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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 9. 1966.

Unmoving and unexciting — Rex Benson takes a look at Ingmar Bergman

Unmoving and unexciting
Rex Benson takes a look at Ingmar Bergman

The Virgin Spring, Wild Strawberries, and The Magician made up a Bergman festival which was held in Wellington recently.

Before commenting on these films individually I will refer to the Motion Monograph Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie. His attitude towards Bergman is significant since it is symptomatic of the kinds of things that are written and said about the Swedish director by those who adhere to the cult and partake of his mystique.

Mr. Cowie approaches Bergman with nothing less than awe. Even when he criticises the Master, he does so on bended knee, so to speak. He regards him as an artist of commanding stature and over-whelming genius. I confess I find such an estimate a trifle exaggerated, but what concerns me most is the peculiar nature of Mr. Cowie's scholarship. For instance, he declares: "As Bardeche and Brassillach wrote many years ago: 'It was Sweden which first made the world realise that there really is an art of the motion picture, and that it is worthy of respect'."

Indeed! One wonders if Mr. Cowie has ever heard of D. W. Griffith. He must be aware that it was America—not Sweden— that first made the world realise that there really was an art of the film, and that it was Griffith who, in many respects, paved the way for the great Soviet directors.

Even more confusing is the singular remark that in Bergman's early films such as Crisis (1941) and Port of Call (1948) and It Rains On Our Love (1946) "one can detect in embryo another of Bergman's underlying principles—that love is rooted in sex, but that there can be no sexual desire without love and vice versa." This, it should be observed, is stated in all seriousness. One could say, with all due respect to him, that the idea that love is rooted in sex is hardly original with Bergman.

We are then surprised to learn that Bergman's film A Ship Bound For India (1947) "was to a certain extent inspired by the Carne-Duvivier school of French filmmakers." What, one may ask, is the Carne-Duvivier school of film-makers? The two directors have little in common apart from their both being Frenchmen. Jean Luc-Godard, not surprisingly, is quoted to the effect that Summer Interlude (1950) is "the finest of all films." With this remark Godard sweeps from the pantheon of the great the collected works of Griffith, Pabst, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, von Stroheim, Chaplin, Renoir, Ford, Welles et al. Comment is superfluous.

In a discussion of Smiles Of A Summer Night (1955) Mr. Cowie informs us that "In Bergman's films, sexual incompatability always means the erosion of marriage." This is almost as profound as Bergman's principle that "love is rooted in sex."

Nor should we overlook such a choice titbit as this: " 'To make films is for me a natural necessity, a need similar to hunger and thirst. For certain people to express themselves implies writing books, climbing mountains, beating children, or dancing the samba. I express myself by making films.' Thus Bergman," declares Mr. Cowie, "has described, with his usual lucidity, the creative impulse that has inspired him to produce 25 films in 17 years ..." I can understand what Bergman means when he states that he feels a need to make films that resembles the need to gratify hunger and thirst; but when he says that he expresses himself by making films the way other people express themselves by beating children, such a statement is not at all easy to construe, and I wonder why Mr. Cowie regards it as an example of Bergman's "usual lucidity."

I am slightly flabbergasted by the reference to Bergman's "usual lucidity." Whatever else may be said about him, Bergman's style is hardly distinguished by its clarity: his films are marked by obscurity, by ellipsis and ambiguity, by a certain groping for expression. This is the essence of whatever gifts he possesses. To regard him as lucid is to misunderstand him entirely.

I find the opinions expressed in this monograph often absurd and distorted with regard to both Bergman and the historical background and development of the film. They are characteristic not only of Mr. Cowie but of the whole Bergman cult. In the history of film literature there is no other director who has inspired a comparable amount of crapulent thesis. I am not criticising Bergman because people have said some crass things about his films and have had some silly reasons for liking them. My point is that their adulatory wafflings have served only to obscure a clear understanding of his talents which, to my mind, are considerable, but no more.

What is important is that the Bergman cult has arisen, that it is in many ways a minor aberration of our time, and that it has contributed nothing to an understanding of the film in general or of the work of Bergman in particular. Whatever else Bergman is, he is not what the adherents of his cult think he is.

The Virgin Spring, at first glimpse, looks pretty straightforward. In this uncompromising film Bergman has recreated a Swedish legend of rape, murder and revenge. Whether its impact derives from the way in which Bergman has marshalled his forces, or from the lovingly realistic presentation of the brutal physical details of the rape and the killings, is a matter of opinion.

The trouble with this opus is that it falls between two stools. On the one hand we have an almost documentary treatment of the unfolding drama, on the other the customary metaphysics. The film settles at an uneasy compromise which works well enough until the last sequence. Here Bergman the philosopher, in his usual heavy-handed manner, gets to work with a shovel and ladles on the overtones until the screen positively reeks of significance.

The last five minutes of the film are important as they highlight a consistent failing—Bergman's inability to integrate his characters as both symbols and flesh-and-blood people. This scene is that fraught with implication that they are reduced to pawns, and the essentially human qualities of the tragedy are negated. When the father (Max von Sydow) falls to the ground and raises his hands to the sky I was hoping Bergman would flood the screen with emotion a la Kazan and leave the moralising to look after itself. Instead the anguished man becomes a mouthpiece for a choice selection of religious platitudes.

Perhaps I am unduly sceptical. For instance, when the body of the girl is removed and water gushes out from under her head, one almost expects a character to exclaim "Behold—a miracle!" or the like, just to make sure that no one misses the point. Bergman does not stoop to this level, although the spectacle of the wench "cleansing" herself in the water is not exactly subtle. And there is something peculiarly obnoxious about the assumption that one can expiate one's sins (the killing of an innocent child) by a sufficiently attractive offering to God (the building of a church). Perhaps in this respect Bergman was influenced by his father, a famous clergyman.

The stock company performs well and the excellent photography captures the harshness of the Swedish landscapes and settings. The Virgin Spring is immediately compelling because of its dramatic potential, but the pretentious finale and the stylistic faults (see below) prevent it from being a memorable film.

Wild Strawberries is in many ways Bergman's most ambitious project, but as an essay in anagnorosis I do not find it entirely convincing. There is some distinction between the doctor's past personality, as revealed in dreams and memories, and his contented demeanour at the film's conclusion, but his character changes little throughout the film's "present."

Victor Sjostrom, apart from a few mildly grumpy moments at the beginning, makes the doctor such a lovable old man that I could not believe that he was as bad as his past accused him of being. Perhaps "persecuted" would be a better word than "accused." After all, youthful innocence and an irritating tolerance (eg his supposed reaction to his wife's adultery) are not necessarily to be condemned.

Once again, I must take issue with the way Bergman handles his symbolism. At the screening I attended there was a hushed murmur of awe as the clock with no hands was shown in the first dream sequence. I found this blatant in the extreme. Nor was I impressed by the shot of Sjostrom "accidentally" placing his hand on a nail and then discovering blood on his palm. The whole thing smacks of catchpenny Freud. And what is one to make of a statement like "You are guilty of guilt"? This looks impressively significant but analysis reveals just how tiresomely pointless it is. It is also redundant—when one suffers guilt one is, by definition, guilty. Perhaps Bergman was emphasising his belief that guilt of any kind is to be decried. But then he is challenging the human race.

Despite its involutions and pedantries the film has compensations. Bergman works in chiaroscuro—the light expresses the doctor's youth, the dark describes the moral gloom of his old age. Moments of elgiac beauty are scattered throughout the length of the film but these are overshadowed by a static technique and irritating lapses. (What, for instance, is the point of the religious argument between the two young men?). Wild Strawberries is certainly one of Bergman's better films, but I cannot agree with those who proclaim it his masterpiece.

In The Magician (The Face), Bergman demonstates a visual flair which is sadly lacking in most of his other films. This is evident in the opening scenes, shot in gloomy tones, and the scene in the attic which, although over-extended, is quite chilling.

However, the narrative does not flow quite smoothly enough. The sexual hi-jinks of the underlings, for instance, are quite superfluous and about as titillating as a cold suet pudding.

Gunnar Bjornstrand, the best of the Bergman troupe, is quite magnificent, and Max von Sydow glowers impressively. The trouble with von Sydow is that his great stone face is capable of registering strong emotion— but I am never quite sure which emotion it is meant to be.

There are a number of interpretations which can be placed on this film. It may be a representation of science v religion or church vs state. One critic has even gone so far as to suggest that the magician is Bergman himself, giving us the benefit of his views on science, women, rationalism, etc. If this is the case, then the character's Christ-like assumptions and sufferings imply an intolerable vanity on Bergman's part. Perhaps the drunken actor is Death in one of its many forms. Who cares? Symbol-hunting is such a dreary pastime. It may be elucidating but the energy expended is never rewarded by sufficient inspiration or stimulation. It can only lead to self-congratulation, which is perhaps one of the reasons why Bergman's films are so popular with the intellectual elite.

The Virgin Spring would have been better had Bergman concentrated less on eternal truths and more on the conflict of personalities. A struggle between von Sydow and Bjornstrand could have mirrored some of the magnificent personal conflicts that one often finds in the best westerns (Jubal, The 3.10 to Yuma). Notwithstanding Bergman's emphasis on affairs of the soul, this film demonstrates that he is capable of some cinematic imagination.