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Norway: Scream like you’re in an Edvard Munch painting

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Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal blogger

Edvard Munch would be 150 this year, and his most famous (and famously lampooned) artwork, “The Scream,” has inspired an offbeat tourism campaign. Visitnorway hopes to make the world’s longest “scream” film in honor of the artist’s milestone birthday.

The tourism agency has produced a few minutes of screams (exhilarating, exciting, blood-curdling, take your pick) and encourages folks from around the world to add their voice via webcam or video to the existing film. Folks can scream anywhere, any place, any time, and post their entry on the tourism website to become part of the film. Screamers who submit a video get a shot at winning a trip to Norway too.

Where are the best places to scream in Norway? Tourism spokesman Harald Hansen wrote in an email that under the Northern Lights above the Arctic Circle or at one of the country’s fiords would be great places to howl. (My picks for L.A. would be the top of Mt. Hollywood -- day or night -- the 2nd Street tunnel in downtown and any bus stop along the 110 Freeway.

But back to “The Scream.”

Munch, whose birthday is Dec. 12, painted four versions of the figure on the bridge who seems to be swirling in colorful angst as he prepares to scream. Three are in Oslo museums (one was stolen in 2004 and recovered two years later), and a fourth was sold to a private collector last year at a price tag of $119.9 million. That last one, a pastel on board, is on display until April 29 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

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Mary.Forgione@latimes.com

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