The Films of Ingmar Bergman.pdf

The Films of Ingmar Bergman

Jesse Kalin

Vassar College

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2003

Printed in the United States of America

Typeface Sabon 10/13 pt. System Quark XPress™ [MG]

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Kalin, Jesse, 1940–

The ﬁlms of Ingmar Bergman /Jesse Kalin.

p. cm. – (Cambridge ﬁlm classics)

Contents: Filmography: p.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-521-38065-0 (hardback) – ISBN 0-521-38977-1 (pbk.)

1. Bergman, Ingmar, 1918– – Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series.

PN1998.3.B47K35 2003

791.43´0233´092–dc21

2002041549

ISBN 0 521 38065 0 hardback

ISBN 0 521 38977 1 paperback

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

page xi

xiii

1 Introduction: The Geography of the Soul

PART ONE: THE FILMS OF THE FIFTIES

2 The Primal Seen: The Clowns’ Evening

3 The Journey: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries

4 The Great Dance: Smiles of a Summer Night

PART TWO: SECOND THOUGHTS

5 A Dream Play: Shame

6 The Illiterates: Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a

Marriage

111

134

PART THREE: A FINAL LOOK

7 The Little World: Fanny and Alexander

165

Afterwords

Biographical Note

Bergman and Existentialism: A Brief Comment

A Note on Woody Allen

187

191

202

Notes

Bibliography

Filmography

Index

205

227

235

245

Illustrations

1. The moment of judgment

2. The axis of turning

3. Life as a journey

4. Life’s dances

5. Prison: Death and the Devil

6. The Clowns’ Evening: The mark of the bear

7. The Clowns’ Evening: The clowns’ entertainment; Albert’s

entertainment 45

8. The Clowns’ Evening: Seashore and circus 51

9. The Clowns’ Evening: Alone together 55

10. Wild strawberries – communion 65

11. Wild Strawberries: Marianne and Isak’s ﬁrst conversation 74

12. Wild Strawberries: Marianne and Isak’s second conversation 78

13. Smiles of a Summer Night: Anne and Henrik; Fredrik and Desirée 89

14. Smiles of a Summer Night: Fredrik bewildered

15. Smiles of a Summer Night: Mixed signals; Charlotte and Count

Malcolm

16. Smiles of a Summer Night: Frid and Petra – the dance of life

107

17. Shame: Pietà / Madonna and Child

117

18. Shame: On the way to market

120

19. Wooden people

125

20. Modern people: Inside the serpent’s egg

129

21. Cries and Whispers: The past in the present

139

22. Mothers and daughters

155

23. Bergman’s pietà

159

Introduction: The Geography of the Soul

Bergman describes the theme of his early 1960s ﬁlm trilogy as “a ‘reduc-

tion’ – in the metaphysical sense of the word.” 1 In the classical concep-

tion, a metaphysics was a fundamental examination of all being at its most

elemental level, yielding lists of the most basic kinds of thing and of the

principles that governed them through change and motion, an ontology

that displayed the true structure of the world. These elements were arrived

at by stripping away everything that was inessential and thereby reducing

the great variety and lushness of creation to its skeleton. It was not that

this detail and particularity was worthless or insigniﬁcant, but rather that

its nature and meaning depended on these deeper elements, which both

gave it form and direction and set its limitations. Only if these could be

articulated and understood could their ﬁlled-out appearances also be com-

prehended.

Bergman’s subject is not being as such but the moral world – ourselves

as human beings in the twentieth century: what is deepest and most true

and essential about us, and what meaning we can ﬁnd for our lives in the

face of this truth. His goal is an essential portrait, an image of human be-

ing with its heart exposed and beating, a picture of what we each look

like without our protective illusions, evasions, and lies. Such reduction to

essentials provides a mirror in which we can see ourselves as we truly are,

face to face.

This essential portrait, however, must show not just what we may be

now at this particular moment or in this particular situation but also what

we have failed to be and might yet still become. Thus the trilogy, whose

announced themes are certainty, doubt, and God’s silence, 2 focuses on

only part of a more developed and detailed whole. To consider these mo-

ments of failure and despair alone is to miss something crucial: It is to

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