Budgets and Markets

Chapter 17 Den Goda Viljan

Summary

Den Goda Viljan (The Best Intentions) is full of apparent paradoxes. It was a spec script by one of the world's greatest cinematic talents who wanted it to be made for television rather than the cinema. It was the theatrical cut of a television mini-series which had been already widely seen in the Nordic countries. Yet the theatrical version won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It was a movie with an unbeatable pedigree — Ingmar Bergman, Bille August — that had good international distribution but drew almost zero international audiences.

The reality is that The Best Intentions, like Fanny and Alexander before it, was really conceived as a work for television. Only television could provide the length (six hours), the ...