Torment

Torment (original title Hets), directed by Alf Sjöberg, was scripted by Ingmar Bergman in his first screenwriting credit, written while Bergman was hospitalized over the winter of 1942 to 1943. Produced by Swedish cinema legend Victor Sjöström, the film opened on October 2, 1944. Stig Järrel's sadistic Latin teacher, nicknamed Caligula by students, was partly inspired by a teacher character Järrel had played in Hasse Ekman's 1942 film Lågor i dunklet. When Bergman claimed his own school experience had shaped the film, his former headmaster publicly denied it in the press, describing Bergman as a troubled but talented student, and the film sparked a wide public debate in Sweden over school conditions. The film won the Grand Prix du Festival, shared among eleven films, at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. In his memoirs, Bergman wrote that he personally directed some of the film's exterior scenes, his first directing experience. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Swedish classic based on Ingmar Bergman's first screenplay, which sparked real controversy, won at Cannes, and gave Bergman his first taste of directing. Who it's not for: anyone assuming Bergman directed it himself, since this is Alf Sjöberg's film, with Bergman only credited as writer.