INGMAR BERGMAN’S “Thirst” ‘Something robs me of my will’

 

by James Clark 2022

The Surrealist treasures of Ingmar Bergman’s early films culminate with the film, Thirst (1949). Our approach here will not coincide with the melodramatic saga, so necessary for the young artist’s business. There will be a nucleus, taken  far from the beginning of the text; and then many ironies with their crises; and then the genius of cameraman, Gunnar Fischer.

Believe it or not, there is (and has been, for eons) a significant number of folks who live millions of miles away from their friends. Living beyond the normal, pious hopes. Our protagonist, here, being one of those who has an uncanny energy, unable to put the picture together.  (The famed Surrealists also had problems with coherence. While making serious fun, much was missed.)

We start (and end) with her. We start at the cemetery of her long-dead husband, and its moments that never reached him. Nearby, she was a part of her adolescent’s crisis at a mental hospital, whereby she had smashed a window and left much blood that day. Moreover, and more to the point, there was a multimillionaire financing  the place, who thought he was a medical wizard. (This moment, however, had, for Bergman, also its viciousness angle. Several of these near-war films had been warped in face of a fascist bias. You might argue that the losing side had something to offer. But here, we come upon a sneer for the name, Rosegreen, meant to be attacked. And yet the irony flows beyond.)

    She begins with, “Do you have plans for Midsummer?”/ “I’ll be at my chalet, writing my book. Come with me… Come away and break a marriage…  Do something worthwhile… I’d like to shatter your illusions about your marriage.” She replies: “You open with an all-out attack today. My marriage was very happy…”/ “That’s  an illusion you cling to … You never loved your husband until after he died. You’ve spun a coat of armor around your marriage, like everything else. One long mistake! An eclectic childhood, a foolish marriage, twists and turns. Wake up!” (He walks away; then he comes back.)/ “Of course, you could stop seeing me.”/ “I always feel awake!” (She rushes away. She comes to the door. Her shadow. Back to him.)/ “You’re clever, Doctor. That was close.” (Shadows.) She lies on the sofa. She is morose./ “I feel very sorry for you…”/ “You don’t mean that… You’re not a good man. Your kindness is a sham.”/ “Kindness!”/ “You have no imagination. You’ve never lived. You know nothing about life, and therefore about suffering. All you do is think!”/  “You smoke too much.”/ “My last lover agreed with me.” (Pathetic excuse of understanding.)/ “And married a dancer!”/  “How do you know what’s true? Sure, you talk a lot. But in fact, you’re holding back. What are you keeping from me? Just be normal. Talk and let it out, any old way. Don’t worry about the form. I’ll sort it out… You need someone. Otherwise, you’ll perish… I’ll never abandon you. I’m your friend. More than that, I don’t want anyone standing in my place when you cry. You do cry, although never with me. Give yourself to me and I’ll deliver you…” (Delivering in spades will never occur by way of such a foppish creature.)/ “You’re clever… You call that giving? To stand and wait for the shock. You’ll never see my tears. I won’t put them on display.” /”What is it you can’t bear? The fact you’re fond of me? Try to understand. The main thing isn’t to be loved, but to love. I’ll put up no resistance. Love me.” / “You need psychotherapy yourself!” (She cries.) /”I can’t let you out.” She rushes past the door, and the worker repairing the glass smashed by her daughter, stops the fancy cop.

    A while later, on a very quiet street, in an affluent district, our protagonist finds herself overtaken by another woman. Whereas the latter had been clearly a young woman, the interplay proceeds as if they had been school friends. Surrealist twists have taken over here. What does that mean? In Bergman’s eye’s, it’s not about school’s-out! In fact, real work has only begun, on planet earth; with the thought that the work is beyond its capacities, given the odds.

Nevertheless, Toronto Music Director, Gustavo Gimeno, a brave and alert conductor, has–for the alert–a study for the aegis. Very recently, he had put into place a program for the zenith. The march there was as follows: two short, explosive hurricanes of sound; followed by Frederic Chopin’s, Piano Concerto No. 2, in F Minor, Op. 21; clearly different worlds, setting up a crisis (something no longer fully powerful, except as a minor querque, a surrealist twist); the last and most potent  work, being, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Scheherazade, Op  35, Jonathan Crow, violinist), being a force to the new. Thereby, one could disclose a new form of reaching out, to meet a new world. A surrealist  gift, seldom engaged.

    However, concerned with this issue, one must admit that virtually nothing has been accomplished, beyond hopeful wishes. The trouble is history. A history with two powers, religion and science; where, in fact there are three, the arts. In order to make sense, here, we need to hear more of those two who dabble. The protagonist is Mrs. Hemrukron; the other is called Ruth. (Remember, the first sight we got in this sight film was a huge swirl in the sea.) After the connection on the quiet street, the lady asks,/ “What’s in the bag?”/ ” A pork chop.”/ The younger one is beaming!/ The lady becomes morose./ Ruth proposes, “Come to see how I live. We can cook our chops together.” (Now the protagonist is sunny.)/ “That would be nice!” The host says, “Nice teeth! You should smile more often…”

    Surrealism is a deadly serious business. It suggests that Planet Earth is wasting its precious time. However, there are intermediates to make a sort of shine. Also, there’s no elevator. (Clearly the substandard. But don’t push that.) The flat: “How cozy,” the visitor enthuses. (Wild paintings, throughout.)/ “I don’t understand why flowers never last…” (As if a modest error.} The protagonist rushes to the window. She looks down on a party scene./ “You must have so many memories!”/ ” I won’t answer that.” (This being in full advantage on the part of the  host. And this being lost to the real heart.) The lost hope tells Ruth, “I think I should go home, after all.”/ “Are you afraid of me? You’re beautiful, standing there with your sad thoughts.”

The protagonist reaches the point of calling out, “I’ve been through hell. Everyday I go through hell!  I’m so lonely…lonely and desperate…” (Thoughts,  being crushed.) Our protagonist  could not manage the exertion. But, surprisingly, there is a way. A way which has a steady beat.

    However, before we tackle this matter, there is a need to understand that great obstacles virtually ruin the proceedings. We begin with a couple, crippled by the instinct of advantage over others. (Though the matter here is extreme, one needs to understand that everyone here is seriously infected, by way of advantage.) Thereby, we find a couple on a beautiful sailboat. On disembarking, the man picks up a benign  snake and drops into a poisonous ant hill. In maintaining his style, there was a complicated marriage. The woman who accompanied the sailboat was about to be another form of snake. He would tell her, “A man my age who is not married with kids is a failure.” (That was news to her.) At first his response was cheerful. But on calculating the birth, and finding that she had had somebody else’s baby coming on, harsh measures appeared. (Not only was he merely a megalomaniac; but he was a military man, like those other fascists of that vintage we have seen in this era by Bergman. Here the punishment was a quick, vicious abortion, leaving the woman sterile.

    By way of enchantment, Ruth has appeared as not only the host in that flat, but a wife to an academic. Her balletic background seems to have carried her to remarkable poise; (not to mention her husband). (actually surrealist.) For example, during a several-month tour by train, by the two, there was a stop at a station. Noticing the fascist and his wife, waiting on a platform for another train, they opened  the window and spoke to them in remarkable terms. Surreal terms./ “So you’ve been out seeing the world, I see… On your way back from Italy.” Ruth adds: Verona, Bologna, Florence, Venice, the Lido, Capri, Messina, Syracuse…/ “I see we’re headed that way ourselves. The train there, and the plane back… to waste a few vitamins.” (All this verbosity occurs only by way of the soldier.) The lady maintains a sharp silence…/ The academic chirps, “So you’ve bought your plane tickets, Lieutenant.”/ “Yes.”/ “That’s wise. We flew out and then there was no cloud for the return.”/ “Wasn’t  it hard to leave the children?”/ “Raoul being so fond of them all./ “They’re being so happy, so in their house boarding the well. Our regards to Italy.”/ “You’re such a fool!”

      What kind of fool has not yet appeared in this disaster.

Ruth kicks it off with, “I love how you look so wise engrossed in a book.” (This last segment  being  clearly desperate, gut-wrenching and farce, as to the real deal.) “Tell me something about coins,” she asks, as to his hobby./ “You have no idea how it’s created.”/ She mocks, “The stab of pain–what to do now or that? You tell me about it, day and night! A butterfly brings no joy to your heart, but a coin gets you aroused… Dear boy, don’t listen to the things I say! You know how I get when I’m tired…”/ “Of course I do, dear…”/ “I’m anxious about the future… “/ “Stop that… You mustn’t make such violent gestures, both angry and in various ways. Feel how my heart’s pounding… He adds that the  two of them are far beyond the working class who have no time for an inner life.”/ “I prattle on like a machine gun because I’m afraid of silence… Am I a bad person?”/ “It’s my cursed fate to always meet hysterical women. It’s my cursed fate to play the nurse, and I’ve had enough.”/ “I’ll never leave you. To hell with your coins and your cold eyes. To me, ballet isn’t a profession. It’s my second home, more real than any actual home.” However, at this point, her career is over. She blurts out, “I’ll get into folk songs.”

    To round it off, a religious conference, where the Hollywood-two has become pious. “The conference was a success. But we all agreed on one point: if we’re to reach our parishioners, we must be less pious about marriage. We must admit that blaming occurs, even in our marriages. And the solution is to talk things over. A quarrel is fine, but then you talk. My wife and I had our disputes. We’ve talked it over, and I don’t ask her to account for small sums. Everything is in order.”/ (Comes the reckoning, by her.  “You go to bed. I’m going to smoke.”/ “Please, let’s sleep tonight. The circus has to stop!”/ “What circus?”) He posits, “As I’ve been saying, talking things over is essential. I’m going to write a book on marriage, and its ups and downs.”

    Mrs. Hemrukron had the right idea, in knowing the mysteries of sensibility. Her crash was not pretty. But with a boon companion, she might have gone far. (Near the end, our protagonist brings forth a brief beguiling, to match the swells of the beginning.) Even with a dying planet, it is crucial to love the elements, to dance with the dialectic–sober; and giddy; and both. As we’ve noted several times before, in our works,  launching here could be a matter of two powers, launched together by steady fingers. Or flying dance. Or many others on the fly.