Edvard Munch is one of the most famous names in the history of painting and probably, at the same time, one of the least known artists. The reason is largely due to the celebrity of single painting – ‘The Scream’ – which has long entered popular culture and has reached record prices at auction sales putting the rest in shadow. Too few of those who met one way or another ‘The Scream’ know more about the complex and prolific artist that was Edvard Munch. The retrospective exhibition organized in two museums in the Norwegian capital in 2013 was an excellent opportunity to recover this lack of information. For those who did not have the opportunity to visit the exhibition, the documentary ‘Munch 150‘ in the ‘Exhibition on Screen’ series produced by Phil Grabsky fortunately gives them the opportunity to virtually visit this event, probably the most extensive Munch exhibition ever organized.
The writer and art commentator Tim Marlow is the host of the film, which chronologically follows the artist’s biography in parallel with the discussions of the most representative works of the two parts of the exhibition (until 1904 at the National Museum of Art, between 1904 and 1944 at the Munch Museum) with the works in the University Hall as a supplement. Two of the curators of the exhibition and other experts in the biography and creation of Munch collaborate. The most representative stages and works are presented: realistic paintings from youth, the theme of death inspired by family tragedies, the ‘Frieze of Life’ cycle, the Parisian period, ‘The Scream’, the landscapes, the nudes, the self-portraits. A few of the extremely original elements of technique are presented, some anticipating with decades the processes used later by expressionists and abstract expressionists. The details of his personal life and his complicated relationships with women describe the context of some of his best known works.
Made in 2013, ‘Munch 150‘ is one of the first films in the ‘Exhibition on Screen’ series and it is visible that the format was not yet perfectly stabilized, and some visual elements such as filming close the details of the paintings, many of them can be omitted even by those who are in front of the paintings, are not yet present. I have never appreciated the use of actors in such documentary films, nor do I think that the presence of an actor who wants to represent Munch when reading journal pages or correspondence would adds value here. Despite these minor minuses, ‘Munch 150‘ is a precious documentary about one of the most important artists in the history of painting and a unique document of the major exhibition dedicated to him.