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Lágrimas e Suspiros/Persona/Dependência
Não é necessário ter visto os filmes de Bergman para sentir prazer em ler estes argumentos, cuja história se desenrola como uma "linha melódica simples", com os seus tempos fortes, deixando de lado o pormenor da montagem.
Persona, que põe em cena a actriz Elisabet Vogler e a enfermeira Alma que a trata de uma depressão nervosa e tenta obrigá-la a sair do silêncio em que se fechou, Dependência, onde vemos Karin presa entre o amante e a vida conjugal, Lágrimas e Suspiros onde três irmãs, das quais uma morre de cancro, se reúnem na casa familiar com a criada Anna, figuram entre as obras primas de uma arte que cristaliza "o desejo de quebrar o isolamento e a distância".
Tensões, paixões, confrontos, tormentos, povoam o mundo de Bergman que nos oferece nestes textos um pouco de si próprio. Por isso ele escreve a propósito do vermelho dos cenários de Lágrimas e Suspiros: "Não me perguntem por que é que tem que ser assim", mas logo acrescenta que a ideia talvez lhe venha de longe, da infância, e que essa cor sempre representou para ele "o interior da alma".
Cinema, escrita: dois meios de expressão. Bergman tem consciência de que as palavras jamais conseguirão traduzir na íntegra o que se passa num filme. "É por isso que eu ofereço ao leitor um texto muito sumário, um criptograma, que, na melhor das hipóteses, pode fazer vibrar a imaginação e a reflexão de cada um." Uma tal modéstia só serve para acentuar a evidência do resultado conseguido.
Persona, que põe em cena a actriz Elisabet Vogler e a enfermeira Alma que a trata de uma depressão nervosa e tenta obrigá-la a sair do silêncio em que se fechou, Dependência, onde vemos Karin presa entre o amante e a vida conjugal, Lágrimas e Suspiros onde três irmãs, das quais uma morre de cancro, se reúnem na casa familiar com a criada Anna, figuram entre as obras primas de uma arte que cristaliza "o desejo de quebrar o isolamento e a distância".
Tensões, paixões, confrontos, tormentos, povoam o mundo de Bergman que nos oferece nestes textos um pouco de si próprio. Por isso ele escreve a propósito do vermelho dos cenários de Lágrimas e Suspiros: "Não me perguntem por que é que tem que ser assim", mas logo acrescenta que a ideia talvez lhe venha de longe, da infância, e que essa cor sempre representou para ele "o interior da alma".
Cinema, escrita: dois meios de expressão. Bergman tem consciência de que as palavras jamais conseguirão traduzir na íntegra o que se passa num filme. "É por isso que eu ofereço ao leitor um texto muito sumário, um criptograma, que, na melhor das hipóteses, pode fazer vibrar a imaginação e a reflexão de cada um." Uma tal modéstia só serve para acentuar a evidência do resultado conseguido.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Ingmar Bergman
164 books601 followersErnst Ingmar Bergman was a nine-time Academy Award-nominated Swedish film, stage, and opera director. He depicted bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope in his explorations of the human condition. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in cinematic history.
He directed 62 films, most of which he wrote, and directed over 170 plays. Some of his internationally known favorite actors were Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in the stark landscape of his native Sweden, and major themes were often bleak, dealing with death, illness, betrayal, and insanity.
Bergman was active for more than 60 years, but his career was seriously threatened in 1976 when he suspended a number of pending productions, closed his studios, and went into self-imposed exile in Germany for eight years following a botched criminal investigation for alleged income tax evasion.
He directed 62 films, most of which he wrote, and directed over 170 plays. Some of his internationally known favorite actors were Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in the stark landscape of his native Sweden, and major themes were often bleak, dealing with death, illness, betrayal, and insanity.
Bergman was active for more than 60 years, but his career was seriously threatened in 1976 when he suspended a number of pending productions, closed his studios, and went into self-imposed exile in Germany for eight years following a botched criminal investigation for alleged income tax evasion.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 15, 2021
Honestly life-changing.
October 10, 2025
Cries & Whispers, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman
Nine out of 10
If not the greatest ever, Ingmar Bergman is surely one of the most outstanding, fabulous filmmakers, the genius that has given the History of World Cinema some tremendous, inestimable works of art:
Fanny and Alexander (reviewed here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/f...), The Virgin Spring (http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/t...)
Smiles of a Summer Night (http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/s...), The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Scenes from a Marriage (http://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2...) and many more…
Cries & Whispers has been nominated and won to multiple awards – it won for the famous collaborator of Ingmar Bergman and then other legends, Sven Nykvist, the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and the film was nominated for Best Picture – not just in a Foreign Language – Best Director, Writing and Costume Design.
The work of art is also included on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made List:
https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo...
It is nevertheless a film that is painful to watch at times, although not in the horror genre, the pain, suffering, trauma presented are overwhelming and rendered without kid gloves.
This is actually the only reason why one might choose to watch Daddy’s Home or stupid comedies of the same caliber – although including gifted and wasted talent – over this drama.
Looking back at it, one might say that there are traces, difficult to observe indeed, of sarcastic, morbid humor.
Take the scene where the family considers the fate of the dedicated servant – the one who would actually embrace, nurse, love the moribund perhaps more than any relative, in scenes that are so complex as to suggest motherly care, humanity, perhaps loyalty, lesbianism, compassion, pity all mixed together.
The sisters and their husbands are talking about the selling of the house, now that Agnes is dead, the imminent departure of the woman who has cared for the dying woman for the last ten years.
In its rigidity, absurd pomposity, inflexibility, preposterous arrogance and indifference, Isak seems to be laughable, not just loathsome, and despicable in the paucity, mendacity, the abhorrent lack of compassion for the servant who is going to be fired.
His wife, Karin is pleading for a few weeks extra wages, given the torment the woman has suffered, her loyalty, the patience, dedication, hard work, kindness, generosity she has shown during all these years.
The spouse dismisses this with grimace, detachment, inhumanity that seem almost cartoonish, buffoonish.
Agnes had been suffering for many years when her sisters come to try to help sooth her pain.
Maria is portrayed by one of the most magnificent actresses in the world, Liv Ulmann, an important figure in cinematic history with Ingmar Bergman, in whose films she is omnipresent and whom she has married.
The pain and suffering are excruciating.
The public feels it.
The red walls, backgrounds, furniture, dresses and even stops between chapters all contribute to an overwhelming emotion.
There are some scenes that recall horror pictures and one that resembles a climactic moment in The Piano Teacher – directed by another phenomenon, Michael Haneke, staring yet another Legend, Isabelle Huppert.
Karin cuts herself in the intimate zone, then takes the blood and wipes it over her face and mouth, apparently even tasting it.
Other moments are enchanting, suggesting and mentioning extreme happiness, love, merriment, ecstasy, elation, with the exulting sisters, Maria and Karin, embracing each other in bliss.
It even looks like they may get incestuous.
The film is extremely complex, suggesting and representing an outlandish spectrum of emotions, thoughts, feelings that range from terror to glorious exuberation, from ultimate depression to the ecstasy of pure love.
Nine out of 10
If not the greatest ever, Ingmar Bergman is surely one of the most outstanding, fabulous filmmakers, the genius that has given the History of World Cinema some tremendous, inestimable works of art:
Fanny and Alexander (reviewed here: http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/f...), The Virgin Spring (http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/05/t...)
Smiles of a Summer Night (http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/s...), The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Scenes from a Marriage (http://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2...) and many more…
Cries & Whispers has been nominated and won to multiple awards – it won for the famous collaborator of Ingmar Bergman and then other legends, Sven Nykvist, the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and the film was nominated for Best Picture – not just in a Foreign Language – Best Director, Writing and Costume Design.
The work of art is also included on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made List:
https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo...
It is nevertheless a film that is painful to watch at times, although not in the horror genre, the pain, suffering, trauma presented are overwhelming and rendered without kid gloves.
This is actually the only reason why one might choose to watch Daddy’s Home or stupid comedies of the same caliber – although including gifted and wasted talent – over this drama.
Looking back at it, one might say that there are traces, difficult to observe indeed, of sarcastic, morbid humor.
Take the scene where the family considers the fate of the dedicated servant – the one who would actually embrace, nurse, love the moribund perhaps more than any relative, in scenes that are so complex as to suggest motherly care, humanity, perhaps loyalty, lesbianism, compassion, pity all mixed together.
The sisters and their husbands are talking about the selling of the house, now that Agnes is dead, the imminent departure of the woman who has cared for the dying woman for the last ten years.
In its rigidity, absurd pomposity, inflexibility, preposterous arrogance and indifference, Isak seems to be laughable, not just loathsome, and despicable in the paucity, mendacity, the abhorrent lack of compassion for the servant who is going to be fired.
His wife, Karin is pleading for a few weeks extra wages, given the torment the woman has suffered, her loyalty, the patience, dedication, hard work, kindness, generosity she has shown during all these years.
The spouse dismisses this with grimace, detachment, inhumanity that seem almost cartoonish, buffoonish.
Agnes had been suffering for many years when her sisters come to try to help sooth her pain.
Maria is portrayed by one of the most magnificent actresses in the world, Liv Ulmann, an important figure in cinematic history with Ingmar Bergman, in whose films she is omnipresent and whom she has married.
The pain and suffering are excruciating.
The public feels it.
The red walls, backgrounds, furniture, dresses and even stops between chapters all contribute to an overwhelming emotion.
There are some scenes that recall horror pictures and one that resembles a climactic moment in The Piano Teacher – directed by another phenomenon, Michael Haneke, staring yet another Legend, Isabelle Huppert.
Karin cuts herself in the intimate zone, then takes the blood and wipes it over her face and mouth, apparently even tasting it.
Other moments are enchanting, suggesting and mentioning extreme happiness, love, merriment, ecstasy, elation, with the exulting sisters, Maria and Karin, embracing each other in bliss.
It even looks like they may get incestuous.
The film is extremely complex, suggesting and representing an outlandish spectrum of emotions, thoughts, feelings that range from terror to glorious exuberation, from ultimate depression to the ecstasy of pure love.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews