Persona. Ingmar Bergman. 1966. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Of all of Bergman’s films, this is probably the one that has launched the most doctoral theses. So I’m going to refrain from my usual trivial nattering and just say:
It’s kinda good, innit?
This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.
All These Women (För inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor). Ingmar Bergman. 1964. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.
This is Bergman’s directorial colour film debut. Weirdly enough, it’s his second colour film script, and both of them are co-written with Erland Josephson. It’s like they got together to write scripts for colour adaptation…
This is also Bergman’s final comedy. But Sven Nykvist is behind the camera, so it looks nothing like his previous comedies. It’s an uneasy marriage of Bergman/Nykvist’s 60s aesthetic (influenced by Godard?) with an attempt at a 50s farce.
Bergman wouldn’t do another colour film until the 70s.
It was apparently universally critically panned at the time, and was a flop at the box office.
Its hard to dislike a film that has Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson and Bibi Andersson in the main roles. Is this the final Bergman film with Eva Dahlbeck and Harriet Andersson?
But it’s not a good film. Somehow it reminds me of British satires from later in the 60s like The Bed Sitting Room… That is, it’s pretty dire. OH SUCH SATIRE.
Still… There are fun scenes. Mostly when Jarl Kulle isn’t on screen.
This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.
The Silence (Tystnaden). Ingmar Bergman. 1963. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Bergman thought that this would be another box office disaster (like Winter Light), but instead it became the producer’s (Svensk Filmindustri) biggest movie so far.
And it’s not difficult to agree with Bergman (it’s about two women and a boy in a hotel in a country where they’re talking a made-up language), but he hadn’t considered the scandal angle:
The Christian magazine Dagen was the most harsh in its censure, and even though none of its staff had seen the film, they had ‘read enough’ to declare that the film not only showed scenes of intimacy, but also ‘other abominations, such as a girl’s self-abuse’. Pastor John Hedlund summed up their feelings: ‘If Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, however artistic that may be, he is still Satan nonetheless’.
Or the more humorous angle:
Thank you Ingmar Bergman for the truly stimulating film ‘The Silence’! For five years our marriage has been childless. Yet since my wife and I went to see ‘The Silence’, it is with great joy that we can announce that we are expecting an addition to the family. We shall never forget that wonderful film.
Tee hee.
But the film’s, like, brilliant and stuff. Ingrid Thulin (in the first of many films where Bergman tortures her character, I think) and Gunnel Lindblom (after a bundle of minor parts, this is her first meaty on, I think) are absolutely brilliant. Even the boy’s pretty good.
And it’s kinda fun to see Birger Malmsten in a supporting role. He starred in basically the first ten Bergman films, but then disappeared (presumably when Bergman got better actors into his troupe). He’s good here, though.
This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.
Trämålning. Lennart Olsson. 1963. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.
This is a rather weird one. It’s a short-ish TV movie (directed by Lennart Olsson) based on the old one-act play that Bergman earlier had developed into The Seventh Seal. (Yes. Very confusing.)
The actors are variable, but Ulla Akselson (as the witch) is great.
I got a copy of this thing (not generally available) from the Bergman bootlegger.
This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.
A Dream Play (Ett drömspel). Ingmar Bergman. 1963. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★.
Boo! Uno Herring is back in this TV play. I still can’t really understand what he’s saying: His diction is so … strange. Some sounds are half-swallowed, and there’s the occasional extra syllable that shouldn’t really be in that word.
So it’s subtitle time again, which this edition from the Bergman Bootlegger has. Yay!
This play is apparently also filmed (and edited) in semi-real time with multiple cameras. (Some scene changes had to be edited in, though.) But it looks quite film like. It must have required incredible preparation to hit all those detailed marks (“start *there* and end up right *there* and deliver those three lines allowing that camera to zoom in on you before the lighting change and then turn around and stare into *that* camera”).
The lighting and setting isn’t quite unlike Bergman’s previous film, Winter Light.
This TV production was panned when it was shown, and Bergman eventually decided that it was a failure, too. (He was to do three further TV versions of this play.)
I think it’s rather fascinating.
This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.