• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Ingmar Bergman

I've seen at least 30 of his movies and there's barely a one that I wouldn't recommend. He can be an acquired taste, though. For the Bergman virgin, I'd suggest checking out the stuff he did in the 60s first, as it's not so off-putting as his 70s work but is more focused and personal than much of his 50s and earlier films are. His Faith Trilogy, consisting of Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence is lugubrious as hell but excellent filmmaking. My personal favorite of Bergman's would have to be Wild Strawberries. Dammit, I love that film.
 
Slow, boring and pretentious.

On the other hand The Seventh Seal is a fantastic film and I've heard Wild Strawberries is great too.

I've seen (if I can remember them all:

The Seventh Seal (great)
Cries and Whispers (crap)
The Slineces (crap)
I can't remeber the other two, both crap.
 
Has anybody ever seen his "horror" film called Hour of the Wolf? Has something to do with a cartoonist being chased by demons he created, or something like that?
 
Yeah, I've seen Hour of the Wolf, very interesting, a bit murky, but don't expect blood and guts, it's more psychological and death-obsessed. Looks great, too.
 
wild strawberries is absolutely wonderful. fanny & alexander is also gorgeous, imho. kind of a summa of all his themes. very entertaining, also. and fortean, too.
 
Apparently, Bergman's Films Depress Him...

There's one he made about a troupe of travelling players who stage an entertainment at some house in the country (I missed the beginning of it). It was truly fantastic, sinister and bizarre.
Ansiktet (The Magician) (1958)

When 'Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater' comes to town, there's bound to be a spectacle. Reading reports of a variety of supernatural disturbances at Vogler's prior performances abroad, the leading townspeople (including the police chief and medical examiner) request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew prove too clever for them.
Click to expand...
Excellent performance from Max von Sydow too.
 
I saw The Silence again a few months ago and was utterly spellbound.

It's an unforgettable movie which takes us on a journey into an unnamed
country and to the borders of what is sayable.

I would not like to sit through Cries and Whispers again for it is exactly
like witnessing a terminal illness - merciless.

I always think The Seventh Seal is one of his lightest and jolliest movies,
though it also exposes Bergman's very class-bound division of society
into those who trouble themselves with spiritual matters and those who
belong with the animals.

For a real giggle, however, there is nothing to match his paranoid fantasy,
The Serpent's Egg, made at the time he was driven out of Sweden on
tax evasion charges. Renamed The Turkey's Egg in some quarters. :p
 
I've never enjoyed his other films but as I said The Seventh Seal is unforgetable and well worth a watch.

The image of the Virgin Mary early in the movie is one of the most beautifull things ever comited to film.
 
Bergman Island: The eponymous island (named Fårö ) is where Bergman filmed many of his great works, not least of which was Scenes From A Marriage; you can even rent the house where it was filmed and sleep in the actual bedroom which featured in it. Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) do just that, both are filmmakers, Tony being the more famous of the two, his films are being screened by the Bergman Foundation and he;s giving Master Classes. He's also working on his new film as is Chris on the script for hers. Their relationship has troubles right out of a Bergman film. The screenplay Chris is working on reflects some of those very problems. The scenario comes to life as a film within a film, Amy (Mia Wasikowska) an American film director arrives on Fårö for the marriage of an old friend, also there is her first love, Joe (Anders Danielsen Lie), an affair starts up again.

Love, relationships and responsibilities are explored in this film as it goes meta, eventually blending fact with fiction. Bergman himself is an inspiration to both Chris and Tony but respect his work ethic is somewhat tempered by an examination of his personal life. Bergman had nine children by six different women but played little part in their upbringing. Chris has problems with this but it is argued by others that he wouldn't have made 60 films, directed numerous plays and become artistic director of five theatres if he had domestic duties. Chris reflects that it would be impossible for her (or any female director) to have nine children and carry on with her career. Not just a homage to Bergman, here he is warts and all but this is a film he might well have been happy to direct. Written and Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. 8/10.

In cinemas.
 
By coincidence, I finally caught up with Tarkovsky's last movie yesterday. The Sacrifice, 1986, was not filmed on Faro but a similar Island and in the Swedish language, so it is very much an homage to Bergman, using his favoured DoP, Sven Nykvist.

Tarkovsky's insistence on using just one camera led to a blackly-comic situation, when the final conflagration of an expensive set was missed, when the camera jammed. Well-wishers, including members of the cast and Nykvist, chipped-in to enable a re-take, which was beyond the film's modest budget. They were aware that the Russian auteur was terminally ill.

The Sacrifice is engrossing and captivating, for lovers of long, slow cinema. Not one to convince the sceptical. :thought:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top