Just One More ... Please?

I've always been puzzled by the phenomenon of filmmakers who have commanded a major share of public attention internationally for years only to disappear, abruptly or gradually, from the scene.  Sometimes, I suppose, they grow old, lose their touch or their interest, repeat themselves, although that doesn't account (in the age of the VHS and then the DVD) for their classic work going out of mind.  Public tastes change, of course, which goes with the territory of being an artist in a commerical medium.  But when you consider that Hitchcock, whom I consider a second-rater who made a handful of pretty good films (can we argue about this later? it's not really my point here), is in this sense alive and well, while Fellini seems to be drifting from audience awareness, I can't fathom it.  There are many other examples, and I invite your invocation of them.

One of the big (i.e. inexplicable) ones is Ingmar Bergman.  In the early '80s he pretty much stopped making feature films except for small dramas commissioned by Swedish television (see a few of them and you'll have some idea how truly craven and corrupt American tv is).  But why does he seem to have dropped out of the cinematic vocabulary even of educated film-goers of good taste--i.e. like people who visit this site (well, it's true, dammit).  But for more than thirty years, from the early '50s on, he was widely thought of as one of the greatest writer/directors of the century, equalled by few, outranked by none.  He had an ear and an eye, he had a company of deeply devoted and wildly talented professionals, his pictures were de rigeur  if you took films seriously, each new one prompting from those of us who lived in the provinces during those years moans of "I can't wait" until it gets here.

Bergman first came to attention as part of those European films (mostly Italian and Scandinavian) of the early 1950s which featured snippets of nudity, mostly of the absurdly health, unselfconscious sun-worshipper variety.  Every once in a while, a Hollywood movie house during those years would bring back Illicit Interlude (1951) and the Saturday audience would be packed with high school males, yours truly among them.  It was The Seventh Seal (1957) which brought him to somewhat more respectable adult attention, with its rather heavy allegory and stunning camera work, and it was soon followed by intense domestic dramas about cold, distant husbands and fathers, stories of sexual transgression, agonizing religious doubt, the redemptive power or lack of it possessed by art.  Films such as Wild Strawberries (1957), Virgin Spring (1960), and Through a Glass Darkly (1961) still stand up extremely well from those years--and then things got better.  Bergman began exploring the relationships between the personal and sociopolitical in the staggering Persona (1966) and Shame (1968).  He found a broad audience for Cries and Whispers (1971)--whether because people loved it or thought, given Bergman's mystique at the time, that they ought to remains unresolved in my mind--and another one for Scenes from a Marriage (1973), in this case because I believe people found it so compelling.  After that, it was The Magic Flute (1975), a delightful but much truncated of Mozart's opera; Autumn Sonata (1978), Ingrid Bergman's last film and her first with him; and of course the great family epic and perhaps his most accessible work, Fanny and Alexander (1982).

Bergman could be funny--uproariously funny--when he chose to be: just have a look at The Magic Flute and especially Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), a timeless comedy of great invention.  But for the most part, his work bluntly and unapologetically portrayed intense psychic pain, the emotional violence that people did to one another as a matter of course in the name of love, duty, and God.  Bergman hurts, and if you don't feel it, you've unplugged your antennae.  But he also presents his pain--which you have no doubt he has felt himself many times--with such honesty, clarity, and aesthetic scrupulosity that one can only respect him.  He makes his audience work, not just by enduring the agony, but to find out what is really going on, who is the reliable source and who is not, why people say they are lying when they are actually telling the truth, why they subject themselves to injury needlessly. 

In spite of the subject matter, it all looks and sounds gorgeous.  Bergman first hooked up with DP Sven Nykvist in 1960 and they were still together in Fanny and Alexander; I doubt there was a cinematographer in the twentieth century who could render emotional states by light, shade, framing, and camera positioning with his skill and subtlety.  And the casts?  Well, consider: Harriett Andersen, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Eva Dahlberg, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Erland Josephson--every one of them willing to do what the boss called for, make it even better, and most of all completely submerge themselves in their characters.  I can do something with Bergman films I almost never do otherwise, which is to watch them for performances only.

Now cames Saraband, a small drama made for Swedish television two years ago which Bergman has announced is his last film.  I hope he reconsiders, but he doesn't really seem the type: this is not likely a Sinatra-esque farewell.  It brings back the principals from Scenes from a Marriage some thirty years later, played again by Josephson and Ullman, now long since both divorced and separated from their post-marital affair.  He is in his eighties, living far into the countryside, she is still a successful lawyer living in the city.  She has come to see him because he has asked her, which he denies--and, characteristically, we come to see two side of this issue.  His sixty-one year old son from another marriage and nineteen-year old granddaughter live in a nearby cottage; the relationship between father and son is as bad as you can imagine, although the son has his own ghastly sins for which to answer.  The story among these four is played out in ten little episodes, all related, but each with autonomous power and dramatic unity.  As it finished, I didn't want to believe this was it, that we wouldn't be seeing anything new from this genius.  All right, he turned eighty-seven just last week, and a man has a right to throttle back.  But I wish he wouldn't.  We need his honesty and mastery more than ever.  Presuming he keeps his word, though, there remains the DVD, and you'll never find a better justification for the technology.

Comments

[Flickhead]

I remember my first taste of Bergman was in the late '60s, when the PBS station in New York (WNET) ran a week-long festival. Each day I'd tune in, mostly out of curiosity. The one picture that stood out above all the others was THE SILENCE, and it continues to hold a special relevance for me to this day. Mostly nostalgic, perhaps, but it is beautifully made.

In my university film class, we were shown WILD STRAWBERRIES at least a half dozen times, and learned the art of filmed dreams, fantasies, longings and desires. Do universities still use Bergman in this manner?

After such a run of excellent films in the '50s and '60s, Bergman certainly has a right to retire. Whereas Manoel de Oliveira, who just began to hit his stride in his seventies, continues to make movies like a man possessed -- and I believe he's older than Bergman!

[Campaspe]

Bunuel also made some of his best movies late in life. I often think of this when I get depressed over, say, "Gangs of New York."

I think people are starting to look at Hitchcock a bit more critically than before, some even going so far as to call him overrated (Tom Shone, for one). I think Bergman's reputation will have a resurgence in the next five years or so. He's only one or two major retrospectives away from it. Perhaps I am naive, but all you have to do is SEE Bergman to appreciate his genius.

Meanwhile, with pious patience I sit in my corner of the Web, awaiting the Max Ophuls revival.

[Peter Nellhaus]

For U.S. viewers, I think a good part of the reason why Bergman and Fellini may not have the visibility of Hitchcock is due to the extinction of the kinds of art theaters that periodically showed retrospectives or had showings of certain classics every couple of years or so in smaller cities. The latter Hitchcock gets shown fairly often on TCM, whereas foreign films are not shown as frequently. Hitchcock's contemporary, Howard Hawks, seems to have faded. Leone is still discussed, but not Donald Siegel. I'm hoping 20th Century Fox puts their Frank Tashlin films on DVD. Back to Bergman, I do have Persona in my collection. Cries and Whispers was Bergman's biggest hit because Roger Corman put Bergman in the drive-in.

[burritoboy]

Flickhead,

Nowadays, film studies programs don't devote much time to film history. You generally have to take only a two-semester film history sequence and most people do American film history. (Then there are some electives, but that hardly means you'll necessarily watch much Bergman in your electives, either.) Unless you seek Bergman out, you won't have much exposure to him.

[David]

In fact, there was a six-week Bergman retrospective just a year ago at the Film Forum in New York. Anthony Lane wrote a rather nice review of it at http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?040614crci_cinema, in which he suggests that perhaps the problem with Bergman is his admirers, who would prefer to sublimate his visions to academics and metaphysics, rather than marvel, more passively, at the astounding beauty with which Bergman bombards us.

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced that he does get short shrift myself, except that there is very little in cinema to compare to such unique genius, so he ends up getting mentioned far less than, say, Kurosawa or Godard. He doesn't really fit into a critic-easy dialect - but that, I think, is not necessarily a bad thing. It means he's timeless.

[Peter Nellhaus]

David: Please keep in mind that NYC is one corner of the US. What I refer to is theatrical showings in the 60s and 70s in cities like Denver and Berkeley where the Janus film collections would make the rounds. While Denver, where I lived, has one theater that usually shows individual re-releases of older films, series devoted to one director have not been shown there. In Miami Beach, where I currently live, the "cinemateque" shows projected DVDs. While NYC still has an infrastructure that supports seeing classic films in a theatrical situation, the rest of the country has to pretty much depend on DVDs and video tapes. How DVDs is changing film scholarship has yet to be fully understood. (By the way, I have Serpent's Egg on my Netflix list)

[burritoboy]

Peter,

No kidding (though Berkeley's PFA is one of the best theaters in the US). Except for the university or museum-connected theaters, there's very limited numbers of theaters now who would do a retrospective - though the Music Box in Chicago did in fact do a Bergman retrospective earlier this year. From what I saw, the box-office was OK, but not exceptional.

I'm not a huge Bergman fan myself.

[Hilary]

I'm lucky enough to live in Chicago. In the 60s it was an event when the latest Bergman, Fellini or Antonioni was released. I also saw the Janus collection on public television.
Today, in addition to the Music Box, where I recently enjoyed a gorgeous new print of Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother with full on live organ accompaniment, we have the great resource of The Film Center Of The School Of The Art Institute (I can't bring myself to use it's full title, named after a late local film critic). Then there is Facets Multimedia, which screens films and has an enormous rental library. Northwestern U's Block Cinema and U of Chicago's DOC Films also have excellent film programming.

I'm all for that Ophuls revival. And Hawks is fading? Really? Perhaps critically (not that I'd care), but Hawks the entertainer is never going out of style.

It's rather sad to think that "Nowadays, film studies programs don't devote much time to film history." This at a time when more of film history is readily available in one format or another. If I had TCM when I was a younger I would never have seen the sun.

So, are we ready for that Hitchcock brawl?

[Josh]

Hawks is fading...fading...faded. Outside the Internet, I've never met a single person who's into him.

And I have to confess that I've never actually even *seen* a Bergman. Chalk it up to the younger generation, I guess...I keep meaning to see The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries, but never got around to it. Because, well, he's just dropped off so much that no one will think I had any gaps in my knowledge for skipping his films and I've never really heard enough to get me interested. Same with Antonioni, but I've finally started getting into his stuff. Fellini I don't see so though. Sure, he's not as popular as Hitchcock, but his films still get watched by people.

I guess I'm really lucky to live in Seattle, where we've got some great rep houses - just this year there was an Ozu retrospective complete with live accompaniment for his silent films. We've also had ones recently for Ray Harryhausen and Aki Kaurismaki.

And even though it wasn't your point, it's really refreshing to see someone with the same opinion on Hitchcock.

[Hilary]

Josh,

I don't know anyone who DOESN'T like a Hawks film--though they may not know his name. Bringing up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, Red River....

[johnson]

let me start the brawl by saying that being a second-rater in cinema is a compliment and an advantage. in nature, it's equivalent to being a scavenger.

the question is, who is the second-rater of bergman? if hitchcock and anthony mann were the second rate hollywood cinema.

the ironic thins about hitchcock is that people from academic backgrounds to hollywood tycoons talk about him in the same revelry tone.

to be continued...

[AlexAtEyekyu]

My first taste of Bergman was last October with "Scenes From A Marriage". It hurt, but it left a sweet taste in my mouth. I then rented "Passion of Anna" and that HURT and gratuitously it seemed. I don't think I had ever seen human despair represented with so much intensity in any other film. It was masterful in that respect. But it wasn't a pleasant experience for me. I felt I was invited to dinner and the chef served the only thing I despise tasting. But that's because I was emotionally charged having undergone my brother's death two weeks prior to the viewing. I enjoy some brand of optimism in my art. I hope other Bergman has some.

[Hilary]

johnson,

Woody Allen wants to be Bergman. Try sitting through Interiors, surely a second rate Bergman. Similarly, DePalma is the second rate Hitchcock, though quite a few directors have done their Hitchcock impression.

The habit of rating, or top ten listing is troublesome to me. Sure, if pressed I could make a top ten list of favorite directors-- but even if he didn't make the list I wouldn't call Hitchcock a "second-rater". Even if he was "merely" an entertainer, he was a singular talent. Who did Hitchcock better than he? And while he learned from the Germans I'd hardly call him a "scavenger". Mann's themes and style are also his own, and I can't think of another director who could have made his films.

We're past the dismissal of genre filmmakers--is this the critical backlash against the "overating" of them?

Awaiting round two...

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