Random Thoughts

Faithless (Trolösa). Liv Ullmann. 2000. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Another film directed by Liv Ullmann, but this time without Sven Nykvist. It’s a film about making a story, and also about that story. It’s a fun way to approach this story, but it’s a pretty harsh self-portrait Bergman’s painted of himself. (Assuming that the young asshole of a director is Bergman himself.) Bergman is looking back on his life with a sense of shame, apparently. Or it may be Ullman’s framing…

The rehearsal to A Dream Play is hilarious. Stina Ekblad as a horrible Indra’s daughter is brilliantly awful.

But… while there are fabulous scenes here, it doesn’t quite come together for me. I just lost interest after three or four hours.

It was not a success internationally, but was well-received in Sweden.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Behind In the Presence of a Clown (I sällskap med en clown). unknown. 1997. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Geeze. The “making of” films of Bergman’s films in the 80s and 90s are so fascinating. This is another fly-on-the-wall thing where we follow the taping (it’s TV) of the movie, and it’s pretty great. I didn’t know that Bergman was so hands-on. That is, ever time he talks to an actor, he puts his hand of the actor’s arm, back or even face. (“No, don’t do that with your forehead. Just the eyes.”)

We also get a taste of Bergman’s rage (at a technical problems where he immediately backs down when the sheepish technician says “but it was a mistake”) which was apparently a major thing at his earlier films (but he mellowed somewhat as he got older).

I downloaded my copy from SVT after setting my VPN for “Sweden”.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

In the Presence of a Clown (Larmar och gör sig till). Ingmar Bergman. 1997. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★.

Bergman continues his stories about his family (more fictional than ever). This time it’s more about his uncle Carl (played by the same guy who did the part starting with Fanny & Alexander, so it’s his fourth film in this role). And Pernilla August is back as Bergman’s mother (for the third time).

But is Anita Björk playing the same aunt as the last time? Hm…

Anyway, this is a rather intimate TV thing, but it’s not TV theatre, exactly. It’s structurally very odd and quite fascinating and somehow reminds you of films from Bergman’s entire career. Well, except the first ten years.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Harald & Harald. Ingmar Bergman. 1996. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

This is a satirical political short (all unusual things for Bergman) about a text produced by the Ministry of Culture in Sweden. It’s funny, but I don’t have the context here, so I’m slightly lost.

Here’s a typical sentence they’re reading and making fun of: “The theatre is characterised by the number of people who are extremely interested being rather small.”

It’s stilted bureaucratese, but, you know…

I got my copy of this from the Bergman bootlegger.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Private Confessions (Enskilda samtal). Liv Ullmann. 1996. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

I couldn’t find this film anywhere: Not on Amazon, not Netflix, not nowhere, so I torrented it. And the torrent turned out to be with Spanish dialogue. *sigh*

But then it turns out that some kind person has put the entire thing on Youtube. Thank you.

Pernilla August and Samuel Fröler reprise their roles as Bergman’s parents from The Best Intentions. But confusingly enough, Max von Sydow is back, too, but not in the same role.

It’s directed by Liv Ullmann, and she interprets Bergman’s script much more convincingly than Bille August did in the previous film. And Sven Nykvist is back as the cinematographer, so it’s a jolly old reunion, you have to assume.

This was made as av TV series, too, but I watched the shortened theatrical version. One of these years I should rewatch all the TV versions of everything from Scenes from a Marriage onwards…

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.