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

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.