Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks
Details by Film
Smiles of a Summer Night
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The Seventh Seal
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Wild Strawberries
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The Virgin Spring
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The Seventh Seal
After a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight challenges Death to a fateful game of chess. More than forty years after its initial release, Ingmar Bergman's stunning allegory of man's apocalyptic search for meaning remains a textbook on the art of filmmaking and an essential building block in any collection. Criterion is proud to present The Seventh Seal in a pristine new transfer.
Wild Strawberries
The film that catapulted Bergman to the forefront of world cinema is the director's richest, most humane movie. Traveling to receive an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg (masterfully played by the veteran Swedish director Victor Sjöström), is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and accept the inevitability of his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies, dreams and nightmares, Wild Strawberries captures a startling voyage of self-discovery and renewed belief in mankind.
Smiles of Summer Night
After fifteen films that received mostly local acclaim, the 1955 comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) at last ushered in an international audience for Ingmar Bergman. In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock-full of flirtatious propositions and sharp witticisms delivered by such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of cinema’s great erotic comedies.
The Virgin Spring
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. Starring frequent Bergman collaborator and screen icon Max von Sydow, the film is both beautiful and cruel in its depiction of a world teetering between paganism and Christianity, and of one father’s need to avenge the death of a child.
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Supplements
- Audio commentary by Bergman expert Peter Cowie
- Theatrical trailer
- An annotated, illustrated Bergman filmography, featuring excerpts from Wild Strawberries and The Magician with commentary
- Restoration demonstration
- Insert with essay by Peter Cowie
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Peter Cowie
- Video introduction to the film by director Ingmar Bergman
- Audio commentary for The Virgin Spring by Ingmar Bergman scholar Birgitta Steene
- Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work, a ninety-minute documentary by filmmaker and author Jorn Donner
- New video conversation between Bergman scholar Peter Cowie and writer Jörn Donner, executive producer of Fanny and Alexander
- Introduction by filmmaker Ang Lee
- Stills gallery, featuring rare behind-the-scenes photos
- Original theatrical trailer
- An audio recording of a 1975 American Film Institute seminar by Ingmar Bergman
- Insert featuring an essay by film scholar Peter Cowie
- A booklet featuring a new essay by theater and film critic John Simon and a 1961 review by film critic Pauline Kael
- A booklet featuring essays by film scholar Peter Cowie and screenwriter Ulla Isaksson, the medieval ballad on which the film is based, and a letter from Ingmar Bergman on the film’s controversial rape scene
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Restoration Information
Release Notes on Restoration
The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from a 35mm optical soundtrack print, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on 5.1-channel sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.