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Four stories
Hardcover without jacket. First UK printing. The Touch, Cries and Whispers, The Hour of the Wolf, A Passion. Light wear at spine ends; one or two minor marks on exterior; previous owner's name penned on FEP. Page block and page edges are a little tanned. Text is clear throughout. TS
- GenresFilmShort StoriesFiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
2 people are currently reading
89 people want to read
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 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 14, 2022
These four stories, in conversation with the films they became, provide a unique look at the creative process. Apparently, Bergman sometimes used short fiction in lieu of proper film scripts, giving his actors at once more room for improvisation and a clearer understanding of their characters’ thoughts and motivations. As fiction, the stories are not the masterpieces the films are (although not many people are capable of writing something as affecting and unusual as this iteration of Cries and Whispers). As creative acts, however, they are extraordinary.
Bergman is an important director for me. Discovering his movies marked the moment when I truly came to understand 20th century cinema and literature as being part of a single conversation, which neither books nor movies dominated. Trying to understand the development of one without reference to the other is a fool’s game. Where is Haruki Murakami without David Lynch? Or Jeanette Winterson without new-wave feminist filmmakers like Agnes Varda and Vera Chytilová? Or, for that matter, F. Scott Fitzgerald without golden-age Hollywood?
Bergman—steeped in theater—uses words, and the spaces between them, with writerly grace, and watching a Bergman film is more like the experience of reading a good book than any other non-written media I know of. It has to do, I think, with the way the images bloom in the mind, with the films’ unmistakable interiority and their attention to the infinite registers of speech.
In any event, watch Cries and Whispers and Hour of the Wolf if you haven’t. Right away—there’s no time to lose! And then, read their unusual scripts, and marvel at the mind that conjured them into existence, and the actors who breathed them into life.
Bergman is an important director for me. Discovering his movies marked the moment when I truly came to understand 20th century cinema and literature as being part of a single conversation, which neither books nor movies dominated. Trying to understand the development of one without reference to the other is a fool’s game. Where is Haruki Murakami without David Lynch? Or Jeanette Winterson without new-wave feminist filmmakers like Agnes Varda and Vera Chytilová? Or, for that matter, F. Scott Fitzgerald without golden-age Hollywood?
Bergman—steeped in theater—uses words, and the spaces between them, with writerly grace, and watching a Bergman film is more like the experience of reading a good book than any other non-written media I know of. It has to do, I think, with the way the images bloom in the mind, with the films’ unmistakable interiority and their attention to the infinite registers of speech.
In any event, watch Cries and Whispers and Hour of the Wolf if you haven’t. Right away—there’s no time to lose! And then, read their unusual scripts, and marvel at the mind that conjured them into existence, and the actors who breathed them into life.
November 5, 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.
November 17, 2021
The great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman had a unique approach to making his films; unlike most other directors, he avoided writing actual scripts or screenplays as he explained below.
"A screenplay can never express what the film wants to convey. If I were to reproduce in words what happens in the film I have conceived, I would be forced to write a bulky book of little readable value and great nuisance."
Instead Bergman himself writes a short story or novella and distributes it to each individual involved in the film. "I offer the reader a rather summary text, a cipher, which appeals to the artist's imagination and insight." All involved read and reread the stories until they understand and develop the essences and nuances of the relationships and scenes as vividly in their own minds as Bergman does in his.
In this collection we have the origins of four of his films, written in story form. Absorbing reading and an insight into the creative genius of Ingmar Bergman.
'The Touch' ('Beroringen') (1971) Bergman's first English-language film which featured Bibi Andersson, Elliott Gould and Max Von Sydow. A seemingly happily married woman's life is upended when she meets a stranger and the prospect of a life she has never known before. Undoubtedly IB's worst film and in this format probably reads better than the filmed result.
'Cries and Whispers' ('Viskningar Och Rep') (1972) Bergman's acclaimed, multi-award* winning drama involving the strained relationships between three sisters, one of who is dying of cancer.
Powerful performances from Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann and Oscar winning cinematography by Sven Nykvist obviously can't be captured in book form but the story can successfully stand alone from the film and was published complete in The New Yorker in 1972.
*Winner of Academy Award for Best Cinematography; Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Costume Design, 1973.
Winner of New York Film Critics Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Liv Ullmann), 1972.
Winner of National Society of Film Critics Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
Winner of National Board of Review Best Director, Best Foreign Film, 1973.
'Hour of the Wolf' ('Vargtimmen') (1966/released 1968 in U.S.) Written in a two-act play format and featuring Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow.
"The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their greatest dread, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The hour of the wolf is also the hour when most children are born." Painter Johan Berg vanished; his wife Alma gave IB his diary from, along with Alma's recollections, formed the basis of this film.
'The Passion of Anna' ('En Passion') (1969) A stark drama detailing the relationship between four people on a remote, barely populated island. With Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson.
(Winner of National Society of Film Critics Best Director Award, 1970.)
Review based on Anchor Press/Doubleday hardcover edition, 1976. 168 pages.
"A screenplay can never express what the film wants to convey. If I were to reproduce in words what happens in the film I have conceived, I would be forced to write a bulky book of little readable value and great nuisance."
Instead Bergman himself writes a short story or novella and distributes it to each individual involved in the film. "I offer the reader a rather summary text, a cipher, which appeals to the artist's imagination and insight." All involved read and reread the stories until they understand and develop the essences and nuances of the relationships and scenes as vividly in their own minds as Bergman does in his.
In this collection we have the origins of four of his films, written in story form. Absorbing reading and an insight into the creative genius of Ingmar Bergman.
'The Touch' ('Beroringen') (1971) Bergman's first English-language film which featured Bibi Andersson, Elliott Gould and Max Von Sydow. A seemingly happily married woman's life is upended when she meets a stranger and the prospect of a life she has never known before. Undoubtedly IB's worst film and in this format probably reads better than the filmed result.
'Cries and Whispers' ('Viskningar Och Rep') (1972) Bergman's acclaimed, multi-award* winning drama involving the strained relationships between three sisters, one of who is dying of cancer.
Powerful performances from Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann and Oscar winning cinematography by Sven Nykvist obviously can't be captured in book form but the story can successfully stand alone from the film and was published complete in The New Yorker in 1972.
*Winner of Academy Award for Best Cinematography; Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Costume Design, 1973.
Winner of New York Film Critics Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Liv Ullmann), 1972.
Winner of National Society of Film Critics Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
Winner of National Board of Review Best Director, Best Foreign Film, 1973.
'Hour of the Wolf' ('Vargtimmen') (1966/released 1968 in U.S.) Written in a two-act play format and featuring Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow.
"The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their greatest dread, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The hour of the wolf is also the hour when most children are born." Painter Johan Berg vanished; his wife Alma gave IB his diary from, along with Alma's recollections, formed the basis of this film.
'The Passion of Anna' ('En Passion') (1969) A stark drama detailing the relationship between four people on a remote, barely populated island. With Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson.
(Winner of National Society of Film Critics Best Director Award, 1970.)
Review based on Anchor Press/Doubleday hardcover edition, 1976. 168 pages.
August 7, 2017
3 3/4 stars
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January 3, 2024It's clear Bergman is not used to prose. These stories are full of lengthy monologues that work on screen (aided by the professional actors), but aren't quite as engaging in print. Still very interesting to see these sort of screenplay prototypes. And I'll admit, I absolutely loved "Cries and Whispers," which seems to capture the magic and tension expressed in the film. The other three were just so-so for me.
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May 23, 2021not on overdrive
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews