Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

[Michael Kerpan]

I like most of the (comparatively) few Bergman films I've seen -- but these tend to among his lighter works. However, I truly hated Cries and Whispers with a passion. Perhaps, because of this adverse experience I grew averse to further exploration.

I think Rosenbaum's piece is not unduly harsh --- perhaps next month might have been a better time for it, however. Nonetheless, I see it is a rather valuable corrective to a lot of the unrestrained (perspective-free) encomiums that are the norm.

[My Man Godfrey]

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.

I don't want to get into a long back-and-forth on this, but dismissing "The Seven Seal" [sic] and "The Virgin Springs" [sic] as "brutally literary and pretentious" seems anti-intellectual to the point of willed mental retardation.

I'm curious to know what kinds of films you consider masterpieces, since you've just casually taken a shit on two of the loveliest movies I've ever seen.

As for your second point, I find this implication even more troubling, although I detect it all the time. Because backwater evangelicals and stoned teenagers spend their time discussing God and the meaning of life, it's a discrediting waste of time to consider those questions. That's what you're getting at, right? Or is your gripe with Bergman that he has the balls to raise questions about the meaning (and moral possibilities) of life, but then fails to answer those questions satisfactorily? In that case, aren't you essentially criticizing Bergman for failing to be a God himself?

I tend to think that the critics who have got it best are the ones, in Salon and elsewhere, who have called Bergman "the greatest artist of the twentieth century" (that's "artist," period -- not "film artist"). My own feeling is that people who dismiss Bergman's work as "middle-class" and "juvenile" are themselves too juvenile for art.

Bergman's films are awkward, fearless, frustrating. While I respect Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander, they're not among my favorites. Of his late work, I like Scenes From a Marriage best. The best of his early films -- Summer With Monika, Dreams, Sawdust and Tinsel -- are my favorites overall, though I adore Shame and The Virgin Spring. (Far from finding The Virgin Spring stultifyingly "literary," I think it's one of the most brutal and devastating films I've ever seen -- one that, like The Elephant Man, and certain favorite films from childhood, never fails to leave me in tears.)

Contrarianism is useful, but in this case, I don't think the true contrarian position is that "Bergman is overrated." Rather, that feels to me like the conventional wisdom -- especially since, as the NY Times piece points out, nobody in this most anti-intellectual of countries has had much use for Bergman for 20 years now -- and a position that's fashionable and quite easy to adopt, however incorrect it might be. ("Philosophy [i.e., questions about the meaning of life] is for 13-year-olds" is another of these bogus "brave positions.")

As people who are serious about film (or even about life), I think we have an obligation to be a bit more "questing," a bit less cool, frankly. This kind of shallow posturing passing for iconoclastic thought -- spirituality is "gay" . . . politics is "lame" . . . philosophy is for 13-year-olds and "douches" . . . Ingmar Bergman was a pompous pretentious overrated bourgeois prick -- makes me feel like the shit is rising to my neck. An uncomfortable feeling.

[kekid]

Bergman's work touches me deeply as few other directors' work do. For me the effect is sub-conscious, and therefore difficult to explain. It is possible to call some of his work melodramatic (most of Dickens and Hugo are too, and I love them with passion). It is also possible to complain about the unexplained malaise that pervades much of his work. Some of us resonate at his wavelength, the others are simply irritated. I think it is fair to say that in simply technical terms he is a master. I cannot think of any other director whose work has inspired better performances from actors. He has produced unforgettable images, even if we are not sure what they mean. The use of music in his films is consistently masterful. "Cries and Whispers" seems to be the film that has divided the forum members, so let me make a few comments on it. For me it is one of the two films with unique use of color (the other is Antonioni's "Red Desert"). It has unforgettable images. (I find the stunning Pieta with Anna and the final scene with Agnes on the swing deeply moving.) Use of music is spare and totally integrated. The wordless conversation between Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullman to Bach's cello suite is a touch of genius. That leaves the question of the plot. Bergman's characters suffer for reasons unexplained. Physical ailment and failed marriages are devices used, but the suffering is existential, and either we empathize with their suffering or we find them incomprehensible (or even irritating). I do not expect my reaction to change anyone's mind regarding Bergman, but this is how I feel.

After he stopped making films, Bergman continued to direct plays. I looked for his plays when the BAM catalog arrived at the beginning of each season. Alas, there will be no more plays from Ingmar Bergman. May his soul rest in peace.

[exte]

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.

I don't want to get into a long back-and-forth on this, but dismissing "The Seven Seal" [sic] and "The Virgin Springs" [sic] as "brutally literary and pretentious" seems anti-intellectual to the point of willed mental retardation.

dvdane, is that you?

Of his late work, I like Scenes From a Marriage best.

Absolutely. I'm surprised it's not mentioned here more.

[Orphic Lycidas]

I'm curious to know what kinds of films you consider masterpieces...

Well, I would certainly include the following for serious consideration: Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," Jancso's "Red Psalm," Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers," & "Burn!," Peter Watkins' "Edvard Munch" & "Evening Land," Coppolla's "The Godfather, Part II" & "Apocalypse Now," Kobayashi's "Hara Kiri," Bresson's "Mouchette" & "Au Hasard, Balthasar," Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Hitchcock's "Vertigo," among others. And "Airplane!" Of course.

You misunderstand me. You think I'm criticizing Bergman for being too intellectual. On the contrary, I think that Bergman at his worse succeeds in dealing with philosophical questions only superficially. I do not consider the question "Does God exist or not?" a philosophically brave question. As an atheist I may be biased here but this is not a deep question and I certainly don't equate it with "Philosophy" (or "being serious about life"), as you do. This is why I make an explicit distinction between films like "The Seventh Seal" and "The Virgin Spring," on one hand, and "Shame" and "Persona" on the other. I consider the former shallow, the latter "philosophical," to use the terminology you've brought up. So let's look at this term "literary." Perhaps I would have been clearer if instead of "brutally literary" I had said "too consciously literary." By this I mean Bergman sets all his hards on the table. Do you think the depiction of the adopted daughter is *not* overly "literary," meaning too obvious and conscious a convention? Do you defend it? I could have done without all of that and liked the film much better. If you noticed I commented on three different periods of Bergman's career. I criticized some of the earlier films for being in my opinion too simplistic and non-intellectual (unless one considers "God! Oh Why?! Are you there?" a profound question. We may disagree on this). I had positive things to say about the more intellectually interesting films of the mid-60s. I also commented on one of his later films, "On the Life of the Marionettes," where I thought Bergman had developed quite impressively as a thinker (leaving far behind the immaturity of "Virgin Spring," "Seventh Seal") but found him lacking as an artist. Nowhere in my post do I deride "intellectualism" or do any other such silly thing of which you find it useful to accuse me. All positions are debatable, of course but you might consider the uselessness of building up straw-men before you start choking on your own shit.

"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.

Well, it's been a long while since I've seen this so I'll be unable to adequately defend my position. There is no debating the beauty of the film on a technical level. There is one scene with the two sisters embracing which I found quite powerful but I really did dislike the film and I do remember "ugly" being the operative word. Perhaps I'll have to give it another look and get back to you.

[Kirkinson]

As an atheist I may be biased here

Speaking as one nonbeliever to another, I don't see how that would matter considering Bergman was an atheist, too (@5:40). You may need to re-evaluate the messages you think are so clearly and superficially laid out in these films. I don't think they're about whether god exists so much as they're about how the silence of a nonexistent god effects those who are believers, and what you see over and over again in these films is how much their faith works against them. In the face of suffering they put their trust in god, and when he doesn't answer they fall into hopelessness and despair. If anything, an atheist should be biased in favor of this message.

I also can't understand why you would use the word "literary" to mean "too obvious and conscious a convention." What sort of slipshod literature do you read?

[My Man Godfrey]

@ Orphic:

Well, kudos for your polite response to my strident post. [Sheepish laugh.] Those movies you listed are all excellent, of course.

I do feel like it's appropriate to get my hackles up and claws out in defense of Bergman, because his films -- and now, I guess, his legacy -- feel fragile to me, somehow. His work is very easy to misunderstand, dismiss, and ridicule, even though it seems, to me, wonderfully comprehensible and humane. And -- speaking subjectively now -- essential. Also, people who don't know much of his work (I'm not including you, necessarily, Orphic) tend to make sweeping pronouncements that actually apply to very few of his films. He'll always be known, to most people who have even heard of him, as the "death playing chess on the beach" guy, though The Seventh Seal was in many ways a real departure for him, and an anomaly in his filmography. (It's also a funny, tender and witty movie that's often described, incorrectly, as being stuffy and relentlessly serious.)

I'll have to think about your comments on The Virgin Spring, although I expect to disagree with you. What I'll say now is that your gripes sound pretty nuanced -- one character in the film seemed too schematic for you? Even if I take the point (which I don't, necessarily), does it render the movie as a whole pretentious and ponderous? How can you not be moved by The Virgin Spring?

And to answer another of your points: Sure -- I guess I do consider "God! Oh why?! Are you there?" a worthwhile and, as you put it, "profound" question. What other questions should we be asking? "When are we going to see some Straub-Huillet in Region 1" is a fine question (and one that, in my case, quickly leads to: "God! Oh why?! Are you there?"), but surely it's not the most important question, or one that one can or should spend a lifetime working through. If you think "God! Oh why?! Are you there?" is a silly question, I'd say that your gripe isn't really with Bergman, but with much of the human race.

No longer choking on shit,
Matt

Quick postscript: if you didn't like Cries and Whispers back in the day, you won't like it now. (Ditto Winter Light, The Silence, etc.) Have you seen Scenes From a Marriage? Wild Strawberries? Or Waiting Women or Scenes From A Summer Night? Those might be worth revisiting.

[Alyosha]

Speaking as one nonbeliever to another, I don't see how that would matter considering Bergman was an atheist, too

If you watch a couple of the interviews or documentaries (for example Marie Nyerod's) made in the last 10 years of his life, you'll see that this wasn't the case - at least not during those days and at least not in the sense that most of us define the word. I think his beliefs or non-beliefs couldn't be simplified into terms of 'atheist' or 'theist'.

Believers or non-believers, we (including myself) often tend to force our favourite directors, artists etc. to be on "our team" in these questions so that we can claim our interpretations of the films to be the fully correct ones, instead of simply appreciating the art for what reason we may have. I don't think it's strange with a theist admiring a Buñuel film, as well as I don't think it's strange with an atheist admiring a Tarkovsky film.

[BB]

Given film's brief 100 year history, Bergman is clearly a master. Having said that, I turned off Cries and Whispers after half an hour. I hated everything about it. On the other hand, Winter Light is one of my (and alot of other people's) favorite films of all time.

That said, one of these days I sincerely look forward to giving Cries and Whispers another go. It's on my list of "great films" that I am tone deaf to, but haven't really given a fair chance.

This whole Bergman debate is interesting, but all we're really talking about is our own tastes. (Our own ever shifting, constantly evolving tastes!) However when things are printed in the mass media, then you're talking about fashion. Pop Opinion which comes and goes.

These days demanding (even remotely demanding) films are not in vogue. In popular culture at the moment, it's easy to see Bergman films as being naive and embarrassing. I think in another few decades the view of seeing Bergman films as naive and embarrassing, will itself be considered naive and embarrassing.

Oddly enough, it seems to me that people like me who rush to defend Bergman do so thinking that he is, and has been out of fashion (basically forgotten) for at least the last 40 years. Meanwhile people like Rosenbaum who rush to put him down seem to have the opposite notion that Bergman is assumed in all corners of the globe to be a genius.

Do you think the depiction of the adopted daughter is *not* overly "literary," meaning too obvious and conscious a convention? Do you defend it?

Medieval folk tales are very literary. That is they are direct, filled with conscious conventions, and heavily symbolic. IE: there's nothing very much "realistic" about them. However, even though on the surface there is nothing subtle about them, they tend to be deeply enigmatic, unresolved, and hence troubling. (That is until Disney gets there hands on them!) Now back to Bergman...

The Virgin Spring is obviously based on a folk tale. I don't say that because it is (though I just checked on goggle) Rather I say it because Bergman so successfully presents it as one. It is a wonderfully realized vision. A fable envisioned in film. Easy to do in a hokey way... not so easy to do with any class.

One of my favorite films of all time is the Seventh Seal. Another in your face, (at times unsubtle and uneven), tour de force.

however well written or dramatic, are things we're likely to have heard elsewhere."

Well... they are often times extremely well written and extremely dramatic. As for being "heard elsewhere", no work of art is ever created in a vacuum. Everything has already been said before. If in the Seventh Seal Bergman had "invented" his existential musings, etc, etc, he would not be talked about as one of the greatest directors, but as one of the key figures in the history of the human race.

[Kirkinson]

If you watch a couple of the interviews or documentaries (for example Marie Nyerod's) made in the last 10 years of his life

I haven't seen any interviews or documentaries made that late, but I'll take your word for it. I should have qualified my statement in any case to say that the interview suggests he was an atheist (or at least appeared to be) in 1970, which may only apply to 1970. In any case, I thought it was foolish to suggest an atheist ought to be biased against his work.

I agree about the tendency to graft our own views onto our favorites to make them part of "our team," but with the caveat that the reverse is also true: we can as easily graft views opposing our own onto artists we don't like. This is what I was worried about in Orphic's post and what I was trying to argue with. My symbolic apologies to Bergman if I misrepresented his views.

[Alyosha]

I agree about the tendency to graft our own views onto our favorites to make them part of "our team," but with the caveat that the reverse is also true: we can as easily graft views opposing our own onto artists we don't like.

True.

[Mr Sheldrake]

On the Virgin Spring DVD one of the extras is an audio recording of a 1975 AFI seminar with Bergman. He is not only very funny, but he constantly refers to God. As in "I hated to watch the rushes, they always depressed me, and I prayed to God the movie would be OK" Well, this might be God as superstition, but he was a preacher's son, and he may have protested too much in his movies for an unbeliever.

I've never viewed the absence of God as his main subject, anyway. To me it's unhappiness, deep, overwhelming, stultifying, approaching and often eclipsing, morbidity. In movie history, only Fassbinder's characters rival Bergman's in revealing such a sorry view of their lot in life.

But I like Andrew Sarris' overview of Bergman's career the most -

"I was always predisposed to embrace the new cinematic emphasis effected by Bergman on the individual and the spiritual over the collective and the material. But there remained something in the back of my mind about Bergman's limiting and depleting himself by confining himself to the island of his mind, and venturing less and less to the world outside. Sweden was a small country in a big cosmos, but even Sweden itself remained a remote entity in Bergman's later films. Time seemed to stand still for him, and even recede.

Yet when we are privileged to pleasurably recall the totality of his now-ended efforts, we are reminded of what even the more skeptical among us have always loved and admired about Bergman's movies: humanity, humility, insight, intelligence and a heroic seriousness of purpose. In light of his prodigious productivity, the only thing that keeps him from the very top of my personal pantheon is that most of his movies end in a realistic spirit of resignation rather than in a romantic spirit of redemption. But who can fail to be moved by his excruciatingly painful and lifelong quest for self-understanding. Now let the Bergman retrospectives begin!"

[Mr Sausage]

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?

That was more directed at Rosenbaum than you (I was too lazy to make a proper segue). Where it comes from is the feeling of A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema that pervades Rosenbaum's piece.

The common critical parlance is to compare Leone's films to opera, and this is a high compliment; so how exactly did comparing someone's work to the theatre become an insult? Well, as I said, from unreasonable attempts to distance film from other art forms (in this case one which is similar). If great films are operatic, but bad ones are theatrical, then I'm just going to go back to bed and nurse my growing headache.

"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.

I'll absolutely step forward. Not only is it my favourite Bergman but it made me fall in love with his films after a very lackluster viewing of The Seventh Seal.

Incidently, in that scene, I had no idea Thulin was removing her clitoris. I assumed she was just cutting herself. What did I miss?

Yeah, and hard to watch as that scene was, I feel closer to your reaction Michael: I understand why she did it, and it was entirely in character so it never felt for a moment like pure shock (which would be truly disgusting).

[Michael]

Incidently, in that scene, I had no idea Thulin was removing her clitoris. I assumed she was just cutting herself. What did I miss?

I never thought she was cutting off her clitoris till David mentioned here earlier (which I thought was far out). Clitoris or not, I still think this scene was not done for the sake of shock.. it was utterly appropriate (awful it was) for Ingrid's character to do something like that...naturally repulsed we may become of that action but it was completely cathartic (and yes, necessary) for her.

I always perceive this film as Swedish Gothic with horror and ghosts. Some of my favorite ingredients for films.

[MichaelB]

I never thought she was cutting off her clitoris till David mentioned here earlier (which I thought was far out). Clitoris or not, I still think this scene was not done for the sake of shock.. it was utterly appropriate (awful it was) for Ingrid's character to do something like that...naturally repulsed we may become of that action but it was completely cathartic (and yes, necessary) for her.

It's ages since I saw the film, but my interpretation was that she was mutilating her labia in order to make it impossible for her husband to have intercourse with her - not a clitoridectomy at all.

[Michael]

It's ages since I saw the film, but my interpretation was that she was mutilating her labia in order to make it impossible for her husband to have intercourse with her - not a clitoridectomy at all

Yeah but all this talk about exactly where Ingrid cut herself is forcing me to evaluate where exactly she cut herself.. that never came to my mind every time I watched Cries and Whispers. All I thought about was the blood coming out of her and that was all it mattered - her release out of that long-frozen icicle she was trapped inside. Whether her husband having intercourse with her or not doesn't make any difference, I think.. it was probably like having sex with a corpse to her any way. A very loveless marriage that was. I have to watch that movie again.. it's been a while.

[tryavna]

what Edgar Allan Poe is to literature, a popular, more-or-less superficial product meant to entice newcomers into the field.

Off-topic and perhaps a bit nit-picky, but how long has it been since you've actually read any Poe? If it's been a while, I urge you to re-read his best stories and, especially, his non-fiction. Poe's poetry is indeed mediocre, but some of his short fiction approaches a perfection only equalled in the 19th century by Chekhov and Maupassant. And along with Margaret Fuller, he was one of the two most perceptive literary critics in antebellum America.

[Sortini]

Speaking of "choking on shit", here's an anecdote about Bergman that surely sheds some light on his way of looking at things.

In the eighties, Bergman was the guest of honour at the Reykjavik Art Festival. On arrival, he was taken to a luxury apartment belonging to the Presidency of Iceland. Upon entering, Bergman, much to everyone's surprise, went straight to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. He then voiced his displeasure with the toilet, because the water went down instantly in one flush. He explained that he wanted it to go in slow circles, so that he would be able to observe his droppings disappear in a sort of maelstrom.

Luckily for the organizers of the festival, a luxury suite with a maelstrom toilet was found for Bergman. But I'm sure that for some of them, Bergman's toilet story is a more vivid memory now than his excellent production of Miss Julie shown at the festival.

[My Man Godfrey]

Ha -- Sortini, you made that up.

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that watching your fecal matter slowly dissapear in a maelstrom of water is certainly one of life's greatest pleasures.

[Barmy]

Glad to see a little Bergman hate creeping in here.

His first 10 films were crap, Saraband is an ugly, trite embarrassment, and there's a lot of boring dross in between: Brink of Life, Winter Light, Autumn Sonata, for example. Even the good 50s films are very middlebrow. Cries and Whispers: I'd like to think it was intended as a red comedy, but I doubt it was. Certainly the dinner table scene is a scream.

I wish he made more color films as the color tends to freshen up his dreary themes. His 70s work may appear a bit dated, but films like Anna, The Touch and parts of Face to Face, for example, offer a lot to enjoy. Let's hope more of this stuff gets out on DVD.

[domino harvey]

Did you mean to post that on the .com forum or what

[Steven H]

The Economist's obit.

[Sortini]

Ha -- Sortini, you made that up.

Well no, this is a true story told to me by one of those people who had to frantically seek for the right kind of toilet in every hotel in Reykjavik.

Laterna magica is full of stories about Bergman's stomach problems and what they entailed. The one that took place in the Eiffel Tower is particularly memorable.

I think Bergman agreed with Nietzsche: "The lower abdomen is the reason man does not so easily consider himself a god."

[My Man Godfrey]

His first 10 films were crap, Saraband is an ugly, trite embarrassment, and there's a lot of boring dross in between: Brink of Life, Winter Light, Autumn Sonata, for example. Even the good 50s films are very middlebrow. Cries and Whispers: I'd like to think it was intended as a red comedy, but I doubt it was. Certainly the dinner table scene is a scream.

Those are all just empty labels and slogans. They can be applied to any director and sound about as persuasive:

"Ozu's first 10 films were crap, Tokyo Twilight is an ugly, trite embarrassment, and there's a lot of boring dross in between ..."

"Antonioni is bollocks. He's just a pretentious fuckwit who doesn't know how to tell a story properly, so he relies on a lot of bullshit symbolism ..."

"Mizoguchi is shite. Ugetsu and Sansho are overrated, Sisters of the Gion is crap, and all the junk he made in between is an embarrassing bore. I had to quit watching The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums halfway through out of embarrassment for the guy. Still better than Theo Angelopolous, though."

"Hitchcock's films are a waste of celluloid. The only good film he ever made was Family Plot, and that's just because Bruce Dern was basically making fun of the movie the whole time. You look in Dern's eyes in certain scenes, and you can actually see him thinking, 'This guy is a great director?' Still, Rebecca works if you read it as a parody of a certain kind of inept thriller."

"Glad to see some Welles hate creeping in here. Citizen Kane is the only halfway-decent thing he ever did, and even that is about an hour too long, and filled with embarrassing symbolism. Plus, it's widely known by those who care to do the research that his supporting actors practically directed the film themselves. I actually laughed out loud when the film revealed that Rosebud was a sled. Still, better than Touch of Evil, starring the great Mexican actor Charlton Heston. What a joke. Welles's voice work in the Transformers movie was pretty good, though."

"Francis Ford Coppola is probably the most overrated director of all time, after Carl T. Dreyer. The irony is that while his early films are still praised by middlebrows the world over, it wasn't until Jack that he began to demonstrate basic competence as a storyteller. I defy you to watch the second half of the Conversation and tell me what the fuck is going on."

"I'm glad to see that people are finally giving up the tired pretense of liking Ernst Lubitsch. There's one director who never knew what to do with sound; his early talkies are a mess, and some of his later work -- I'm thinking of Ninotchka, Heaven Can Wait, and most of The Shop Around the Corner -- is so dreadful, you have to wonder why the studios even bothered to restore it. The first half hour of Trouble in Paradise is okay, though. Too bad he lifted all of those scenes from other directors."

Wait -- this is actually sort of fun.

But can we, like, set aside another URL for this kind of stuff? I sort of value the discussions on this forum.