Random Thoughts

The Lie. Alan Bridges. 1970. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

This is the British version of The Lie, which I saw the Swedish version of last weekend. So we’re skipping back from 1973, way back to the misty days of 1970, when a bunch of European countries all recorded their own versions of the same Bergman script.

I’m not going to watch them all, but I thought it might be fun to watch the British version, at least. It’s directed by Alan Bridges, the chap that did The Shooting Party… Isn’t that a quite good movie? I’m not sure.

Anyway!

This version is also from the Bergman bootlegger, and it’s OK. Not much colour to speak of (but perhaps everything was an orangey beige in England in 1970), and with a title permanently placed at the top, but otherwise OK.

This is a better production than the Swedish version, even if the actors have extremely plummy voices. The main problem remains: The script still isn’t very thrilling. It so vague. Even after seeing a second version of it, I’m still not sure I could say what it’s about other than… you know… people with vague dissatisfactions.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

The Ghost Sonata (Spöksonaten). Ingmar Bergman. 1973. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

What a strange artefact. This is from the collection of the Bergman bootlegger, and it’s a video recording from 1973 of Bergman’s production of Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata from a single camera placed on the balcony, apparently.

There’s a lot of video ghosting whenever anybody moves, which is so ironic, don’t you think?

There’s a lot of coughing from the audience, so I guess it’s from a winter performance? Let’s see… yes, teh interwebz seem to say that it’s from January 1973.

It seems like an interesting version of The Ghost Sonata, but it’s a bit hard to tell here. I mean. Really. So the scoring here is on the viewing experience.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Cries & Whispers (Viskningar och rop). Ingmar Bergman. 1972. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Unless I misremember the following films, Cries & Whispers is sort of the end of an era: It’s the last of the classic 60s films (even if we’re now in the 70s). After this, it all becomes a bit confusing, with TV productions (sometimes cut down into theatrical productions), foreign co-productions and finally Bergman leaving Sweden for a few years.

But if this is the end of something, it’s also a triumph. I think it’s Bergman’s best film, and it was also a commercial success (which was extra welcome since Bergman had financed it (partially) himself, and the actors too percentages of the net instead of wages (and it was amusingly enough distributed in the US by schlockmeister Roger Corman)).

As usual, Bergman was critiqued for being too booshwah:

This is a world event, so they say. Just like Volvo and Swedish vodka, Bergman is a saleable product in the global marketplace. […] Ingmar Bergman is one of this country’s truly reactionary artists. He would never, as many other artists did, take a stand on behalf of the people of Vietnam. He is very hostile towards the proletarian theatres that are beginning to spring up. In acting circles it is a well known fact that he thinks that workers’ theatre is bad theatre. He would never sink to such a low level. Bergman makes art for company directors and their like, a sort of Playboy art. It always involves a little nudity, something a bit shocking and a few emotional entanglements. Made for export.

And like many of Bergman’s best films, it almost fails the reverse Bechdel test (but the husbands exchange one line near the end).

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

The Lie (Reservatet). Jan Molander. 1970. ⭐⭐⭐★★★.

This TV play (directed by Jan Molander from a script by Bergman) had its origin in the work with The Passion of Anna film: The script for that film apparently started off as this script, but then evolved into something very different, so Bergman gave the original script to somebody else to direct.

Or something.

I found this on the SVT web page, but had to use a VPN to trick it into believing that I’m in Sweden to get it to allow me to watch it.

A British version was also made, directed by Alan Bridges. And… an American version? And a Yugoslav version? It’s all so confusing. Hm…

Oh!

This was simultaneously made in many European countries as part of the EBU “The Largest Theatre in the World” project, where each member country offered a TV play which member states then made their own language versions of.

I wouldn’t really have guessed that this was a Bergman script if I hadn’t known, I think. It seems so scattered and unfocused.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.