Mauritz Stiller, a white man with dark hair slicked back and a small moustache. He looks thoughtfully off screen and crosses his arms. He wears a dark suit and a striped tie.
“I have all my life wondered where I belong,”
– Mauritz Stiller
The Wings (1916) is now known as one of the first films to explore queer themes, a reading that is encouraged by the fact that many of the people involved in creating the film were queer. This film’s director was a connecting cord between two of the most well-remembered figures of Swedish cinema, Nils Asther and Greta Garbo. Both of whom were also queer. In many ways, this man shaped the face of queer cinema from its very beginnings. Now it is time to explore the history and learn about Mauritz Stiller.
Born on July 17, 1883, Stiller’s family was of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and would spend his childhood moving around Russia, Poland, and Finland. Initially, he showed an interest in acting and began doing so in Finland. However, the draft forced him out of Finland, and it was in Sweden that he would find success in the film industry.
Initially, Stiller would introduce himself to people as a famous German director, it was a lie that opened doors for him but it was his true talent for acting, writing and directing that kept these doors open.
His first film was The Gardner (1912), where he worked as a writer and actor. He would grow fairly steadily in both fame and notoriety as time passed. Because he was Jewish, he experienced a lot of anti-semitism, specifically relating to his appearance, which was intensely criticized whenever he was in front of the camera rather than behind it.
Sweden was in a time of significant social shifts throughout the 1910s. As they industrialized, the middle class expanded. Sweden became the first country to institutionalize “no fault” divorce. Because of this, feminism and the feminine were firmly in the spotlight for national debate, and Stiller’s films soon became known for being light while still addressing these controversial issues.
Because his films were mostly comedies, he made the discussion accessible for an entirely new range of people. His perspective as a Jewish man and immigrant was invaluable. In some of his most famous works, feminism and feminists are addressed rather directly and not always positively. Much of the time, the resolutions involved women leaning into a more childlike and innocent mindset. Many have scrutinized these films; some believe the moral to be that it was in everyone’s best interest for women to act domestic and childish. Others interpret his work to be an exploration of how these characteristics were simply that: characteristics, something to be leaned into at times, and avoided at others, but most importantly, not traits that made up the basis for all women’s nature. Still others argue that the whole point is that he left the discussion up for the audience to decide and just put his own thoughts forward to add to the debate.
What is clear is that some of his criticisms of the feminist movement ring true even today. For example, in the film Thomas Graal’s Best Child(1918), the central conflict is a contest between a husband and wife about raising the child. With the woman representing more modern and feminist ideas, and the father representing the more traditional truths, both sides take wins and losses. However, one intense point of contention after the child’s birth is that of “hygiene.”
The ideology of eugenics has foundationally influenced feminism as a movement. Around this time, those foundations were being built, and eugenics was the newest popular way of deciding how women should raise their children. This ideology profoundly influences the wife in the film. It leads to her elevation of western classical art, measuring her child’s skull, venerating the ancient Greeks, and demanding her child be shielded from “inferior” art forms.
All of this is laid under the umbrella of “hygiene.” But, of course, the film is a comedy, so these ideologies are brought to their most ridiculous extremes. In one instance, she uses gloves to bathe her child. In another, she scolds the father for kissing the child on the head, as that too is deemed “unhygienic.” In a third, she demands the child only listen to Beethoven.
As a modern viewer, there are loaded implications that come along with a lot of this symbology, most having to do with the idea of “racial purity.” While modern viewers may have a quicker association with these symbols, Stiller was aware of these ideas’ implications. At the time, Sweden was preoccupied with the idea of a “Swedish race,” something that Stiller, as a gay Jewish immigrant, did not fit.
It must be noted that many highly respected feminist scholars were very invested in these racist anti-Semitic ideologies, some of whom Stiller directly names within his film. While he often leaves things open to interpretation by the audience, he is not entirely subtle when hitting a point home.
The film seems to resolve the problem by having a bit of a compromise. Though it is clear that things like exposing her child to art have been a good influence, the wife is proven wrong in her selectiveness as to what art is worthy of him. It also resolves with the husband directly explaining that while some of the more traditional ways (especially in clothes) are difficult and often even painful, there is still good there and things worth preserving. Of course, a lot of this is directed at trying to entice the return of his “foolish little wife, this coquettish, elegant little sprite whom I have loved and adored.”
While the feminist worth of them both returning to traditional gender roles is less than impressive, the film as a whole brings an often ignored issue with feminist ideology to the forefront and mocks it. Unlike other directors of the time, Stiller tries his best to avoid the more dramatic self-serious route some of the subjects he takes on seemed to inspire. In doing so, he was able to receive both acclaim and a wide audience.
Through this, he was also making inroads within the queer community of the time. Specifically beginning a relationship with Nils Asther and ‘discovering’ Greta Garbo.
His discovery of Greta Garbo is especially notable, as he was the person who brought her to Hollywood. Though executives initially were skeptical as they deemed her not skinny enough, upon her arrival, she was a hit. While it was Stiller who had been invited, bringing him to direct a film, the studio got rid of him only halfway through filming and kept Garbo.
He would try once more in Hollywood with another company but was fired from there before returning to Sweden. Unfortunately, he would die within a year of his return. In 1960 his name would be engraved upon the Hollywood walk of fame, but his first and last names were misspelled. This would only be corrected upon the request of the Swedish government in the 1980s.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Alexander Jacoby. (n.d.). A Wanderer’s Notebook: The Art of Mauritz Stiller – Senses of Cinema. Retrieved May 28, 2021, from http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/underrated-and-overlooked/stiller/
Dyer, R., & Pidduck, J. (2003). Now You See it: Studies in Lesbian and Gay Film. Psychology Press.
C. L., & Print. (1988, April 15). The 28-Year Mistake: A Star Is Reborn and This Time They Spell It Right. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-04-15-me-1498-story.html
Horak, L. (2014). Sex, politics and Swedish silent film: Mauritz Stiller’s feminism comedies of the 1910s. Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 4(3), 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1386/jsca.4.3.193_1
Mauritz Stiller. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2021, from http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/1457783%7C109964/Mauritz-Stiller/
Mauritz Stiller. (2019, October 25). Hollywood Walk of Fame. https://walkoffame.com/mauritz-stiller/
Mauritz Stiller Biography—Director, screenwriter, actor. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2021, from https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Mauritz_Stiller/
Musée d’Orsay: Vingarne [The Wings]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2021, from https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/cinema/cinema-film/browse/4/article/la-chair-la-mort-et-le-diable-36124.html?tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=641&tx_ttnews%5Bfilm%5D=1901&cHash=d1513edfd7
The Wings | BAMPFA. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2021, from https://bampfa.org/event/wings-1