Märta Tikkanen: He dared to talk about emotions

Author Märta Tikkanen got to know Jörn Donner as early as school age and they continued to be friends for life. Jörn Donner also filmed her novel Men Can Not Be Rape in 1978.

- I think of the very young, flamboyant and terribly beautiful man I met when we were a schoolboy. He was a little frightened of him, he challenged the whole world and went counter-current all the time, she says.

Jörn Donner also worked near Ingmar Bergman, including as producer for the film Fanny and Alexander. He also wrote the book The Devil's Face on the Movie Nest in 1962.

Jan Holmberg, CEO of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation remembers a talented writer and an entertaining cultural personality.

- He started out as a very talented film critic, and is one of all these writers who approached the film medium in an interesting and in-depth way. He has written among the best written about Bergman, says Jan Holmberg.

Märta Tikkanen also highlights his literary talents.

- His strength as a writer was that he dared to talk about emotions. He was really a very sensitive man, though you wouldn't believe it.

As a cultural personality, Jörn Donner became known as a provocateur. Jan Holmberg believes that he was aware of the role he was given in the Swedish public.

- He became in many ways a caricature in Sweden, something he played to a great extent with himself. He became the Finnish-Swedish intellectual, but also the buffalo who could say things about the Swedes we did not want to hear. And he did so in an entertaining and sharp way, he says, and continues:

- He was so tremendously productive, and a role model for us all: as an artist, intellectual and as a living artist, not least.

Jörn Donner directed about 15 films during his life, and produced more. But most of all, he wrote, it was a total of about 60 books. Märta Tikkanen mourns a friend and writer.

- I will remember him as a good friend, one that you could trust in all walks of life. And then a very good writer. That's probably the most important thing, I think he thinks so himself.