Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

[David Ehrenstein]

Don't hold back, Matt -- tell us what you really think.

[Oedipax]

I'm really surprised and puzzled with the line of reasoning Rosenbaum seems to be taking in that piece - for someone who speaks so highly of so many directors whose notoriety makes Ingmar Bergman look like Steven Spielberg! And besides, the notion that Bergman is somehow neglected on DVD is patently false; it's more a matter of him having made so many films that not all of them, admittedly more towards the early part of his career, are yet available. As for film schools neglecting Bergman, how many courses are screening, say, Out One these days? Or acknowledging Rivette at all, aside from a throwaway reference listing him among the other Nouvelle Vague directors? And why does any of that matter in the least to whether a particular filmmaker can be considered relevant? I'm really dumbfounded to read this kind of reasoning by a critic who has in the past shown us great polemical insights by reviewing mainstream fare alongside the most obscure - and arguing in favor of the latter's relevance!

Rosenbaum's other points are well-taken, and I'm even somewhat sympathetic - I do think, for instance, Bergman is more like a great theater director who happened to make cinema. Many of Bergman's films would work equally well, if somewhat differently, if staged in the theater. But could anyone seriously argue the same for those of Antonioni? There you will find pure cinema, mise-en-scene, his great feeling for cinematic space, montage, sound, camera movement, etc.

As for second-guessing the reasons for Bergman's reputation, I just don't find it a very interesting line of inquiry and at any rate it has nothing whatsoever to do with the man himself. The work of any good critic should pertain to the primary texts at hand; worrying about all the secondary bullshit is the stuff of cultural studies, the plague currently driving academic film studies into the ground.

[orlik]

So, Bergman is not great because Rosenbaum doesn't understand why everyone thinks he's so great. And if the absence of one's work on DVD in America is an indicator of greatness, Rossellini must be a real hack.

Is this the same Rosenbaum who is always bemoaning the fact that so many great films, including the greatest work of Jacques Rivette, are tragically unavailable on DVD?

[David Ehrenstein]

Actually Jonathan's target in the piece is less Bergman than it is Woody Allen -- and the NYT readers who consider Woody the ultimate cultural arbiter.

[portnoy]

yeah, i'm baffled by rosenbaum's piece, especially this part:

We remember the late Michelangelo Antonioni for his mysteriously vacant pockets of time, Andrei Tarkovsky for his elaborately choreographed long takes and Orson Welles for his canted angles and staccato editing. And we remember all three for their deep, multifaceted investments in the modern world — the same world Mr. Bergman seemed perpetually in retreat from.

"I can't reductively boil down Bergman's films to one or two formal strategies, so he's more of a theater director. Oh, and I'll misrepresent Tarkovsky's 'investment in the modern world' as a means of making this point while I'm at it."

[Mr Sausage]

I do think, for instance, Bergman is more like a great theater director who happened to make cinema. Many of Bergman's films would work equally well, if somewhat differently, if staged in the theater.

If many of Bergman's films could be translated into the theatre more easily than other's (Antonioni), it's due to his scripts and their high degree of focus on character and dialogue. But how could the theatre render that moment in Winter Light when Bjornstrand goes to see von Sydow's corpse and the entire range of emotion is expressed only by the bitter, bleak photography, the continuous long shot, and the rushing of the water drowning out all sound? Or that moment in Persona when the faces of the two actresses blend; or the end shot of the Seventh Seal with death towing everyone over the mountain; or the long, barren shots of the empty hotel corridors in The Silence?

No, I cannot abide this for a second. To believe that about Bergman is to be insensitive to his manipulation of film grammar and to merely see the basic frame of the story.

The same qualities that made Mr. Bergman's films go down more easily than theirs — his fluid storytelling and deftness in handling actresses, comparable to the skills of a Hollywood professional like George Cukor — also make them feel less important today,

To more or less paraphrase Matt: if the presence of these qualities in one's work is an indicator of one's lack of importance, Hitchcock must be a real hack.

[Oedipax]

No, I cannot abide this for a second. To believe that about Bergman is to be insensitive to his manipulation of film grammar and to merely see the basic frame of the story.

I'm not insensitive to Bergman's own great distinctly cinematic moments, but is it not fair to say his films, on average, are a lot closer to the theater than other directors for whom the very idea of staging one of their films is preposterous and nonsensical? To put it another way, one might say that Bergman's base units of construction were performance, written dialogue, and in essence, people. That's not to say his films never branched out from there - but at the core of every Bergman film is a group of actors giving great performances of Bergman's words. And you can translate that into theater a lot easier than the ending of L'Eclisse - which is a distillation of Antonioni's whole aesthetic, not a noteworthy break from a dominant theatrical tradition.

[Mr Sausage]

No, I cannot abide this for a second. To believe that about Bergman is to be insensitive to his manipulation of film grammar and to merely see the basic frame of the story.

I'm not insensitive to Bergman's own great distinctly cinematic moments, but is it not fair to say his films, on average, are a lot closer to the theater than other directors for whom the very idea of staging one of their films is preposterous and nonsensical?

Is that because Bergman's films are essentially filmed theatre, or because he doesn't place his films in settings that are impossible to represent in the theatre? Frankly, you're just making the superficial connection that goes: chamber drama--->theatre.

I thought by this time we would be past the childish desire of the New Wave to rabidly, unreasonably insist and argue for film's complete uniqueness and distance from all other forms of art. Has it somehow not established itself by now?

None of this is important, tho', to Bergman or to film. His pictures wound, deeply, which is a considerable achievement and beyond all questions of what art you want to attribute this to. We watch him because he wounds us, like all great artists. That seems enough.

[Oedipax]

Is that because Bergman's films are essentially filmed theatre, or because he doesn't place his films in settings that are impossible to represent in the theatre? Frankly, you're just making the superficial connection that goes: chamber drama--->theatre.

Superficial, obvious - in other words, pretty damn uncontroversial, or so at least I thought! Bear in mind, I'm not hierarchizing here, simply describing.

I thought by this time we would be past the childish desire of the New Wave to rabidly, unreasonably insist and argue for film's complete uniqueness and distance from all other forms of art. Has it somehow not established itself by now?

I don't get where you're coming from with this at all. Cinema to me has always been a medium that borrows from the other arts on its way to creating something, yes (gasp), uniquely its own - but to deny that some filmmakers compose their shots like painters, edit their films musically, tell a narrative in a novelistic manner, or approach things poetically... What would be the real use of that?

But yes, I will contend that there is such a thing as a uniquely cinematic utterance, owing to the confluence of all the forces involved in the creation of cinema - is that so hard to accept? I happen to think some directors start from this point, the distinctly cinematic, and branch out from there - my feeling is that with Bergman, it was often the other way around. That's all. I don't mean for it to sound like a put down.

None of this is important, tho', to Bergman or to film. His pictures wound, deeply, which is a considerable achievement and beyond all questions of what art you want to attribute this to. We watch him because he wounds us, like all great artists. That seems enough.

I agree. For what it's worth, Winter Light is one of my favorite films.

[Eclisse]

Mr_sausage I agree with everything you are saying. =D>

Jonathan Rosenbam sounds extremely frustrated because once more he saw that the world doesn't share his vision of what is "Cinema"(or something...).And it never will because it doesn't make any sense.Hilarious of him to accuse Bergman of that and then call the names of Dreyer and Bresson.Fellini,Bergman and Dreyer are my 3 favorites filmmakers by the way.(Or Are they? Film?Cinema?Gertrud?) The last thing I needed on this sad week,when we lost 2 masters,was someone putting limits on my favorite Art form.Saying that something 'isn't really cinema',and THAT looks more like 'real cinema'. Rosenbam,you just wrote of the New York Times an essay to show how small you are.

And things that should remind us of how great Bergman was and how he worked brilliantly in every medium he touched are now "suppose" to work against him somehow.A man who did Persona and Fanny&Alexander.A contrast in film that you don't find very often in other great filmmakers.Not with the same quality.

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

If I can come back to the Rosebaum piece for a second, what I find so pointless about it is that whether he likes or not, Bergman is/was someone who's had an enormous impact on the meduim. To use the death of a great artist is as a means of reexaming his work is one thing, but to use that death as a means of voicing (in a major newspaper) your own smug, self satisfied opinion that--"You know, I always knew he was overrated--when it's fairly obvious that you just never really liked his work in the first place is a whole other can of worms. Even funnier is the fact that he opens his Saraband review with:

I wouldn't dream of contesting Bergman's status as a film master

WHOOOOPS!

[Greathinker]

To use the death of a great artist is as a means of reexaming his work is one thing, but to use that death as a means of voicing (in a major newspaper) your own smug, self satisfied opinion...

I don't understand it either. It's already too bad that 'art directors' only reach into the public consciousness for a moment when they die; Rosebum is contradicting his own livelihood by expressing to the commoner with a passing interest that one of cinema's greats was a fad, a cultural phenomenon better known for uniting pretentious beatniks during 60's. Nothing to see here folks!

[denti alligator]

Remember: a few years ago Rosenbaum admitted to not having seen Fanny & Alexander. Wonder if he viewed it in the meantime.

[tryavna]

Stephen Colbert's own tribute to Ingmar Bergman is available on the official site.

Other Bergman parodies: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - French and Saunders - SCTV

These are all good, but the masterpiece of Bergman parodies will always remain De Düva.

[David Ehrenstein]

My favorite is SCTV's Whispers of the Wolf as introduced by Count Floyd on "Monster Chiller Horror Theater."

[My Man Godfrey]

I won't say much here -- I'm too angry, today, about the Democratic Party's FISA capitulation to get angry about Bergman-bashing -- but this idea that Bergman's movies are mere "filmed theater" (or slightly "cinematically embellished" stage productions) is R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S. Bergman used the language of film adventurously, inventively, and thoughtfully from the very beginning of his career.

To put a period on that thought -- and to say more about this idea that the unavailability of his films on DVD (only in the States, of course -- but only the U.S. matters, right?) somehow discredits him as an artist -- I had several of my friends over last night to watch Bergman's Dreams -- certainly one of the most completely forgotten films of his career -- and these friends, all but one of whom had never seen a Bergman film, were absolutely seduced. I was struck this time, especially, by how masterful and harrowing the film's long wordless sequences were: Eva Dahlbeck on the train at night, Harriet Andersson and Gunnar Bjornstrand at the amusement park. Shivers. That's pure cinema; I'd like to hear how these amazing scenes would work on stage.

[David Ehrenstein]

Thanks a bunch, David. I've been trying to forget that for years and you brought it all rushing back!

(Far more repulsive than anything in Salo, IMO.)

[Mr Sheldrake]

Weren't some of Bergman's films adaptations of his own plays? I'm pretty sure The Seventh Seal was originally a play with most of the same actors, but weren't there others as well?

[domino harvey]

I actually think Rosenbaum's criticisms of Bergman are far more interesting and cogent than any others I've seen linked in this thread. I thought he stated his case and the reasoning behind it fairly well, and though I don't for one moment agree with him, I don't feel the need to get indignant over it.

[Michael]

Far more repulsive than anything in Salo, IMO

My mom dragged my 4 year old body to a drive in where The Exorcist played, thinking I was going to sleep in the back of her station wagon. But of course I was up, peeking through the crack of two front seats and there on the monstrous screen in the summer night air, a little girl stabbed her bloody vagina repeatedly with a crucifix. That image and many others that night scarred my mind forever. Two years later, my mom woke me up at midnight and begged me to join her to watch that same movie on HBO because she was scared to watch it alone even she had seen it already at the drive in. So I climbed down the stairs and curled up in my mom's arms, watching the most disturbing movie ever made. Such a sweet memory.

Maybe being already exposed to Linda Blair screwing herself during the first few years of my life, I was not that devastated by Ingrid's self-mutilation that I first experienced in my early teens. It was certainly disgusting but I understood why she did it. She did it to release herself out of the ice-block body of hers.

[BB]

I actually think Rosenbaum's criticisms of Bergman are far more interesting and cogent than any others I've seen linked in this thread

I disagree, to me it seems like mediocre, deadline-driven writing. Little of what he says stands up to much scrutiny. Not least of which is that Bergman only made dour and severe films. (such as Cries and Whispers)

It's strange to realize that his bitter and pinched emotions, once they were combined with excellent cinematography and superb acting, could become chic — and revered as emblems of higher purposes in cinema. But these emotions remain ugly ones, no matter how stylishly they might be served up.

"ugly emotions" ... Uh... what? Doesn't this dismiss vast swaths of world literature, let alone the visual arts. Is Anton Chekhov a bitter, self absorbed relic? "... now that we've all grown up a little"

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

I should add that if people don't like Bergman that's fine. I just find the piece to be a little silly, you can tell from Rosenbaum's Saraband review that Bergman's films haven't done anything for him. That opinion is fine, there's a lot of Bergman that I've disliked as well, but why write a 2 page NY Times article about it in the wake of his death? Because you can I guess, I just find it disrepectful. Especially the fact that while his comments about filmmakers that are more "relevant" may be true, anyone who's read Rosebaum's writings know that all the filmmakers he mentions are people he has an obvious preference for.

[Orphic Lycidas]

I agree with the minority of voices here that Rosenbaum's reservations about Bergman's greatness are refreshing although a few of his word choices may perhaps have be unnecessarily unkind. I think he really hits it on the head when he compares Bergman unfavorably to Dreyer and Bresson, noting that Bergman became popular in a time when art films were becoming somewhat mainstream among middle-class cinema goers who responded more strongly to Bergman's weaknesses than his strengths: "The same qualities that made Mr. Bergman's films go down more easily than theirs — his fluid storytelling and deftness in handling actresses, comparable to the skills of a Hollywood professional like George Cukor — also make them feel less important today, because they have fewer secrets to impart. What we see is what we get, and what we hear, however well written or dramatic, are things we're likely to have heard elsewhere." I think this applies well to "The Seven Seal" & "The Virgin Springs," films so brutally literary and pretentious they're very difficult to take seriously. At this stage in his career Bergman's favorite theme -- the existence of God -- is the type of thing that passes for profundity among 13 year olds. These films are to cinema what Edgar Allan Poe is to literature, a popular, more-or-less superficial product meant to entice newcomers into the field. This is not to say there are not powerful moments in "Virgin Springs." Moments of innocence and the cruelty of the violence are affecting but ultimately to no real purpose. The adopted daughter is so strongly contrasted with the fair daughter that it's difficult to take seriously. Besides being unnecessarily disheveled, dirty and armed with a penchant for inconveniencing frogs she also has an uncanny ability to be incredibly pregnant while seeming to have very little trouble running around, collapsing, getting up, and running around again. And what's up with that magical old man?! In the hands of a master-director this could have been a Shakespearean tragedy. Instead we have Von Sydow at the end exclaiming -- quite predictably -- "Oh, God, where are you in all of this?! Do you exist?" In this regard I think Bergman is much closer to Spielberg than directors like Bresson, Jancso, Kurosawa or a number of other great artists. This is not to state that Bergman does not deserve some recognition but I certainly believe his career is comparatively overvalued.

"Winter Light" and "Glass Darkly" are overly melodramatic. "Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore. I think he came closer to achieving the level of great artist with films like "Shame," "Persona" & "Hour of the Wolf" than he did with his previous work. I actually would argue that "Shame," better than any other film I've seen of his best captures simultaneously what he does so well and where he so commonly trips up. The first half of the film is perhaps overly didactic; too much of a message film (the scene with the airplane crash and the forced interview and the interogation) with Bergman hitting us over the head trying to remind us how awful war is. The second half is very strong, though. We feel that the camera is in place only to capture the events as they are happen, everything follows naturally from the conscritions imposed on the couple's reality. "Hour of the Wolf" is also an impressive film and I have nothing to say that would take away from the power of "Persona."

"From the Life of the Marionettes" is another flawed film that could have been a masterpiece although I doubt another filmmaker could have done much better starting from scratch. My problem there was that Bergman was simply not strong enough of a dramatist to pull it off. He has peered deeply into these characters' psyches but rather than revealing it to us dramatically he has created scenarios in which we are confronted with an endless series of undramatic monologues. The result left me scratching my head as to why no one had thought to wait for a second draft. I have not seem too many of his late films although I thought quite highly of "The Best Intentions" and look forward to watching some of the other late films he wrote the screenplays for although did not direct. Ultimately I guess I'm not much of a fan although I'll probably be popping in "Persona" once again sometime this soon.

[domino harvey]

I've long been championing Shame as one of his three key masterpieces, I'm very happy to see someone else sticking up for it... though I feel somewhat conflicted about that since you decried his other two masterpieces, Winter Light and Through a Glass Darkly.

[Michael]

"Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore.

I can't understand how it's seen as ugly by some of you here. To me, it's among the most beautiful films ever made. I can't even explain it but there's something so cathartic about it. Is there any film out there that is like Cries and Whispers in any way? I can't think of one. It may not be my favorite Bergman film (it's Smiles of a Summer Night) but I think Cries and Whispers is his best film. Lovers of this film, please do step forward.