The New Land

The New Land (Swedish: Nybyggarna) is a 1972 Swedish film co-written and directed by Jan Troell and starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Eddie Axberg. It is a sequel to Troell's The Emigrants (1971); both are based on The Emigrants novels by Vilhelm Moberg. Drawing its story from the last two of these novels – The Settlers (1956) and The Last Letter Home (1959) – the film is about Swedish immigrants establishing their home in Minnesota, including during the Dakota War of 1862.

This article is about the Swedish film. For other uses, see New Land.
The New Land
Film poster
Nybyggarna
Directed byJan Troell
Produced byBengt Forslund
Written byJan Troell
Bengt Forslund
Based onThe Settlers and The Last Letter Home
by Vilhelm Moberg
StarringMax von Sydow
Liv Ullmann
Eddie Axberg
Monica Zetterlund
Music byBengst Ernryd
Georg Oddner
CinematographyJan Troell
Edited byJan Troell
Distributed bySvensk Filmindustri
Release date
  • 26 February 1972 (1972-02-26) (Sweden)
Running time
202 minutes
CountrySweden
LanguageSwedish

Like its predecessor, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It and The Emigrants are the basis for the 1974 American television series The New Land.

Plot

Karl Oskar, his wife Kristina and their three children, along with Karl Oskar's brother Robert and Robert's friend Arvid, have arrived in Lake Ki Chi Saga from Sweden. Taking shelter in a shanty, Karl Oskar puts all their resources into building them a house before winter. He begins clearing the land of the pine trees, and with the help of Robert, Arvid and some of their Swedish neighbors, constructs a small farmhouse.

Once it is completed, Karl Oskar and Kristina invite their fellow Swedish settlers, including Kristina's Uncle Danjel and Ulrika, who has become a very close friend of the family, for dinner. Afterwards, they discuss whether they regret emigrating. Later that night, Karl Oskar tries to console Kristina and shows her something he had kept from Sweden - a shoe belonging Anna, their eldest daughter who had died in Sweden. He tells her that it helps him to remember their home, which comforts her slightly. Not long afterwards, Kristina gives birth to a son, Danjel, named after her uncle. Ulrika marries a Baptist minister. Pious neighbours fail to persuade Kristina to shun her due to this and Karl Oskar becomes a deacon of a congregation with likeminded fellow countrymen.

Robert, meanwhile, tells Arvid that he plans to head west to California to dig for gold, and persuades Arvid to come. After some months, he returns to Karl Oskar and Kristina and gives them a lot of money in notes. Eventually, he admits that their adventure was plagued by a series of misfortunes. The two become lost in the desert after looking for their stray donkey, and Arvid died from drinking poisoned water. Robert was rescued by their Hispanic guide, who brings him to a village in the Sierra Nevada. When the guide catches yellow fever, Robert nurses him, despite being warned of the risk, until the guide dies. In clearing the guide's possessions, Robert finds a large sum of money in coin and exchanges them for lighter banknotes for the journey home. Karl skar discovers that Robert has been cheated and the banknotes are worthless. Robert, who has disdained medical help, then dies from the fever he contracted from the guide.

The mass execution of Sioux warriors is portrayed in the film.

In the following years, Kristina gives birth to two more children, Ulrika and Frank, after which a doctor advises Kristina that after seven pregnancies her insides are torn, and another pregnancy will be fatal. However, Kristina decides to disregard the warning, and eventually becomes pregnant again. After suffering several miscarriages, Kristina falls ill and becomes bedridden, gradually weakening. The Dakota War of 1862 erupts, in which starving Sioux warriors kill hundreds of settlers across the upper Midwest, among them Kristina's uncle Danjel and his eldest son Sven. Almost 40 of the warriors are later subject to a mass execution.

Kristina dies in 1862, and Karl Oskar, overwhelmed by grief, withdraws into solitude, watching his children grow up and start families of their own. His eldest son Johan takes over the farm, marries an Irish girl and before long has a family of five children. Marta marries another Swedish immigrant from Ljuder parish and they who purchase a general store in Center City which they operate while raising a family of three children. Harald leaves for Minneapolis and works for the railroad, eventually becoming a successful businessman and marrying a German, with whom he has two children. Dan remains a bachelor and stays behind on the farm to help Johan, while Ulrika marries a Norwegian farmer from nearby Franconia township and has a family of four children. Frank has since moved to Chicago and married a Yankee girl. Karl Oskar often visits Kristina's grave overlooking the river, tending to the flowers while in the distance, hammering sounds can be heard as other Swedes have also begun moving into the area in large numbers and establishing farms. On her grave marker, beneath her name it reads "We Shall Meet Again".

Karl Oskar dies on 7 December 1890. A neighbor, Axel Andersson, writes a letter to Karl Oskar's sister Lydia back in Sweden informing her of the death. In his letter, Andersson explains that Karl Oskar's children had by then forgotten Swedish and that Karl Oskar often reminded him to write to his sister informing her of his eventual death. Also included with the letter is a family photograph showing Karl Oskar surrounded by Johan, Marta, Harald, Dan, Ulrika and Frank, their respective spouses and all their children.

Cast

Production
Liv Ullmann said the cast spent days on the fields. She won awards for Best Actress from the National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics for her performance.

Actress Liv Ullmann said that The New Land was filmed concurrently with The Emigrants over a year.[1] The cast members spent days in the fields to portray farming, particularly for The New Land. Ullmann said that after three days, she began to be exhausted.[2]

The film was shot at Filmstaden in Stockholm, as well as Småland and Skåne in Sweden and in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Colorado between February 1969 and January 1970.[3] The combined cost of the two films was kr 7 million, then the most expensive Swedish film.[4]

Release

The New Land was released to cinemas in Sweden on 26 February 1972.[5] It was the highest-grossing Swedish film of the year.[6] The film opened in New York City on 26 October 1973.[7]

Before the home video release in the U.S., The Emigrants and The New Land were edited into The Emigrant Saga and aired on television.[8] The first U.S. home video came in February 2016, when The Criterion Collection released both films on Blu-ray and DVD. The films were frequently requested by customers.[9] The New Land was featured in the 2016 Gothenburg Film Festival.[10]

Reception

Critical reception

Writing for The New York Times, Lawrence van Gelder praised the film as "a masterly exercise in film-making", and complimented Von Sydow and Ullman. He wrote that while the film could be "a reunion with old friends" for audiences that viewed The Emigrants, The New Land could stand alone.[7] Stephen Farber of The New York Times called The New Land "a shattering film", and asserted "its portrait of the Indians is one of the most interesting ever caught on film".[11] In New York, Judith Crist said the film demonstrated "poetic and human detail".[12] U.S. novelist Philip Roth was also an admirer of the film, writing in 1974 "It's the first movie I've seen in years and years where I actually believed in the life and death of the characters. But the rendering of the settlement of the Midwest by immigrant Swedes and their dealings with the Indians and nature, is as good as anything in American literature on the subject".[13] The film was an influence on some of his work.[14]

Roger Ebert referred to The New Land as a masterpiece in his review of Troell's Everlasting Moments (2008).[15] In his 2015 Movie Guide, Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars, praising it for "Superior performances, photography, many stirring scenes".[8] Author Terrence Rafferty wrote that The New Land appears lighter than The Emigrants, but has "a more pervasive sense of danger" and "disquiet", and compared Robert and Arvid to Lennie and George in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.[16] The 1974 American television series The New Land was based loosely on both The Emigrants and The New Land,[17] which Rafferty attributed to the popularity of both films.[16]

Accolades

The New Land was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the same year Troell was nominated for Best Director for The Emigrants, the first time a director was nominated in those categories for two different films in the same year.[18]

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref(s)
Academy Awards 27 March 1973 Best Foreign Language Film Jan Troell Nominated [19]
Bodil Awards 1973 Best European Film Won [20]
Golden Globes 28 January 1973 Best Foreign Language Film The Emigrants and The New Land Won [21]
Guldbagge Awards 23 October 1972 Best Actor Eddie Axberg Won [20]
Best Actress Monica Zetterlund Won
National Board of Review 24 December 1973 Best Actress Liv Ullmann Won [22]
Top Foreign Films The New Land Won
National Society of Film Critics 4 January 1974 Best Actress Liv Ullmann Won [23]

See also

References
  1. Ullmann 2006, p. 5.
  2. Ullmann 2006, p. 6.
  3. "The New Land (1972)". Swedish Film Institute. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  4. Wessell 1972, p. 16.
  5. "Nybyggarna" (in Swedish). Swedish Film Database. February 1972. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  6. "Sweden's Handbook". Variety. January 2, 1974. p. 22.
  7. Van Gelder, Lawrence (27 October 1973). "Screen: 'The New Land': The Cast". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  8. Maltin 2014.
  9. Sharf, Zack (17 November 2015). "'The Graduate,' 'The Kid' and More Classics Hitting Criterion Collection in February". IndieWire. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  10. Mälarstedt, Kurt (30 January 2016). "Människan i en monter. Jan Troell gjorde film av 4300 år gamla utvandrare". Sydsvenskan. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  11. Farber, Stephen (18 November 1973). "Movies". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  12. Crist, Judith (1 October 1973). "Truffaut's Latest: A Festival of a Movie". New York. p. 78.
  13. Nadel 2012, p. 48.
  14. Nadel 2012, p. 49.
  15. Ebert 2011, p. 162.
  16. Rafferty, Terrence (9 February 2016). "The Emigrants/The New Land: Homelands". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  17. Brooks & Marsh 1995, p. 738.
  18. Lodge, Guy (13 October 2016). "Old Masters and New Talents Compete in a Stacked Foreign-Language Oscar Race". Variety. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  19. "The 45th Academy Awards (1973) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
  20. "The New Land (1972)". Swedish Film Institute. 2 March 2014.
  21. "The New Land". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  22. "1973 Award Winners". National Board of Review. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  23. Long 2006, p. xvi.

Bibliography
  • Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle (1995). The Complete Directory to Prime-Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present (Sixth ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-39736-3.
  • Ebert, Roger (2011). Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2012. Andrews McMeel Publishing.
  • Long, Robert Emmet, ed. (2006). Liv Ullmann: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 157806824X.
  • Maltin, Leonard (September 2014). Leonard Maltin's 2015 Movie Guide. Signet.
  • Nadel, Ira (2012). "Philip Roth and Film". Roth and Celebrity. Lexington Books.
  • Ullmann, Liv (2006). Long, Robert Emmet (ed.). Liv Ullmann: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 157806824X.
  • Wessell, Nils Y., ed. (1972). The American-Swedish '72. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Swedish Historical Foundation. ISBN 1422365506.
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