German director, screenwriter, and actor.
In a distant Teutonic village, people dance and drink merrily celebrating a wedding feast. However, an elderly man tells the villagers that the valley where they live wasn't always happy but sorrowful. This was due to the tyranny of the master of the mountains who ruled the valley despotically.
Fun-loving Peer Gynt lives carefree on his parents' farm. Only his mother is a fixed point of reference; he doesn't think much of regular work and an orderly life. His mother's death brings him closer to the young Solveig, but he leaves her and his homeland to make his fortune in America.