Monadology: Ingmar Bergman Movies Are Awesome

Having been asked by a friend to give some recommendations on which movies of Ingmar Bergman to see, I decided that 140 characters weren’t quite enough. I don’t want to be too wordy, though, a wont that often prevents me from actually posting the things I get started on writing (there’s about a dozen now), so I’ll constrain myself to two sentences about each. I don’t have Nate’s pith. To be clear, I’m only just working my way through Bergman and can speak only based on the few movies I’ve seen (unlike my wife, who despite her movie aversion these days, watched nearly the entire Bergman corpus in high school).

Most St. John’s folks have seen The Magic Flute, and for a general introduction to a guy who used some crazy cinematic techniques to talk about some pretty esoteric topics, I think you can’t do much better than this (unless you don’t like good operas, in which case screw you). An unapologetically goofy presentation of Mozart’s pretty goofy opera shows us the humor and good nature of both artists.

I next saw Fanny and Alexander on the big screen at the AFI Silver Theatre. I loved the portrait of the sensuous, happy, and secular 19th-century family, not to mention the beautful photography, and while I didn’t so much care for what felt at times like an attack on a straw man about religion, by the end I was convinced that it was a useful presentation of two flawed but attractive sides of a familiar dichotomy.
Wild Strawberries was featured at Koine Cinema and I recall it as a success, at least with me, though the experience showed me how much patience can be required for Bergman, a patience that I’m used to in watching movies, but others might not be. As for the movie itself, the slow examination of man handing on misery to man, but with a different answer than This Be the Verse—what’s not to love?
Smiles of a Summer Night is pure pleasure. It’s Chaucer on the screen, replete with lots of bed-jumping and laughter.
Winter Light is so powerful to me on a personal level that I feel hesitant to give it as much praise as I want to: it’s a movie about a minister in Sweden, as told clearly (I think) by a director who was the son of a minister. It’s part of three movies called Bergman’s trilogy of faith, by some, and more specifically about God’s silence, though no one should feel warned off by the Christianity in its themes.
I didn’t like Through a Glass Darkly as much as I’ve liked other Bergman movies, largely because I feel like I didn’t quite understand the title’s import. Also, the movie seems to be more explicitly about mental illness than other Bergman movies that are said to be about it, and that’s a topic that, qua illness, tends to dissatisfy me.
Scenes from a Marriage may be the best-executed movie of his that I’ve seen, even though it feels more like a play at times and even though Bergman, tellingly, thought Winter Light was his best movie. I’ve buried it at the bottom, but I enjoy Bergman mostly for his movies’ soul-ripping, as Mary calls it, and this movie may do the most of that of all those I’ve seen, although in a good way, I swear. Violating my rule: it’s like what Allen wanted to do, but had to make comic.
I won’t say anything more about Persona than that I really loved it and that one probably shouldn’t start with it.

Comments

On February 21 at 4'14 PM, KJ wrote:

Thanks for the thoughts. I don’t have the time or the energy these days to make a systematic study, but I would like to become better acquainted with Bergman. Your comments seem like they’ll be helpful guides.

On February 21 at 4'29 PM, Robbie wrote:

Is The Seventh Seal too obvious a choice to talk about? I’m curious about your thoughts.

On February 21 at 8'58 PM, Tanya wrote:

Echoing Robbie’s comment above. I adore the Seventh Seal.

On February 21 at 10'02 PM, Hb wrote:

Just haven’t watched The Seventh Seal is all. May be a too obvious choice in some fashion: it sat at home for months me without watching it, being one of those I-know-I-should-be-watching-this movies. Hence, I’d recommend against making any kind of study or duty out of watching Bergman: it doesn’t work.

On February 26 at 6'08 PM, Eric B wrote:

I would say The Virgin Spring is arresting and at times almost unbearable. It was remade by Wes Craven into The Last House on the Left, which itself is getting the no-subtext Hollywood treatment into pure vigilante escapism (as far as I can tell from the trailer). Actually, it might fit in well with Nate’s recent posts about evil and empathy.

That said, my first Bergman experience was Persona, though that was within the cozy confines of a film class. Still one of my favorites.

On February 26 at 11'12 PM, hb wrote:

Glad to see that Persona can be viewed well in other circumstances than my own. I’ll have to check out The Virgin Springs. Your description of “arresting and at times almost unbearable” describes a lot of his movies, at least to me. Makes me want to watch it all the more.

On February 28 at 1'16 PM, Michael Sullivan wrote:

I rewatched Seventh Seal last night with some friends. Still awesome. Just go for it, hb!

On June 26 at 3'13 PM, aleph wrote:

If you liked Scenes from a Marriage, you should really see Faithless.

Ingmar Bergman Movies Are Awesome

February 21, 2009

by HB

Comments