The Bergman Files: To Joy
“One wants to be a real person and an artist” – the character of Stig early in the film.
For me, Bergman had been in a bit of a funk through his last couple of films. But thankfully he blows it out of the water, with the excellent To Joy (1950). There is a refreshing originality to this film when compared to the tired Thirst (1949) which makes this one of the more enjoyable early Bergman watches.
Many of the same plot points feature here – a love story, surprise pregnancy, abortion. However here the whole thing is set against the backdrop of an orchestra which revitalises these themes and makes them as engaging as they should be. The couple at the centre of the relationship, Marta and Stig are the new musicians in the orchestra, although they have met in the past. Much of the early part of the film takes part in the rehearsals of the orchestra and Bergman clearly has fun with those sequences. I did too, even though I have minimal interest in or knowledge of classical music, I appreciated the skill of the musicians and also of Bergman in presenting their work. His camera flits from musician to musician allowing the viewer to see the individual cogs and also the orchestra as a whole. In addition to the freshness that the orchestra adds to the film, the structure also strays from Bergman’s formula. The film starts with a horrific accident and then goes back seven years to build back up toward it.
The relationship between Marta and Stig is one with a lot of complexity and depth. It begins in a scene by the beach where they almost negotiate the terms of their agreement. But from this beginning, Bergman is able to paint a love story, though one with a number of hurdles to clear. Stig has some demons himself, especially the disconnect between his ambition and his skill as a musician. For a long time throughout the film he is yearning yet falling short of what the quote at the top of the page describes. Like many of Bergman’s characters, Stig is enigmatic, talented and struggling to find to his place in the world. Marta comes into this world and both supports and challenges him, building him to great heights and standing by him through great lows when she could be forgiven for cutting him adrift. A pet gripe of mine, film at times seems to have an obsession with adultery. In this film there is an adultery subplot that for me took all of the steam out of the narrative. Luckily the script recovered and the reconnection of Marta and Stig was an effecting one. Actually their reconciliation is really nicely done, especially as the whole thing is presented by the two of them reading love letters from the other. This reconciliation is reflected in the really nice ending which whilst sentimental, is effecting, completing the release of one of the main characters from their grief.
Once again Bergman gets a very good performance from his female lead, this time Maj-Britt Nilsson as Marta who carries the film. Also featuring here is the father of Swedish film and Bergman’s mentor, iconic director Victor Sjostrom as Stig’s mentor, and the conductor of the orchestra. Sjostrom gives a really good performance and his character is effective in that it expands the world of the film out from the two central players. The film looks excellent with clean cinematography and looks very sharp. Bergman employs a lot of close-ups as well, focusing in on the couple early in their relationship at the exclusion of the wider world. Much like how a new relationship feels, with only the other person mattering, rather than any outside distractions. Another really clever use of close-up is in the scene when Stig and Marta are married. As they are exchanging vows, the camera lingers on a close-up of Marta’s face, even when Stig is talking, showing the impact of this moment on one of the parties involved. Bergman also utilises darkness visually really well. Much like a silent director, he intentionally shrouds various parts of the screen in darkness, obscuring what he wants to remain hidden.
The presence of long swathes of music and the flashback structure means that this is the most original that Bergman has felt for a number of films. Expanding on his usual love story and themes by incorporating orchestral music and an illuminating structure to elevate the film.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- To Joy (1950)
- Crisis (1946)
- Port of Call (1948)
- Music in Darkness (1948)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
- Prison (1949)
- Thirst (1949)
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The Bergman Files: Thirst
“It is the politics of relationships and the sociology of the psyche that is really Bergman’s concern. Marriage and the perils of domestic life”. – Michiko Kakutani on the concerns of Bergman’s films.
Ingmar Bergman’s 7th directorial effort Thirst (1949) continues in a similar thematic vein to a number of his early efforts, focusing on relationships, unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Here he also shines a light on the sexes and what defines them.
Eva Henning, who gives a fantastic performance in Thirst.
Just as the quote above from Kakutani suggests, this film from Bergman is deeply concerned with relationships and the politics that can affect them. The film opens with a mistress who does not know she is a mistress. Her lover is a military man. Eventually the affair is discovered and the main character is confronted by the military man’s wife. All of this is wrought with the politics and ethics of relationships and lust. Once again there is an unwanted pregnancy and once again it ends with an abortion. The abortion in this film is a real focal point and it deeply affects the character of Rut who undergoes the procedure. This is probably the most effective aspect of the film and Bergman makes this fallout feel a lot more real than in the other couple of films that have had abortions take place. Rut struggles through and verbalises her post-abortion struggle, how it makes her feel inside both emotionally and physically. The crushing pain of the procedure that she did not want. In these parts of the film, Eva Henning who plays Rut, gives a really fantastic performance.
The film is jarring in that it relatively late in the piece brings in an entirely new plotline featuring a borderline evil psychiatrist and lesbian seduction. It is pretty inexplicable how all this is brought in and really quite befuddling for the viewer, even one paying careful attention. This film is not as interestingly shot as Bergman’s previous film Prison. But it is really nicely edited with some creative fades and match shots. If it was not so confusing what was going on, the film would have been a whole lot more interesting. Especially with the continual emphasising of the distinction between the sexes, which is a nice thematic addition from Bergman. But unfortunately one that is buried by the film’s shortcomings.
As you have probably gathered, Thirst left me monumentally underwhelmed, a second pretty major disappointment in a row. But at least the earlier Prison had started off really quite ambitious and intriguing – no such sort of saving grace for Thirst. This is rambling and Bergman’s thematic concerns are starting to get quite wearisome.
Verdict: Schooner of Carlton Draught
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- Crisis (1946)
- Port of Call (1948)
- Music in Darkness (1948)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
- Prison (1949)
- Thirst (1949)
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The Bergman Files: Prison
“Once he wrote a script about a girl named Birgitta Carolina. She went through the world as if living in a real-life morality play, encountering evil, oddity, degeneracy, poetry, and goodness. And the script ended with her finding salvation. In the final scene she stood singing in the uniform of the Salvation Army.” – Vilgot Sjoman on Bergman’s original script for Prison.
Watching Prison (1949) for the first time, one is immediately struck by the striking imagery that Bergman seeks out – a lone figure walking along windswept hills kicks the film off. He also seeks it out in a more creative manner than the rather straightforward shooting of his first five features. There are zooms, pans, close-ups and much more than we have seen from him previously. There are a number of possible explanations for this. Firstly, the budget of the film was exceedingly tight, so Bergman may be going to more creative lengths to try and make the film look good. Whilst this is part of it, I think the main reason is a heightened ambition on display from the great director. He seems to be challenging both himself and his audience with this film.
DVD cover of Prison.
This ambition earned some goodwill from me toward Prison, but it only lasted so long. Unfortunately after the exhilaration of the first 15 or so minutes’ ambitious musings, the film becomes overly complicated and pretty underwhelming in general. The film is essentially a film within a film. Or at least I think it is. This device of a film within a film serves to distance the audience from what is occurring onscreen, resulting in scenes that should hold a lot of weight – the birth of new love and the tearing asunder of old – lack an emotional punch. When Bergman begins adding in flashbacks within the film within the film and dreams within the film within the film, things in the film just get altogether too dizzying to follow. I will not spoil the end of the film for those who wish to see it. But I will say that the ending mentioned in Sjoman’s summary above does not come to pass. Bergman was reputedly talked out of his original ending, convinced that it was too sentimental. I think this lack of conviction perhaps shows throughout the film, as it is a genuinely unfocused work.
As great a director as Bergman would go on to become, at this stage of his career he does not seem up to the challenge of handling this storyline. There is just too much going on here. The director in the film looks a lot like Bergman which suggests that the work is at least in part autobiographical. Add to this the scene involving a cinematograph, a favoured childhood toy of Bergman’s, and these suggestions grow even more overt. The storyline is attempting to be quite self aware and self referential in its construction. And the thematic concerns are not integrated as well into the core love story narrative as in a number of his other early works. Mortality, famously one of the director’s core thematic concerns, is much more prominent here but it also just feels a little out of place in many of the sequences. Again Bergman is confronting, here the exploration of abortion in Port of Call (1948) becomes an examination of infanticide. It is telling that whilst this part of the film shocks, as well it should, it does not have the resonance that it should.
This is Bergman’s best looking and most interesting film thus far, but it is also my least favourite them. The start of the film makes you suspect that he is going to deliver something great for the first time in his career. By the end though, you will just be unengaged and unenthused.
Verdict: Schooner of Carlton Draught
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- Crisis (1946)
- Port of Call (1948)
- Music in Darkness (1948)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
- Prison (1949)
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The Bergman Files Guest Post: Port of Call
Here is the fifth installment of The Bergman Files, this review courtesy of fellow critic Jonathon Fisher. Jon is the creator and editor of The Film Brief and host of The Film Brief podcast which you can find on iTunes. Thanks to Jon for the review, and be sure to check out his website and podcast (which he kindly lets me co-host).
A poster for Port of Call
“The only bit of Port of Call which I wrote–and which is bad anyway and clashes with the rest of the film–is the hero’s experiences when he gets drunk with a whore. It’s really a miserable piece of work, thoroughly stylized and semi-literary, utterly out of tune with the rest of the film.” – Ingmar Bergman in Bergman on Bergman
Bergman denigrates Port of Call (1948),or at least, his influence on the film, in the above quote and his attitude towards the film typifies its place within his canon. This was the fifth film by the great Swedish director, and it lacks the confidence and grace of his later works. On its own terms, though, Port of Call is an interesting watch, a fine drama that hints at the great career that was to follow.
The film begins with a tragic scene – an attractive young woman in a summer dress flings herself into the icy waters that surround an industrial Swedish port town. She is rescued, and carted off in a car, amid a ‘nothing to see here’ vibe from the townsfolk. This early scene hints at one (of several) distinctly Bergman themes that Port of Call touches upon – mental health, its fragility, and the indifference with which Swedish society wilfully regards it.
This young woman is Berit (Nine-Christine Jönsson), who we learn is plagued by any number of personal issues that would drive anyone insane, including a tense relationship with her immediate family, whom she feels abandoned her as a child. After her suicide attempt, she meets Gösta, a young sailor who has returned to land after a prolonged period of working at sea. They gradually fall in love, and Gösta struggles to come to terms with Berit’s history as she reveals her tortured past to him, piece by piece.
Port of Call is certainly identifiable as a work by Bergman. The psychologically tortured female protagonist, a male character who has difficulty dealing with the past, the edgy portrayal of sexuality and the struggles of working-class Swedes are all themes that the iconic director would return to, again and again, in his storied career. In this film, we get the sense that he is maturing. The characters are not as intricate, or portrayed as sympathetically, as in many of his other works. It suggests the talent that Bergman possessed at such a young age that even in a film that demonstrates his developing sense of character, that Port of Call still contains several scenes of elegance and beauty; the scene in which we meet Berit’s mother, for instance, or the final scene in which the lovers discuss their future.
It is telling that Bergman is reductive of his influence on Port of Call. Bergman was a notorious navel gazer when it came to his own work (which most film fans would agree was a good thing), and was brutally honest about his work. In this instance, it is as clear to him as it would be clear to audiences familiar with his body of work that in 1948, when Port of Call was made, he was a work in progress, both as a film-maker and as a man. His later career saw far more incisive investigations of mental health, sexuality, issues of faith and existential malaise, than this one. Port of Call is no classic Bergman masterpiece, but it tells us something of his development as a film-maker, and as such should be prized by any serious movie enthusiast.
Rating: Stubby of Reschs.
Tim says: I agree pretty much completely with Jon on this one. This is another minor early Bergman film, but the themes are coming through more and more strongly. Worth checking out for a Bergman buff.
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- Crisis (1946)
- Port of Call (1948)
- Music in Darkness (1948)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
The Bergman Files: Music in Darkness
“I just want to exist. Nothing more” – Bengt, the newly blind protagonist of Music in Darkness.
Ingmar Bergman’s fourth film Music in Darkness (1948) continues an unbroken run of love stories. This tale concerns the evolving love between Bengt, an upper class man who is blinded in the film’s opening sequence, and Ingrid from the peasantry. The film is at its best when this love is slowly building between the two main characters, rather than when showing Bengt’s struggles to come to terms with his sudden blindness in isolation. These struggles are still there when she is also onscreen and the manner in which she helps him to take on this suddenly dark world give their relationship much of its tenderness and weight.
The first scene is a cracker. I mentioned Hitchcock in my review of A Ship Bound for India (1947), but this scene is even more reminiscent of the great man. Bengt is on an artillery range when a gorgeous puppy wanders into the range of machine gun fire. It seems like an age between rounds of fire as Bengt tries to lure the puppy to safety in what is an exceptionally tense scene. Eventually there is another burst of machine gun fire and Bengt crumples to the earth. What follows is a quite strangely brilliant, albeit a little out of place sequence as Bengt lays in a coma. It is a series of stark almost avant-garde imagery – an eye, writhing mud-clad tortured figure, and towering fish – that is quite unlike anything Bergman has produced so far in his first three films. When Bengt finally awakes he finds that he is completely blind, obviously a massive blow to the man. This is redoubled by the fact that his fiancée leaves him because of his newfound state. It is a little strange actually that more is not made of her leaving throughout the film. Into this life comes Ingrid, a member of the peasantry who works in the house where Bengt lives. The early part of their relationship is quite beautifully built up. It begins as a friendship as she goes to far more effort than anyone to engage with the blind man. She literally broadens the horizon of a world that has suddenly closed in around Bengt. This whole first part of the film is really wonderful. In his third film with Bergman, Birger Malmsten is acting out of his skin, perfectly conveying how it must feel to suddenly have one’s sight taken away. The love story meanwhile is a return to the more subtle slow building ones of Bergman’s first two films after the more melodramatic romance of A Ship Bound for India.
Promo material for the film.
As the film goes on, we discover that Bengt is a talented pianist and organist, hence starkly illustrating the quite wonderful title that the film has. After failing to be accepted into the Royal Music Academy, Bengt leaves his lodgings and gains work in a restaurant away from Ingrid. They part on bad terms after she overhears him calling her a “little wench” for some unknown reason after it is suggested they could eventually marry. Following this, she understandably refuses to respond to Bengt’s correspondence. After such a great start, I was disappointed that the film really petered out through a long middle section where Bengt and Ingrid are apart. Their separate character arcs are interesting enough, but they pale when compared to the masterful build of their relationship. The impetus that was given by their budding romance is only recaptured when they are once again united, this time with their future prospects in question given that Ingrid now has a new boyfriend. Again, the film excels as it explores whether our main couple will end up together or not.
A really excellent first third and a satisfying concluding final quarter sandwich something that is quite disinteresting. It is great to see the genuine tension on show, both in the opening sequence and also in a later sequence on railroad tracks. Also, Bergman continues to show that he is extremely adept as both writer and director at bringing his films to really satisfying conclusions. Just be prepared for this to be really rather flat throughout the middle period.
Verdict: Stubby of Reschs
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- Crisis (1946)
- Music in Darkness (1948)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
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The Bergman Files: A Ship Bound for India
“The adult world is, with few exceptions, cruel hypocritical or at best indifferent” – Birgitta Steene writing about the worldview of Bergman’s early films.
Ingmar Bergman’s third directorial feature A Ship Bound for India (1947) tells the story of Johannes, a young man confronting the cruel adult world that Steene mentions in the quote above. In this film, that adult world is personified in the immensely unlikeable character of Captain Alexander Blom, Johannes’ father. In the film, Johannes returns to his home town after seven long years away. The early part of the film reveals a past love that had gone awry and the bulk of the film is a long flashback sequence which details how this occurred. Johannes lived on a salvage boat with his mother and father as well as a few other men who worked for his dad. Into this life comes Sally, Captain Blom’s mistress. That a man would so openly flaunt his mistress in front of his son and long-time wife, shows what kind of a character Captain Blom is. To put it bluntly he is an unmitigated and irredeemable prick of a man. It is not giving too much away to say that Johannes and Sally come to fall in love, and the film recounts the efforts of this young man to escape the cruel clutches of his father and make his own way in the world.
Ingmar’s father Erik Bergman
The early parts of the flashback establish the two main male characters by contrasting them against one another. Johannes is kindly and quiet, exceptionally self-conscious of a small hump in his back. Conversely his father is a drunken jackass who gets into bar fights and cheats on his wife. This early part of the film shows that for all of his amazing talents as a director, shooting fight scenes was definitely not Ingmar Bergman’s strong suit. Captain Blom is not just a mean and cruel man, but a sadistic one. He loves the power he wields over everyone else in the film – his long-time crew, Johannes, his caring wife and his mistress Sally. He treats them all terribly for no other reason than he thinks that he can. However, gradually throughout the film, this hold that the Captain has over all of these people begins to weaken in one way or another. This manipulative man, who stirs up Johannes about his hump knowing full well how self conscious about it his son is, is truly one of the most unlikeable characters ever committed to film. It is well known that Bergman himself had a complicated relationship with his own father, so one has to wonder if that explains at least in part the character of Captain Blom. In many ways the emotional centre of the film is Alice Blom, Johannes caring mother and long suffering wife of the Captain. She is publicly humiliated by Captain Blom when he brings his mistress aboard. All she has ever dreamt of is a cottage in the country with her husband, and now that dream is being torn away from her. She illustrates her grief by recounting the heartfelt and symbolic story to Captain Alexander of when they first started out in the salvage industry and she operated the equipment that kept him alive underwater. She was literally responsible for him being able to breathe. Predictably, the Captain is entirely unmoved by the emotional pleas of this wonderful woman.
Johannes and Sally, who find love under the strangest of circumstances in this film. © 1958 Nordisk Tonefilm. All Rights Reserved
For me, A Ship Bound for India did not reach the heights of Bergman’s first two films. It is by no means bad, it just does not have the same heart running through its core. The love story between Johannes and Sally is rendered in a much more melodramatic manner than in the other two films which feature slow burn relationships that really build. My favourite aspects of the film thoughwere its nautical elements. The first real image of the film that we see is a ship being battered by a storm, and much of the film takes place on boats and the surrounding docks. There are plenty of shots of shipyards, boats and close-ups of ropes and propellers early in the film to set the scene. Success in this world is measured by one’s success as a seaman. Captain Blom puts his hunchbacked son down by scoffing at his assertions that he will one day be a successful captain himself. Johannes is lauded upon his return at the beginning of the film though because this is exactly what he has made of himself. This whole environment is a real change to the more urban or at least landlubber settings of the other Bergman films I have reviewed. The nautical aspect of the film also plays host to the film’s most riveting moment. In a Hitchcockian moment of tension, Captain Blom attempts to murder his son whilst he is underwater using the very old school diving apparatus. Great stuff!
A Ship Bound for India is an interesting, but minor early Bergman flick. Overall, whilst I did definitely enjoy this film, it is a touch more obvious and does not have the same delightful subtleties that pervade both Crisis (1946) and It Rains on our Love (1946). By all means though, the film is still worth checking out to see Bergman’s film journey continue.
Verdict: Stubby of Reschs
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love (1946)
- Crisis (1946)
- A Ship Bound for India (1947)
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The Bergman Files: It Rains on our Love
“There’s a simplicity about his films. They’re very beautiful, very well acted, but at the heart of it is a very simple approach to film-making, an idea that if you record things honestly enough, and in enough detail, even in situations that seem un-dramatic, there will be the ability to move people and show what is going on behind the surfaces” – Michael Winterbottom talking about Bergman.
The first shot of It Rains on our Love (1946) sees a group of people waiting for a bus in a torrential downpour. The bus arrives, and everyone gets on it, except for one person who continues to stand in the rain. This lone figure turns out to be the narrator. A character who will guide the audience through the film, and eventually take an active role in it. It is an intriguing structural device from Bergman. This narrator in the beginning points things out to the audience, only ceasing talking after pointing out one of the main characters, at which point the film shifts into the narrative proper. It is not his final appearance though. He appears later when all is going well to ponder aloud that surely things are going a little too well. Then, even more strangely, he appears in the all-important courtroom scnee right near the end of the film where he takes on an all important role in the actual story. It is a delight that the true nature of this man and what his actual role is stays somewhat oblique and is not entirely spelled out by Bergman.
The narrative follows Maggi and David, two young people with mysterious pasts who meet and fall in love. Their initial meeting takes place in a train station after she has just missed her bus. Penniless, she allows David to organise them cheap accommodation at the Salvation Army. They make love that night, and in the morning they decide to start a new life together. Just like that. And there could have been more build up here as it does not entirely ring true. But it is obvious that these are both desperate people, so they make this desperate attempt to create something between them. The nuance and depth comes as their secrets are slowly revealed by Bergman. After he breaks into a small cottage so they have shelter from another bout of rain, David reveals that he has just been released from doing time in prison. Much later on, after they have been renting this cottage for a while, it is revealed that Maggi is pregnant, and was to a man she did not know, since before meeting David. There is much uncertainty about what will become of the couple and their attempt to start afresh. There is a repeated dialogue refrain from the first half of the film. Maggi asks David “What about tomorrow?” to which he responds “That’s another story.” It is symptomatic of the uncertainty of their lives, and the difficulty of not knowing in any way what tomorrow will bring their way.
Barbro Kollberg as Maggi and Birger Malmsten as David. © © 1958 Nordisk Tonefilm. All Rights Reserve
The quote at the top of this article from British director Michael Winterbottom is on the cover of my DVD copy of It Rains on our Love. I think it is an apt one because in this film the ‘surface’ that Bergman is allowing the audience to peer behind is that of society, or more specifically Swedish society. Bergman strips bare the superficiality of society, ethics and religion through the responses of various people to the plight of Maggi and David. The harsh manner in which they are treated simply because social mores deem that a loving family carrying an out of wedlock child is something to be ashamed of is something they continue to be confronted with. Indeed much of the core of the film, especially its first half, is concerned with interactions between the ‘haves’ of society, and the ‘have-nots’. A small minority act with integrity, but overall there is a distinct coldness on the part of basically everyone towards the struggling couple. The couple who own the nursery where David gets a job encompasses both of these approaches. The owner is good to him, treating him with care and respect. In contrast, his wife eventually forces him from the job with here continual suspicion and accusations. David and Maggi’s generally good willed attempts to make a new start and escape their past are blocked at every turn by difficulties. Their landlord Håkansson is the true villain of the piece, he continually manipulates Maggi and David out of their money, by making them believe that he is a decent bloke.
Poster for It Rains on Our Love
When Maggi tells David that she is pregnant he is enraged, storming out into the street. However after some soul searching, and a little intervention from our narrator guardian angel, he realises the folly of his prideful response. So he undertakes a grand romantic gesture which seals their tender relationship, both narratively and in the eyes of the audience. From here on the strength of their relationship is the new core of the film, as we see their love continue to grow. They suffer great loss, which is shown in a scene which is intensely touching and emotional. But throughout they now share a stronger bond, one of love and of a united front against a cold, judgemental society. Much of the filmis engaging, but feels like a ‘smaller’, character study compared to his first film Crisis (1946). However, the lengthy courtroom scene at the end of It Rains on our Love is by far and away the highlight out of these two films. Both of the leads have been arrested, and essentially everyone who knows them sells them out. The only ones who do not are their few friends from the slum like area that they live in. It is due to these friends, and another narrator intervention that they have hope of a happy ending. But it is tense to wait and see which ending will befall them as Bergman makes both options seem equally as likely.
From an inauspicious start (the first night in the Salvation Army does not entirely ring true), It Rains on our Love turns into one hell of a love story. A story where the audience genuinely feels for the central couple and hopes that they can have a happy ending; and a story which is touching in the journey it travels.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- It Rains on our Love
- Crisis (1946)
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The Bergman Files: Crisis
“Grandiose Drivel” – how Bergman in later years described Crisis
A young Ingmar Bergman had to lobby hard to get the opportunity to make Crisis (1946), his directorial debut. The company Bergman was working for, Svenski Filmindustri, were content making B films on the cheap, using contracted actors. But eventually the director convinced them to allow him to shoot this more artistic fare. The screenplay was adapted by Bergman from a play written by Leck Fisher. Bergman himself described the early part of shooting as “nightmarish”, and paranoid that the others working on the film considered him to be incompetent, he lashed out with repeated fits of rage. The entire process was, in Bergman’s words a “fiasco”. Others agreed, because as a result of it, he was booted out of Svensk Filmindustri.
Bergman on the troubled set of his first feature directorial effort.
Despite the horrific shoot endured by the young director, I think the end product holds up very well. The film focuses on the 18 year old and innocent Nelly, who has been raised in a small country town by the piano teacher Ingeborg. Nelly knows that Ingeborg is not her real mother, and on the day the film opens her biological mother Jenny shows up, determined to take Nelly back to Stockholm with her. After getting drunk and disgracing herself at the town dance that night, Nelly agrees to go with her mother, leaving Ingeborg distraught. In what follows, the innocent Nelly is exposed to the darker side of humanity (particularly men).
From the very start, the film is set up as a contrast between the rural and the urban. The opening shots of the film show the idyllic country town where Nelly happy lives with Ingeborg. A town so sleepy and idyllic that the daily highlight is the arrival of the bus. On this particular day the bus brings into this idyll a woman of which “everything about her speaks of the big wide world” – this is Nelly’s mother. Bergman, perhaps acknowledging his grounding in theatre, opens the film after a short prologue with the voiceover stating “Let the play begin”. The same voice over downplays any possibility of ‘grandiosity’ in the film’s aims soon after when it announces that the tale “really is just an everyday drama”.
Ingeborg and Nelly live a poor life, Ingeborg forever having to borrow money off friends. But their relationship even in the face of this is delightfully tender. Nelly is a dreamer, loved by everyone, particularly the older Ulf, a vet who rents a room in Ingeborg’s apartment. Nelly is wonderfully brought to life by Inga Landgre, who would go on to star in The Seventh Seal (1957) 11 years later. Her joy at the impending dance elicits everything that the viewer needs to know about her, especially the childlike naivety that would be challenged throughout the film. In many ways it is not the arrival of her mother that has the greatest impact on Nelly, but the arrival of her mother’s companion Jack. Initially they appear to be lovers, though it is later revealed that he is Jenny’s half brother’s son. Still later it is revealed that the man may have fulfilled both functions at some point in time. Jack is a smarmy, conniving and extremely narcissistic presence, a stark contrast to the rugged and upright Ulf. The early part of the film is devoted to the question of what really makes a mother. Is it simply the act of giving birth, or is it to do with nurture. In the eyes of the audience there is no doubt that Ingeborg is the real mother to Nelly. But in the eyes of society, things may take on a different reality. Once the action moves to Stockholm, the film falters a little. It becomes unclear as to what exactly is occurring and particularly what the relationship is between Nelly and Jack. In the end, Bergman is right to keep things oblique though as the conclusion brings it all together expertly and in a modern psychological way too. The way it all plays out is stunning and it manages to work really well without feeling twee.
Bergman (l) with his mentor Victor Sjöström in 1957.
The film shows the genesis of many of the themes that would continue to characterise Bergman’s work. During the film Ingeborg becomes very unwell. She attributes her illness as punishment, some sort of deserved fate because of sin. Bergman’s childhood as the son of a pastor, was in the director’s eyes characterised by these same notions of sin and punishment. Bergman has talked of how early in the shooting he was overcomplicating his camerawork, before iconic silent film director Victor Sjostrom counselled him to keep things simple. The advice shines through in the film, because it is really beautiful, but restrained in its shooting. There is little more technically astute than the occasional simple zoom but it still looks great. The film has a great soundtrack, courtesy of Erland von Koch who emphasises all the melodramatic high points he is required to in the film, and also has some fun contrasting music in the early ball scene.
It is hard to see why Bergman looked back on his first effort with such disgruntlement. Perhaps it was the horror experience of actually making the film or the fact that it bombed commercially. Crisis though is much more than curiosity value, which is the fate of many a great director’s first effort. In fact so assured is the film that it barely even seems like a first film at all. Check this film out, I think that with the intriguing character motivations on offer, it is one that would probably hold up to repeated viewings.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
‘The Bergman Files’ Leaderboard
- Crisis (1946)
Want to win two Bergman films courtesy of Madman Films? Check out the details here.
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The Bergman Files: Introduction and Competition #1
This week on the blog, I am debuting a new series of weekly posts entitled ‘The Bergman Files’. As you may have guessed, this series will focus on the works of iconic director Ingmar Bergman. Each week I will review one of his feature film cinematic releases, in chronological order. No small undertaking, with over 40 on that list.
The great Ingmar Bergman at work.
Why Bergman? A number of reasons. As you would probably guess, I watch a whole lot of films. But even someone who watches as many films as me rarely manages to cover off on a director’s entire filmography. When I think of my absolute favourite directors – Keaton, Malick, Lang, Hitchock, Welles etc – I haven’t even managed to see all of their films. So this kind of systematic approach will allow me to cover an entire life’s work.
Secondly, Bergman is a director who has always simultaneously intrigued and intimidated me. As someone who has at times struggled with fear of mortality, reading the synopses of his films has often put me off ever wanting to watch them. However, The Seventh Seal, the only Bergman film I have seen, is one of my absolute favourites. And whilst the subject matter is challenging, the beauty of the art in that case at least, totally supersedes and reservations I had.
I hope you guys enjoy this long series of posts. Hopefully there will be a few different things going on. I will be inviting some other bloggers to take the reigns for a review or two. The films, even those not on the 1001, will be graded using the beer rating system. And I will be keeping a ranking as I go, of my favourite Bergman film. As always, read, enjoy, share and comment friends.
The other thing that will be happening alongside this series is a couple of competitions. So here are the details for competition number one. Courtesy of Madman Films, up for grabs are a copy of two early Bergman films on DVD – It Rains on our Love and A Ship Bound for India. To enter the competition you will need to engage with the first four blogs I post on Bergman films (for the two films on offer as well as Crisis and Music in Darkness), either on this site, or when I promote the posts on Facebook and Twitter. Entries will close one week after the post for Music in Darkness goes up on the site.
Here are the different ways you can enter:
- ‘Like’ the post on Facebook for one entry.
- Comment on the post on Facebook for one entry.
- Share the post on Facebook for two entries.
- Retweet the post on Twitter for two entries.
- Like the post on the website for one entry.
- Comment on the post on the website for one entry.
I am really hoping that you guys will get involved with this new series of posts, and hopefully this will be the first of a whole bunch of giveaways. Entry is open to anyone, but just bear in mind the DVDs are Region 4. On facebook, only entries from those who ‘like’ the Not Now, I’m Drinking a Beer and Watching a Movie will be counted. Same deal with twitter, only those retweets from followers of beer_movie will be registered (this is simply because it is easier for me to contact the winner).
I am really hoping that you guys will get involved with this new series of posts, and hopefully this will be the first of a whole bunch of giveaways. If you have any queries about the competition, or the series of posts, feel free to email me at drinkingbeerwatchingmovie@gmail.com or use the comments section.
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