INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘ALL THESE WOMEN’: “The architecture of this house is very complex. You can easily get lost and wander astray.”

© 2021 by James Clark

The endeavors of the films of Ingmar Bergman involve a remarkably wide range. Being a magician of dramatic forces, he puts into our hands myriad dilemmas, seldom, or never before, seen. Where the norms of drama set about, you can be sure that he’s not looking. For him, the norm of reflection has already done its damage, a damage which cannot be significantly altered.

Of course these actions take place on the basis of long-standing matrices. But the casts of his showdowns never fail to be nightmarish and crushing. Our film today, All These Women (1964), constitutes one of the more unusual directions, almost like one in a blue moon. But a blue moon deriving its power from its positivity, its twin. There is, in the world of Bergman, a pairing with this very bizarre entry, namely,  The Devil’s Eye (1960), where a couple, in an apparently happy marriage, find themselves millions of light-years apart. Their quiet, nightmarish efforts to reach cogent affection elicit the creative element of pathos, where all around there is crude bathos, quick and careless amity, in fact hell. Moreover, her once-in-a-lifetime unfaithfulness also attains to pathos, where the suitor/lover—even so briefly, even so finite—comes and then goes in a day. With all the elements having touched in that way, they form a singularity, being not only reaching an apex, but at the portal of becoming an associate in nature itself. Real magic! Real feeling!

Thereby, in the second form of this filmic couplet (being our film today), the gentle, small and amazing gifts pretty much quit the stage in favor of pedantry and advantage. What’s up? In fact plenty; but it will take  a while to clear it up.

 In the late fifties and early sixties, Bergman’s thoughts tended to matters of the cosmos, and particularly that enigma of religion whereby a consciousness of some sort becomes instrumental. The fervent and fragile initiatives, in The Devil’s Eye, became a proof fully carnal, that the elements can be touched, can be improved by such depth of sensibility, destined to become lost forever, but having made its modest play. (This being, then, as unlike the tremors of The Virgin Spring (1960), which requires those few to imagine a “miracle” of a spring where nothing can be phenomenal, earthly.)

That the razzmatazz music of the so-called, “Roaring Twenties,” gets any attention at all here, signals that the sublime of pathos will not be making a substantive return visit. Why, then, must we endure the proceedings to come? We do so in the spirit, not for its “comedy”—being, in fact, far from amusing—but, that its manic assault introduces a scrutiny, while seemingly far over the top, actually the currency not only of screwball entertainment but that sobriety tracing back to the entirety of world-history bathos. Bergman turning up the heat, to see if anyone out there might look to a hitherto neglected patch of abomination.

    The scenario gives us something familiar, namely, the distribution  pertaining to a triad, that shot in the arm which seldom takes fire, taking fire here being the management of mundane needs, while minding to include the carnal poetry we all control. Right at our film’s beginning, there are two (middling) candelabras, each with three candles, by a coffin—one candelabra short of the synthesis to make life truly serious and truly joyous.

Adding to that, we have, from the preceding decade, the matter of the arts, being not what it should be; moreover, the art of music, and, specifically the music of the cello. (Our bemusing film sees fit to cover five versions of the funeral of Felix, the cellist of note—from one angle being a name destined for immortality.) That preceding decade, so weighted down with paradox and distemper, does, ever-so-lightly, collide with our “genius” and his  associates, the latter spinning into a harem. (Woven into this miasma is the Bergman standby of distain toward patricians, families clogged with ease and the simplistic advantage. In a variant, however, the source of the money, here,  derives from the enterprise of one Madame Tussaud, a powerhouse  of seducing those craving for sensations, along lines of wax figures. Perfect for the appetite of the bizarre; so piquant, so tempting; but being driven in the twenties by new needs. [The real Madame Tussaud having lived nearly a century earlier.] Another player, though, Cornelius, a visitor preparing a biography of the supposed giant, Felix, is a classic, weak buffoon, without his family riches, surely becoming destitute. He is, with his very suspect approach to music, happily welcome to a palace, as we have so often seen, “speaking the same language.”) The era of the giddy, being set up for a big Crash.

    Before we get down to the ragged scenario, let’s more clearly specify those changes which the players are hit with. Cornelius brags to the Maestro’s impresario, Jillken, that he’s sent an insulting note to the composer, Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky’s work was redolent of the recent unprecedented war, as well as being touched by matters in other disciplines, which challenged a settled life. “I considered it my duty as a music critic to expose him.” Jillken, smugly asks, “Has he stopped composing or does he persist?” Those “experts” of music would have been untouched by what was brimming in painting and graphic art in the preceding years, especially in the ironies of French Art Deco (which the ladies of the salon appreciated, slightly). Perhaps even more unsettling, was the wild card of Dadaism, no friend of the effete. Yet the lost  to the new had being touched, slightly, by the craziness in the air. Such craziness had been a birthright to that cadre. But now it was different. Probably the harem of Felix was not long-term. Probably the paradoxes of the elements bending, were telling us something acute. The death of the supposed giant might bring us to a realization that he and his crazy solitude had hit a wall that he saw he could not surmount. Cornelius, in the spirit of clarification, was heard to say, “The Maestro lives as if in a gigantic cello…” [supposed to be a strength, but in the light of day, a prison]. He lives as if a solo, as if in a cello.”

    With a radio performance booked soon (with no communication from the star to the impresario), Cornelius, active with his ancient, plume-pen to add spice to his sure-fire best-seller, encounters another cellist, namely, Tristram, now working as a servant to Felix. (Though not directly part of the main scenario, the biographer had come across Tristam [also overhearing the impresario’s frustration] and stung by that opportunity Felix now enjoyed. We have to imagine that the snoop would, at some point of the dialogue,  hide away, the better to receive the bitter gossip.) Years before this time, Tristam was the “great” cellist of note until foolishly allowing himself to play the game of advantage, with Felix, a game with so many features and with so many gifts: including Tristam’s, “if somewhat prone to nervousness.” Pedantry and advantage; and pissing away the real  reward. Madame Tussaud accommodates both of them. “Tristam still hates our Felix.”/ “Yes, Madame.”/ To a Cornelius, making his strategic exit: “You should have met the young genius I took care of…”/ Tristam: “Thank you, Madame.”/ “Before I and my money made him world famous.”/ Tristam adds, “You still love him [Felix], Madame.”/ Madame Tussaud: “At first he was just pleasant. A young, ugly and very talented boy. Pleasant for my body and vanity. One night I heard him whisper, to my maid—’I’ll be right there, darling… I just have to fulfill my obligations toward, Madame Tussaud.’ That night I loved him. I still love him…”

    Madame Tussaud had allowed herself to be a show, a bathetic show; and not a sterling human. Cheap shows are for the weak. Being a Maestro of advantage is like walking into a fast truck. The pedantic woman with money turns to slack gossip. “He’s [Felix] very ignorant” [not savvy like her]./ “Yes, Madame.” “Tragic” Tristam elaborates, “That night [of Felix’s being first] he seduced my wife.” (There is, clearly, a reference to the vicar’s wife having been seduced by a Pablo far more wise than Felix, in the film, The Devil’s Eye.) More, from Tristam, the lovelorn, “For me it was incomprehensible. Something snapped inside me, as they say in the novels. Then, in my entire life in ruin, I looked him up to kill him. I stood there trembling from hatred and a hangover.”/ “ Look at yourself, Tristam [Felix remarked]. You’re drinking too much. If you promise to stay sober, you can be my chauffeur… I accepted. I became his chauffeur.”

Cornelius, with the night still young (or at least still breathing) is caught by Tristam at his haunt behind a curtain. There are curtains and other curtains, to be reflected upon. Not only the tame writer is wasting his time, but the six jumpy “lovers” of the harem have convinced themselves that their jobs are the most that the world can provide. And then, there is Felix, with his inkling that his job is not what he first imagined. During the five flickering funeral moments, the only wit heard by the severally “widows” is the cliché, “He looks the same and yet so different.” That one has to describe the moment as somehow more of the same should not be an occasion of bashing the ladies. The whole history of our planet has bought into the madness that nothing remarkable occurs in death. Take your pick, hosannas or a yawn, or something in between—the creativity of pathos within this moment is rare indeed. The decorative and sometimes playful ones attend to their creature comforts, and along the way they attempt to reach moments of telling advantage. For instance, a newcomer tells Cornelius, “I’m a young, pretty relation of Felix, going to reconcile the old man with the family. The family suddenly got rich in the tobacco industry and old man Felix being a famous relative, why not use him for publicity. Hence a cigar called Felix. So he sued them, which could be expensive for the family. They know the old man’s weakness. So they sent me with my luscious body, and a box of cigars. They probably thought, ‘This girl is so terribly young, and she must have some morals.’ They didn’t know that it was I who didn’t have any. Old Felix has the hots for me. He wants to prove he’s not old and useless. You know what he named me last night? ‘Saint Cecilia.’ He pretended to respect my innocence.” On Cornelius kissing Cecilia, she asks him, “Doesn’t that taste heavenly?”

    If this doesn’t sound like what a serious artist is, it’s because, while that, in the past Felix investigated the powers of sensibility, he encountered such difficulties in his daring work that he had to conclude that he was too weak to do justice to the matter. Felix had become a hermit—with a difference; which is to say, a retinue of women, one each night, to try to feel not old and useless. Moreover, another, difference: he’s thinking of suicide. The world’s envy of pedantry and advantage, knowing he produces a handsome fake, like the waxworks.

During an often-bruited broadcast of his reticent recital, one of the ladies with disenchantment slowly brings out a pistol from her purse. Does he die of shock in seeing that? Or had his own disenchantment finally reached an end? The cessation requires no answer; but more of a different kind of disclosure does.

One of the many (obsolete) screwball moments finds Cornelius inadvertently touching off a storm of fireworks. On the balcony, Felix, in a robe, waving a white cloth, not unlike a pope, represents a dead-end.

    As the final and predictably rancorous moments of the funeral dies down, a young man and his cello eclipses the screen. He presents himself to the owner of the palace, who once could see some dignity in seeking something resonant that is yet to fly. The business lady (and nothing else), declares, “You’re supposed to be talented.” In a closely seen swoop, Tristam steals pages from Cornelius’s biography/ scandal sheet—the pages being embarrassing—and presents them to Felix’s widow. That being the beginning of their relationship. (A bemusing form of stealing Felix’s wife.) Therewith, the beginning of a new dreamboat, with the old hands on deck. Madame Tussaud asks, “Would you like to live with me, and let us take care of you?” The boy asks, “I’ll be famous, right?” The owner shoots back, “Most certainly, my boy. Now, may we hear you play? What are you waiting for?” The impresario, moments before being a picture of desperation, congratulates the business lady, “A nice catch, Madame!” The one of the seraglio, called “Bumblebee,” brags, “I’ve just shown him his room.” Cornelius envisages another book, for what it’s worth. That the razzmatazz concludes the film is perfect for them. But not for us.

To fully fathom this film we must go back to the beginning, and a pair of hands on the neck of a cello. It comes as no surprise that such musicality pertains to the range of hands and fingers. But the motions of hands and fingers that do not emit sounds are a subject seldom appreciated. The bizarre song and dance in this film leaves us with scant appreciation. The only, even slight, coherent, figure, amidst the rubble would be, one, Isolde, the servant. Her lack of needing advantage amidst figures devouring it, had somehow reached Felix’ comprehension, as she tidied his studio. There she was a presence of rather strange delight, as speaking to Cornelius, the gossip. “I admire everything in this house. Everything is nice. It has to be… Tristam’s so nice. Everything’s so nice in this house. Do you know what Maestro Felix says? ‘That all the nice things in the house would be pointless without my admiration.’ He walks around the house with me, wanting my admiration. Then he plays for me in his studio. He remembers his childhood. He gives his art to the people. In that moment, you represent the people. He looks at you while playing for you…. I sit there admiring his hands and where they go. I feel a tingle inside when I watch his fingers on the strings. Then all of a sudden I’m sitting, I’m sitting where the cello was.” Cornelius tells her, “That’s impossible!” She, with a range far more acute than the hater of Stravinsky, ignores the filthy rich, and declares, “His finger position is wonderful. Isn’t that the term?” Cut to them on the floor, like children. Isolde’s watering can at the ready. She asks Cornelius to listen to the faint beauty. “He calls me his ‘da gamba,’ his little lap viola. He’s sitting there playing… He’s not to be disturbed now…”

    Felix’ lazy-boy incoherence has no future. His death shows how little he counts, how little any celebrity counts. His last years were a case of semi-integrity. He had, no doubt, a sense that his career was drawing him to daring a far more comprehensive skill. In meeting Isolde, his main-takeaway was confronting a soul with a better job. She, without, the imperative to crush everything in sight, could become simply sane. In the hubbub of the new sensation, Isolde is as perky as ever. Which is to say, there’s lots beyond people. (Recall that she was alright with the cliché, “He looks the same and yet so different.” The twists and turns here constitute great drama.)

Our unspoken protagonist leaves us with not only her affection toward the bemusing bungler, but in the lap of luxury, whereby she could find her major love. Her major love, being intrinsic, could become simply an oddity, a reflex of a positive. But let’s imagine that, in her life of “life passing her by,” she sees a bit farther than Felix. What would that look like? First of all, she might, with her coarse hands, scrutinize what strong hands can produce. When working with a will, she could not only drive (in the spirit of one’s “Villa Tremolo”) a balance of simple sensuous dynamics; but an introduction of that agency which you don’t want to ignore. You don’t want to be without a clear attention of the farthest reach between uncanny and canny, because that measure is the real show, the real love, and the lucidity by which to stage a counter-attack against those hordes who, at the slightest depth, rush to kill—even if only metaphorically. (The sweetheart invested in her wherewithal of seeing gentle ways to render the hopeless, while still invested in near miracles.)

    Becoming a warrior while remaining a sweetheart, takes mastery of a very unusual range of sensibility. Along the way to embrace this skill, much distraction would rain down, presaging a life of toil. Early on, Isolde warned a heedless Cornelius that the state of affairs, “is an architecture most complex. You can easily get lost and wander astray.” As a fastidious servant, she would be good to go along the treacherous architecture of a cosmos far more complex than our history could manage. Though the planet is riven with the-astray, one’s own clarity can do far much more. It can be alert that when overcoming the dross of the mundane, one is confronted with two courses: the gifts of running with efficacy; and the gifts of running happily within the powers-that-be. From the point of view of a mortal, both of those forces can come into fruitful action in tandem; and a fruitful player to an equal, in creativity itself. The lively hands (and other moves) know of a solitude reaching smack into the agency itself, while smack into the surprise that the get-go is not an impossible concern. Life, as an impossible puzzle, becomes irresistible to those with an inkling that they will be given news they won’t like. Moreover, the gusto of finitude has proven to be far more intense than the civilization can tolerate. (From that perspective, humans are the most fragile creatures. During the incursion of Cecilia, one of the regulars demurs, “We have created our own moral order.”)

Could we imagine, Isolde (so unlike the Wagner, Isolde [but at the same time far closer to the Tristam, here]), in the midst of carrying on, in the house where carrying on is de rigeur, reaching that height and maintaining that grace? Maintaining, thereby, a small stake of a cosmos that needs it. Her pathos in this life not to be overlooked.