Random Thoughts

The Passion of Anna (En passion). Ingmar Bergman. 1969. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Whaa? This film is not in 4:3? It’s more like… 16:11? At least the DVD is.

And it’s in colour, too, but Bergman’s already done that.

You kinda think of Bergman as being extremely distinctive and set in his own ways, but viewing his films chronologically, you really get a feel for how he changes with the times. It’s obvious that he’s seen a lot of Jean-Luc Godard before making this one, for instance.

(The bit where Liv Ullmann talks to the camera rather shows Bergman’s pettiness.  He cuts her off mid-sentence, as if to make fun of her.  It’s a childish act of aggression.)

It’s another chamber piece, but with some excursions. But what an amazing cast: Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow and (relative Bergman newcomer) Erland Josephson. They’re scintillating.

But somehow… it’s doesn’t quite come together.

United Artists was the company responsible for international distribution of The Passion of Anna. The Swedish newspaper Expressen was far from happy with the company’s marketing: ‘Despite their new style of language, the same old clichés are being trotted out: A film from Sweden – that nation of suicidal sex addicts who find the temperature cold outside but all the more warm in bed.’

Miaow.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

The Rite (Riten). Ingmar Bergman. 1969. ⭐⭐⭐⭐★★.

Bergman had done a handful of things for TV before, but up until this one, they had all been theatre plays adapted for TV. This is his first “real” film for TV, and he apparently made it because he was fed up with how much time and effort cinematic films are.

So this one is very scaled down: Just four actors in a couple of rooms.

I’m not sure, but I think Bergman is basically making fun of himself and his own tics (especially as the tortured artiste Fisher). But besides making fun of himself, it’s also a somewhat petulant attack on an unappreciative public.

I thought the final scene was pretty powerful, but overall it’s got problems.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Shame (Skammen). Ingmar Bergman. 1968. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Bergman goes political.

It’s an incredible film, but Bergman was dissatisfied himself:

In other words, we are talking about poorly constructed manuscript. The first half of the film is really nothing more than an endlessly drawn-out prologue that ought to have been over and done within ten minutes. What happens later could have been built upon, fleshed out, and developed as much as was needed. I didn’t ever see that.

I think I know what he’s getting at, but the film is unbearable to watch as it is, so I’m really happy that the first half of the film is there. Many of Bergman’s films are “difficult”, but there’s usually an artifice to them that gives distance. This one is so unvarnished that I had to take some pauses to give myself some breathing room.

Ullmann and Von Sydow are brilliant, of course, but let’s give a shout-out to Gunnar Björnstrand, who is totes amazeballs as the incredibly (and realistically) scary major.

To nitpick this DVD: Bergman ends his films deliberately and suddenly (without any end titles). Having the MGM lion pop up at the end here is really disconcerting. Shame!

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.

Hour of the Wolf: The Search for Sanity. Greg Carson. 2004. ⭐⭐★★★★.

This is the first Bergman film that was sold to distributors in the US before it was filmed, and as such the rights for the DVD are somehow in American hands. But that means that there’s a documentary featurette in English, edited together in a very American way: Short edits and a dozen talking heads saying a sentence each.

Liv Ullmann has interesting things to say about Hour of the Wolf, but as these documentary featurettes go… it’s a documentary featurette.

This post is part of the 87 Bergman Things series.