies, all of which are stoically borne by Tea, her family and Karl Orsa (who is just as much a victim of culture as the rest). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1985
A nail-biting, hair-raising suspense yarn that feeds on jealousy, this chilling film by Hans Alfredson has John (Sverre Anker Ousdal), a philandering husband, fall in love with Clara (Malin Ek), a young poetess. When Clara and John move into an apartment on the sleazy side of town, neither her former lover nor his wife put up much objection. Then oddly menacing things start to happen in the apartment: objects are misplaced in a dangerous way, the gas leaks, and someone unknown is filling the place with graffiti. Clara's health degenerates rapidly, and as ominous circumstances push her and John to the brink, a shocking revelation looms ahead. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Malin Ek, Sverre Anker Ousdal, (more)
- 1985
Following on the heels of the preceding animated feature, Pelle Svansloes (Peter No-Tail), this moppet adventure film has no real scares for the tots. Peter No-Tail -- his forever embarrassing lack of a tail makes him the butt of jokes, so to speak -- dreams that he is in the Wild West. Just as he is overcoming his enemy Hobo Mans, he wakes up. Peter decides to take a trip into the forest, but unknown to him, Hobo Mans and his catty sidekicks are after him again, and this time it is not a dream. It takes all of Peter's ingenuity with a large measure of blind luck to escape his tormentors -- but then Fate steps in and Peter has a chance to let his good nature save the day. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Erik Lindgren, Ernst-Hugo Järegård, (more)
- 1984
Noon Wine is adapted from a short story by Katharine Ann Porter. Fred Ward stars as a taciturn Swede who is hired to work on a Texas dairy farm. After he puts in nine years of hard and faithful effort, Ward's secret is revealed: when he applied for his job, he was a fugitive from a murder charge. Michael Fields wrote and directed this 90-minute TV drama. Noon Wine was first seen January 21, 1985 on PBS' American Playhouse series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
Pettersson (Stellan Skarsgård) and Bendel (Allan Edwall) (the latter a refugee from a Polish dictatorship, the former a confirmed amateur capitalist) get together in the big city to see what they can skim off the top and are successful until their luck changes and the two men are back on the bottom of the barrel again. One of the difficulties with this film is that it swings from restrained comic interludes to tragic events, and back -- while hewing to a predictable plot. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stellan Skarsgård, Allan Edwall, (more)
- 1984
Ake and His World is a long, lyrical study of a Swedish country doctor of the 1930s. Ake is the doctor's six year old son, from whose point of view this film is told. Ake watches in innocent bemusement as his busy father weighs life and death issues on a daily basis. It's possible that this Swedish film bore a little influence on the 1991 American comedy My Girl (91), in which the young heroine's father is a mortician. Allan Edwall both wrote and directed this film, which was released in its native country as Ake og hans värld. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Lindström, Loa Falkman, (more)
- 1982
A young man (Stellan Skarsgård) with a harelip deformity has been called the "idiot" since he was little because of his difficulty in talking. When his mother dies, Hoglund (Hans Alfredson), a rich, despotic, Nazi landowner brings the boy to his farm and abuses him through overwork, feeds him food unfit for consumption, and forces him to sleep in the barn. Additional verbal humiliation is piled on top of these inhumane acts, until the boy finds some sympathy and assistance from a kind family nearby. They decide to take him in, and the young man does well enough to save his earnings and buy a motorcycle -- defeating Hoglund's attempt to prevent him from getting a license. While all this is going on, the young man and Anna (Maria Johansson), the kindly farmer's daughter who is confined to a wheelchair, fall in love with each other. But Hogland is determined to ruin the family and he manages to do so by paying off all the farmer's creditors and then expelling the family from their homestead. Pushed beyond his capacity to bend, the young man kills Hoglund and escapes with Anna. During this time, he has visions of three avenging angels who have appeared before whenever he was in trouble or when he was reading the Bible. It is the angels who encouraged him to kill Hoglund, and who stay with him afterwards. He and Anna escape in Hoglund's car, and they find a temporary shelter in a very old house. When Anna starts reading to him from the Bible, he falls asleep, and she looks out the window to see that people are coming to the house. She must make a decision on how to handle this new danger, and as she reaches for the pistol that had belonged to Hoglund, the decision is reached as well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stellan Skarsgård, Hans Alfredson, (more)
