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

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