About Vilgot Sjöman
David Harald Vilgot Sjöman (2 December 1924 – 9 April 2006) was a Swedish writer and film director. His films deal with controversial issues of social class, morality, and sexual taboos, combining the emotionally tortured characters of Ingmar Bergman with the avant garde style of the French New Wave. He is best known as the director of the films 491 (1964), I Am Curious (Yellow) (in Swedish, "Jag är nyfiken – gul") (1967), and I Am Curious (Blue) ("Jag är nyfiken – blå") (1968), which stretched the boundaries of acceptability of what could then be shown on film, deliberately treating their subjects in a provocative and explicit manner. == Career == Sjöman was born in Stockholm, in a working-class family. His father, Anders W. Sjöman, was a builder; his mother was Mandis Pettersson. Sjöman became a clerk with a cereal company aged 15, but passed his studentexamen in 1945 and studied at Stockholm University. He then worked in a prison while writing plays (none of which were produced). One play became his first novel, The Teacher ("Lektorn") (1955), which was filmed in 1952 by Gustaf Molander as Defiance ("Trots"). After taking up a scholarship to study film at UCLA in 1956, Sjöman worked with George Seaton on The Proud and Profane. He returned to Sweden, and wrote a study of Hollywood, In Hollywood ("I Hollywood") in 1961.
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