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March 28, 2024, 09:45:52 PM

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Bergman

Started by Keebleman, March 28, 2018, 01:09:59 AM

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Keebleman

Ingmar, not Ingrid

His reputation has tanked.

His name was a byword for the upper echelon of cinematic art from the 60s to the early 80s.

But when he died, the BBC News report was headed not by a clip of one of his films, but by a French and Saunders spoof of what they imagined his films were like (I doubt if they had seen any of them).  I should have complained.  I didn't get around to it.

I'm not an uncritical disciple.  I found the multi-Oscared Fanny and Alexander dull, Through a Glass Darkly close to self-parody (and funnier than French and Saunders) and today for the first time I saw The Touch, with Elliot Gould in the lead, and in which Ingmar demonstrates to my complete satisfaction that English is not his first language.

But against all that Smiles of a Summer Night is like a sexy PG Wodehouse, Winter Light is truly profound and moving about the decline of the of idea of God in the secular West, The Hour of the Wolf is an extraordinarily original horror movie and The Silence is the sexiest film I have ever seen (and, incidentally, was ripped off by Spielberg for Jurassic Park - not the sexiness but the vibrating glass of water as a harbinger of doom).

I don't want to promote him as the summit of what cinema can be, but I do want to suggest that the decline of his reputation and the decline of the reputation of cinema as a medium capable of attaining the highest reaches of art are linked.

Shaky

Sorry, I don't agree with that at all - Jurassic Park is pretty sexy.

Funcrusher

You're saying all this after the BFI just had a two month retrospective of his films, with a couple having national re-releases? What decline in his reputation?

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Keebleman on March 28, 2018, 01:09:59 AM
Ingmar, not Ingrid

His reputation has tanked.
I'm going to have to ask for some evidence of this, please.

Also, "Wild Strawberries" is my choice for greatest movie ever.

itsfredtitmus

I like the action scenes in Anna

buttgammon

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on March 28, 2018, 11:33:53 AM
I'm going to have to ask for some evidence of this, please.

Also, "Wild Strawberries" is my choice for greatest movie ever.

I agree with both of these points. As far as I can see, Bergman is still very well regarded; a lot of his films from the fifties and sixties have aged a lot better than a lot of French New Wave stuff, for example. I'm sure the BBC article is a sign of the BBC's ignorance more than it is of how Bergman is regarded. I'm not sure if he is still seen as the apex of what cinema should be in general (although it's more or less where I place him) but he's definitely up there for a lot of people.

Wild Strawberries is magnificent, it's probably my favourite film ever (Before Sunrise comes close, and is weirdly similar in some ways that I can't quite put my finger on). Persona is brilliant too. It's such an intense film that I was amazed to realise it is only about an hour and twenty minutes long.

Keebleman

Quote from: Funcrusher on March 28, 2018, 07:30:03 AM
You're saying all this after the BFI just had a two month retrospective of his films, with a couple having national re-releases? What decline in his reputation?

It was the BFI's retrospective that made me think of this, in fact.  I'm very grateful for it (The Touch was shown in Cardiff as part of a touring programme) but it does strike me as a Canute job, a vain imploring against an encroaching tide of indifference.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a woman of 30, an actress who puts on her own shows and regularly posts on social media with her opinions of recent Shakespearian productions, so someone with an appreciation of cultural matters that is above the average.  Well, she had never heard of Bergman.  And in the sixties and seventies I feel sure that most everyone would have at least heard of him even if they didn't watch his films.

Keebleman

In fact in the mid-70s the BBC broadcast, with a great deal of fanfare, the original TV version of Scenes From A Marriage.  It prompted a magnificently vicious review from Clive James in which he gave a thorough going over to the BBC's presentation of the work, the work itself, and Bergman's work in general.

http://www.clivejames.com/books/visions/trash

Sin Agog

Feel like The Magician's a bit underrated in terms of his lighter, funner side.

Otherwise, there's been no mention of The Virgin Spring yet, which set me on a course to hoover up all the dark European folklore I could find, and there's a lot of it. It's no wonder so many Europeans (particularly Eastern-Europeans) grow up to have such a dry and twisted sense of humour.  Even once wrote a song which kind of continued the story a bit further.  He was another one of those auteur dudes I bought a dodgy Chinese box set for of every single thing he ever did back in the early, pre-torrent dayze of the internet.  Dug almost everything on there, even his dodgy Dino De Laurentiis-produced American noir starring David Carradine.  I should probably steel myself up for another viewing of Persona, though.  The moss-gatherer in me keeps on avoiding seminal films like that 'cause I know they'll change me when I watch them, and what if I don't want to be changed? Should just set aside a couple of hours and take the pill.

It has to have been remarked upon many times before now, but why did Max Von Sydow almost look older in the '50s than he does now, over half a century later?  I guess being born with an old face/mien is a bit like when people go bald early: when you actually grow old you're so used to wearing it that people think you're younger than you are.

MortSahlFan

He's great.. Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Autumn Sonata (Bergman and Bergman), Skannen

The latest documentary on him before he died was real good, too.

greenman

Becoming a comedy punchline isn't really unique to him though(Woodey Allen has been there for the majority of his career now) and your probably looking more at a culture in recent years that equates comedy at something's expense to damming criticism of it.

If anything I'd say that arty cinema over the last decade or more seems to have shifted back more towards Bergman influence, Persona most obviously with many intense female physcodramas but generally less of the broader quirkiness that arose in the 80's and 90's making way more either overt seriousness or darker comedy.

Z

I think this is probably just you getting older. When you're a teenager and first hearing about all these old greats from non-English speaking countries it's almost impossible to view them on an equal footing. Most people you meet will be equally enthusiastic about him.
Skip on ten, twenty years and you'll be much more likely to encounter people who saw the Seventh Seal and loved it, saw Persona and loved it, saw a few others and really really liked them... but kinda lost interest beyond that. I think he's undoubtedly one of the best ever but I'm some way off from wanting to revisit him ahead of dozens of other filmmakers I have yet to see anything by.

As a personal branding move, if someone asks what directors you like, Bergman is damn near the old arthouse equivalent of saying Tarantino (i.e. damn near everyone seems to like him, it doesn't really say more than "I like them old films with the subtitles, me".

Another viewpoint is perhaps directors like Bergman, with a fuckton of good to great films, kind of suffer in this age where the quantity waters down both the quality and, in a period of time where there are so many options available, interest. Meanwhile someone like Dreyer, with his one film per decade and less expansive influence, offers a much more distinctive experience and you can watch them all within a week or two if you want.