Random Thoughts

Prison (Fängelse). Ingmar Bergman. 1949. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐★.

Finally! A real Bergman film. This is the first of his films that’s both written (not based on a book/play) and directed by Bergman, and we basically get all his obsessions on a plate: Religion, injustice, evil, making movies, symbolism, Fraudianism, watching old movies. It’s the first of these films I think basically anybody would be able to watch a snippet of and then say “yup, Bergman”.

The cinematographer, Göran Strindberg, had done a lot of Bergman’s previous movies, but this has a completely different and confident look.

The dialogue is so Bergman! I love it.

Hm… Oh, the story behind the production is fascinating. He was given free rains to make this “artistic” film if he promised to make it as cheaply as possible, and only came in 40% over the minuscule budget. And didn’t get a salary himself.

The only thing that stops this from being absolutely brilliant is that Bergman still doesn’t have the right troupe of actors assembled: Birger Malmsten is still pretty hapless. But it’s mostly super-fresh and some scenes hints at the direction of European cinema for the next twenty years.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Port of Call (Hamnstad). Ingmar Bergman. 1948. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Oh, it’s Bergman’s 100th birthday this year, so there’s supposed to be a bunch of retrospectives, re-releases and documentaries this year. I had no idea when I embarked upon my Bergmania…

Anyway, this is a very strangely edited film. It’s like if the editor is off by a few frames every cut. Things judder and shiver.

Bergman says in interviews about this film that he was basically riffing on Rossellini and Italian neo-realism in this film, and it’s quite different from his earlier movies. The people do seem more realistic than his earlier attempts, and I don’t think it features any of the actors that he usually uses?

The evil mother and the evil social worker are pretty tiresome cliches. There are some good scenes in here, but also some pretty bad ones (like the one where Our Hero gets drunk).

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Music in Darkness (Musik i mörker). Ingmar Bergman. 1948. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Once again, Birger Malmsten stars, and like Lorens Marmstedt allegedly adviced Bergman two movies ago, “You have to remember that Birger Malmsten is no Jean Gabin”. He still isn’t, but he’s perfectly nice if somewhat uninspiring. (I just had a peek at Bergmans filmography, and it looks like Malmsten is going to star in an ungodly number of Bergman’s films.)

Gunnar Björnstrand pops up again, but Bergman had yet to establish his stable of, er, stable actors.

Once again, Bergman adapts a melodrama based on an existing work. The previous two films were based on plays, but this one is based on a novel, which you would assume would give Bergman a wider range of possibilities. And this one is less like a filmed play, but it’s still pretty uninteresting.

As usual for this time period, just watching the actors is pretty entertaining, especially Mai Zetterling, Björnstrand and Naima Wifstrand (who would go on to appear in half a dozen more Bergman films).

Bergman sure likes having his female actors running around naked. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

(*cough* Weinstein *cough*)

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

A Ship Bound For India (Skepp till India land). Ingmar Bergman. 1947. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

You can say many things about this film, but you can’t really claim that the DVD transfer is very satisfactory. It’s grainy and uneven as fuck, but perhaps that just reflects the unrestored original film…

As would come to be common in Bergman films, we get some return actors from his previous film. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as that one. The cinematography is pretty bad and the story doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. There are some enjoyable performances, of course, and some Bergman ticks start showing up (theatre performances and clowns and stuff)…

But mostly forgettable.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.