Random Thoughts

From the Life of the Marionettes (Aus dem Leben dem Marionetten). Ingmar Bergman. 1980. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Bergman called this his only real German film: Conceived, written and filmed while Bergman was in his German exile. And it certainly feels like an outlier in Bergman’s career. For one, the audio quality is way beneath Bergman’s usual standards.

Not only does this have none of Bergman’s usual cast; it has very few of his normal crew. Sven Nykvist (behind the camera) is on board, though, so things aren’t completely new.

I’ve seen some people say that it’s their favourite Bergman film, and it’s probably just something they say to sound interesting. It’s not a bad film, but it’s like Bergman had a fever fantasy about German people. It’s a bit overwrought and exploitative.

But there’s some very nice scenes here. Like… when Tim’s talking to Katarina in Tim’s flat.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Fårö Document 1979 (Fårö-dokument 1979). Ingmar Bergman. 1979. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★.

This is Bergman’s second documentary film about the island he made his home and workplace: Fårö. (Which doesn’t mean “sheep island” even if it looks like it.) Most of his most successful films were filmed on the island, and he did two documentaries about people living there. He apparently goes around with a camera and asks people things and they tell him things.

I haven’t seen the first one (couldn’t find it anywhere), and this is a followup ten years later. So we get to see kids who tens years ago insisted that they’d leave the first chance they could, and then here they’re still living on the island.

Their dialects are so weird. I mean, all dialects are dialects, but it’s a mixture of sounds I haven’t heard before.

Hm… where is it, anyway?

Ah, it’s a tiny island to the north of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic sea (halfway between Sweden and Latvia), and it’s apparently a holiday destination for Swedes. So the documentary juxtaposes the local farm life (no soundtrack) with the tourists lounging on the beach (with a pumping disco/rock soundtrack).

It’s a good documentary, although a bit confusing chronologically. Wasn’t Bergman in self-imposed exile at this point? Or was it over already?

Anyway, they ended up with fourtyfour hours of raw footage:

We started with spring and ended with winter, using that method to compile the film. It turned out to be two hours long, quite lengthy for a documentary. But it takes time to create the right gravitas and power. You shouldn’t just rush past these people.

But the version I had on this DVD was just ninety minutes, so I guess it was further edited for international distribution?

Anyway, it’s hugely enjoyable, especially the long scenes where we’re just watching people work (at hauling logs or butchering a pig (very amiably and humanely)).

The film ends by announcing that they’ll return in ten years time with the next documentary, but that didn’t happen? I think?

I guess we’ll find out.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Autumn Sonata (Höstsonaten). Ingmar Bergman. 1978. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Huh! I may not have seen this one before… It seems rather unfamiliar.

In any case: Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann. In a house. Drama.

It’s wonderful.

Bergman (the director) about Bergman (the actor):

I discovered early into our rehearsals that to be understanding and offer a sympathetic ear did not work. In her case I was forced to use tactics that I normally rejected, the first and foremost being aggression. Once she told me: ‘If you don’t tell me how I should do this scene, I’ll slap you!’ I rather liked that.”

Oh, wow. There’s a three-and-a-half hour documentary about the making of this film on the Criterion Blu-Ray version of this film. Darn. I ordered that one now and I’ll slot the docu in later in this blog series, but I wish I had seen the Blu-Ray version of this instead of this letterboxed DVD.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

The Serpent’s Egg. Ingmar Bergman. 1977. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

Hey! I watched this in 2014! And I’m not really looking forward to watching it again… but apparently I bought a new copy of the DVD for this blog series.

Oh, well. Perhaps it’ll be better this time!

This is Bergman’s first film after he fled (sort of) Sweden after being accused of tax evasion. He got an enormous budget from Dino de Laurentiis again, and built a huge set in Berlin.

Bergman first tried to get Dustin Hoffman, then Robert Redford, then Peter Falk, then Richard Harris (!), and finally ended up with David Carradine as the male lead.

I think the Peter Falk version might have been kinda cool.

Anyway, since I’ve seen this one before not so long ago, I chose to watch it with David Carradine’s commentary audio track this time. He has amusing anecdotes to tell. “Well! What faces are we going to make today!” Bergman apparently told him one day, which I can totally understand. “The only piece of direction he ever game me was ‘Perhaps you’re doing too much.'” Which, I guess, means that he never read Bergman’s Images:

The minute the lights in the theater went out, Carradine fell asleep, snoring loudly. When he woke up I had no chance to discuss his role with him. Carradine’s behavior repeated itself during the filming. He was right owl and kept falling asleep on the set. He was found slumped just about everywhere, sound asleep. At the same time he was hard-working, punctual, and well prepared.

Carradine corroborates this in the commentary track without knowing: He says that he was out every night partying, and living his own life with his family that had come over, with a son that got up at six in the evening, so they stayed up all night.

But Carradine says that Bergman kept him isolated on purpose, to get him to fit his role better as a foreigner in Germany (which is shades of Gunnar Björnstrand accusing Bergman of deliberately making him believe that he (Björnstrand, that is) was deathly ill during the production of Winter Light so that he’d play the part of the sick priest more, er, sickly).

Carradine goes one further and claims that Bergman made the German authorities not approve his (Carradine’s, that is) marriage until the last day of production. To keep Carradine alienated.

Bergman: Criminal Mastermind, or Actors: The Things They’ll Believe, Eh? You be the judge.

Carradine says many an amusing thing, like: “So many people have called me an instinctive actor.” I’m sure! But that’s apparently not true, because he analyses his every single pose. I wouldn’t have thunk!

“God I was pretty there.”

At one point Carradine says the he asked Bergman “aren’t you worried about your soul?” and Bergman didn’t understand the concept and said “I’m an old whore”, which wasn’t what Carradine meant. (I guess Carradine is Christian or something?) Bergman also gave Carradine a hard time for being a vegetarian and made him start smoking, allegedly.

“One of the things about Ingmar is that there’s a great cynicism. I think he feels above most human problems and most human beings. And I think there’s a very great possibility for him to be a very cruel person as a result of that. And you know, he’s actually very kind.” “He just decided to be kind instead to avoid his nature.”

“I have a feeling that the only reason he made this movie […] was because he wanted to get together with Liv. And the only way he could do that was to make a movie and put her in it. And of all the ladies he had worked with, he was the fondest of her. And he was more fond of her performances than he was of Harriet’s or Bibi’s.”

“Ingmar is the kind of person who always wanted to be an old man.”

Somebody should make a complete transcript: “Carradine on Bergman”.

It’s really fun getting an American perspective on Bergman. Like in “tee hee”.

Anyway, Liv Ullmann is pretty good here, but she really has nothing to work with here. It’s a mess. And Carradine is miscast.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.