Stellan and Family 2011-2012

[christine73]

posted by chris
9/17/2011
Ok, here is my translation of the interview with My. First i have to say a few things.
If you think it looks weird sometimes ( I don´t know if weird is the right word) it´s because

1. My english is really bad. I use a dictionary (but a dictionarey doesn´t tell you how to build a centense) and googletranslation
and we all know googletranslation.

2. and most important. since it was a spoken inerview I tried to write it the way she spoke


Q. You are a doctor who are specialized on drug and alcoholaddiction

A. I´m a doctor, but I am also an alcohol and drug therapist, that is what I mostly work with

Q. Can you tell me about the Skarsgård family, from the outside it appears to be a fantastic family

A. it was a fantastic family, it IS a fantastic family, but the sad thing was that alcohol was/is pretty commonly occuring and for me it was to much,
I couldn´t handle it, today iI understand but at the time I didn´t understand what was about to happen.

Q. Was it wine everyday or......

A. Maybe not every day, but it was often wine to dinner and I didn´t like it, I didn´t like to feel drunk so I was the one who drank the least and stopt
and and went out to the kitchen and did the dishes instead and was a little angry because it was to much. Later when I was beginning to have poblems I think
everyone was surprised that it was me

Q. When did it start to be problem

A. There is a clear connection with that I had cancer and ended up in a lifecrisis. I was very very afraid of dying and I could not handle it, I didn´t know how
and then I realized, or already knew, that alcohol dampens my anxiety. I began to feel that alcohol was important to me in away that was not healthy,

and I remember that once I brought it up with the older children, that I am a little worrid about my way to drink alcohol, I drink to make me less afraid.
I always drank before going to the doctor becuse it was so unpleasant,, and I started to understand that there is something that isn´t good here, and
they were surprised, they don´t remember it, but I remember that they were surprised about that

Q. Did you hide...... ....(alcohol)

A, o yes, I could hide (alcohol) everywhere, I was an expert in hiding everywhre. I have been sober for 5 years and I can still find somthing sometimes,
and I think that is terrible. and I get so afrid that the children will think that it is something new, so I go to them and say look, look what I found, Ifound this.

Q, How did the alcoholabuse affected your relationship (marriage)

A. It affected our relationship very much, It killed our love for each other.

Benny asked: why did yuo stop

A. I stopped.....at the time I was so sure that I was going to die, that I had given up competely and I had resigned myself to that my life was over,
and I was so full of shame and terrified to seek help, also being a doctor made it more embarrasing and shameful for me to seek help.
I needed to keep this secret to the end, so I was prepared to die in secret.
I couldn´t see a way out of this

Q. Was it someone who helped you, someone who took you to a treatment center

A. Yes it was and it was absolutely necessary for me, I didn´t know how to stop

Q. You thought yuo would die

A. Yes, and I had resigned myself to it, I did not think it would be possible to continue living the way it was
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then Benny Andersson and his son are talking about that they are alcoholics too and that leads to the talk about heredity,

Back to My
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. My, you work with a method called "Prime for life" wich is about discovering alcoholism at an early stage.
What have you thought about your kids, are yuo worried about them ?

A. Of course I am.
I just want to say that when I was in medschool, we learned very little about addiction. I have learned that later and I have learnd
about "Prime of life" and I think it is fantastic

But you asked me if I am worried about my children, and I am absolutely. because I know that heredity is an important and big part
You inherit a vulnerability.

Q, What do you say to your children

A. I tell them to go to my lecture, and they have done so, and it has had good impact.



And then they talk about "Prime for life" and four stages of addiction very short

and then next guest

[christine73]

posted by ohva
9/17/2011

Thank you Chris!! Thanks I thought your translation was great. It is MUCH appreciated.

Re Chris's translation above. I posted this under Alex's thread yesterday. Chris reviewed the interview and translated it for us--



Google Translate




The son inherited the dependence (re Benny Andersson of Abba)

ABBA Benny tells in "Skavlan" about his alcoholism - then reveals his son Louis that he also abused
Benny Andersson ended up drinking nine years ago.

In tonight's "Skavlan" reveals his son, Ludvig Andersson, that he is a recovering alcoholic.

And salute the parents who helped him out of abuse:

- You took it seriously, he says.

In the season premiere of "Skavlan" on SVT tonight says My Skarsgard

- Mother of actress children Alexander, Gustav and Bill and former wife of Stellan Skarsgard - about her battle against alcohol.

The studio is also the people dear artist Benny Andersson, 64, and his son Ludvig Andersson, 29, both of which also tells us about past abuse.

"Risked everything"
Benny Andersson decided to stop drinking alcohol nine years ago - before it was too late.

He says the program that he had an amazing life, but that alcohol was always nearby. For fear of being knocked out, losing the license, wife and job, he decided to become a teetotaler.

- I did not think my life would become a black hole. I realized that if I continue to drink, chances are I will lose everything, he says in the program.

Benny Andersson's son Ludvig Andersson has been in his father's musical footsteps and sings and plays guitar in the band Atlas. In "Skavlan" he reveals that it is not just dad's musikergen he inherited. For seven years he lives as sober alcoholic. That alcoholism is hereditary, he is convinced.

- You are at greater risk if there is in the family. It is hereditary, says Louis Smith in the program.

Took it seriously
He also tells me that my father Benny's support was extremely important because he could get out of the abuse. Instead of ignoring his drinking, his parents took it very seriously.

- If you drink enough, often enough so you go there. I wished that I stopped before, it's the best I have done, says Benny Andersson.

Crashed marriage
My Skarsgard says that her life was fast from dinner with fine wines to drink in just about anything - only it contained alcohol. She said that spirit was the marriage to crash.

- Alcohol was killing our love for each other. I hid the liquor all over and still find hidden liquor bottles at home. I was sure I was going to die and had resigned myself to that life was over, she says in the program.

2006 was the turning point when she finally sought help for their problems. She is now completely spritfri.

Aftonbladet, was yesterday in contact with Ludvig Andersson but he refers to what he says in tonight's program.

Olof Svensson

[christine73]

posted by ohva
9/17/2011

it was a fantastic family, it IS a fantastic family, but the sad thing was that alcohol was/is pretty commonly occuring and for me it was to much,
I couldn´t handle it, today iI understand but at the time I didn´t understand what was about to happen.


I thought this statement was interesting. It looks like she still thinks alcohol is an issue in her family.

[christine73]

posted by davischristinem
9/17/2011

My Skarsgard is an exceptional woman to be able to admit she had a problem and courageous in the way she went about solving it. It is true that admitting you have a weakness is key to overcoming it. She has set an excellent example for her family. In going public with her story she has done the same for all of us, as well. This lady loves herself and her family. I greatly admire her for this.

Chris, you are a sweetie for taking the time to watch and then translate this interview for us so we could experience her story, too. You are too modest, your English is very good! I appreciate your efforts very much. Thank-You!

P.S. I like your name!

[christine73]

posted by ohva
11/15/2011

Posted by Tom Stockman in Film Festivals, General News,Movies, SLIFF 2011 | 1 comment
KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND – SLIFF Review

THE KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND takes place in 1915 on Bastoy, an island off the coast of Norway that’s sort of an Alcatraz for teenage boys. This wooded island prison, known as a Borstal is in the middle of nowhere, inescapable and grim. As depicted in this engrossing new drama from Norwegian director Marius Holst, it’s one of the most realistic and depressing incantations of hell on earth you’ll ever see, albeit a freezing cold one. The inmates use numbers instead of names, and are forbidden to discuss their past. The sadistic guards heap mental, physical and sexual abuse on them, and instead of the boys being reformed with education they end up being exploited as cheap, manual labor. THE KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND focuses on the two newest residents at Bastoy; Erling (Benjamin Helstad), is a tough older teen who has already spent some time as a sailor, while Ivar (Magnus Langlete), is younger and more vulnerable. The prison’s warden (Stellan Skarsgard) assigns them numbers C-19 and C-5. Olav (Trond Nilssen), is the ‘King’ of the title, a young leader is who is set to leave the island after six years. He befriends Erling, who immediately starts making plans for a grand escape. Ivar, meanwhile, captures the unhealthy attention of house-father Brathen (Kristoffer Joner). After a tragic incident takes place, Erling leads the boys in a violent uprising that is cut short when hundreds of armed government soldiers are shipped to the island to quell it.
Set almost 100 years in the past THE KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND has a Dickensian feel to the setting, as the events take place place in an earlier, less enlightened time. The boys confined to Bastoy are society’s cast-offs, “maladjusted” youth, most from underprivileged or broken homes serving extended sentences, some for serious offenses, but most for minor crimes. The prison system is portrayed as a human zoo with little or no programs to rehabilitate the directionless and confused young boys, supervised by Wardens who are either sexual predators or equally frustrated by the rigid and counterproductive rules. Stellan Skarsgard plays the warden Governor as strict but humane, with a firm belief in Bastoy’s role as a reformatory, but he lacks the backbone to stand up to his abusive superiors. Kristoffer Joner is creepy as the sadistic predator Brathen. THE KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND’s brutality makes it a genuinely harrowing film. The bleak location, the featureless interiors of the institution, the perfect casting (mostly non-actors) and magnificent acting of the indifferent and brutal staff make Bastoy appear to be what can only be described as a living hell. THE KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND is a harrowing prison drama, unpleasant but recommended.
Showtimes
Tuesday, November 15th at 6:45pm and Wednesday, Nov 16th at 4:15pm– Plaza Frontenac Cinema

wearemoviegeeks.com/2011/11/king-of-devils-island-sliff-review/

[christine73]

posted by ohva
11/17/2011

New York Times Review, King of Devils Island



King of Devil's Island (2010)



Stellan Skarsgard, left, and Benjamin Helstad star in “King of Devil's Island,” directed by Marius Holst.

The New Bad Boys Decide to Do the Reforming

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: November 17, 2011

Filmed in shades of blue and gray, the dour Norwegian drama “King of Devil’s Island” evokes a blood-chilling climate of eternal winter. Its setting is the Bastoy Residential School, a reformatory for “maladjusted” boys, 11 to 18, that operated for a half-century until the 1950s on an Alcatraz-like island.

But if the place is forbidding, it isn’t a house of horrors. The film tells the true story of a 1915 rebellion among the inmates that the Norwegian army was summoned to quell.

So many of the incidents in the film, directed by Marius Holst, are familiar from prison and boys’-school melodramas that “King of Devil’s Island” risks seeming like a rehash. There are the predictable failed escape attempts, a suicide and one boy’s sexual abuse (not shown but alluded to).

What sets the movie apart from its forerunners is its metaphorical superstructure. The school’s stern, pious governor, Bestyreren (Stellan Skarsgard), likens Bastoy to a ship and the inmates to its crew. Two of the boys share a story that is told three times in the film about being aboard a ship pursuing a whale that is repeatedly harpooned and gravely wounded but that continues to ply the waters. The whale might symbolize the resistance of boys or the resilience of the institution whose governor rules it like a benign despot.

His avowed goal is to rescue teenagers whom he sees as human trash by forcibly turning them into “honorable, noble, useful, Christian boys.” And Mr. Skarsgard gives Bestyreren just the right attitude of stubborn, narrowed-eyed rectitude.

Because “King of Devil’s Island” is neither a shocking exposé nor a horror film, it will disappoint moviegoers anticipating gleefully unhinged rioting. More than anything, it is a moral inquiry into the relationship of the individual to the group in oppressive institutional circumstances. Personal infractions of the elaborate rules at Bastoy usually result in group punishment, like the cutting of rations.

Those stringent rules include no talking at meals and no discussion of the crimes (some of them petty, like stealing from a church collection plate) that brought them to Bastoy. Although punishments are harsh, they couldn’t quite be described as torture. The worst discipline meted out is 12 lashes on the back.

The movie’s villain is Bestyreren’s sadistic enforcer, Brathen (Kristoffer Joner), who has worked at Bastoy for nine years and relishes his power. The story begins as two new wards, the surly 17-year-old Erling (Benjamin Helstad), who is rumored to have committed murder, and fragile, frightened Ivar (Magnus Langlete), arrive from the mainland and are stripped and paraded naked before the other boys before being shown to their quarters. The stocky, glowering Erling becomes the catalyst for the uprising, while Ivar suffers as Brathen’s prey.

As the film continues, its perspective shifts from Erling to Olav (Trond Nilssen), an obedient dormitory leader, model inmate and six-year resident of Bastoy who is about to be released for good behavior. Olav’s repressed fury at the institution ultimately explodes the moment he is given his freedom.

For all its seriousness, “King of Devil’s Island,” whose title refers to Erling, is dramatically diffuse. Its refusal to adopt a single point of view may be conceptually ambitious, but it keeps the drama unfocussed, and slightly off balance.

KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Marius Holst; written by Dennis Magnusson; director of photography, John Andreas Andersen; edited by Michal Leszczylowski; set design by Janusz Sosnowski; produced by Karin Julsrud, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Ewa Puszczynska, Mathilde Dedye and Johannes Ahlund; released by Film Movement. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. In Norwegian, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Stellan Skarsgard (Governor/Bestyreren), Kristoffer Joner (Brathen), Benjamin Helstad (Erling), Trond Nilssen (Olav), Kimmo Rajala (Policeman), Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Astrid) and Magnus Langlete (Ivar).

[christine73]

posted by PurpleShadow
12/20/2011



Stellan Skarsgård: The film that changed my life

Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné, 1945)

Interview by Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy
The Observer, Sunday 18 December 2011

When I was about 11 years old my father stood me in front of the television at home and said: "This is a film you have to see." It was Les enfants du paradis, directed by Marcel Carné. Shot in Paris during the Nazi occupation, it's about a troupe of mime artists and performers in the 1880s.

It's a very beautiful, epic story, but what moved me the most was the scene where Jean-Louis Barrault, who plays the mime artist Jean-Baptiste Debureau, is performing a pantomime on stage, his face painted white. He looks into the wings and sees the woman he loves with another man. You see his face crack behind the mask. For me, that moment captured what acting is all about – what is happening behind the mask.

The French actor Arletty, who played the love interest Garance, aroused me as an 11-year-old boy. It was her enormous sensuality – her way of moving, her way of speaking, her way of looking. Another wonderful character was Lacenaire, the murderer who goes around killing people for most of the film. His aim is to be hanged for his crimes in Paris, not some small-time town, and he eventually succeeds. It is beautifully written, very poetic. Carné worked with the writer Jacques Prévert on a couple of other beautiful films as well, and they were extremely successful together.

Seeing Les enfants du paradis interested me in the idea of becoming an actor, and I've used the "layers behind the mask idea" in my work. I've told lots of people about it – it's Emily Watson's favourite too, so I'm in good company. But I don't watch it often – perhaps once every 10 years – because it's already had its impact on me. There's no film I go back to more than a few times. There's too much fresh work to see.

Stellan Skarsgård is in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, in cinemas from Boxing Day

[christine73]

posted by ohva
1/4/2012

'King of Devil's Island': Stellan Skarsgård mentors
G. Allen Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Read more: www.sfgate.com/cgi...1MJ2DK.DTL#ixzz1iXyuHEXM


Although he has acted in dozens of films in his own country, Stellan Skarsgård's most recognized work was made outside of Sweden.
The tall, blond handsome actor first came to the attention of many American moviegoers two decades ago as a Soviet submarine captain in "The Hunt for Red October," hit his stride in the mid-'90s with the indie hits "Breaking the Waves" and "Good Will Hunting" and has become a reliable supporting man in Hollywood blockbusters - he's Bootstrap Bill in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films and can also be seen opposite Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," as well as with son Alexander Skarsgård, Kirsten Dunst and Kiefer Sutherland in Lars von Trier's "Melancholia."
Turns out Hollywood is not the only foreign industry where Stellan Skarsgård has found big success: He's big in Norwegian films (the original "Insomnia," for example), and his latest, "King of Devil's Island," is near and dear to him.
"I like the film, I like to talk about it," Skarsgård said by phone from Sweden. "Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that ... shows art house films from all over the world. Norwegian kids, they grow up well educated in film. So they have a lot of good directors there."
Set in 1915, "King of Devil's Island" is about a group of juvenile delinquents at the Bastoy prison, a correctional facility on an island south of Oslo. At that time, it was a cruel place (it's a model prison now), and boys spent years there, sometimes for crimes as insignificant as stealing money out of a church donation basket.
Skarsgård is the warden and chief antagonist of the new inmate (Benjamin Helstad) and the leader of C-block (Trond Nilssen). The warden's harsh methods have the boys dreaming of escape.
"The way I look at humanity, I don't think there's good guys or bad guys," Skarsgård said. "We're all potentially bad and potentially good. Which means I wanted to play (the warden) as he thought he was modern for that time. ... He felt he was giving the boys all he could for their future. But he was also a product of the society he was living in, and that made him an evil man in the sense that he whipped the boys and oppressed them."
Skarsgård said a major reason he wanted to do the film was that director Marius Holst cast nonactors from troubled backgrounds as the inmates, working with them for more than a year. Skarsgård assisted Holst and his crew in shepherding the boys through the difficult shoot in rural, snowy Estonia.
"When the film was finished shooting, Trond Nilssen said, 'This is the first thing I have ever completed,' which was quite moving," Skarsgård said. "It was such a thrill to work with them because their lives were difficult, and you could see it in their eyes. ... That kind of combined hardness and vulnerability in their eyes.
"Helstad is now in the theater academy in Norway, and Nilssen has done something like three more films after this film - so his life has changed. He was a petty criminal before. Now he's got a life."
Note: Skarsgård will participate in a Skype Q&A following Friday's 9:30 p.m. screening.
Starts Fri. San Francisco Film Society | New People Cinema, 1746 Post St., S.F. www.sffs.org.


Read more: www.sfgate.com/cgi...1MJ2DK.DTL#ixzz1iXyfwi2b

[christine73]

posted by ohva
1/5/2012

Foreign Objects: King of Devil’s Island (Norway)

Features By Rob Hunter on January 5, 2012 |

www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/foreign-objects-king-of-devils-island-norway-rhunt.php

The doors of Norway’s Bastoy Residential School remained open from 1900 to 1953, and in that half century hundreds of wayward boys called it home. They found themselves there for crimes big and small, but the goal was the same for all of them. Find the “honorable, humble, useful, Christian boy” inside the criminal, and then return them to society. But while this small chunk of rock adrift just south of Oslo was a home it was never meant to feel like one.

A biting cold pervaded the place, inside and out, and it was as prevalent as the rigid discipline, hard labor and overall oppressiveness that was the school’s daily routine. And as inescapable as the island itself.

King of Devil’s Island is based on the true story of a student uprising that occurred at Bastoy in 1915. An incident triggered by sexual abuse but fueled by pent-up rage led to the boys overthrowing their guardians and rioting until a unit of the Norwegian army arrived to quell the situation. The film is an affecting drama that mostly overcomes a familiar story with strong acting by Stellan Skarsgard and others, atmospheric cinematography and a core message of integrity and solidarity.


“Make sure they learn the rules.”

Two new boys arrive by boat in the fall of 1915. Erling (Benjamin Helstad) is rumored to have killed someone, and his face bears the bloodied bruising of police brutality. Ivar (Magnus Langlete) is a skinny and weak willed boy, timid and easily frightened, whose crime is unknown but one can’t imagine as anything more than petty or mistaken. They’re rechristened C19 and C5, respectively, before being stripped and paraded in the nude past their new neighbors and on to their dorm.

The harsh conditions of their open-ended stay at Bastoy are immediately visible in the frozen sea that surrounds them and in the eyes of the other boys. The island’s governor, Bestyreren (Skarsgard), lords over the place with his unhappy wife at his side, but while his intentions are noble his methods stretch the boundaries of the word. Isolation, caning and forced exertion are a few of the official tactics, but Bestyreren’s right-hand man, house father Brathen (Kristoffer Joner), has one more that he keep secret.

Erling feels a certain protectiveness over Ivar, but he has little interest in anyone else. His only goal is escape, but when his behavior catches the eye of a model student due to be released any day now a challenging but oddly rewarding friendship develops. Olav (Trond Nilssen), aka C1, is the student leader on the verge of freedom, but while the truth can sometimes set you free it can also seal your fate.

The film follows these three boys and the others as they interact and learn to deal with their lot in life until that no longer remains an option. We’ve seen dozens of prison-set films before where prisoners are presented in somewhat compassionate light so that we cheer their inevitable uprising and bid for escape, and King of Devil’s Island does little new with the premise aside from setting and historical basis. But that familiarity is the film’s only real weakness.

The characters come to us as enigmas. Their past lives are left unspoken at Bastoy and are therefore unknown to the viewers. Has Erling actually killed someone? We only see him and the others in the here and now as they’re driven to find conformity and friendship in what appears to be the coldest damn place on Earth.

Of course Norway isn’t anywhere near the cold of Antarctica (the actual coldest place on Earth), but director Marius Holst and cinematographer John Andreas Andersen have crafted a place that looks and feels as cold and foreboding as no other. The boys’ breath is visible at night in their beds, and the wind bites at their faces throughout the day. The bitter cold is paired with and against the shots of the darkly beautiful island and crashing sea, and you’ve never seen such a starkly gorgeous vision of hell.

The visuals reach their peak in scenes that bring to life Erling’s repeated tale of life aboard a whaling vessel. We see large mammals cresting the waves, bloodied and taut harpoons impaled in their sides, and we know that some creatures will fight to survive in even the most dire situations. Erling, Olav and the others find strength in the stories, and through them they find a bond with each other.

Grade: B