Content warning – Ingmar Bergman’s films frequently deal with mature issues concerning sexuality, cruelty, or both. Many significant spoilers below, in case you are a budding Bergman fan and don’t want to know. In fairness, all of the movies noted below are at the very least thirty-six years old. It’s not every day one’s favorite… Read More Seven Sevens: The Ingmar Bergman Centennial
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin, Jorgen Lindstrom What’s particularly interesting about Bergman’s so-called “Trilogy of Faith,” which concludes with this picture and is preceded by Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light, is that each one throws us into unfamiliar territory without giving us very much in advance. In the first, we… Read More The Silence (1963)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Nils Poppe When he says the following words, the Knight (von Sydow) has just been fooled by Death (Bengt Ekerot), who was playacting as a priest at confession. Even though he has just given away an exceptional strategy in the chess game that will decide whether… Read More The Seventh Seal (1957)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Allan Edwall There’s not much sympathy left in the world for Tomas Ericsson (Bjornstrand). Surely that must have been true, to some extent, in the ’60s, but it is all the more accurate five decades on. Tomas is financially stable. He is a practitioner of an old… Read More Winter Light (1963)
I’ve completed a series of episode-by-episode reviews of the television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage. I’ve decided to make it easier to access these posts as part of a group by making this page as an index. I’ve also added a short synopsis of each episode so that you can find what you’re looking for quickly.… Read More Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Gunnel Lindblom (My thoughts on the previous episode are here.) It’s not surprising that in this final episode, more like an epilogue than an actual continuation of the plot, Johan and Marianne seem to be back together. They are no longer married. He’s married to an Anna,… Read More Scenes from a Marriage, S1E6, “In the Middle of the Night in a Dark House Somewhere in the World”
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Gunnel Lindblom (My thoughts on the previous episode are here.) Of the six episodes of this miniseries, “The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug” is the shortest by a good ten minutes. Once again, despite giving us some time with Johan and Marianne in the early… Read More Scenes from a Marriage S1E2, “The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug”
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Max von Sydow, Gunnel Lindblom, Birgitta Valberg Sometimes, when I like to think modern literature or music or art is edgy, I remind myself of late medieval verse and gain some perspective. An example I’ve done some research on is the history of blood libels, expressed succinctly in “The Prioress’ Tale” from The… Read More The Virgin Spring (1960)
Seeing Things Secondhand 