Ingmar Bergman

  • Ingmar Bergman – Ansiktet AKA The Magician (1958)

    1951-1960ArthouseDramaIngmar BergmanSweden

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    When ‘Vogler’s Magnetic Health Theater’ comes to town, there’s bound to be a spectacle. Reading reports of a variety of supernatural disturbances at Vogler’s prior performances abroad, the leading townspeople (including the police chief and medical examiner) request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew prove too clever for them.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – The Serpent’s Egg [+ commentary / extras] (1977)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaGermanyIngmar Bergman

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    Following the suicide of his beloved brother and deaths of even the most distant acquaintances, Abel Rosenberg attempts to discover the truth while facing depression, alcoholism, and anti-semitism.

    Vincent Canby wrote:

    BERLIN, NOV. 3-11, is a city without sunlight. Mostly it rains. It snows occasionally but it’s the kind of snow that is already gray by the time it reaches the cobblestones. Everything is damp, chilled. No winter coats anywhere. People cling to one another for warmth, but there is none. In effect, life is over in Ingmar Bergman’s new film, “The Serpent’s Egg.” What we witness are involuntary twitches, the glazing of eyeballs—the onset of rigor mortis.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Larmar och gör sig till AKA In the Presence of a Clown (1997)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaIngmar BergmanSweden

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    Inventor Carl Åkerblom is a rosy-cheeked 54 year-old admirer of Franz Schubert – and a patient in the psychiatric ward of Akademiska Hospital in Uppsala, after having attempted to beat to death his fiancée, Pauline Thibault. Together with another patient, Professor Osvald Vogler, they set up a film project: the living talkie. Before long, they set off on a frantic tour with their film, “The Joy of the Joyous Girl”… (IMDB)Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Misantropen AKA The Misanthrope (1974)

    1971-1980ComedyDenmarkIngmar BergmanPerformance

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    ingmarbergman.se wrote:
    The Misanthrope

    Bergman took one of his favourite plays to Copenhagen for a guest performance, which was even broadcast on Danish TV.

    In his Copenhagen The Misanthrope, Bergman maintained a dual approach. On the one hand, a production of Molière’s play as a theatrical game performed in style and intellectually conceived; on the other hand, an exposure, through physical and psychological intensity, of the emotional tragedy in which Alceste and Celemine are both victims.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Såsom i en spegel AKA Through a Glass Darkly [+Extras] (1961)

    1961-1970ArthouseDramaIngmar BergmanSweden

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    A young woman, Karin, has recently returned to the family island after spending some time in a mental hospital. On the island with her is her lonely brother and kind, but increasingly desperate husband (Max von Sydow). They are joined by Karin’s father (Gunnar Björnstrand), who is a world-traveling author that is estranged to his children. The film depicts how Karin’s grip on reality slowly slips away and how the bonds between the family members are changing in light of this fact.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Sommaren med Monika AKA Summer with Monika (1953)

    1951-1960DramaIngmar BergmanItaly

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    “Harry Lund, 19 years old, works at a stock-room for glass and porcelain. In the vicinity works 17 year old Monika at a stock-room for vegetables. Monika is a cheerful and happy young woman and when she sees Harry at a cafe she starts to talk with him. They fall in love with each other. Because of their age, they are both harassed at their respective places of work. Monika has an argument with her father and leaves her home, Harry has an argument with his boss and quits. Since they have nothing that ties them to the city, they take Harry’s small boat to the archipelago to be alone for a few weeks.”Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Scener ur ett äktenskap AKA Scenes from a Marriage [TV Version] (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseIngmar BergmanSwedenTV

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    Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) always seemed like the perfect couple. But when Johan suddenly leaves Marianne for another woman, they are forced to confront the disintegration of their marriage. Shot in intense, intimate close-ups by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, the film chronicles ten years of turmoil and love that bind the couple despite their divorce and subsequent marriages. Flawless acting and dialogue portray the brutal pain and uplifting peace that accompany a lifetime of loving. Originally conceived as a six-part miniseries for Swedish television, The Criterion Collection is proud to present not only the U.S. theatrical version, but also, for the first time on video in the U.S., Ingmar Bergman’s original 5-hour television version of Scenes From a Marriage.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Ingmar Bergman Bris Soap Commercials (1951)

    1951-1960Ingmar BergmanShort FilmSweden

    In 1951 there was a conflict in the Swedish film industry. The production companies had declared a ban on filming in protest against the high rate of tax on entertainment. Recently remarried, Ingmar Bergman, found himself with three families to support, and his contract with the Gothenburg City Theatre had expired. In order to earn any income whatsoever that year, he agreed to direct nine commercial for Bris soap on behalf of Swedish Unilever. It seems more than a coincidence that Sweden’s most famous film director should be the one to take the country’s advertising to a higher plane: the Bris films were the most lavishly funded that the country had ever seen.Read More »

  • Ingmar Bergman – Vargtimmen AKA Hour of the Wolf [+Extras] (1968)

    1961-1970ArthouseHorrorIngmar BergmanSweden

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    Quote:
    Madness and demonism, present in many of Bergman’s films, are made the explicit themes of Hour of the Wolf. Here they are associated with artistic creativity. Alma (Liv Ullmann) tells of her life with her artist husband, who disappeared, leaving only his diary. “The first of three films featuring Max von Sydow as Bergman’s alter ego, the artist in retreat to an island (Fårö, the director’s own home) where all his demons and imagined monsters can come out to play, threatening to possess their creator and ‘disappear’ him into the darkness behind the brain. A strikingly Gothic tale of horror, Hour of the Wolf owes much to Bram Stoker’s Dracula in its evocation of the artist’s admirers and tormentors as vampires, flocks of flesh-eating birds and insects.” –Kathleen Murphy, Film Society of Lincoln CenterRead More »

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