A Doll's House (1973 Losey film)

Set in 19th century Norway, Ibsen's ''A Doll's House'' focuses on the married life of banker Torvald Helmer and his wife Nora. A young middle-class couple with three small children, their seemingly respectable marriage is revealed to be a broken and bloodless matter. The Helmers live in an unequal partnership, dominated by Torvald. Although he professes to love her, Torvald constantly chides Nora for what he calls her careless and childlike nature; he often calls her his "doll". He proudly thinks of himself as the family's breadwinner and protector, but he remains unaware of the secret that Nora holds: She had saved him when he had become seriously ill and very nearly destitute. Without his knowledge, she had borrowed a large sum of money so that he could temporarily retire and recuperate. She told him the money had been inherited from her family; in truth it had been a private loan from Nils Krogstad, one of Torvald's coworkers. Nora has been scrupulously repaying him in small installments skimmed from her household allowance. Torvald, it turns out, already holds the boorish Krogstad in contempt for various reasons. When Torvald is appointed bank director, one of his acts is to fire his unlikable coworker. The desperate Krogstad attempts to blackmail Nora – she must persuade Torvald to keep him on the job, or he will tell all about the secret loan. Its existence would be embarrassment enough for Nora, but Krogstad threatens to reveal the most shocking news of all: Nora had forged her father's signature as a co-signer on the contract. The story includes important subplots regarding the unexpected tenderness of Krogstad (toward Nora's friend Kristine, his old flame) and the quixotic love interest (toward Nora) of the elderly Dr. Rank. However, the essential conflict comes when Torvald gets a letter from Krogstad describing the loan. Indignantly, Torvald pours scorn on his wife for her morals, intellect, and financial sense; he cuts short her explanations and declares that she will be allowed no hand in raising their children. His fury seems infinite until suddenly a second letter from Krogstad arrives. It contains Nora's contract, complete with forged signature and surrendered without explanation. Torvald holds the incriminating evidence in his hand, utterly relieved, and begins to make weak apologies for his outburst. In the meantime, Nora has had a transformational realization about her love and marriage. She stands up to Torvald, explains her new vision, and then – against all customs of the day – walks out on him forever. ==Cast==

• Jane Fonda as Nora Helmer • David Warner as Torvald Helmer • Trevor Howard as Dr. Rank • Delphine Seyrig as Kristine Linde • Edward Fox as Nils Krogstad • Ingrid Natrud as Helene the maid • Pierre Oudry as Olssen the porter • Anna Wing as Anne-Marie the nanny • The Helmers' children were portrayed by Morten Floor (Bob), Tone Floor (Emmy), and Frode Lien (Ivar). • Krogstad's son and daughter were portrayed by Dagfinn Hertzberg and Ellen Holm. ==Production==

The cinematographer was Gerry Fisher, who had a long professional relationship with Losey beginning in the mid-1960s during the director's British period, including Accident (1967), The Go-Between (1971), and Don Giovanni (1979). Adaptation Ibsen's three-act play was adapted to a screenplay by Losey in collaboration with British dramatist David Mercer. The original text takes place in a single room in a single day, but the Mercer/Losey version is expanded. The one-room setting of Ibsen's original is a deliberate device suggestive of Nora's isolation and her imprisonment within her marriage. The combined effect of Losey's alterations have been praised by some critics for giving the work a cinematic quality and making it "a film rather than a photographed play". Losey intended his added scenes to achieve artistic merit in their own right. Critic Colin Gardner has commented on one example at the start of the film: "just as we see Nora and Kristine skidding excitedly across the surface of the pond, we also spot a static, black-coated figure lurking ominously outside the teahouse in the exact centre of the shot (i.e. at the spatial vanishing point). This turns out to be Krogstad, steeling himself for his fateful rejection by Kristine. The sweet purity of youth is thus already tainted by the acrid taste of the social outcast – the future man of vengeance – and the source of Nora's own financial enslavement." Other critics found Losey's bold changes to be off-putting, even blasphemous. Writing in The New York Times, Nora Sayre complained bitterly that the film had been "fattened with feeble lines and even short scenes that the old genius didn't write". Cast and director conflict Fonda's feminist sensibilities informed her performance and her relationship with Losey. The director, who had a history of stormy relationships with his leading ladies, earned the ire of both Fonda and Delphine Seyrig before the film was released. In a letter from June 1973, Fonda assailed Losey for making "anti-feminist remarks to the press" and charging that "your [Losey's] inability to deal with, to countenance, strong women...has done irreparable harm to the film". On a personal note, she added: "I was never able to penetrate your paranoia or snobbery while we were working together". Critics James Palmer and Michael Riley caution that “Losey’s interest in woman’s experience and issues is no guarantee of a depth or breadth of understanding.” To the extent that Losey's A Doll’s House provides positive feminist themes, these are derived exclusively from Ibsen's stage play. ==Release==

''A Doll's House'' was first aired in the United States on the ABC television network on 23 December 1973. It had been shown at the 1973 New York Film Festival, and was screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition. In June 1980, it was given a nine-day run at one of the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles. Losey's film was one of two English-language versions of Ibsen's play released in 1973: the other version was directed by Patrick Garland and stars Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins. The coincidental competition for a relatively small audience meant commercial difficulties for both films. ==Reception==

The choice of Fonda for the principal role has always elicited some commentary on her casting and performance. Known as a high-profile supporter of feminism, Fonda took the role at a time when the U.S. women's rights movement was at its peak. Many film critics praised Fonda's work – Leonard Maltin cited it as the main reason to see the film (which he otherwise deemed only "moderately successful"). More bluntly, Rex Reed wrote that Fonda's "star personality" undercut her performance in an otherwise admirable production: "One never believes her as the macaroon-munching birdbrain or the charming coquette or the toy wife. In the great scene of defiance at the end, she takes the film with a tank". == Footnotes ==