Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallström

2025 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 17:46

Swedish film director and actor Lasse Hallström, two-time Oscar nominee, was born in Stockholm in the first month of summer 1946. His mother, Karin Luberg, is a famous writer, and his father, although he worked as a simple dentist, devoted all his free time to filming videos on an amateur video camera.

Creative path

Lasse Hallstrom, whose films now have worldwide recognition and popularity, tried to imitate his father in everything. Therefore, it is not surprising that the director began his career as a music video director. Hallström filmed videos for the mega-popular band ABBA. According to him, their joint work and pastime left a significant imprint on his future work.

The first significant debut of the director in big cinema is the film "My Dog's Life", in which Lasse acted in two roles - director and co-author of the script. This teen retro-tragicomedy became world famous in 1985 and received two nominations for the most prestigious Oscar in the world of cinema. The picture was created based on the autobiographical novel by Reidar Jonsson, the entire plot of whichbuilt on children's perception of the surrounding reality: memories, disappointments, fantasies. Therefore, the plot as such is not particularly significant in the cinema, and a brief summary of the storyline will not give a correct idea of the picture. The entire film is imbued with subtle humor, kindness, bright nostalgia for the times long gone and quiet sadness about an unfulfilled first love.

Inspirations

Director Lasse Hallström, analyzing his creative development, called his source of inspiration the early comedy films of Milos Forman, thanks to which he learned to look at people more closely, to see a comedic shade literally in any life situation. In order to comprehend the wisdom of working with actors, the director carefully and repeatedly reviewed the work of the great master John Cassavetes. But Lasse Hallstrom calls the unsurpassed Chaplin his main inspiration, who was not afraid to combine drama with comedy, comedy with lyrics.

Hollywood debut

In 1993, Lasse Hallström literally burst into Hollywood with the tragicomic melodrama What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, starring the young but already famous Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio. The bitterly poignant tape of the Swedish director was filmed based on the novel by the young writer Peter Hedges, the plot of the film tells about the routine of the provincial town of Endor. The picture, about the recognition of world film critics, closely echoes the project of Emir Kusturica"Arizona Dream". Six years later, Lasse Hallström was nominated for an Oscar for the retro drama The Cider House Rules.

A significant career milestone

The romantic melodrama "Chocolate" Lasse Hallström shot in 2000. According to the creator, the project is a funny tale about the age-old confrontation between the new and the traditional and how important it is to enjoy life. The film is based on the work of the same name by Joanne Harris, a British writer. The main roles were played by Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche, who was nominated for the Golden Globe and Oscar awards for her portrayal of the beautiful Vienne Rocher. The director's wife, actress Lena Olinn, played the supporting role of Josephine Muscat in the film. After the success of Chocolate, the director made several more films that were included in the list of cult film masterpieces of the early 21st century: Hachiko: The Most Faithful Friend, Casanova, Hoax.

Not too sentimental

No less significant work of the director is the melodrama "Dear John", which eminent film critics accused of having all the components necessary for the box office. Indeed, Lasse Hallstrom, whose films were previously made without speculative sentimentality, in the movie "Dear John" collected war, love between an exemplary girl and a bad boy, heroes suffering from autism and lymphoma, canonical separation due to war, the beauty of the surrounding nature, swimming in ocean during the rain and beautiful kisses. starred in the melodramaaspiring young stars of the Dream Factory Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. According to the director, they managed to transfer to the screen the "chemistry" that arose between the main characters. The actors inspired the director, communicating with them, Lasse admitted that he felt younger.

A sentimental film about the kitchen dialogue of cultures

During the creation of Hallstrom's next masterpiece "Spices and Passions", the director was assisted by two legendary personalities in the history of American TV and cinema - Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, who acted as producers. The three of them conducted the casting, edited the script and consulted while reviewing the footage. It is impossible to imagine a more suitable director for a movie about France, a mixture of cultures, emigrants, love and overcoming. Lasse Hallström, whose creative style is long established, was a perfect fit to direct the film adaptation of the story written by Richard Morais. In the film "Spices and Passions" Lasse follows his creative tradition - gracefully raising topical issues, entertaining, at the same time teaching the viewer. The picture turned out to be truly multinational - the Americans, invested by the UAE oligarchs, made a film about Indians in France starring an English movie star through the efforts of a Swedish director. Only the Russian antagonist was missing to complete the picture, but, fortunately, there was no need for him.