"Ingmar Bergman's films utterly depressing" -- Ingmar Bergman

(how many hail mary's is that?)

I would say that Wild Strawberries is far from depressing.

The one about God being a spider is a bit depressing. Cries and Whispers is certainly quite depressing.

I think the one you are thinking about has a mother and her son waiting around in some hotel room or something? The mother is waiting for a phone call from the other woman. Then the boy sees a tank roll through the streets. The end.

That's Persona.

who wrote the famous piece about not-interviewing bergman?

http://www.ingmarbergman.se/

I decided in the end that "The Fast Show" just starting on BBC2 would be more valuable for me culture-wise..... Meh.......

that's disappointing.

i don't know, bergman having occasionally questionable taste is something i don't care too much about, it's bergman recklessly insulting other filmmakers that seems a bit gauche. also anyone making common cause with john simon is pretty suspect.

"For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting. It's dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of— is all the critics' darling, always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore. Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that movie's got is absolutely unbelievable."

He doesn't look very glamorous in that link.

RIP :-(

8( have just watched 'Persona' and 'Sawdust And Tinsel' and 'Journey into Autumn' and those two documentaries about him on bbc4 in the last couple of weeks. Seventh Seal has just been re-released in cinemas here too, i must find out where it's on.

rip

Damn. Damn. Damn.

was going to see transformers today but now feel kind of guilty.

actually, watching the film with an overwhelming feeling of guilt might be the most fitting tribute to bergman i can think of.

:-(

Robots Is Pissguys

RIP, though, really, and I'll go and see transformers

Ingmar Bergman R.I.P.

Gukbe OTM.

So, can somebody explain to me what made Persona a parable about the Vietnam conflict? I've heard this mentioned several times, and beyond the self-immolation fragment in the opening montage I don't understand the connection. Answers appreciated, this has been bothering me for some time and Film Four's Bergman season means its bothering me again.

The parallel is made by zealous film professors.

Yeah but based on what? It's always puzzled me, I can't even see it in a tenuous way

I'll keep this in mind if I stay up during Film Four's screening tomorrow night.

Doubt I'll stay with it...

No it's really gripping all the way through, esp once they get to the house, but Vietnam?

my Bergman prof didn't mention vietnam. Just a lot of stuff about the opening montage being a summation of the history of cinema and the rest the film discussed in terms of "psychological vampirism".

see now, that's what I got

Finally watched Seventh Seal last night...sort of a duty-to-the-classic-canon thing rather than because I really wanted to watch it. But I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

I saw it just now and it'sastoundingly brilliant. Fucking funny, sad, human, triumphant, frightening study of death and the unknowability of the divine. With a truly inspired ensemble cast, and that one scene with the eating of wild strawberries ("I will never forget this moment") which almost had me weeping for joy

so, was amateurist joking when he said he never saw a bergman film in 2004?

if he wasn't, i am really fucking stunned!

Persona has to be one of the 10 greatest, no doubt in my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXGFo2WI2aw

Witless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fGOC0IC9I

anyone who mistakes bergman for being austere/cold/humourless should see this movie

<3 it

kinda reminds me of the muppet show

Oh dear god no song gets stuck in my head like Papageno!

I had no idea he did a The Magic Flute.

it is... wonderful.

please to see it.

it would be great to watch this on a big screen outdoors this summer, i feel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpIUYzxlpjw

also anyone making common cause with john simon is pretty suspect.

*hisses and boos*

Simon is terrific and his reviews were wickedly funny. Your point about Simon trashing the abstruse but digging "Persona" is kinda OTM though

kinda did a little tribute to magic flute here

That's great!

thk u!

I have pushed this o the top of my Netflix queue btw. I am so stoked!

Bergman in switched @ birth shockah!

his real dad was Steve jobs

I watched the "film" version of Scenes From a Marriage about sixteen years ago. Criterion released both versions. Is the TV version better?

Just watched "Seventh Seal" for the first time. My first Bergman. It was wonderful!

Best Death ever!

The part where they are watching the witch be burned, and they are looking into her eyes and not seeing God in them, is pretty amazing.

For all the existential angst, there's a lot of humor in this.

I once tried to watch Wild Strawberries when I was on the comedown off Ecstasy. It's a great movie, but dear god, what was I thinking? I will never understand why I thought it would be suitable for that frame of mind. Had to turn it off.

Bergman has been my 2nd-favorite discovery since I started my heavy film-immersion program a few years ago. I recommend The Magician next or soonish.

Thanks, I will definitely check that out next!

This opens here shortly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELIMeemx-FI

I invented a new word to describe it: "Bergmanesque."

Summer Interlude is probably my favourite. Summer with Monika, Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Through A Glass Darkly are all solid gold. and Virgin Spring (two really shockingly violent bits)

you're right about 7th seal and the humour - bloke climbs a tree to escape death, death gets out a saw. slapstick. also feels like every single frame of the film would make a great poster.

> Bergman has been my 2nd-favorite discovery since I started my heavy film-immersion program

and the first?

Yes, Death with the saw! So good! Also when the squire is off to the side calling every trick Lisa is going to use to calm her furious husband. "It's only a matter of time before she brings up his favorite dish..." This kind of humor is all over sitcoms!

Also the bit where they are doing that silly play with the devil and a somewhat vulgarly playful song and all of a sudden this mass of Black Death ecstatics wanders into town and just completely usurps their act. People whipping each other and calling out to God, making such a big show of it all. Suddenly the fool and his family dressed up in silly devil costumes seem the most genuine people around.

I definitely need to watch it again, there's a lot of commentary on the performance aspects of religion, on people willfully fooling each other. The painter in the monastery painting pictures to stir up church attendance, the witch who is desperately trying to convince herself - in the face of her own death - that the devil is real and in her eyes.

This movie seems heavily influenced by the tarot, beginning and ending w the fool, plenty of knights and cups and clubs, etc. throughout. Then again the Tarot is probably influenced by Revelations...

koogs -- #1 is Ozu

5-week retro in NYC

https://filmforum.org/series/ingmar-bergman-centennial-retrospective-series

Liv Ullmann talks about Bergman in anticipation of BFI retrospective:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/38835/1/liv-ullmann-ingmar-bergman-bfi

Saw "Through a Glass Darkly" at the cinema only yesterday!

Got F&A out of the library for my first viewing in 15 years, particularly for the TV version, which I haven't seen. Is it worth it?

yes it absolutely is

Abysmal.

lol wrong thread soz

Yes, at least one of my favorite scenes is cut from the theatrical.

It was "The Silence" today. Still recovering.

and is there more of Fanny? I would think so.

i've never seen the theatrical cut so i can't say, but also nothing seems remotely excessive in the tv version so i don't really have a desire to watch the other one

http://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/files/blogs/just-do-it-hed-2013.jpg

I did two hours ago!

the silence is terrific

The full version of Fanny and Alexander is sometimes my favourite movie of all time.

So which is your favorite scene, Brad?

F&A is the one where the uncle blows out a candle in unorthodox fashion, right?

Fastest five hours I've ever watched, most of which in one sitting. Much of it remained familiar; it helped.

Anyway, F&A is a notch below his very best achievements, but as epic it's an ideal summa.

do any hoovering? running machine?

this WSJ piece has been up for 3 days, and the headline blurb calls him "the French icon"!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ingmar-bergmans-heart-of-darkness-1517434450

lol jesus

Bergman doesn’t really get talked about much these days, at least ime. I remember when he died my friend’s dad made fun of how pretentious The Seventh Seal was, and yeah that’s definitely my least favorite of the 10 or so I’ve seen, but he’s not the icon that Fassbinder is. I don’t know, half formed thought, but something I’ve been thinking about since I first saw Persona last year.

I'm not sure I agree with you there.

The reputation that The Seventh Seal has for "pretension" annoys me to no end. I'm assuming it has a lot to do with a) Bergman's presumed humourlessness (also B.S. as there is certainly humour in many of his films, and I don't just mean the comedies) and b) so many comedies (SCTV, Bill and Ted) utilizing the "playing chess with death" thing for laughs over the years, but mostly I just assume that most people who make the charge against the film haven't actually seen it.

Bergman has always been about, for as long as I've been aware of these things -- as an 'icon' or otherwise.

yeah like i said this could just be in my life, in the film community here, he hasn't had a resurgence in interest or popularity like Tarkovsky or Fassbinder. not sure. like i said, not a fully formed thought. and yeah i know the thing about him being humorless is just wrong. even Cries & Whispers has its moments

but yeah, maybe it's just he's always been around, like Hitchcock. his work has never been out of print or under appreciated, like Tarkovsky

I think he's always been around, but then I'd say the same about Tarkovsky, I don't when Tarkovsky's ever been under appreciated. The thing about Fassbinder is he might get talked about a lot but I'm always surprised at how few of his films people have actually seen.

Fassbinder has the lived fast died young thing going for him, and yeah he was super prolific but you're right, is there a consensus on his most seen/ most well known work? Ali: Fear Eats the Soul?

Tarkovsky has gotten a bump in recent years, certainly with the vastly improved Criterion remaster of Stalker last summer.

The upside-down melodramas are the widely accepted best (Ali, Petra, Merchant). It's reductive but there's too much of it and takes years to process his work.

Tarkovsky always been around - to such an extent he overshadows a lot of other, equally terrific filmmaking from the Soviet Union and former republics.

The reduced fashionability of Bergman has been a thing for forever. When I was kid, one of the only film books lying around the house was Ebert's mid-'80s video guide, which had an appendix devoted to writings on the most recent Sight & Sound poll, and one of his big talking points was the shock of Bergman falling out of the Top 20.

Beat me to it, I was just about to say:

I think it's fair to say Bergman isn't talked about as much as he once was. If you look at the Sight & Sound polls through history they would suggest his critical cachet peaked somewhere around 1972. That was the year he placed two films in their Top Ten (Persona and Wild Strawberries), whereas in no other year has he placed even one that high. Maybe there's just more directors to talk about nowadays. It's otherwise difficult to explain why he's seemed to be relatively out-of-fashion in recent decades though still respected.

Guardian is comin' for him!

pic.twitter.com/js6AqdFAHW

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) February 4, 2018

The reduced fashionability of Bergman has been a thing for forever. When I was kid, one of the only film books lying around the house was Ebert's mid-'80s video guide, which had an appendix devoted to writings on the most recent Sight & Sound poll, and one of his big talking points was the shock of Bergman falling out of the Top 20.

― Never Learn To Mike Love (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, February 3, 2018 5:22 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Beat me to it, I was just about to say:

I think it's fair to say Bergman isn't talked about as much as he once was. If you look at the Sight & Sound polls through history they would suggest his critical cachet peaked somewhere around 1972. That was the year he placed two films in their Top Ten (Persona and Wild Strawberries), whereas in no other year has he placed even one that high. Maybe there's just more directors to talk about nowadays. It's otherwise difficult to explain why he's seemed to be relatively out-of-fashion in recent decades though still respected.

― Josefa, Saturday, February 3, 2018

His films made money in American cities and college towns well into the F&A era. Note the profits of those films and the number of Oscar nods he got (three Best Director nominations!). Popularity hurt him too.

"Could this famously manipulative genius have survived in the #MeToo era?"

Dreyer is next!

lol was gonna say hitchcock but he actually did get me too'd

That Bradshaw piece is weird, he doesn't quote any of the actresses saying he assaulted them on set - any relationships seemed to have been consensual?

Unlike Hitch, who was an abuser.

well, acc to Tippi (I believe her)

#metoo

Just last week someone I know was saying how long before Bergman's name comes up. As for Fassbinder, there's a can of worms.

That's a different scenario too -- iirc people would hang around and wouldn't leave when it got rough. Although Schygulla did for a while..

Whereas Hollywood there are contracts etc., more like a job.

That doesn't mean it should go on now. I won't watch people being chewed up and thrown out like garbage on film. I don't have the patience for that.

Seventh Seal is the only Bergman i've seen all the way through. i was surprised at how funny/light hearted it was. that dark Scandanavian humor...

Funny, yes. Not quite lighthearted.

on second thought yeah the subject matter is really quite dark. still ive had more dismal times in hollywood action movies

full length F&A is also one of my all time favorite films, to the extent I don't actually remember what was cut for the theatrical version anymore. (Same with Scenes from a Marriage). I usually don't watch in one sitting, which seems to fit the year-in-the-life-ness of it for me. Anyway, as in intro to Bergman, it's probably on the quaint side, but still has lots of darkness and weird psychological drama (especially the plot w/the Alexander and the bishop). I think for any budding artist, it's a great movie -- had a huge impact on me as a teen, for reasons I wasn't completely aware of at the time, but looking back seem obvious.

I think I learned about this guy from Woody Allen movies?

I just saw Summer Interlude and loved it. It may be my new favourite Bergman.

This final scene with the ballet master in costume as the sorcerer from Swan Lake is eerie, and feels like a prefiguration of the knight and Death talking through the confessional grill.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjg2OGU4NzYtOWM2ZS00MGZmLWJlOTQtYzY1OTU3NWE4Y2ZmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_SY500_CR0,0,683,500_AL_.jpg

Love the shot in Summer Interlude where the guy jumps on the rocks & the girls screams and the camera just tilts up to a small black cloud above them.

man do y'all realize how many critics awards trophies Liv Ullmann won for Bergman films in the 1970s? Also: I knew Bergman got three Oscar nods for Best Director but somehow forgot that one of them was for Face to Face.

Check this out!

I can't find it online, but there's a '70s Peanuts strip wherein Lucy reveals she uses a Liv Ullmann signature baseball glove.

holy shit^

This also happened:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS51eS-P-y5HIJt0gb1wvQEv_UPbEJwcFgTX9wmM5UsbLLqYV7e

on second thought yeah the subject matter is really quite dark. still ive had more dismal times in hollywood action movies

It's not even his only comedy (A Lesson in Love, The Devil's Eye).

Yeah, the NY critics din't start to turn in him til The Serpent's Egg, I think.

The Daily with links on the NY retro:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5373-a-bergman-feast-at-film-forum

Solid Lane essay.

Harriet Andersson turns 86 on Wednesday

I saw IB's second feature as director this weekend, It Rains on Our Love, and... everyone has to start somewhere I guess. A lurching mix of Pirandello, Renoir and Capra (I kid you not -- there are cutaways to the romantic leads' dog). Not much of interest besides the attractiveness of the stars (the very handsome Birger Malmsten did a slew of early Bergmans, and turns up in The Silence and Face to Face.

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/h632/bzB65ZCNROzO0YytI6E49HsgSlp.jpg

I'm re-reading Bergman on Bergman, a book of 1968-1970 interviews, in which he admits It Rains on Our Love was influenced by film noir, particularly Michael Curtiz.

He's pretty down on most of his 1940s work, and apparently his least favorite of all his films is This Can't Happen Here (1950). He feels he came into his own with Summer Interlude, which came out a year after This Can't Happen Here even though it was filmed before it.

That's weird, cuz Rains came out in '46, and the only Curtiz film I'd call a noir up to then was Mildred Pierce (which doesn't especially resemble his film aside from a little nighttime suspense, I suppose).

I wouldn't challenge him re Summer Interlude, as the only other '40s film I've seen is Port of Call. He wasn't fully formed yet. I do have Crisis on my shelf from the library.

Summer Interlude was the real eye-opener when I saw the Blu-ray print a couple years ago: that shit was sexy.

yeah Summer Interlude is great

I guess there's a bit of inexactness in his comment about film noir. Here's the passage from the interview:

Interviewer: [It Rains on Our Love] shows a heavy influence from the film noir.

IB: Yes. At that time the film noir directors were my gods. One who meant a lot to me was Michael Curtiz. I remember how Lars-Eric Kjellgren and I - we'd started together at SF [Svensk Filmindustri] and were close friends - saw Curtiz's films, the same films, over and over again, evening after evening, to find out how he did it. It was extremely good for us. Curtiz knew how to tell a story quite clearly, simply, and straightforwardly, as Raoul Walsh did.

Welles liked Curtiz too.

As did Fassbinder.

You can tell how good Curtiz and Raoul Walsh were: both failed to make the ILX 100.

I don't like magicians but I liked The Magician. saw the matinee at Film Forum today and for the first half of the movie they were fuckin drilling in the next room or something, lots of pissed geriatrics getting up to give someone words.

I saw his 1969 made-for-TV The Rite tonight, and I don't think the Film Forum crowd was ready when the phalluses and studded wrist cuffs appeared.

He got better at kink later.

(The actor who plays the censorious judge is named Erik Hell. He goes into a confessional and the priest is Bergman.)

It was fun to see Anders Ek in that (as Sebastian) 15 years after he was the clown in Sawdust and Tinsel. It's a weird one though.

One odd thing that's jumped out at me watching these Film Forum screenings... did Bergman use the same opening titles for all his films from the late '50s through at least Persona? Never noticed this before.

would explain Woody's thing

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/8894/persona-opening-titles

This. Or the same with black & white reversed.

Well I give up, look up "Persona font." I think the font is called Florida.

Looks like The Seventh Seal through Shame have the same titles. (1957 to 1968).

Dreams seems hard to see (no US DVD, no Kanopy stream), but I think I'll pass. P Kael snorted at it (also Secrets of Women, which I can see online).

Dreams was solid, if a few degrees more predictable and conventional than I would expect from Bergman. Harriet Andersson nails her role, has a terrific drunk scene, and p much carries the film (one of the revelations of this Film Forum series is that Harriet Andersson is so goddamn great all the time, in many different roles). Cinematography excellent throughout. I felt the dialogue became repetitive and banal in Eva Dahlbeck's big scene about 3/4 of the way through and there the film dragged, but it picked up when the humor that had been essential previously returned at the end.

Would like to talk to anyone who saw All These Women (1964), which was, um... something. Bergman working well out of his comfort zone trying to do a '60s-style sexy comedic farce (tone somewhere in the neighborhood of What's New, Pussycat?). Nice to see the famous Bergman actresses in color for the first time, but the film doesn't really ever click comedically. Jarl Kulle is David Niven-ish, but no David Niven (or Peter Sellers).

Haven't seen it; apparently it's regarded as a riff on 8-1/2. It's the year before Pussycat, so we can't accuse IB of imitating Woody Allen. ;)

I had heard that re 8 1/2 but I didn't really see it, except very superficially (decor, clothes)

I can see it later...

https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/all-these-women

77 minutes, huh. Seems a lot longer.

I can see it later...

https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/all-these-women

well, that sucks, not that i have watched a single thing on it yet.

two talks with Liv at Film Forum

https://filmforum.org/events/podcasts

^ Currently enjoying. In the earlier one the interviewer makes a big blunder saying that Sven Nykvist's first film with Bergman was Persona (and Ullmann goes along with it). Nykvist had been IB's sole cinematographer since The Virgin Spring in '59.

Thought about going to FF the other day but went instead to MoMA to see Rio Escondido.

The two (well, three) filmmakers I've most softened on in the last five to ten years are Ingmar Bergman and the Dardennes. With age comes misery.

30 movies showing here starting with Crisis and Port of Call later this month. Very excited.

Crisis was pretty good for a first film. Surprised by how much of a piece it felt with the rest of his work. As with every movie of his I've seen there's at least one moment that is transcendent - in this one, the train sequence with the triple superimposition of Mutti's face and those memories. Retro here is only doing one a month though, so Port of Call in a month, To Joy in May. So it'll be minor work for a while, at least until the summer.

I watched the Criterion of Summer with Monika last weekend, remembered very little about it, including the "Look how hot my new girlfriend is" angle. The famous closeup of Harriet Andersson near the end is really something, but it's hard to read the denouement as anything but a Goddamn Bitch cautionary fable.

It might be fun to watch the US exploitation cut sometime:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2332-monika-trailer-for-broad-minds-only

Also the CC has a short edited from IB's location movies (taken with a Bell & Howell); look, Ingmar laughs! Constantly!

wow that trailer is nuts. is the dubbed version actually a different cut? I prefer Summer Interlude, though I like Monika more than SMOASN, which I thought really dragged (108 minutes feels long for him).

yes, it was scissored down by an American hustler and dubbed with what sounds like a completely different script.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2317-monika-the-story-of-a-bad-girl

Centennial day on Saturday, and afaik no films showing in New York.

Watch the TV version of Fanny and Alexander at home.

saw Thirst projected last night, fourth out of the 30 Bergman movies my local art house will be showing over the next two years. Really strange movie, didn't really cohere in the end, but such a great performance by Eva Henning. I was struck by the opening title sequence, so flamboyant for him! reminded me of a Hitchcock opening. Interesting use of (very loud) sound, and modular synths (!). Worth checking out if you have the chance, only 84 minutes.

The 1940s and 1950s movies are currently playing at the National Gallery of Art (DC). The subsequent movies will be playing at the AFI Silver (Silver Spring, MD) later this year. I'm planning on going to this weekend's screenings; will any other ILXors be there?

was thinking of going to the Wild Strawberries 35mm screening this month but the retro here is probably going to play it in the fall (DCP though).

or should say I assume it'll be DCP. who knows

Ingmar Bergman's films are utterly depressing imo

I know, great aren't they?

Fanny and Alexander is the only one that has terrified me and I have no desire to revisit it any time soon. All of his other work I've seen (15 films) is utterly life-affirming & inspiring obv.

neither library system within my reach carries the F&A TV version

i will have to wait for the Brooklyn video store to reopen at our downtown Alamo Drafthouse

I found Wild Strawberries (on 35mm, FWIW) soporific. Crisis and It Rains on Our Love are straight-up melodramas, and all the better for it.

(BTW, this is certainly about me, not you, but when I hear the term "life-affirming" in association with any film, I reach for...whatever this libbiest lib that ever libbed would substitute for for a revolver.)

A flower iirc

xp yea it is overused. and really what I mean by that is they give me an enormous amount of contagious creativity. I leave his movies with electricity surging thru me.

but j.lu, Bergman isn't fully Bergman in those early films.

Perhaps, but if there's one thing I've learned from ILM, it's that preferring an artist's early and harder-to-find work is a GREAT contrarian play. (Serious? I don't even know any more.)

I'll reiterate what I said about Thirst upthread, it's definitely worth checking out because it's not quite the straight melodrama of Crisis or Port of Call but there's still more "plot," jumbled as it is. Can't overstate how strange the sound is in that movie.

The NGA has scheduled Thirst and Prison for 7/22. I'm planning on going (and smuggling in a stash of chocolate-covered espresso beans, in case sleepiness strikes).

I've seen nearly all of the 1950-1982 Bergmans now, most on big screen, and have decided that Hour of the Wolf has the most interesting soundtrack. Modernist music from Lars Johan Werle, who also did the music in Persona.

not one of his strongest movies, though

I think it has some of his best but also some of his most ill-advised (even goofy) scenes in it

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1427-ingmar-bergman-s-cinema

30 BluRays!

wow, hope that's eligible in the usual November half price sale

I don't need to own all those. (which is how i feel about films in general)

Hoooooooooooooooooly shit

Yeah I hope I can get that 50% off. I already own ~11 of these but fuck it, there are very few filmmakers (artists, even) that I would shell out for like this. Really excited. I’ve held off on getting any of the films not on Blu-Ray & I don’t own the Eclipse series so this is a real treat, can’t wait.

Too rich for my blood, even at 50% off, so I’m really hoping that some of the more obscure titles will be made available for individual rental on iTunes and whatnot (not even gonna bother trying to pester my library to get this).

Filmstruck has all the features in that set except A Ship to India, Brink of Life, Färo Document, The Touch, The Serpent's Egg, After the Rehearsal and Saraband. But for everything on blu, plus the supplements and shorts and book, I'll def shell out $150 if I can get it at that price. I don't own any Bergman on disc, so I won't be duplicating anything.

Can't believe everyone is making such a big deal about a hundred-year-old ventriloquist.

I capitulated, unwisely.

Are box sets like this typically excluded from their sale? I remember getting the Cassavetes & Tati boxes during the sale last year, but those are 5 or 6 films each, not 39 (!)

Was the Olympics box excluded?

I watched The Best Intentions on Amazon last week, my first screening since 1994 (on PBS!) so this one might as well count as a first.

The July sale is still ongoing, and the Olympic box is down from $399 to $199, so this should definitely be available. Really glad I didn't finally pick up Persona last week, even though it was near the top of my list...

Assayas on Bergman

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/where-are-we-with-bergman/

Ingmar Bergman tried to live in LA for a summer but as soon as Barbra Streisand called to invite him to a pool party he was on the next plane back to Sweden lmao pic.twitter.com/5tlmrBK2y4

— Lauren Wilford (@lauren_wilford) July 17, 2018

idk I'd wanna hang out with Barbra drinking limoncello by the pool

lol yeah i remember reading that story somewhere else, IB had one of his nervous breakdowns after that phone call and left immediately

I watched Bergman Island just a couple of days ago and he tells that story in passing.

no doubt Ingrid would've preferred to stay.

why?

pretty sure Barbra was a better poolside companion than Liv + Ingmar.

(and yes, yes, I know how much she wanted to work with him)

we're clear that "Ingrid" is Bergman's fifth and last wife, right?

(not the other Ingrid Bergman)

I thought it was Ingrid the actress before production of Autumn Sonata.

when did he take that brief stab at living in LA? mid or late 70s?

76?

I like this line (from Mel Brooks apparently): "When Bergman left Sweden he complained about the persecution, the metaphysical anguish, the impossibility of realizing himself as an artist, the impotence created by the welfare state, the creeping Big Brotherism of the state ... When he left California three weeks later, he complained about the heat."

That was '75, as per the photo of him posing with the Jaws mechanical shark (postrelease). So likely too early for Autumn Sonata (and I don't think IB the actress wd've been into a summer of rehearsals).

In fact I'm pretty sure I read in Images that when production started on Sonata Ingmar's attitude was "What the hell is she doing?"

IB did not like direct sunlight! He was perfectly clear about this in interviews. There's no way he could've existed in LA, Babs or no Babs,

Saw the anticommunist thriller This Can't Happen Here at MoMA, which he suppressed during his life as an outlier he regretted making. Quite mediocre indeed, but nicely shot by Gunnar Fischer and has some sporadically funny stunt work. Notable for Donald Duck's only cameo in a Bergman film (surely?).

When I saw it last week I thought it had a certain amount of overlap with the other relationship dramas Bergman was making at this time. The only difference is that the relationships suddenly have international geopolitical significance. If anyone else had made it, it would have been dismissed as third-rate Hitchcock.

Jan Holmberg of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation introduced the National Gallery of Art screening last week; did he or anyone else introduce your screening?

no, it's actually running for a week at the museum

...but i see Holmberg was there for the first show

There's a series starting here soon. Very excited--just got a ticket for Liv Ullman introducing Shame.

seeing Smiles of a Summer Night in a theater full of people aged 65+, mostly couples, made me appreciate it a lot more.

saw The Seventh Seal in a theater for the first time on Monday and got the Criterion box in the mail yesterday. a theater here is showing most of his movies in chronological order over the course of two years and I haven't missed a single one, so I'm caught up on most of the early work up thru the mid-50s (with some blindspots).

anyway, I haven't seen any of these. what should I watch first?

A Ship to Inda
Waiting Women
A Lesson in Love
Dreams
Brink of Life
The Devil's Eye
Through a Glass Darkly
Winter Light
The Silence
All These Women
Hour of the Wolf
Shame
The Rite
The Passion of Anna
Faro Document
The Touch
Scenes from a Marriage
The Magic Flute
The Serpent's Egg
Faro Document 1979
From the Life of the Marionettes
After the Rehearsal
Saraband

well, the earliest masterwork on this list is Through a Glass Darkly

I was thinking that or Brink of Life. Going thru that list above, I realized I've only seen two of his 1960s films (Persona and The Virgin Spring).

it wd make sense to watch

Through a Glass Darkly
Winter Light
The Silence

whenever you get to them

(consecutively, i mean)

Hour of the Wolf and Shame are his horror and sf films respectively, a good one-two punch of late black and white Bergman

i don't really think of Shame as sf, anymore than i do The Sacrifice.

I'm trying to sell it to the kids, Morbs

I love Shame, if it's possible to write such a thing. The scenes in the boat...

I had no idea Bergman ever did anything close to sf - Shame is part of a trilogy as well, right?

gonna start with the first trilogy, thanks morbs

Saw Persona for the fifth or sixth time last night, part of the Lightbox's big series--not utterly depressing. Between Shame and The Passion of Anna, both of which screened last week, I prefer The Passion of Anna. I've got Fanny and Alexander on the weekend, first time in many years.

I have Passion of Anna from an old Bergman DVD box. Been a few years since I've seen it, but I remember liking it more than a lot of his more high profile work.

Love F&A, perfect viewing for this time of year.

Fanny and Alexander is the one Bergman project I really didn't like. I've only seen the theatrical cut, but for one, the title is misleading- the movie's all about Alexander. also, this is a personal thing rather than a fault in the work, but I have a really hard time watching movies about paternalistic captors (Gaslight, Martha, The Night of the Hunter). I find them intensely uncomfortable to watch but more importantly very tedious, maybe because there's no suspense. imo a movie like Rosemary's Baby works brilliantly because we're kept in the dark until the very end.

You find The Night of the Hunter ... tedious?!

tedious to watch. I like all of the films I mentioned (except F&A), but I find them immensely frustrating to sit through because I have such a burning hatred for the villains. not sure why, nothing like this ever happened to me, maybe I don't find the archetype very interesting. Robert Mitchum is just so vile in that movie.

he had VILE and EVIL tattooed on his toes

Sexily vile.

Watching the "Trilogy" first is the correct answer, but I would add...

Dreams is worthwhile, it has a slightly different look for Bergman - more lush I'd say - and excellent performances.

Brink of Life has almost a Hollywood-type structure, though it goes places Hollywood probably wouldn't have in 1958. Recommended.

From the late period, I found From the Life of Marionettes quite interesting, at least stylistically

Dud: The Touch, The Serpent's Egg - his only two English-language films, which may not be coincidental

All These Women is such an oddity in his oeuvre, I don't know whether to call it a dud or a curiosity

watched The Silence tonight, as soon as I saw that guy on the ladder with the fixed expression of goofy horror/surprise, I was sure this was Bergman's Fellini parody: the dwarves, the male lover holding his shoe by the laces, the setting, the debauchery. I was sure I'd find a whole subsection on the wiki page about this, but nope - lumped in as one of these modernist films, of a piece with Marienbad and Belle du Jour (!). no way. it's such a break for Bergman and an obvious comment on the Italian directors... anyway, The Silence was great and better than all of Fellini's films combined.

now reading that his following film, All These Women, is a straight up 8 1/2 parody

buy the box people

It's out of print already! But they say it'll be available again next month.

Hoping this leads to more big single-director sets.

me too, & though we probably won't see something as amazing and insane as the Bergman box for a while, directors with 10 or fewer films could be manageable. they already have the Tati box, they could do a Tarkovsky box but Kino has Nostalghia and they just put out The Sacrifice (would be perfectly happy with a nice Mirror disc no matter who puts it out). Bresson is doable.

I read rumors (on ILX?) that there's supposed to be a big Kiarostami box from CC this year. Maybe that'll turn out just to be the Koker Trilogy.

It all comes down to who holds the rights. Bergman and Kurosawa boxes happened because most of their films are owned by single entities who'll mega-license.

It's been floated on other forums that the next collections could be (in addition to Kiarostami) Ozu, Fassbinder, or even a retooled upgrade of Kurosawa, now that some more of his films are in play.

there's at least a dozen Fassbinder movies that have never had a region 1 release afaik

I could almost see them doing a series of Fassbinder sets ala EMI's Bowie vinyl boxes.

There's a Tarkovsky box in the UK with all 7 films. The BFI Ozu and Kurosawa releases were annoyingly incomplete though.

Tarkovsky box (by Curzon/Artificial Eye) is sold out at source and (maybe by accident) includes a terrible transfer of Stalker. Criterion did a stand-alone Stalker which was much better. Agree that it all comes down to who owns the rights but Criterion have also done a restoration of Andrei Rublev recently so maybe the rights could be acquired idk.

there've been individual BR releases of everything(?) that was in the dvd box that i bought 5 or 6 years ago, i'd assumed they were all upgrades. and they are all available everywhere (seemingly)

BR box set, £40, amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sculpting-Time-Tarkovsky-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B074ZXQ226/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1547554845&sr=1-1&keywords=Andrei+Tarkovsky

oh, i see now that Ivan, Solaris and Stalker individual BRs are criterion editions and the others are from that box, Artificial Eye versions.

oh ok, this is the one I was thinking of (which I have), no idea how the content differs (if at all) from your one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrei-Tarkovsky-Sculpting-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B071L2QVY8/

xp

All of the Artificial Eye Tarkovsky BRs are meant to be 'remastered'. I bought the stand alone Nostalgia disc for £6 in Fopp - it is a significant upgrade on their previous, abysmal DVD, but still doesn't look that sparkling. Anagram is right that the Criterion Stalker - and Solaris - BRS available in the UK are much superior, and I'm guessing that their Andrei Rublev will be as well (I'm not even sure which cut of Rublev AE used for their disc).

Funnily enough I've been looking into this recently (this should really be on a Tarkovsky thread, but since we're here...) Criterion just did a new BR restoration of Andrei Rublev which contains both the 185m (Tarkovsky-approved) cut and a longer 205m cut, but it's only been released in the US (so Region 1 only) and is unlikely to be released in the UK since it contains a scene of animal cruelty which contravenes UK film legislation. (I assume all currently available UK versions don't contain this scene.) Criterion won't release the uncut version in the UK.

*cut* version, I meant to say.

The BBFC are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to animal cruelty in films - generally, the artier the movie, the more lenient they are, so they might well pass the full version of Rublev uncut. As I understand it, Tarkovsky himself came to prefer the slightly shorter version, tho it is good to be offered the choice.

so Linn Ullmann, who's written several novels, has finally penned one based on her relationship with her famous parents. She was profiled in the NYT Magazine last week.

noted here:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6151-january-books

Reading the Linn Ullmann book now, it's good. Lotsa detail about IB's personal habits, daily life at the house on Fåro, and the complicated dynamics of the Bergman/Ullmann family. Passages where she's trying to interview her dad as he's entering his dotage near the end are naturally pretty sad. Not yet clear on why this is called a novel instead of a straight-up memoir with names omitted.

RIP Bibi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UMbvohZ_iY

:-(

otherwise fine NY Times obit has a mistake in it:

In addition to winning four Guldbagge Awards, the Swedish equivalent of the Oscar, she was named best actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958 for “Nara Livet” (“Brink of Life”), sharing the award with three co-stars, and best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1963 for the title role in “Alskarinnan” (“The Mistress”). Paradoxically (and surprisingly, to many), neither was a Bergman film.

Brink of Life is a Bergman film, and a great one at that. Not sure of its availability outside the Criterion boxset.

It's still second tier Bergman -- the script is worse than the direction -- but I've realized I've been wrong about Autumn Sonata because I've denied how closely it cuts to the bone. I know way too many mothers and daughters in this same cycle of rage and affection.

I've started working my way again through Bergman chronologically, I've only gotten to Port of Call so far. Can't wait til I get to the later stuff

I'm working my way through the big criterion collection box. Still only about a quarter of the way through. Trying to keep track of my Bergman power rankings as I proceed. There have been some nice surprises so far and a couple duds. A whole bunch of ones I've never seen before too.

I saw The Virgin Spring yesterday at sort of a sparsely attended screening. even knowing the movie going in I underestimated how unbelievably harrowing and intense it is on a big screen and with other people, who were all either dead silent or openly weeping.

that's the kind of screening I want to attend

I just realized I've never seen any of his films on the big screen. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify that someday.

To me "showing cycles of rage and affection" is something that makes it 1st tier. Can't say I know what you mean on the direction, probably because I don't quite know how to evaluate that stuff.

The staging and framing are often A+; the writing too on-the-nose (probably one offscreen death too many).

I reckon he takes quite a lot of risks with that script, hence maybe why you feel it's on-the-nose.

It does feel like Bergman is doing a session of psychoanalysis and ends up breaking people lol.

was Summer With Monika really the film that made US critics/audiences recognize that Sweden had a more sexually liberated culture? if so, that’s interesting

I loved Smiles of a Summer Night

That was a new one to me when I got the criterion set, and it's probably my favorite find, absolutely delightful.

his best comedy - his only good comedy? the ones I've seen (Waiting Women and All These Women) are terrible

Have never seen The Devils's Eye, is that a bad comedy too?

I'd like to hear any review of The Devil's Eye, one of the very few classic period Bergmans I've not seen.

HIs birthday today - 101

wasn't expecting to love Wild Strawberries so much, seeing it again after decades

have been re-reading the thread. I guess you could call Wild Strawberries ‘life-affirming’. I just really liked how much of a fantasia it was, mixing absurd real events, dreams, and memories in the protagonist’s path from withdrawal to engagement. Victor Sjöström was great in it

thought To Joy was one of the strangest and most interesting of his early films

I enjoyed seeing the 60s Bergman films that are supposed to form a trilogy - Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence.

According to Bergman “these three films deal with reduction: Through a Glass Darkly – conquered certainty; Winter Light – penetrated certainty; The Silence – God's silence, the negative imprint.”

They are very dark (The Silence also has a lot of humor), but they are all fantastic

thought The Silence did seem somewhat Fellini-esque as flappy bird mentioned above, mostly the sections with the the child

Those are coming up soon in my Bergman box. I haven't seen them in about 15 years, but I remember them all being brutally bleak.

they all seem to be focused on the acknowledgement of the silence of god, and the choices that the characters then have about how to live their lives: Through a Glass Darkly ultimately concluding that god is love amid the scenes of hopelessness; Winter Light, in which rational discussions of love for and belief in god and belief in human relationships reveal them to be problematic, with some hope ultimately offered for faith; The Silence, even further diminishing our confidence in faith but also maybe elevating it, offering of a huge ray of light with the character of Johan1

Ended up skipping over Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, and Cries and Whispers for the moment and watching Scenes from a Marriage, the theatrical version. The first time I saw it was as a teenager. It feels now like it was of its time, in a good way

Gotta do the long version, it's so good

thinking I should, maybe will wait until I work my way through the rest of his films though. It does bring up for me the question of whether to watch the mini-series version or theatrical version of Fanny and Alexander

seeing this again a lot of its appeal is in the attractiveness of the two main characters, and I can now better relate to their worry about the reality of love, about the possibility of not having loved or been loved enough

It definitely hit me harder on my recent viewing than the previous one some 15 years ago. A big part of it is just their wonderful acting and all the long, long takes.

I prefer the theatrical F&A, it flows better, but both are worth watching.

I probably say it a couple times a year on this board, but you NEED to watch the full cut of F&A.

criterion channel does have both

really looking forward to seeing Persona again

Cries and Whisper is intense, it feels like a culmination of his surreal psychosexual dramas

I like Ebert’s description that the camera darts and falls back as if stunned, then in other scenes doesn’t look away when you want it to, focusing on the close-up with extreme impassivity

not sure what I think of Face to Face as a film, but Liv Ullmann is an incredible force in it

“love surrounds everything, even death” is a good resolution

it is kind of amazing that he allows dream scenes to take over big segments of his films

Face to Face is second tier Bergman. I have trouble remembering it beyond Ullmann reaction shots (as ever).

it feels like a lot of his characters even if they are tragic are willing/trying to support others

I love that about his films

The Serpent's Egg definitely seems like lesser Bergman

It's the one film of his I couldn't be bothered to finish.

Wild Strawberries is still my favorite of all of Bergman’s films. It is expansive and kind-hearted. It worries about the regrets we all have over the instances of rejection and distance that take place in the course of our lives but in the end it understands that compassion overrides everything. It is amazing that he made this when he was 39 years old

I've realized I've been wrong about Autumn Sonata because I've denied how closely it cuts to the bone. I know way too many mothers and daughters in this same cycle of rage and affection.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 4, 2019

There has always been praise for Ingrid Bergman in Autumn Sonata, but seeing it now Liv Ullmann’s performance seems as great. They are both particularly good in their scenes with each other

Pretty surprised by Dreams, a masterpiece by anyone else. I know Godard was a big fan (he either reviewed it in full or in passing, but he cited it a lot in his early criticism), anyway I'm pretty sure he lifted the opening shot of Alphaville from the train sequence in Dreams. Solidly second tier Bergman imo—a movie that lingers like a dream and feels just as elusive and emotionally obscure.

Dreams is one of the Bergman films I’ve missed, along with Sawdust and Tinsel

The first half of Fanny and Alexander is lovely and heartwarming, even when the events progress into sadness. The increasing cruelty of life in the Vergérus household in the second half is distressing but is made endurable because of Alexander’s optimism and bravery, and because the story is eventually overtaken by mystical events and by the return of Emilie, Fanny, and Alexander to the family

Dreams doesn't appear to be streaming or on US disc

It's in the big ol' box

(aside from a massive Criterion IB collection, that is -- no stand-alone) xp

Dreams is on the Criterion Channel, as is Sawdust and Tinsel, I'm looking forward to seeing them

The Devil's Eye is much better than his later attempt at comedy All These Women. not great, but very good

I wonder what he made of his daughter Anna's acting career?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Bergman

Bergman mostly appeared as a performer in several British sex comedies during the late 1970s including the title role in Penelope Pulls It Off (1975), Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), Intimate Games (1976), Come Play with Me (1977) and What's Up Superdoc! (1978)

"Anna Bergman's films utterly depressing" -- Ingmar Bergman

"as told to an ILX reporter."

"Shut UP, dad!"

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81bTOhaRUZL._SL1500_.jpg

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

So I finally knuckled down and watched The Seventh Seal. This film is such a piece of world cultural heritage it's really beyond criticism. But the above quote couldn't be more poignant, given the fires in Australia and Brazil, and other prominent climate changes. I suppose I really ought to take this to a politics thread.

Starting scenes from a marriage , my first bergman

was my first bergman too

Theatrical or mini-series version?

TV version of course

Are you watching his films in descending order of length? Fanny and Alexander next then.

I was going to ask what to watch next …

Here’s my review 2/3 way through
First third strong, delicious writing
Second third weaker. Where are the daughters?

I watched The Magic Flute today, found it hard to stay engaged with but was pleasant background

Second third weaker. Where are the daughters?

Otm.

i'm three episodes into the HBO scenes from a marriage remake, and i like how the daughter is actually a presence in the story, as opposed to being completely ignored in the original. not finding much interesting about it beyond that, though

Bergman Island begins as a droll, faintly precious Hong Sang-soo flick before going in an unexpected, delightful direction. Mia Hansen-Løve wrote and directed.

Pulled Dreams out of the box last night and really enjoyed it, as good as his early/"second tier" stuff gets. But I will always remember it for the little button at the end of Eva Dahlbeck's last scene with her lover, which got a huge LOL from me, maybe the single best joke in his filmography imho.

I like the film a lot, can't remember the joke

Just a perfectly staged & timed black-comic gag after an intense dramatic scene. (Hope I got the spoiler tag right bc I dont want to ruin it for folks.)

http://i.imgur.com/cAIEp5U.jpg

Ah, thanks!

to me the miniseries is just the guy from Star Wars and the lady from zero dark thirty having relationship problems no thanks

Damn I do want to catch the reissue of Cries and Whispers.

The new BFI trailer for it is excellent, but really pushes the horror movie angle (which of course it is and isn't, like so many Bergmans):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pbh0oTQXmE

Caught it at the GFT last week, it jumped from one of my least favourite Bergman's to one of my favourites

While filming "Winter Light" (1963), Ingmar Bergman felt Gunnar Björnstrand was too happy to play the lead character. So, Ingmar asked a doctor to tell Gunnar that he suffered from a severe disease. Gunnar was then put on medication & became very depressed. pic.twitter.com/0zGRfVoTbU

— DepressedBergman (@DannyDrinksWine) September 10, 2023