The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

I'll start things rolling in the film folder with a thread on Ingmar Bergman. This is his centenary, and The Criterion Collection is releasing a massive box set later this month that pretty much contains all of his film and television work (with some minor exceptions). He is my favorite director of all time. I watch his films often, some of them multiple times per year, because I find his reflections on life and existence fascinating and valuable. I have reviewed a lot of his work, so I'll start dropping in some of those here!

Filmography as Director
-Crisis (1946)
-It Rains on Our Love (1946)
-A Ship to India (1947)
-Music in the Darkness (1948)
-Port of Call (1948)
-Prison (1949)
-Thirst (1949)
-To Joy (1950)
-Summer Interlude (1951)
-Waiting Women (1952)
-Summer with Monika (1953)
-Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
-A Lesson in Love (1954)
-Dreams (1955)
-Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
-The Seventh Seal (1957)
-Wild Strawberries (1957)
-Brink of Life (1958)
-The Magician (1958)
-The Virgin Spring (1960)
-The Devil's Eye (1960)
-Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
-Winter Light (1963)
-The Silence (1963)
-All These Women (1964)
-Persona (1966)
-Hour of the Wolf (1968)
-Shame (1968)
-The Rite (1969)
-The Passion of Anna (1969)
-The Touch (1971)
-Cries and Whispers (1972)
-Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
-The Magic Flute (1975)
-Face to Face (1976)
-The Serpent's Egg (1977)
-Autumn Sonata (1978)
-From the Life of Marionettes (1980)
-Fanny and Alexander (1982)
-After the Rehearsal (1984)
-The Blessed Ones (1986)
-In the Presence of a Clown (1997)
-Saraband (2003)

II’m counting on it myself! I’ve never seen an instance where such a thing wasn’t.

Commentary Magazine just did a terrific story in August about Ingmar Bergman...it's behind a paywall unfortunately and normally I wouldn't link but let me at least also link to another super interesting article of Commentary's, -not- behind the paywall, about the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations of Dostoevsky (which the reviewer did not like):

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...

Sadly, the new Criterion collection is only being released on Blu-ray and I haven't made the move to that...yet! Oh well, I have about 65% of them on DVD already!

Lark wrote: "Commentary Magazine just did a terrific story in August about Ingmar Bergman...it's behind a paywall unfortunately and normally I wouldn't link but let me at least also link to another super intere..."


Thank you for posting this. Was able to read the whole article just now.

Curious, especially for an American article, that they describe Bergman's struggles with religion as something of the past and no longer intelligible, when religion does not seem to be waning in the US now. Do they assume that the world of people with religious upbringings (or current practice) is so separate from that of Bergman viewers?

I should have known more about Lutheranism in retrospect, but the parallels the writer draws with Catholicism make sense of why it seemed to relate, in a way that CofE doesn't. It's like Catholicism with a severe, almost Calvinist side emphasised, rather than the exuberant emotionality with which some Mediterranean filmmakers show it.

It seems to be unfashionable now for The Seventh Seal to be one's favourite Bergman film, but it is still mine. I've probably seen it more times than any other 'serious' film. A lot of historical fiction doesn't engage with religion to the extent that is really needed to get into the head of the past of hundreds of years ago, but it does, and much more deeply and authentic-feelingly (authentic? I wasn't there to be certain, but it *feels* right) than most other works in any form. Thanks, evidently, to Bergman's own spiritual crises: this stuff mattered to him, not just to his characters. I think it also addresses the post-WWII, post-Holocaust sense of "how can we believe after this?" It has an engagement with the precariousness and contingency of life that I've very rarely seen in films that also deal with big philosophical ideas - usually only found much more explicitly in films on contemporary social issues. The obliqueness of it makes it feel more elevated - it gets right into the felt sense, because it's not also about something you should maybe write to your MP about later.

I have only watched a couple of Dreyer films, but they seemed to illuminate something about Bergman. He apparently said some Dreyer films had 'infected' him: https://thefilmstage.com/news/ingmar-...
Although of course he had more influences than that.
I have to agree with his statement there about not being able to appreciate Buñuel, whom I've never quite got either.
(Lists of famous directors' and critics favourite films I find very interesting because they are just so much more possible to watch, as films take a lot less time than books.)

For those who want to hear a pretty good two-part podcast about five of Bergman's earliest films, might I recommend one? For years I co-hosted The Eclipse Viewer with David Blakeslee, and we had a lovely time on Early Bergman.

Part 1: Torment, Crisis, Port of Call

Part 2: Thirst, To Joy

We are pretty liberal with our conversation, so if you haven't seen them you might learn some things about the films you might consider spoilers. At the same time, I don't think we actually spoil these films, per se. I think you can listen and enjoy getting to know Bergman's early films without having seen them.

The first four all have nice elements to them, but I truly love To Joy. Still, this is just the beginning! So much good stuff is coming as Bergman moves on to the next part of his career and really starts getting up to speed!

I've only seen Persona and Wild Strawberries. Although I prefer Persona a bit more, they tug my heartstrings in odd ways. Saying that the best film I saw which concerns old age (other than Wild Strawberries) is probably De Sica's Umberto D, with Haneke's Amour as a close second.

Yes, I love Umberto D too. I'd say t's a different sort of thing from Bergman, as if its starting point is the social realism and any philosophical aspects spring from that, whereas Bergman often seems to work the other way round. And whilst I haven't seen anything like all of them - Trevor, have you seen his entire filmography? - lives of economically marginalised people is not one of Bergman's big subjects. That sort of philosophical work based around yet another comfortable [London/ New York] household is something I have limited patience with in literature, but in Bergman I usually find a lot more depth in it for some reason. More recent novels on that sort of thing are often repeating stuff from earlier works I guess. Or maybe I just respond better to its in effect being historical, as it is in a film from the 1950s-60s.

Antonomasia wrote: "Yes, I love Umberto D too. I'd say t's a different sort of thing from Bergman, as if its starting point is the social realism and any philosophical aspects spring from that, whereas Bergman often s..."

I agree

Antonomasia wrote: "Trevor, have you seen his entire filmography?"
No, not quite. I'm mostly there, but there are some stragglers that I hope to fill in soon when that Bergman set comes out. It won't fill in all of the blanks, though. For example, I'm missing a few from the early years, but the only one of those that will be available in the set is 1947's A Ship to India. I am not sure how readily available It Rains on Our Love (1946) or Music in the Darkness (1948) are so I might always have those blanks. From the later years I'm missing a few too that won't be available in this new set.

Carissa, the sale started today, and you can indeed get the set for 50% off!

Here is a podcast series I did with CriterionCast on Bergman's "summer" films: Summer Interlude, Summer with Monika, and Smiles of a Summer Night. I love them each so much, but I think Summer Interlude is Bergman's first minor-key masterpiece. Smiles of a Summer Night is his first outright masterpiece. For people looking to see their first Bergman film, and who have the impression of him being a dour man, go with Smiles of a Summer Night, a true delight.

Here are links to the episodes:

Summer Interlude

Summer with Monika

Smiles of a Summer Night

And here is a link to my written review of Smiles of a Summer Night , truly one of my all-time favorite films.