Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)

[tryavna]

Stephen Colbert's own tribute to Ingmar Bergman is available on the official site.

Other Bergman parodies: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - French and Saunders - SCTV

These are all good, but the masterpiece of Bergman parodies will always remain De Düva.

[David Ehrenstein]

My favorite is SCTV's Whispers of the Wolf as introduced by Count Floyd on "Monster Chiller Horror Theater."

[My Man Godfrey]

I won't say much here -- I'm too angry, today, about the Democratic Party's FISA capitulation to get angry about Bergman-bashing -- but this idea that Bergman's movies are mere "filmed theater" (or slightly "cinematically embellished" stage productions) is R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S. Bergman used the language of film adventurously, inventively, and thoughtfully from the very beginning of his career.

To put a period on that thought -- and to say more about this idea that the unavailability of his films on DVD (only in the States, of course -- but only the U.S. matters, right?) somehow discredits him as an artist -- I had several of my friends over last night to watch Bergman's Dreams -- certainly one of the most completely forgotten films of his career -- and these friends, all but one of whom had never seen a Bergman film, were absolutely seduced. I was struck this time, especially, by how masterful and harrowing the film's long wordless sequences were: Eva Dahlbeck on the train at night, Harriet Andersson and Gunnar Bjornstrand at the amusement park. Shivers. That's pure cinema; I'd like to hear how these amazing scenes would work on stage.

[David Ehrenstein]

Thanks a bunch, David. I've been trying to forget that for years and you brought it all rushing back!

(Far more repulsive than anything in Salo, IMO.)

[Mr Sheldrake]

Weren't some of Bergman's films adaptations of his own plays? I'm pretty sure The Seventh Seal was originally a play with most of the same actors, but weren't there others as well?

[domino harvey]

I actually think Rosenbaum's criticisms of Bergman are far more interesting and cogent than any others I've seen linked in this thread. I thought he stated his case and the reasoning behind it fairly well, and though I don't for one moment agree with him, I don't feel the need to get indignant over it.

[Michael]

Far more repulsive than anything in Salo, IMO

My mom dragged my 4 year old body to a drive in where The Exorcist played, thinking I was going to sleep in the back of her station wagon. But of course I was up, peeking through the crack of two front seats and there on the monstrous screen in the summer night air, a little girl stabbed her bloody vagina repeatedly with a crucifix. That image and many others that night scarred my mind forever. Two years later, my mom woke me up at midnight and begged me to join her to watch that same movie on HBO because she was scared to watch it alone even she had seen it already at the drive in. So I climbed down the stairs and curled up in my mom's arms, watching the most disturbing movie ever made. Such a sweet memory.

Maybe being already exposed to Linda Blair screwing herself during the first few years of my life, I was not that devastated by Ingrid's self-mutilation that I first experienced in my early teens. It was certainly disgusting but I understood why she did it. She did it to release herself out of the ice-block body of hers.

[BB]

I actually think Rosenbaum's criticisms of Bergman are far more interesting and cogent than any others I've seen linked in this thread

I disagree, to me it seems like mediocre, deadline-driven writing. Little of what he says stands up to much scrutiny. Not least of which is that Bergman only made dour and severe films. (such as Cries and Whispers)

It's strange to realize that his bitter and pinched emotions, once they were combined with excellent cinematography and superb acting, could become chic — and revered as emblems of higher purposes in cinema. But these emotions remain ugly ones, no matter how stylishly they might be served up.

"ugly emotions" ... Uh... what? Doesn't this dismiss vast swaths of world literature, let alone the visual arts. Is Anton Chekhov a bitter, self absorbed relic? "... now that we've all grown up a little"

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

I should add that if people don't like Bergman that's fine. I just find the piece to be a little silly, you can tell from Rosenbaum's Saraband review that Bergman's films haven't done anything for him. That opinion is fine, there's a lot of Bergman that I've disliked as well, but why write a 2 page NY Times article about it in the wake of his death? Because you can I guess, I just find it disrepectful. Especially the fact that while his comments about filmmakers that are more "relevant" may be true, anyone who's read Rosebaum's writings know that all the filmmakers he mentions are people he has an obvious preference for.

[Orphic Lycidas]

I agree with the minority of voices here that Rosenbaum's reservations about Bergman's greatness are refreshing although a few of his word choices may perhaps have be unnecessarily unkind. I think he really hits it on the head when he compares Bergman unfavorably to Dreyer and Bresson, noting that Bergman became popular in a time when art films were becoming somewhat mainstream among middle-class cinema goers who responded more strongly to Bergman's weaknesses than his strengths: "The same qualities that made Mr. Bergman's films go down more easily than theirs — his fluid storytelling and deftness in handling actresses, comparable to the skills of a Hollywood professional like George Cukor — also make them feel less important today, because they have fewer secrets to impart. What we see is what we get, and what we hear, however well written or dramatic, are things we're likely to have heard elsewhere." I think this applies well to "The Seven Seal" & "The Virgin Springs," films so brutally literary and pretentious they're very difficult to take seriously. At this stage in his career Bergman's favorite theme -- the existence of God -- is the type of thing that passes for profundity among 13 year olds. These films are to cinema what Edgar Allan Poe is to literature, a popular, more-or-less superficial product meant to entice newcomers into the field. This is not to say there are not powerful moments in "Virgin Springs." Moments of innocence and the cruelty of the violence are affecting but ultimately to no real purpose. The adopted daughter is so strongly contrasted with the fair daughter that it's difficult to take seriously. Besides being unnecessarily disheveled, dirty and armed with a penchant for inconveniencing frogs she also has an uncanny ability to be incredibly pregnant while seeming to have very little trouble running around, collapsing, getting up, and running around again. And what's up with that magical old man?! In the hands of a master-director this could have been a Shakespearean tragedy. Instead we have Von Sydow at the end exclaiming -- quite predictably -- "Oh, God, where are you in all of this?! Do you exist?" In this regard I think Bergman is much closer to Spielberg than directors like Bresson, Jancso, Kurosawa or a number of other great artists. This is not to state that Bergman does not deserve some recognition but I certainly believe his career is comparatively overvalued.

"Winter Light" and "Glass Darkly" are overly melodramatic. "Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore. I think he came closer to achieving the level of great artist with films like "Shame," "Persona" & "Hour of the Wolf" than he did with his previous work. I actually would argue that "Shame," better than any other film I've seen of his best captures simultaneously what he does so well and where he so commonly trips up. The first half of the film is perhaps overly didactic; too much of a message film (the scene with the airplane crash and the forced interview and the interogation) with Bergman hitting us over the head trying to remind us how awful war is. The second half is very strong, though. We feel that the camera is in place only to capture the events as they are happen, everything follows naturally from the conscritions imposed on the couple's reality. "Hour of the Wolf" is also an impressive film and I have nothing to say that would take away from the power of "Persona."

"From the Life of the Marionettes" is another flawed film that could have been a masterpiece although I doubt another filmmaker could have done much better starting from scratch. My problem there was that Bergman was simply not strong enough of a dramatist to pull it off. He has peered deeply into these characters' psyches but rather than revealing it to us dramatically he has created scenarios in which we are confronted with an endless series of undramatic monologues. The result left me scratching my head as to why no one had thought to wait for a second draft. I have not seem too many of his late films although I thought quite highly of "The Best Intentions" and look forward to watching some of the other late films he wrote the screenplays for although did not direct. Ultimately I guess I'm not much of a fan although I'll probably be popping in "Persona" once again sometime this soon.

[domino harvey]

I've long been championing Shame as one of his three key masterpieces, I'm very happy to see someone else sticking up for it... though I feel somewhat conflicted about that since you decried his other two masterpieces, Winter Light and Through a Glass Darkly.

[Michael]

"Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore.

I can't understand how it's seen as ugly by some of you here. To me, it's among the most beautiful films ever made. I can't even explain it but there's something so cathartic about it. Is there any film out there that is like Cries and Whispers in any way? I can't think of one. It may not be my favorite Bergman film (it's Smiles of a Summer Night) but I think Cries and Whispers is his best film. Lovers of this film, please do step forward.

[Michael Kerpan]

I like most of the (comparatively) few Bergman films I've seen -- but these tend to among his lighter works. However, I truly hated Cries and Whispers with a passion. Perhaps, because of this adverse experience I grew averse to further exploration.

I think Rosenbaum's piece is not unduly harsh --- perhaps next month might have been a better time for it, however. Nonetheless, I see it is a rather valuable corrective to a lot of the unrestrained (perspective-free) encomiums that are the norm.

[My Man Godfrey]

I think this applies well to "The Seven Seal" & "The Virgin Springs," films so brutally literary and pretentious they're very difficult to take seriously. At this stage in his career Bergman's favorite theme -- the existence of God -- is the type of thing that passes for profundity among 13 year olds.

I don't want to get into a long back-and-forth on this, but dismissing "The Seven Seal" [sic] and "The Virgin Springs" [sic] as "brutally literary and pretentious" seems anti-intellectual to the point of willed mental retardation.

I'm curious to know what kinds of films you consider masterpieces, since you've just casually taken a shit on two of the loveliest movies I've ever seen.

As for your second point, I find this implication even more troubling, although I detect it all the time. Because backwater evangelicals and stoned teenagers spend their time discussing God and the meaning of life, it's a discrediting waste of time to consider those questions. That's what you're getting at, right? Or is your gripe with Bergman that he has the balls to raise questions about the meaning (and moral possibilities) of life, but then fails to answer those questions satisfactorily? In that case, aren't you essentially criticizing Bergman for failing to be a God himself?

I tend to think that the critics who have got it best are the ones, in Salon and elsewhere, who have called Bergman "the greatest artist of the twentieth century" (that's "artist," period -- not "film artist"). My own feeling is that people who dismiss Bergman's work as "middle-class" and "juvenile" are themselves too juvenile for art.

Bergman's films are awkward, fearless, frustrating. While I respect Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander, they're not among my favorites. Of his late work, I like Scenes From a Marriage best. The best of his early films -- Summer With Monika, Dreams, Sawdust and Tinsel -- are my favorites overall, though I adore Shame and The Virgin Spring. (Far from finding The Virgin Spring stultifyingly "literary," I think it's one of the most brutal and devastating films I've ever seen -- one that, like The Elephant Man, and certain favorite films from childhood, never fails to leave me in tears.)

Contrarianism is useful, but in this case, I don't think the true contrarian position is that "Bergman is overrated." Rather, that feels to me like the conventional wisdom -- especially since, as the NY Times piece points out, nobody in this most anti-intellectual of countries has had much use for Bergman for 20 years now -- and a position that's fashionable and quite easy to adopt, however incorrect it might be. ("Philosophy [i.e., questions about the meaning of life] is for 13-year-olds" is another of these bogus "brave positions.")

As people who are serious about film (or even about life), I think we have an obligation to be a bit more "questing," a bit less cool, frankly. This kind of shallow posturing passing for iconoclastic thought -- spirituality is "gay" . . . politics is "lame" . . . philosophy is for 13-year-olds and "douches" . . . Ingmar Bergman was a pompous pretentious overrated bourgeois prick -- makes me feel like the shit is rising to my neck. An uncomfortable feeling.

[kekid]

Bergman's work touches me deeply as few other directors' work do. For me the effect is sub-conscious, and therefore difficult to explain. It is possible to call some of his work melodramatic (most of Dickens and Hugo are too, and I love them with passion). It is also possible to complain about the unexplained malaise that pervades much of his work. Some of us resonate at his wavelength, the others are simply irritated. I think it is fair to say that in simply technical terms he is a master. I cannot think of any other director whose work has inspired better performances from actors. He has produced unforgettable images, even if we are not sure what they mean. The use of music in his films is consistently masterful. "Cries and Whispers" seems to be the film that has divided the forum members, so let me make a few comments on it. For me it is one of the two films with unique use of color (the other is Antonioni's "Red Desert"). It has unforgettable images. (I find the stunning Pieta with Anna and the final scene with Agnes on the swing deeply moving.) Use of music is spare and totally integrated. The wordless conversation between Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullman to Bach's cello suite is a touch of genius. That leaves the question of the plot. Bergman's characters suffer for reasons unexplained. Physical ailment and failed marriages are devices used, but the suffering is existential, and either we empathize with their suffering or we find them incomprehensible (or even irritating). I do not expect my reaction to change anyone's mind regarding Bergman, but this is how I feel.

After he stopped making films, Bergman continued to direct plays. I looked for his plays when the BAM catalog arrived at the beginning of each season. Alas, there will be no more plays from Ingmar Bergman. May his soul rest in peace.

[exte]

I think this applies well to "The Seven Seal" & "The Virgin Springs," films so brutally literary and pretentious they're very difficult to take seriously. At this stage in his career Bergman's favorite theme -- the existence of God -- is the type of thing that passes for profundity among 13 year olds.

I don't want to get into a long back-and-forth on this, but dismissing "The Seven Seal" [sic] and "The Virgin Springs" [sic] as "brutally literary and pretentious" seems anti-intellectual to the point of willed mental retardation.

dvdane, is that you?

Of his late work, I like Scenes From a Marriage best.

Absolutely. I'm surprised it's not mentioned here more.

[Orphic Lycidas]

I'm curious to know what kinds of films you consider masterpieces...

Well, I would certainly include the following for serious consideration: Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc," Jancso's "Red Psalm," Pontecorvo's "Battle of Algiers," & "Burn!," Peter Watkins' "Edvard Munch" & "Evening Land," Coppolla's "The Godfather, Part II" & "Apocalypse Now," Kobayashi's "Hara Kiri," Bresson's "Mouchette" & "Au Hasard, Balthasar," Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Hitchcock's "Vertigo," among others. And "Airplane!" Of course.

You misunderstand me. You think I'm criticizing Bergman for being too intellectual. On the contrary, I think that Bergman at his worse succeeds in dealing with philosophical questions only superficially. I do not consider the question "Does God exist or not?" a philosophically brave question. As an atheist I may be biased here but this is not a deep question and I certainly don't equate it with "Philosophy" (or "being serious about life"), as you do. This is why I make an explicit distinction between films like "The Seventh Seal" and "The Virgin Spring," on one hand, and "Shame" and "Persona" on the other. I consider the former shallow, the latter "philosophical," to use the terminology you've brought up. So let's look at this term "literary." Perhaps I would have been clearer if instead of "brutally literary" I had said "too consciously literary." By this I mean Bergman sets all his hards on the table. Do you think the depiction of the adopted daughter is *not* overly "literary," meaning too obvious and conscious a convention? Do you defend it? I could have done without all of that and liked the film much better. If you noticed I commented on three different periods of Bergman's career. I criticized some of the earlier films for being in my opinion too simplistic and non-intellectual (unless one considers "God! Oh Why?! Are you there?" a profound question. We may disagree on this). I had positive things to say about the more intellectually interesting films of the mid-60s. I also commented on one of his later films, "On the Life of the Marionettes," where I thought Bergman had developed quite impressively as a thinker (leaving far behind the immaturity of "Virgin Spring," "Seventh Seal") but found him lacking as an artist. Nowhere in my post do I deride "intellectualism" or do any other such silly thing of which you find it useful to accuse me. All positions are debatable, of course but you might consider the uselessness of building up straw-men before you start choking on your own shit.

"Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore.

I can't understand how it's seen as ugly by some of you here. To me, it's among the most beautiful films ever made. I can't even explain it but there's something so cathartic about it. Is there any film out there that is like Cries and Whispers in any way? I can't think of one. It may not be my favorite Bergman film (it's Smiles of a Summer Night) but I think Cries and Whispers is his best film. Lovers of this film, please do step forward.

Well, it's been a long while since I've seen this so I'll be unable to adequately defend my position. There is no debating the beauty of the film on a technical level. There is one scene with the two sisters embracing which I found quite powerful but I really did dislike the film and I do remember "ugly" being the operative word. Perhaps I'll have to give it another look and get back to you.

[Kirkinson]

As an atheist I may be biased here

Speaking as one nonbeliever to another, I don't see how that would matter considering Bergman was an atheist, too (@5:40). You may need to re-evaluate the messages you think are so clearly and superficially laid out in these films. I don't think they're about whether god exists so much as they're about how the silence of a nonexistent god effects those who are believers, and what you see over and over again in these films is how much their faith works against them. In the face of suffering they put their trust in god, and when he doesn't answer they fall into hopelessness and despair. If anything, an atheist should be biased in favor of this message.

I also can't understand why you would use the word "literary" to mean "too obvious and conscious a convention." What sort of slipshod literature do you read?

[My Man Godfrey]

@ Orphic:

Well, kudos for your polite response to my strident post. [Sheepish laugh.] Those movies you listed are all excellent, of course.

I do feel like it's appropriate to get my hackles up and claws out in defense of Bergman, because his films -- and now, I guess, his legacy -- feel fragile to me, somehow. His work is very easy to misunderstand, dismiss, and ridicule, even though it seems, to me, wonderfully comprehensible and humane. And -- speaking subjectively now -- essential. Also, people who don't know much of his work (I'm not including you, necessarily, Orphic) tend to make sweeping pronouncements that actually apply to very few of his films. He'll always be known, to most people who have even heard of him, as the "death playing chess on the beach" guy, though The Seventh Seal was in many ways a real departure for him, and an anomaly in his filmography. (It's also a funny, tender and witty movie that's often described, incorrectly, as being stuffy and relentlessly serious.)

I'll have to think about your comments on The Virgin Spring, although I expect to disagree with you. What I'll say now is that your gripes sound pretty nuanced -- one character in the film seemed too schematic for you? Even if I take the point (which I don't, necessarily), does it render the movie as a whole pretentious and ponderous? How can you not be moved by The Virgin Spring?

And to answer another of your points: Sure -- I guess I do consider "God! Oh why?! Are you there?" a worthwhile and, as you put it, "profound" question. What other questions should we be asking? "When are we going to see some Straub-Huillet in Region 1" is a fine question (and one that, in my case, quickly leads to: "God! Oh why?! Are you there?"), but surely it's not the most important question, or one that one can or should spend a lifetime working through. If you think "God! Oh why?! Are you there?" is a silly question, I'd say that your gripe isn't really with Bergman, but with much of the human race.

No longer choking on shit,
Matt

Quick postscript: if you didn't like Cries and Whispers back in the day, you won't like it now. (Ditto Winter Light, The Silence, etc.) Have you seen Scenes From a Marriage? Wild Strawberries? Or Waiting Women or Scenes From A Summer Night? Those might be worth revisiting.

[Alyosha]

Speaking as one nonbeliever to another, I don't see how that would matter considering Bergman was an atheist, too

If you watch a couple of the interviews or documentaries (for example Marie Nyerod's) made in the last 10 years of his life, you'll see that this wasn't the case - at least not during those days and at least not in the sense that most of us define the word. I think his beliefs or non-beliefs couldn't be simplified into terms of 'atheist' or 'theist'.

Believers or non-believers, we (including myself) often tend to force our favourite directors, artists etc. to be on "our team" in these questions so that we can claim our interpretations of the films to be the fully correct ones, instead of simply appreciating the art for what reason we may have. I don't think it's strange with a theist admiring a Buñuel film, as well as I don't think it's strange with an atheist admiring a Tarkovsky film.

[BB]

Given film's brief 100 year history, Bergman is clearly a master. Having said that, I turned off Cries and Whispers after half an hour. I hated everything about it. On the other hand, Winter Light is one of my (and alot of other people's) favorite films of all time.

That said, one of these days I sincerely look forward to giving Cries and Whispers another go. It's on my list of "great films" that I am tone deaf to, but haven't really given a fair chance.

This whole Bergman debate is interesting, but all we're really talking about is our own tastes. (Our own ever shifting, constantly evolving tastes!) However when things are printed in the mass media, then you're talking about fashion. Pop Opinion which comes and goes.

These days demanding (even remotely demanding) films are not in vogue. In popular culture at the moment, it's easy to see Bergman films as being naive and embarrassing. I think in another few decades the view of seeing Bergman films as naive and embarrassing, will itself be considered naive and embarrassing.

Oddly enough, it seems to me that people like me who rush to defend Bergman do so thinking that he is, and has been out of fashion (basically forgotten) for at least the last 40 years. Meanwhile people like Rosenbaum who rush to put him down seem to have the opposite notion that Bergman is assumed in all corners of the globe to be a genius.

Do you think the depiction of the adopted daughter is *not* overly "literary," meaning too obvious and conscious a convention? Do you defend it?

Medieval folk tales are very literary. That is they are direct, filled with conscious conventions, and heavily symbolic. IE: there's nothing very much "realistic" about them. However, even though on the surface there is nothing subtle about them, they tend to be deeply enigmatic, unresolved, and hence troubling. (That is until Disney gets there hands on them!) Now back to Bergman...

The Virgin Spring is obviously based on a folk tale. I don't say that because it is (though I just checked on goggle) Rather I say it because Bergman so successfully presents it as one. It is a wonderfully realized vision. A fable envisioned in film. Easy to do in a hokey way... not so easy to do with any class.

One of my favorite films of all time is the Seventh Seal. Another in your face, (at times unsubtle and uneven), tour de force.

however well written or dramatic, are things we're likely to have heard elsewhere."

Well... they are often times extremely well written and extremely dramatic. As for being "heard elsewhere", no work of art is ever created in a vacuum. Everything has already been said before. If in the Seventh Seal Bergman had "invented" his existential musings, etc, etc, he would not be talked about as one of the greatest directors, but as one of the key figures in the history of the human race.

[Kirkinson]

If you watch a couple of the interviews or documentaries (for example Marie Nyerod's) made in the last 10 years of his life

I haven't seen any interviews or documentaries made that late, but I'll take your word for it. I should have qualified my statement in any case to say that the interview suggests he was an atheist (or at least appeared to be) in 1970, which may only apply to 1970. In any case, I thought it was foolish to suggest an atheist ought to be biased against his work.

I agree about the tendency to graft our own views onto our favorites to make them part of "our team," but with the caveat that the reverse is also true: we can as easily graft views opposing our own onto artists we don't like. This is what I was worried about in Orphic's post and what I was trying to argue with. My symbolic apologies to Bergman if I misrepresented his views.

[Alyosha]

I agree about the tendency to graft our own views onto our favorites to make them part of "our team," but with the caveat that the reverse is also true: we can as easily graft views opposing our own onto artists we don't like.

True.

[Mr Sheldrake]

On the Virgin Spring DVD one of the extras is an audio recording of a 1975 AFI seminar with Bergman. He is not only very funny, but he constantly refers to God. As in "I hated to watch the rushes, they always depressed me, and I prayed to God the movie would be OK" Well, this might be God as superstition, but he was a preacher's son, and he may have protested too much in his movies for an unbeliever.

I've never viewed the absence of God as his main subject, anyway. To me it's unhappiness, deep, overwhelming, stultifying, approaching and often eclipsing, morbidity. In movie history, only Fassbinder's characters rival Bergman's in revealing such a sorry view of their lot in life.

But I like Andrew Sarris' overview of Bergman's career the most -

"I was always predisposed to embrace the new cinematic emphasis effected by Bergman on the individual and the spiritual over the collective and the material. But there remained something in the back of my mind about Bergman's limiting and depleting himself by confining himself to the island of his mind, and venturing less and less to the world outside. Sweden was a small country in a big cosmos, but even Sweden itself remained a remote entity in Bergman's later films. Time seemed to stand still for him, and even recede.

Yet when we are privileged to pleasurably recall the totality of his now-ended efforts, we are reminded of what even the more skeptical among us have always loved and admired about Bergman's movies: humanity, humility, insight, intelligence and a heroic seriousness of purpose. In light of his prodigious productivity, the only thing that keeps him from the very top of my personal pantheon is that most of his movies end in a realistic spirit of resignation rather than in a romantic spirit of redemption. But who can fail to be moved by his excruciatingly painful and lifelong quest for self-understanding. Now let the Bergman retrospectives begin!"

[Mr Sausage]

I thought by this time we would be past the childish desire of the New Wave to rabidly, unreasonably insist and argue for film's complete uniqueness and distance from all other forms of art. Has it somehow not established itself by now?

I don't get where you're coming from with this at all. Cinema to me has always been a medium that borrows from the other arts on its way to creating something, yes (gasp), uniquely its own - but to deny that some filmmakers compose their shots like painters, edit their films musically, tell a narrative in a novelistic manner, or approach things poetically... What would be the real use of that?

That was more directed at Rosenbaum than you (I was too lazy to make a proper segue). Where it comes from is the feeling of A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema that pervades Rosenbaum's piece.

The common critical parlance is to compare Leone's films to opera, and this is a high compliment; so how exactly did comparing someone's work to the theatre become an insult? Well, as I said, from unreasonable attempts to distance film from other art forms (in this case one which is similar). If great films are operatic, but bad ones are theatrical, then I'm just going to go back to bed and nurse my growing headache.

"Cries and Whispers" is an ugly and pretentious bore.

I can't understand how it's seen as ugly by some of you here. To me, it's among the most beautiful films ever made. I can't even explain it but there's something so cathartic about it. Is there any film out there that is like Cries and Whispers in any way? I can't think of one. It may not be my favorite Bergman film (it's Smiles of a Summer Night) but I think Cries and Whispers is his best film. Lovers of this film, please do step forward.

I'll absolutely step forward. Not only is it my favourite Bergman but it made me fall in love with his films after a very lackluster viewing of The Seventh Seal.

Incidently, in that scene, I had no idea Thulin was removing her clitoris. I assumed she was just cutting herself. What did I miss?

Yeah, and hard to watch as that scene was, I feel closer to your reaction Michael: I understand why she did it, and it was entirely in character so it never felt for a moment like pure shock (which would be truly disgusting).