Film: Inner life expressed as art: the films of Ingmar Bergman: Part 2
Part 2 (of 3): Films of the 1950's and 1960's
Last time, I discussed varying levels of connection between the life of an author and the works he produces. It varies. This now brings me to Ingmar Bergman, many of whose films I have seen for the first time in the past 3 months. This immersion gives me a meta-perspective on this artist that is harder to acquire by gradually seeing the works over one's lifetime. Bergman seems to belong to a unique subcategory of my Level 3 (Indirect/subliminal connections between life and art). The connection of Bergman's life to his work is clear, but not usually in an autobiographical way. Remarkably he seems to create many of his films to reflect on and come to terms with his many demons. Work as psychotherapy, in short. This places the viewer in the painful, exciting, voyeuristic role of watching another human's struggles and therapy up close. Bergman's camera moves in so close to his actors that you are not just a fly on the wall in the therapy session, but a fly on the actual skin of the patient. While I am sure this expiation has been done from time to time by other artists, I am not aware of so large a body of work nearly that is exclusively devoted to it. And yet, somehow, his films do not come across as narcissistic, but universal, since we all have similar struggles. The famous, and experimental Persona, a cinematic treatment of a woman whose personality splits in half after seeing the violence and trauma of 1960s Vietnam on TV, is typical (see this this trailer or, better, the "1 woman, two personalities" scene at timepoints 24:15 to 26:15 from the full film.) Oh, for a very different take on Bergman's universality, see this wonderful SCTV parody of Persona with Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and Eugene Levy.
Watch Bergman's films in chronological order. I cannot think of another artist in which chronology is so key to understanding the artist. The 40 year old Bergman of the 1950s struggles with his past. Father son competition and conflict is shown by the cold academic father of Wild Strawberries, who finds a sort of religious conversion by picking up some teenagers, thus loosening up and making him more open to his feelings. Bergman clearly struggled with his rigid Protestant upbringing, and like so many people, shows anger and respect for religious institutions. He addresses if/how God is relevant in The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, and Winter Light, all made between 1957-1963. The Seventh Seal's famous imagery of the returning crusader knight challenging (to a chess match) death in
in plague-ridden Europe is darkly optimistic. The Virgin Spring, not for the faint of heart, is the tale of an innocent girl in medieval Europe who is violently raped and killed (the matter-of-fact treatment of this is shocking), giving rise to a shrine as a spring bursts forth from the site of the killing. Does religion really spring from death and trauma? Winter Light lingers the most with me, as the rigid, cold pastor struggling to reconcile his lusts and theology beautifully summarize Bergman's own struggles. 
The visual imagery of this movie, always cold, northern, icy, is perfect.
In summary, watching Bergman films up to the early 1960's is a real exercise in voyeurism, as we watch him struggle with his upbringing and religion.
Next time: Bergman shakes his fist and reconciles with the word
Last time, I discussed varying levels of connection between the life of an author and the works he produces. It varies. This now brings me to Ingmar Bergman, many of whose films I have seen for the first time in the past 3 months. This immersion gives me a meta-perspective on this artist that is harder to acquire by gradually seeing the works over one's lifetime. Bergman seems to belong to a unique subcategory of my Level 3 (Indirect/subliminal connections between life and art). The connection of Bergman's life to his work is clear, but not usually in an autobiographical way. Remarkably he seems to create many of his films to reflect on and come to terms with his many demons. Work as psychotherapy, in short. This places the viewer in the painful, exciting, voyeuristic role of watching another human's struggles and therapy up close. Bergman's camera moves in so close to his actors that you are not just a fly on the wall in the therapy session, but a fly on the actual skin of the patient. While I am sure this expiation has been done from time to time by other artists, I am not aware of so large a body of work nearly that is exclusively devoted to it. And yet, somehow, his films do not come across as narcissistic, but universal, since we all have similar struggles. The famous, and experimental Persona, a cinematic treatment of a woman whose personality splits in half after seeing the violence and trauma of 1960s Vietnam on TV, is typical (see this this trailer or, better, the "1 woman, two personalities" scene at timepoints 24:15 to 26:15 from the full film.) Oh, for a very different take on Bergman's universality, see this wonderful SCTV parody of Persona with Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and Eugene Levy.
Watch Bergman's films in chronological order. I cannot think of another artist in which chronology is so key to understanding the artist. The 40 year old Bergman of the 1950s struggles with his past. Father son competition and conflict is shown by the cold academic father of Wild Strawberries, who finds a sort of religious conversion by picking up some teenagers, thus loosening up and making him more open to his feelings. Bergman clearly struggled with his rigid Protestant upbringing, and like so many people, shows anger and respect for religious institutions. He addresses if/how God is relevant in The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, and Winter Light, all made between 1957-1963. The Seventh Seal's famous imagery of the returning crusader knight challenging (to a chess match) death in
in plague-ridden Europe is darkly optimistic. The Virgin Spring, not for the faint of heart, is the tale of an innocent girl in medieval Europe who is violently raped and killed (the matter-of-fact treatment of this is shocking), giving rise to a shrine as a spring bursts forth from the site of the killing. Does religion really spring from death and trauma? Winter Light lingers the most with me, as the rigid, cold pastor struggling to reconcile his lusts and theology beautifully summarize Bergman's own struggles. The visual imagery of this movie, always cold, northern, icy, is perfect.In summary, watching Bergman films up to the early 1960's is a real exercise in voyeurism, as we watch him struggle with his upbringing and religion.
Next time: Bergman shakes his fist and reconciles with the word
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