STORY STUDY - CRITERION WEEK “762. A Master Builder”

When faced with your death, you can either be remembered with dignity or be remembered as selfish.

Directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Wallace Shawn, and based on the Norwegian play “Bygmester Solness” by Henrik Ibsen, A Master Builder is the story of an elderly famous architect, Halvard Solness, who is on his deathbed in a small town in Norway. He is married, but is constantly showing affection to his secretary/bookkeeper. His apprentice, whom the bookkeeper is engaged to, aims to be an architect in his own right, but in order to do so, he must gain Solness’ blessing, which he refuses. There can only be one famous architect, and it’s going to be him and only him.

All of these pent-up aggressions from the wife, the bookkeeper, and the apprentice finally reveal themselves with the arrival of a young woman from another town: an admirer of the architect who has come to visit him.

If it wasn’t clear enough, Solness is an awful human being. He’s selfish and disrespectful to his wife. Much like Steve Jobs in Steve Jobs, Solness believes that only he is the best, and no one else can be so long as he still draws breath. The only character that he opens up to is the young woman, which is a can of worms all on its own.

It’s established that this young woman, when she was 12 (10 years prior), Solness made advances upon her, and was promised “castles in the sky.” I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that this encounter was probably more innocent when the play was first performed in 1893, and none of the characters ever consider this a problem (outside of Solness is married, and shouldn’t be looking at other women.) However, today, it raises a lot of red flags.

The film retains its theater roots, so it’s very much an acting piece. The standouts are the Solness character, and Hilde Wangel, the young woman. The cinematography feels very reminiscent of a documentary; handheld camera movement throughout the film. Maybe it was an artistic choice, maybe it was budgetary, who knows.

The film was among a collection of films put out by the Criterion Collection, compiling three works of Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, the previous two I’ve covered before: My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street.

A Master Builder is a story of redemption of an anti-hero. It shows that it just takes a little bit of love to lighten up anyone’s heart.