The Scarlet Letter

By the time Victor Sjöström was invited to Hollywood by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1920s, he was already a towering figure of Swedish silent cinema, with films such as Terje Vigen, The Outlaw and His Wife and The Phantom Carriage behind him. His fifth American production was The Scarlet Letter, an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s widely read novel. The direct involvement of the studio’s biggest star, Lillian Gish, secured the film a budget of nearly half a million dollars, despite the objections of Louis B. Mayer, who feared protests from religious groups outside cinemas. Even so, the marketing leaned into the film’s provocative potential, suggesting that it would reveal the true face of infidelity. The story did indeed centre on the forbidden romance between the married Hester Prynne (Gish) and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale (the Swedish leading man Lars Hanson), but Sjöström’s real target was the hypocrisy of the Puritan community in New England. The titular letter “A”, used to brand the heroine as an adulteress, gradually takes on new meanings. Through subtle directorial gestures – symbols such as a canary escaping its cage, the intimate meetings of the lovers set against bombastic crowd scenes, and nature contrasted with the stifling atmosphere of seventeenth-century Boston – the film shifts from melodrama towards genuine psychological depth. A century later, its visual richness still makes a powerful impression: Hendrik Sartov’s chiaroscuro lighting, the striking sets by Cedric Gibbons and Sidney Ullman, and Gish’s exquisite, understated performance all remain among the treasures of silent cinema.

Maciej Kowalczyk

Victor Sjöström (1879–1960) – Swedish director, screenwriter and actor, one of the greatest filmmakers of the silent era. Together with Mauritz Stiller he helped shape the Swedish silent film tradition, characterized by naturalism and an extensive use of natural landscapes, which often functioned as a central dramatic element of the film. After achieving success in Europe, he worked in Hollywood, where he became one of the leading directors of the prewar period. His work strongly influenced Ingmar Bergman, who cast him in Wild Strawberries—his final acting role.