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.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 5 February 2018 02:27 (six years ago) link
"Could this famously manipulative genius have survived in the #MeToo era?"
― Tarr Yang Preminger Argento Carpenter (Eric H.), Monday, 5 February 2018 02:33 (six years ago) link
Dreyer is next!
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 February 2018 02:37 (six years ago) link
lol was gonna say hitchcock but he actually did get me too'd
― flappy bird, Monday, 5 February 2018 03:45 (six years ago) link
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.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 5 February 2018 08:02 (six years ago) link
well, acc to Tippi (I believe her)
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 5 February 2018 08:58 (six years ago) link
#metoo
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 5 February 2018 10:06 (six years ago) link
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.
― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Monday, 5 February 2018 10:57 (six years ago) link
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.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 5 February 2018 11:40 (six years ago) link
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...
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:35 (six years ago) link
Funny, yes. Not quite lighthearted.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 00:41 (six years ago) link
on second thought yeah the subject matter is really quite dark. still ive had more dismal times in hollywood action movies
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 6 February 2018 15:41 (six years ago) link
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?
― Dominique, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 15:58 (six years ago) link
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
― jmm, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 16:44 (six years ago) link
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.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 6 February 2018 16:55 (six years ago) link
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.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 00:02 (six years ago) link
Check this out!
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 00:12 (six years ago) link
I can't find it online, but there's a '70s Peanuts strip wherein Lucy reveals she uses a Liv Ullmann signature baseball glove.
― ...some of y'all too woke to function (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 00:55 (six years ago) link
holy shit^
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 7 February 2018 05:49 (six years ago) link
This also happened:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS51eS-P-y5HIJt0gb1wvQEv_UPbEJwcFgTX9wmM5UsbLLqYV7e
― ...some of y'all too woke to function (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 09:11 (six years ago) link
― scrüt (wins), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 09:50 (six years ago) link
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
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 7 February 2018 21:56 (six years ago) link
Solid Lane essay.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 10 February 2018 12:58 (six years ago) link
Harriet Andersson turns 86 on Wednesday
― Josefa, Monday, 12 February 2018 17:01 (six years ago) link
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
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 February 2018 17:13 (six years ago) link
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.
― Josefa, Monday, 12 February 2018 17:33 (six years ago) link
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.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 February 2018 17:39 (six years ago) link
Summer Interlude was the real eye-opener when I saw the Blu-ray print a couple years ago: that shit was sexy.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 12 February 2018 17:41 (six years ago) link
yeah Summer Interlude is great
― flappy bird, Monday, 12 February 2018 17:45 (six years ago) link
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.
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.
― Josefa, Monday, 12 February 2018 18:31 (six years ago) link
Welles liked Curtiz too.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 12 February 2018 19:45 (six years ago) link
As did Fassbinder.
― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Monday, 12 February 2018 19:49 (six years ago) link
You can tell how good Curtiz and Raoul Walsh were: both failed to make the ILX 100.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 February 2018 19:50 (six years ago) link
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.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 17 February 2018 03:00 (six years ago) link
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.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 22 February 2018 03:41 (six years ago) link
(The actor who plays the censorious judge is named Erik Hell. He goes into a confessional and the priest is Bergman.)
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 22 February 2018 03:49 (six years ago) link
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.
― Josefa, Thursday, 22 February 2018 05:22 (six years ago) link
would explain Woody's thing
― flappy bird, Thursday, 22 February 2018 05:29 (six years ago) link
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/8894/persona-opening-titles
This. Or the same with black & white reversed.
― Josefa, Thursday, 22 February 2018 05:45 (six years ago) link
Well I give up, look up "Persona font." I think the font is called Florida.
― Josefa, Thursday, 22 February 2018 05:59 (six years ago) link
Looks like The Seventh Seal through Shame have the same titles. (1957 to 1968).
― Josefa, Thursday, 22 February 2018 06:15 (six years ago) link
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).
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 22 February 2018 19:33 (six years ago) link
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).
― Josefa, Friday, 23 February 2018 04:28 (six years ago) link
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. ;)
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, 23 February 2018 04:39 (six years ago) link
I had heard that re 8 1/2 but I didn't really see it, except very superficially (decor, clothes)
― Josefa, Friday, 23 February 2018 04:44 (six years ago) link
I can see it later...
https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/all-these-women
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, 23 February 2018 04:48 (six years ago) link
77 minutes, huh. Seems a lot longer.
― Josefa, Friday, 23 February 2018 04:56 (six years ago) link
I can see it later...https://www.kanopystreaming.com/product/all-these-women
― Whiney On The Moog (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 23 February 2018 11:38 (six years ago) link
well, that sucks, not that i have watched a single thing on it yet.
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 February 2018 21:32 (six years ago) link
two talks with Liv at Film Forum
https://filmforum.org/events/podcasts
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, 9 March 2018 18:48 (six years ago) link