Espen Skjønberg Movies
A septuagenarian taking his penultimate voyage from Oslo to Bergen begins to mentally prepare for his final trip, but finds that sometimes things don't turn out as expected when he misses the last departure for the first time in 40 years. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Baard Owe, Espen Skjønberg, (more)
- 1999
Roald Amundsen was the rakish Norwegian adventurer who conquered both the North and the South poles during the early 1900s. Stig Andersen's film portrays a man possessed with equal parts bravery and reckless foolishness. He had a knack for raising money for his expeditions of dubious scientific benefit and for wooing the wives of wealthy donors. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Espen Skjønberg, Terjse Stromdahl, (more)
- 1998
Robert Mitchum's is seen in one of his last performances in this Norwegian drama about four lifelong friends. After Carl (Espen Skjonberg) collapses in an Oslo street, he awakens in the hospital to the grins of his buddies Ernest (Mitchum), Ted (Cliff Robertson), and August (Erland Josephson). The dying Carl's last wish is to hear opera sung by the sister of a dead friend. The four head for Heidelberg where they all went to 1937 medical school. As they seek the singer, revelations surface from the pre-WWI Nazi era, including a plot none knew about 60 years ago. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, (more)
- 1993
- NR
Norweigen director Hans Petter Moland makes his feature-film debut with the war drama Second Lieutenant. In Norway during 1940, Thor Espedal (Espen Skjønberg) retires from the Merchant Marines with hopes of finally spending time with his wife, Anna (Rut Tellefsen). When the Nazi Germany prepares an invasion, he is forced to enlist again as a military leader. Because of his age, he doesn't get on with the other soldiers at first, but he wins them over with his bravery. He takes over for the captain Bjelland (Lars Andreas Larssen), and is joined by socialist Krogh (Bjørn Sundquist). who had previously fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Fascists. The conclusion finds the Resistance fighters ambushing a German station and capturing over 100 soldiers. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Espen Skjønberg, Garb B. Eidsvold, (more)
- 1989
This drama is an attempt to bring to the screen the 1927 Nobel Prize-winning novel of Norwegian Knut Hamsen, Landstrykere. The story concerns Edevart (Trond Peter Stamso Munch), a young man who is learning about life an his place in it. In the story, he at first takes up with August (Helge Jordal), a charming trader who is at least half con-man. After trailing along with him for a while, he decides that August is not a man he wants to model his life after. He becomes acquainted with and falls in love with Lovise Margrete (Marika Lagercrantz) a woman living alone on a sheep farm. She has feelings for him also, but she remains true to her missing husband and their acquaintance does not progress to being a full-fledged romance. It is not until her husband returns to her life that any resolution to Edevart's frustration (which lasts for years) can be achieved. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marika Lagercrantz, Helge Jordal, (more)
- 1989
Old Martin (Espen Skjonberg) is haunted by his past, and he has a lot to be haunted by. When he was a young man (Nicolay Lange-Nielsen) his uncle gave him the money to set up business in the wilds of western Norway as a horse trader. His uncle also entrusted a girl, Anna (Camilla Strom Henriksen) to him. Martin was already involved in her life: Anna's father had raped her and gotten her pregnant, and Martin killed the man for this. The two worked hard to make a life for themselves in the wilderness, and they eventually had a social life and a child of their own. For some reason, Martin left his wife while she was giving birth to their child, and he had reason to doubt that she would live through the experience. Now, years later, she has contacted him. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Espen Skjønberg
- 1989
Based on John Trenhaile's A Man Called Kyril, this byzantine-plotted spy melodrama stars Ian Charleson in the title role. Kyril is a supposed Soviet defector who relocates in London. In fact, his defection is a smoke-screen: Kyril has been sent by the KGB to seek out a British mole in Moscow Centre. At four hours, Codename: Kyril affords plenty of breathing space for the various plots and counterplots, but its excess of espionage verbiage may prove confusing to the average viewer. Filmed for British television in locales ranging from Norway to Holland, Codename: Kyril was first telecast in the US on the Showtime cable network on April 27, 1988; a videocassette version running 115 minutes was made available in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1979
The heroes of this picture are the railroad linemen responsible for building a railroad spur in turn-of-the-century Norway. They work, drink, brawl and make love with considerable enthusiasm. One of them even wins the hand of a rich man's daughter. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nils Ole Oftebro
- 1979
When a powerful industrialist dies unexpectedly, his estate goes to his next of kin under the terms of an apparently benevolent will. However, if the family members are unable to agree to receive their share of the estate, all his properties and holdings will go to a cancer charity. At first, everyone in the family is in accord, and all goes smoothly. However, eventually one of the older inheritors begins to make waves. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Espen Skjønberg
- 1971
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel about brutal individual survival in a Russian labor camp in the 1950s is brought to the screen in this stark and spare adaptation by director Caspar Wrede, writer Ronald Harwood, and cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Tom Courtenay is Ivan, who is a prisoner in the eighth year of a ten-year sentence at a Siberian labor camp. Ivan's day consists of small accomplishments that enable Ivan to retain his humanity during conditions of extreme oppression -- he does not get sick, he grabs an extra smoke, he discovers a saw, and he helps to work on a concrete wall. When he prepares for sleep, Ivan is contented that the guards have not beaten him and that he has gotten through the day in one piece. And tomorrow morning, Ivan must start all over again. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tom Courtenay, Espen Skjønberg, (more)
