(Sweden 1982 309m) DVD1/2
Aka. Fanny och Alexander
One role follows another
p Jörn Donner d/w Ingmar Bergman ph Sven Nykvist ed Sylvia Ingemarsson m Daniel Bell art Anna Asp cos Marik Vos
Pernilla Allwin (Fanny Ekdahl), Bertil Guve (Alexander Ekdahl), Jan Malmsjö (Bishop Edvard Vergerus), Ewa Fröling (Emilie Ekdahl), Gunn Wallgren (Helena Ekdahl), Allan Edwall (Oscar Ekdahl), Boerje Ahlstadt (Prof.Carl Ekdahl), Christina Schollin (Lydia Ekdahl), Jarl Kulle (Gustav-Adolph Ekdahl), Pernilla Wallgren (Maj), Mona Malm (Alma Ekdahl), Gunnar Björnstrand (Filip Landahl), Erland Josephson (Isak Jacobi), Harriet Andersson (Justina), Lena Olin (Rosa), Anna Bergman, Kirsten Tidelius,
Ingmar Bergman’s final masterpiece has been called many things; a childhood rhapsody, an elegy to the past, a subtly intricate family saga, a compendium of his entire oeuvre and a ravishing recreation of turn of the century Sweden. In truth it’s all these things and much more. All Bergman’s favourite themes run through its five hours, from life and death to love and sex, from food and drink to fidelity and marriage, from faith and truth to pleasure and lies, from childhood and family to grief and joy, with more than a little time for dreams and ghosts. It’s not only a masterpiece but a summation of one man’s brilliant career. As Bergman himself has said, “Fanny and Alexander is the sum total of my life as a filmmaker.”
The tale covers the lives and loves of the Ekdahl family in the small town of Uppsala, beginning in Christmas 1907. During this family gathering, which was very much a Scandinavian institution, the servants mingle with the gentry and the gentry eye up the maids. However, the almost detached reality of this holiday period is soon shattered when the father of the two eponymous children dies suddenly of a heart attack and his bereaved mother agrees to marry a local puritanical bishop.
The latter part of the synopsis undeniably borrows from Dickens (think David Copperfield) and there are Shakespearean allusions throughout (the father dying just before Hamlet is due to open, just as the king in the play has recently died). Much of the philosophy of Bergman is wrapped up in the actors’, with the wonderful Gunnar Björnstrand’s moving rendition of Feste the clown’s closing song in Twelfth Night (“for the rain it raineth every day”, indeed) accurately paralleling the state of the troupe’s psyche at the time. The time for Shakespeare and the great classics of Ibsen had gone, the very essence of the troupe that their fathers upheld was dying out. “Audiences have no ears for the songs of giants, only the squeaking of dwarfs” mourns Björnstrand, perhaps Bergman’s attack on the prevalence of mindless spectaculars that were just beginning to take over cinemas at the time and his using of an actor troupe (recalling The Seventh Seal and The Rite among others), is in tune with that assumption. Maybe that’s why he decided that this would be effectively his swansong, he felt he’d passed his sell-by date.
The symbolism in the film is also subject to much discussion, with continual shots of flowing water showing the passing of time (a trick borrowed by Raoul Ruiz in the later Time Regained). Here Sven Nykvist again proves himself one of the true masters of his art with some interior shots so beautiful as to be beyond description, the period décor and costumes are faultless and the cast are nothing short of perfection. Though such Bergman luminaries as Björnstrand, Andersson, Kulle and Josephson are on hand and all are memorable, one mustn’t forget Wallgren’s mournful grandmother who dreams of her dead son, Fröling’s tender Emilie and, most memorably, Malmsjö’s unforgettably hateful bishop. In truth, one page is scant room to discuss a film of such joy. I haven’t even mentioned Uncle Carl’s fireworks (suffice to say Gandalf has nothing to do with it). And if its young protagonist may be prone to the odd murmur of “bloody hell”, forget your annoying Ron Weasleys, this is cinematic magic of an altogether richer kind.
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I won’t say much now, as i am ready to retire, and am not at all well. But this was my own #1 choice.
Hm. I’ve never really been able to get into Bergman’s color works as much as his efforts in black & white. Partly it’s because I find his fantastical work like “The Seventh Seal” to be a bit more directly cinematic than his chamber dramas, which always betrayed the director’s theaterical roots a bit too much for me. “Fanny & Alexander” is a fine work, but a bit overloaded at times, a true kitchen-sink film, where a filmmakers seeks to cram in every last ounce of imagery and sensation before giving up the ghost. Granted, that’s what he was aiming for, but as a result, I always find the film a little aimless and unfocused. It’s a fitting intended end to Bergman’s career, but I think its reputation owes more to that career than anything else, frankly. It’s not a true late-period masterpiece in the same way that “Ran” was for Kurosawa, in my opinion. It’s simply the last movie he made, or at least said he was going to make, a collection of autobiographical odds and ends that don’t always measure up as a sum of all parts.
I’m probably the only one here who’ll say it, of course. I can’t even remember if I had this one on my own list, at all. That sums it up, personally.
Bob, I am not ready to dismiss F & A as easily as you, but my personal reaction is not remarkably different. I like it, but it doesn’t gel as much for me as The Seventh Seal or The Virgin Spring etc. And aside from the gorgeous color cinematography, I do generally prefer the director’s B&W work. However, have you seen the TV version of this film, or only the theatrical release? The TV version is a richer experience, and while it does not know necessarily make the movie more cohesive (though it very well might) there are some fleeting moments which are simply wondrous, some of which are in the theatrical version, some of which aren’t: Death traipsing through the living room as the clock chimes, a slow-motion prarade of characters as snow (or pillow feathers?) falls lightly over them, and my personal favorite, the puppet God’s fingers pushing the door open. If the film is nothing other than a container of striking, resonant Bergman moments and imagery, I’d say it’s a worthy one.
With all due respect I completely disagree with Bob, as much as he politely acknowledges tht he’s in the extreme minority here at WitD, where the film is apparently making a strong run to finish #1 in the 80’s polling. I see that several voters, including myself have placed the film at poll position on their lists, and a few others, including Ed Howard and Kevin Olson have it as their #2 choice.
Bergman’s color work produced three bonafide masterpieces: CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972), SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1975) and this film. This is far from an affectionate coda and fond farewell to a long career, but a capping masterpiece that frankly stands with his best films (PERSONA, WILD STRAWBERRIES, CRIES AND WHISPERS, SAWDUST AND TINSEL, WINTER LIGHT) To seriously contend that the film throws all the past devices in an all but the kitchen sink scenario is to miss the fact that this film marks the only instance where Bergman was able blend poetic lyricism with his patended gothic melancholy, in a spectacularly provocative and entertaining story that probably resonates with the masses better than any of his films. Along with CRIES AND WHISPERS it strikes an emotional chord more compellingly than any film of his career, and as a film about childhood it has no peer in all of cinema.
Robert Schumann’s “Piano Quintet in E flat major” one of the most piercingly beautiful and elegiac pieces of music ever written (and Bergman understood it’s mysterious beauty perfectly) is used as effectively as any composition has ever been in its use in a film.
Interesting, Sam, in that you definitely seem to have a preference for the color films. Like Bob, I’m more of a B&W guy when it comes to Bergman, though I suspect this has more to do with his overall approach when he’s shooting B&W – or maybe even it’s more to do with the period in his career in which he happened to be shooting either one or the other. Actually, that might be the case because mentally I tend to categorize Passion of Anna with the B&W works.
At any rate, stop taking the bait! You need to get well…
Thanks for the concern Joel. Advil gels are holding the pain down, but the unfortable bloatiness is difficult.
I wouldn’t say I prefer the color films to the black and white at all, especially since the B & W outnumber the color maybe 6 to 1. He made THREE color masterpieces, which I noted before, and perhaps eight or nine B & W films that are in the same category of close to it (WILD STRAWBERRIES, SAWDUST AND TINSEL, PERSONA, WINTER LIGHT, THE SILENCE, SUMMER INTERLUDE, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, THE SEVENTH SEAL), andeven if I resort to numerical order as I have done before (I’m list obsessive as you know) you wouldn’t be able to detect a preference.
I also quite like ‘Autumn Sonata’… though I’d say I probably prefer his B+W’s (just on the simple fact that there is more of them) too, but it matters little. This film (F and A) is a supreme masterpiece.
Man– I’ve watched the television version. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that for me it isn’t really up there with Bergman’s classics. Frankly, I don’t really enjoy “Scenes From a Marriage”, either– I don’t think that television brought out the best in him as a filmmaker, giving him a longer period of time to stretch out a story. He wasn’t quite like Kieslowski, Fassbinder and Altman or eventually Lynch and Von Trier, who all knew how bring a different kind of pacing to their efforts for serial storytelling. They embraced the episodic nature of television work, and used that structure to their advantage. Bergman, I feel, simply treated it as an excuse to make a very, very long film, and while that film might be very good, I feel that it doesn’t really capture the medium it’s indiginous to in a great way.
Anyway, as I’ve said I’m not crazy about Bergman’s chamber-room dramas, as a whole. Once he made the shift to color, I feel like he abandoned his more muscular, cinematic stories– a knight playing chess with death, a mother, son and enigmatic woman staying in a city on the verge of war, a father out to avenge his daughter’s death– for a kind of storytelling which owed far more to his theaterical roots. Stuff like “Fanny & Alexander” reminds me more of Chekov and Ibsen than it does cinema, to be quite honest, and therefore it doesn’t really interest me as much. Somewhere in his career, Bergman really stopped being a filmmaker, and became a dramatist instead. That doesn’t mean he stopped making quality films, but rather that the medium had become a means, instead of an end.
While I don’t draw the some of the same conclusions you do we share the same sensibility on Bergman’s color vs. B&W and the shift to “chamber dramas.” Not that I don’t like them, but I do tend to prefer the earlier Bergman – though I wouldn’t put the emphasis so much on the stories he’s telling (admittedly, the play a role) as the way he tells them.
Chekov and Ibsen are there Bob, but I’d say a much stronger dose of Strindberg.
Fanny and Alexander is Bergman’s most novelistic film in the 19th century sense of the term. A bit Dickensian, a bit Gothic, it is steeped in 19th century narrative convention. It is also the director’s ‘warmest’ work. I am in agreement with critical voices who consider this film’s “baroque” visual splendors not be matched by its ‘thought’. But I’d go further than this and suggest that even though this is always a very engaging film to watch it does not represent any sort of technical advance on Bergman’s previous work whether in color or black and white (the director’s last formalist masterpiece is probably Cries and Whispers). Allan is certainly right inasmuch as many frames here are exceedingly beautiful to look at but it seems to me that search obvious ‘aestheticization’ is what Bergman was never about at any point in his career. It is almost as if the director wanted to cheer himself up late in life! One can hardly begrudge any director a film like Fanny and Alexander but a late age masterpiece I do not consider it to be.
Kaleem, you have always been consistent with your position on both this film and Bergman, and again you’ve enlightened us here, agreed or not.
Wow, I didn’t think it was possible to have such ambivalent reactions to this film. For me, it’s utterly magical and richly emotional, as deep and exciting as anything Bergman ever made. It is quite possibly his finest work. As much as I like him as a director, only a couple of his earlier films even come close to this, and certainly not The Seventh Seal, which I’ve always liked slightly less than most Bergman admirers. Fanny and Alexander, in its TV version (the ONLY way to see it!), is such a sprawling, dense work, encompassing the sum total of Bergman’s fascinations and themes: his suspicion of dour religious moralism, his love of the theater and theatricality, his feel for the supernatural and mysterious. And it’s all filtered through the wide eyes of his boy protagonist, a more fleshed-out descendent of the mostly mute young witnesses of The Silence and the opening of Persona. It’s about childhood, imagination, fantasy, and above all, it’s about Bergman’s dreams and hopes for some kind of family, for the rich, vibrant family life he wished he had, rather than the suffocating, spartan childhood he actually endured. Bob called it a “kitchen sink” film, and that it is, but it’s a joyous amalgam, and a supremely confident one. Bergman’s storytelling was never before this expansive or this complex.
It’s funny Ed, but my response above, written a you were writing and submitting this also mentions Bob’s use of the “kitchen sink” analogy, and I also took the liberty of mentioning your name, not knowing if you’d get over here, with your big week ahead. The storytelling was indeed “expansive” and it was as psychologically as complex as any film in his canon, points I add here to the ones I made above.
Ed, I can definitely see how the film would spur that sort of reaction, even if I don’t entirely share it. Ultimately, I am more conscious of Bergman composing the film with F & A than I usually am – I’m never able to just disappear into the world of the movie, the way I can more or less with The Seventh Seal or Through a Glass Darkly etc. Which isn’t in and of itself a problem, but I think F & A is the kind of film which works best if you can slip into its universe. I see it more as an object to be admired than a magical work to swim in; again, not a bad thing, not a knock on its greatness, and very possibly my own personal hang-up which does not do justice to the experience I could be having. Still, there you have it.
However, as I said, the work does have fleeting moments which are among my very favorite in Bergman’s cinema, and that’s not small potatoes. Even these moments belong to the “admire” category rather than the “immersion” category, but the admiration is so high that it’s enough.
Here’s the best way to put it, really: most of Bergman’s other films have the quality of dreams, this one has the quality of a daydream. Not a knock, just a distinction, what one makes of that is up to oneself.
“Even these moments belong to the “admire” category rather than the “immersion” category, but the admiration is so high that it’s enough.”
Joel, count me in with the “immersion” people.
Would you still agree with the dream vs. daydream quality, though? Not as a knock, just as a descriptor (after all, there’s no reason daydreams can’t be as worthy of cinematic treatment as dreams).
I wouldn’t agree. I think Fanny and Alexander is, if anything, one of Bergman’s most dreamlike works: it’s all about magic, as seen through a child’s wondering eyes, bursting into the world. As for your points about immersion, it works similarly for me to the way David Lynch’s films do: where the artifice is so self-conscious, so carefully constructed, that I can never forget I’m watching a movie, and yet I nevertheless find myself submerging entirely in this cinematic alternate reality. It’s an immersive self-consciousness, if that makes sense, the way when we’re dreaming we know we’re dreaming and yet still find ourselves carried along by the strange logic of the imagery we’re experiencing.
Joel, I hear ya, but I’m not sure I agree. The dark elements of this film, which sometimes reach a terrifying context is as deep and as profound as any of his overtly pessimistic treatises of the early days, and the surrealism is as acute an dpainful as it is in films like WILD STRAWBERRIES. There is a sense of mysticism and wonderment and more than a hint of final happiness, but the darkest recesses of the soul are tackled here head-on on the story and imagry. I think for the first time the master was able to see from outside the prism, and the result is one of the most beautiful films in the history of the cinema.
Ok, I see Ed’s response as I was entering mine. I would have to agree without reservations.
I guess it’s tom-a-to, tom-ah-to then. I just don’t see F & A as touching the same mystical, metaphysical recesses as other Bergman films. I see it as a work of active imagination rather than unconscious dreaming.
Quite appropriately, it has the quality of a magic lantern show, a puppet theatre in which you are totally aware of the almost archetypal, fabricated quality of everything but that only adds to the charm. See Death in this film, with the static mask vs. Death in The Seventh Seal, just as archetypal in outfit but with a human face – an open metaphor rather than a closed one.
Again, all of this is not to knock the film, just to classify it. Ultimately I “prefer” the dream film to the daydream film but not to the extent that I want one to replace the other; I’m glad both can thrive in one man’s cinema, let alone the cinema at large. I can fully see how one would prefer active imagination to unconscious dreaming; I just can’t see how one would think F&A represents the latter rather than the former.
Indeed, any power in the stepchildren being consigned to the stepfather’s castle seems to stem from the stripping of their imagination bare – the terror of the pastor, as I see it, is not nightmarish but rather brutally “real” (if not quite realistic, which I might actually prefer). Bergman does not give us a gothic tower but rather spare and drab chambers, the active refutation of the rich, lush, imaginative world of F&A’s former life. So it seems that he too is pursuing the daydream metaphor, because a daydream can be punctured and refuted in a way a dream cannot – and his representation of evil is not a DARKER imagination but a LACK of imagination.
So perhaps as with tom-a-to/tom-ah-to, we’re referring to the same thing in different ways. That makes sense to me; experiencing the film as a dream on the same level as the earlier work doesn’t.
Heck, maybe we just have very different ways of dreaming!
God (did I say “God here”?) yet another Movie Man gem. I don’t agree, but who can fail to marvel at this kind of a probing appraisal.
“I see it as a work of active imagination rather than unconscious dreaming.”
Here’s where we differ. I think the latter description was broached in the surrealistic sequences.
As far as the ‘brutal realism’ of the pastor sequences, you are quite right there, but they still stand as a stark contrast to the elements that make up the philosophical center of the film. I don’t agree with the EVIL/LACK of imagination proposal, so I’ll agree, we have different dreams! LOL!!!
You have my mind going here.
“A summation of one mans entire career”… That just about sums it up for me. This film (the TV version) can only be described with anyone with a heart as GLORIOUS. I cannot argue the placement as any position in the top ten is an honor. I myself think that a “kitchen-sink” film doesn’t necessarily need to bad. I think Bergman waited all his life to make this film, gathering the ability to comment on his own life through life experiences. In my mind, this is the film he was destined to make beyond all others. I love PERSONA, THE VIRGIN SPRING shakes me, the faith trilogy is a life altering experience and WILD STRAWBERRIES could be one of the greatest filmic experiences ever. But, this film is life, in all its joys and heartaches, and that alone should be considered an achievement. The best film of the decade and my favorite of all Bergmans films.
This is an excellent comment here once again Dennis, one that I must say I completely and irrevocably agree with.
Interesting how we respond differently to different works. I like this film, enjoy it, it has some of my favorite moments in the seventh art, but I don’t see the “life itself” aspect onscreen, just a very well-composed piece of work. But obviously that aspect is there in the work if so many people respond to it. Either that or people are projecting their own feelings onto the work without the work justifying it, but with an artist of Bergman’s magnitude and with a film with as much care, thought, and feeling put into as this one I really don’t think that’s the case. I’m not one who believes each person’s immediate subjective response is the be-all end-all in judging a work of art – my own has shifted too many times for that to be true. Rather, I’d look for the highest possible reaction and try to assess to what extent that reaction is evoked by the work and to what extent it’s imposed on it by the viewer. (At the same time, I’d also try to consider the criticisms of a work and determine to what extent they’re still valid if one gets “the full experience”.)
I’d wager that Fanny & Alexander is emotionally richer and more immersive than my own experience suggests and hope that I can “get” that myself at some point. In the mean time, it’s good to air my own “reservations” (anything else seems too strong for a work which I admire and enjoy) for the film’s admirers to consider. In addition to the previous observations, the evil stepfather seems a little too dryly malign, so that the richness of the evil does not match the richness of the good in this film – though this could quite possibly be the point, and an excellent one in that one of the primary tensions in Bergman’s work is between a depth of emotion and an inability to feel (not so much happy vs. sad as sensitivity vs. blank anxiety). At the same time the villain’s single-minded cruelty DOES seem to call out for a fairy-tale treatment, so that the rather drab sequence in which the children are under his thumb can initially feel a disappointment. I wonder if this aesthetic disappointment was intended – to mirror the children’s – and to what extent that justifies it. But it is something to consider – a deeply compelling flaw, if it is indeed a flaw.
Those are fascinating observations, MovieMan. I think the sequences of the children at the stepfather’s home are intentionally drab and numbing, reflecting the experience of the kids — anything less wouldn’t communicate the point that these children are being taken from a life of vibrancy and continual sensual stimulation (best visualized, earlier, in the riotous and lengthy Christmas celebration) into a life of stifling mundanity. We feel, with them, the deprivation. It’s definitely a fairy tale set-up, which is why the stepfather is such a stereotyped “evil” character. He’s a foil for the children, and his cruelty consists of denying both the children and the audience the sensual pleasures that exist throughout the rest of the film. This period of deadness and stripped-down ugliness is then washed away with literal magic and mysticism, reinjecting the playful, mysterious qualities of imagination and fantasy into the stepfather’s intentionally lifeless world.
The typical brilliance here from Ed. When I read something like this I hav eno choice but to stand back and just nod. (It doesn’t hurt that I agree, no? LOL!)
Of course Joel, Dennis, Kaleem, Bob et al have all been brilliant too in defending their own feelings an dperceptions, but that goes without saying.
Ed, this sounds more like my reading above. My only question, then, is whether or not the fairy-tale set-up can contain the “realistic” denial of imagination or whether the denial should shatter that as well. In other words, should the ugliness and drabness of the stepfather’s universe take over to an extent that even the residual imaganitiveness of his evil (the witchlike sisters, the “evil stepfather” exaggerations of his character, the ghost stories, etc.) should be extinguished? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we could see the residual imaginativeness as the children just barely resisting the complete pull of his negative force.
I do know that on first viewing, I found the position of these scenes between fairy-tale irreality and satisfying imaginative richness disappointing. I can rationalize it intellectually to a certain extent, but aesthetically still feel like I’m missing something watching the film…or so I did the last time I saw it (though probably less so than initially, as I was watching the longer, more effective TV version).
I had a similar problem with the much inferior Pan’s Labyrinth in that there was supposed to be a tension between the “reality” of the girl’s life in Fascist Spain and the rich if dark fantasy of her underground adventures. Yet the Fascist scenes were as cartoony, maybe more so, as the fantasies and del Toro’s Jackson-like/Lucas-like wipes (sorry, Sam, sorry, Bob) didn’t help matters. I find it frustrating when a film sets out to display a tension between two ideas, moods, sensibilities, but kind of punts on one of them. Not that I’m entirely convinced F & A does – certainly not to the extent Pan’s Labyrinth does – but the frustration was there when I first saw it, and along with the feeling that the daydreams were supposed to be more dreamlike (something everyone’s protestations are now bringing to the fore again!) also hindered my enjoyment somewhat. Again, it’s all relative; my reservations are only in relation to the film’s reputation as possibly the best film of the 80s and maybe even Bergman’s masterpiece.
I should have said “between fairy-tale irreality and a truly, shockingly realistic denial of imagination” – I felt the stepfather scenes fell somewhere in between, too devoid of magic or richness (even if it’s a richness of dread, fear, anxiety) to be emotionally satisfying, yet too far from realism to be intellectually – and roundabout, emotionally – effective as a refutation of childhood magic.
Ha! I was just ready to jump in with PAN’S LABYRINTH, as I had big problems with that film, for the reasons you bring to the table here, but you’ve beat me to the punch. But F & A is not the same.
Listen, I’m not saying I’m smarter or more persuasive than anyone. But, I know what moves me. Perhaps Bergman wasn’t pulling out all the visual stopsa that he could have, but I don’t think that’s what he’s aiming for here. This film, I alaways believed, was a personal analysis of the kind of early life Bergman longed for. He was fascinated by people and the stories of their lives. He studied the big questions in life and the human condition. FANNY is exactly the kind of film you’d never expect from him at this period of visual assuredness and full narrative mastery. Here, he goes simple, nostalgiac and bittersweet and in one foul swoop proves just as audacious. By this time Bergman needed to prove or explain himself to no one. Probably the greatest film-maker in history.
Ah, Dennis, the ‘personal taste’ and ‘cup of tea’ argument, most impressively posed here! It can never be downplayed in one’s assessment of art.
I really cannot see compairing FANNY AND ALEXANDER to any other film. But then again, and maybe its just me, I could never see compairing any of Bergmans films with others outside of his canon. I think he was, arguably, the truest original that cinema ever produced. Fusing his knowledge on the dramatics of stage with a probing and deeply philosophical eye towards narrative structure and, as he grew, blending it all with some of the most audacious visuals ever concieved. I don’t think that Bergman learned from anyone. He is that rare thing, a pure genius. As such, all that follow emmulate him. Every film, every scene he ever concocted was an original. To compare him with others is a futile waste of time. IMO.
I kind of disagree. I love Bergman, he’s one of my favorites, and he was certainly a brilliant filmmaker. But I would reserve “pure genius” and “didn’t learn from anyone” for directors whose overall style is purely their own, sui generis so to speak. Bergman’s style actually shifted a lot over his career, and he’s that rare auteur who found his voice and his power slowly. Though the early works are fascinating they show their maker as a work in progress, rather than a fully-formed genius who just need polishing. It took him a dozen or so works to hit his stride, and a few more before he was churning out masterpieces.
Which I love, by the way; as an aspiring filmmaker myself it’s a relief to know that great filmmaking does not have to emerge fully-formed in the cradle! But I do think it sets Bergman apart from a Bresson, or a Welles, or a Godard whose full-fledged vision was present from the beginning. Other directors did take a while to form but once they had pretty much gelled into a singular force, again sui generis. Dreyer may fall into that category, though I have not seen his early works so it’s only hearsay – however there’s no doubt that from Passion of Joan of Arc forward, there’s no one like him.
As a writer, I think Bergman may be completely in his own category. As a director, I’m not so sure. His visual style shifted with the times and with the different films…note the discussion here of how, relatively late in his career, his style shifted again with the color chamber dramas. I must give credit where credit is due here; my thinking in this regard is shaped by a phenomenal David Bordwell essay, which can be found here:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=1139
As Bordwell points out, Bergman attracted criticism (from Rosenbaum, controversially, among others) because he was a “flexible stylist” one who “adapts to reigning norms”. In other words, when deep staging was in he used deep staging, when telephoto lenses were improved, he shot scenes closer. This is as opposed to a “stubborn stylist” who “pursues a signature style across the vagaries of fashion and technology” and a “polystylist” who “tries out different styles without much concern for what the reigning norms demand”. Arguably Bergman was the latter, though I think Bordwell makes a convincing case that he followed the times. At any rate, I don’t think he could be characterized as a stubborn stylist; his individuality emerges more through the themes he pursues and perhaps the locations he uses (though that underwent shifts as well, just not as dramatically and not as tied to historical developments). And of course, within each stylistic period, he did find his own unique take on the reigning aesthetic, which is important to remember.
Here’s the thing. I’m uneasy with making this a criterion “greatness” or ranking directors based on this quality, though many aren’t. I’m not dismissing the idea altogether but for the moment at least, I don’t want to throw out the idea that filmmakers should be judged on more than mise-en-scene (even broadly construed); or that even if they are, consistency over a body of work should take precedence over expressiveness within a given picture (though some would argue that consistency overall heightens expressiveness itself, to the sharpened eye, ear, and mind).
This comment could go on and on but there are a couple more comments on the matter I’d like to highlight. Actually I already did link to them on this website, along with providing my own thoughts on the matter. Rather than recap I’ll link to my original comment, which contains not only the links to the pertinent articles but quotes of the key passages. However, if you have any musings or responses, you should probably come back here to do so: we’re already scatter-brained enough on these threads!
Here’s the comment:
https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/the-exterminating-angel-no-18/#comment-7137
MovieMan — WOW! That is all I can say about your post(s).
Thanks for the great links too!
Incidentally, though I think their arguments remain compelling, in general terms of nothing else, it’s worth pointing out that neither Bordwell nor Rosenbaum had seen the TV version of Fanny & Alexander when penning their essays – indeed, Rosenbaum had not seen any version at all (he has since seen the theatrical version, and was unimpressed; don’t know if he ever saw the miniseries).
More great comments on the matter from scanners readers (including Rosenbaum himself):
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/08/ebert_strikes_back.html
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/08/fanny_rosenbaum_bordwell.html
Of course all of this is two years old, but I’m of the opinion that old blog entries should not just fade away…
Awesome discussion here…so many wonderful thoughts and ideas being bantered about, and it’s always nice to see some disagreement on here.
It will be interesting to see how “Fanny and Alexander” stacks up when the final votes are counted. I do believe I had it in my top ten, or damn near close.
Bergman is one of those prolific filmmakers (like Allen or Lumet) who I absolutely adore but it is damn near impossible to catch up with all of his films, and I only just attempted to watch and study him a little over a year ago, whereas Allen and Lumet I have watched and enjoyed since my teenage years — and still haven’t seen ALL of their films.
Here’s an old post, a tribute to Bergman and specifically “Fanny and Alexander” — which I feel like I saw YEARS ago, but it was only just over a year:
http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/2008/07/15/a-tribute-to-ingmar-bergman/
Oh, weird…I had F&A exactly at number 8 on my list, too! Though I think my list otherwise greatly differs from Allan both in content and order!
I’ve been out for the past few hours, although I am still feeling lousy. I had to secure tickets for a 10:00 P.M. showing tonight of “The Wizard of Oz” at the Clifton, N.J. multiplex. My family and cousin Robert McCartney will be attending this HD presentation, which I’m sure will be the greatest viewing ever of this timeless classic. I had to plop down $80 for those eight tickets though. Not bad eh, for a film we’ve all seen maybe 100 times in our lives?!? Ha!
I plan on writing something at the site over the next day or two on this experience.
It has not at all escaped my eyes at what Movie Man -Joel Bocko – has done at this site today. When you have someone like Joel making comments, it not only raises the bar, but it forces you to focus intently at the subject at hand. With Joel, you can’t get away with a two sentence summary or some insubstantial hyperbolic rave. You must be prepared to join the discussion on his terms, and this requires more than what he can do off the top of his head. David Schleicher is quite right. The links here are worthwhile supplement to this discussion. Joel has had some extraordinary moments, but today he has really hit a grand slam.
Jesus, I sound intimidating…
Seriously, though, credit where credit is due not just to you guys for starting the discussion with your site & Ed, Bob and the others who add fuel to the fire, but also brilliant guys like Bordwell: and I really hope everyone follows that link because it’s easily one of the best blog posts I’ve ever read. In fact it kind of stopped me short when I re-visited because I realized he’d said most of what I was getting at…and with pretty pictures too.
(Seriously, though, everyone should read it if they haven’t already and offer their thoughts here, it’s that good; then again, maybe it’s grist for another post/discussion-starter.)
Wow. Great writing by Allan and amazing insight here by all the commenters — this conversation has enticed me to immediately begin watching this film again (I watched 50% of the first “episode” a few weeks back when the copy I had started acting up, just at the end of the story about the chair).