208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

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Rayon Vert
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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#51 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:41 am

Jeez, my memory sucks. I saw this film again just 2-3 months ago and I'm having trouble recalling the final scene that people here are alluding to -
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is that the scene where Björnstrand, having now undergone a transformation and seen the error of his ways, tells his guilt-ridden son, in front of a window where the sun is setting (or rising?), that God is present in the love people can give another, or words to that effect?
I just remember that sscene as always having been very convincing to me and powerful to me - I'm dumbfounded that people could see it as ironic. Winter Light used to be my clear favorite of the trilogy, and I'll revisit that one, but Glass now takes its place, and has a good a chance as any as making the top of my Bergman list. This is the start of a style in Bergman with reduced theatricality and a stripped down, sometimes near-minimalist look with a more transparent visual style courtesy of Sven Nykvist. It's also the start of the use of the barren island of Farö and this film is just exquisite looking. Which, somewhat shallow aesthete that I am in what makes a film affecting for me, always scores big points with me.

Whether or not the film is seen as the first part of a metaphysical trilogy, its themes of the suffering caused by the abandonment of others – in this case the self-involved father – and of the presence or absence of a merciful God, and the interrelationships between these, merely bring into stronger focus what's already been present in Bergman's work up to this date - only in sharper relief. A scene where the father and the son-in law confront and discuss the former's lack of self-truthfulness and his relationship to faith is stirring because of the performances and the setting and visual framing of the scene in an anchored boat with the sea around them. This serious material is never heavy-handed, as I find can happen with Bergman, for one thing because of the beauty and the simultaneous realism and dramatic minimalism of those settings and how they are shot.

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Sloper
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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#52 Post by Sloper » Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:41 pm

I have mixed feelings about the ending – it does seem a little trite – but I think it’s very ambiguous, and at least potentially ironic. On the whole, after watching the film five or six times, I think it works pretty well. It’s certainly very typical of Bergman to end a film with a (potentially/seemingly) redemptive coda, a sort of ‘calm after the storm’ where the intensity dies down and we see things in a more level-headed way. The two most relevant connections to make here are with the endings of Cries and Whispers,
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where the dead Agnes’ diary entry about a peaceful afternoon with her sisters casts a potentially softening light on the dysfunctional, disintegrating family relationships we’ve just been watching; or, from another angle, you could say that knowing everything Anna (the maid) knows, we see Agnes’ sense of comfort as a tragically temporary, perhaps even deluded, escape from grim reality,
and Autumn Sonata,
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where Eva’s conciliatory letter to her mother ostensibly introduces some hope, but is severely undercut by our knowledge of how irreparable this mother/daughter relationship is (in fact, as the husband realises, the letter is just painful proof that neither woman will ever be able to escape this nightmare), and by the mother’s silence in the face of her daughter’s attempt to reach out to her. I think there’s a latent malevolence in the attempt to reach out, as well.
The ending of Through a Glass Darkly likewise offers the hope that this broken family might be repaired. This has been anticipated a couple of times. We’ve seen the father telling his son-in-law that, after his failed suicide, he had felt a sudden love for Karin, Minus and Martin. We’ve seen him give a frank apology to Karin for having neglected her.

And I think you could add other little moments that complicate the overall vision of dysfunction and alienation: David going into the house to cry, and even the fateful entry in his diary, which are both evidence of his sense of guilt, and therefore of his sense of responsibility; the bond between Minus and Karin, tainted by incest but not reducible to it or destroyed by it; the bond between Karin and Martin, problematic because he both infantilises her and resents her lack of sex drive, and because she feels driven away from him towards the voices in the wall, but again still a relationship founded on love of some kind; and the way the three men come together around Karin on the staircase at the end, all of them listening to and perhaps understanding her climactic revelation, whereas before they have kept her illness at arm’s length.

In this context, it makes sense that David would suggest that Karin might be helped by the love of her family. I don’t think the rest of the film has left us with the sense that there is no love at all here, or that Karin (incurable as she may be) is completely beyond the reach of her family’s love. Yes, Karin’s family is in a sense the spider that attacks her, its calm stony face recalling her father’s, and its longing to penetrate her recalling her husband’s and her brother’s. But it’s also, at least potentially, the other kind of God – like the spider, this God is a bit of an anti-climax, because it turns out to be ‘all kinds of love, the most ridiculous and the most sublime’, rather than some all-powerful transcendent being. But it’s something to hold onto, and I think the film has given us just enough reason to think that this is more than an empty hope.

However, the triteness of what David says is also part of what makes this ending interesting. This final conversation is haunted by Martin’s scathing comments (on the boat) about David’s faith, and about his meditations on God in his novels. ‘You flirt with God, but do you really have any faith?’ he says, or words to that effect. ‘Is there a word of truth in any of your books?’ It’s clear from what David says to Minus that he is aware of how inadequate his faith may be: it’s what he rests his ‘dirty hopelessness and emptiness’ in. And it’s perfectly valid for the viewer to feel that David is just doing what he’s always done, aestheticising his daughter’s mental illness for the sake of a would-be inspiring turn of phrase. Even though Winter Light isn’t actually a sequel to this film, it’s significant that Bergman immediately went on to show Gunnar Björnstrand taking refuge in empty ceremony, having lost all his faith. The ending of that film certainly isn’t trite, but it has the same potential to be read hopefully or sceptically, or a mixture of the two.

Finally, there’s that last line from Minus: ‘Dad talked to me.’ Most obviously, this is another sign of hope. At last, this closed-off father has given his son what he has always wanted, by opening up to him and sharing his innermost thoughts. Both David’s children need to be saved, and this line indicates that there is hope for Minus as well as Karin (the neatness of this ‘two birds with one stone’ effect is part of what makes it feel trite). Again, though, the triteness of the hope being offered up is probably intentional. There’s something kind of sad about how grateful Minus is for this scrap of conversation with his dad. The mere fact that his father has talked to him gives him a sense of hope – but if we, like Martin, have detected the emptiness of David’s professions of faith, we might find it painfully apt that Minus focuses only on his father’s having talked to him, and not on the content of what his father was saying. David looks away for most of his monologue, looking Minus in the eye right at the end as he affirms the possibility of getting through to Karin and helping her; Minus looks intently at him during the monologue, but looks away when his father meets his gaze; so there’s reason to hope alongside evidence of an ongoing problem. I find it hard to express this point clearly, but I’d be interested to know if others have had the same feeling about this last moment of the film.

One other interesting point: the film’s title literally means ‘as if in a mirror’. On the Tartan DVD, there’s a clip of Bergman showing his actors a reproduction of an ancient bronze mirror, which reflects the world rather obscurely. So it’s not inappropriate to include the word ‘darkly’ in the title, but I think ‘through a glass’ is a bit misleading. The film begins with several shots of reflected images in water, followed by an image of four people partially cut off by the water they’re standing in. We see them as a happy family when they’re in this obscuring ‘mirror’, but when face to face with them we find out how broken they really are – and yet, as I said before, we retain something of that initial sense of unity and love. And later on, the wallpaper that Karin stares at serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting light and shadows from outside, showing her different things depending on what passes by the window. Just thought I would raise this point in case anyone wants to make further suggestions about the title’s significance.

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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#53 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Mar 25, 2017 12:37 am

Sloper wrote:One other interesting point: the film’s title literally means ‘as if in a mirror’. On the Tartan DVD, there’s a clip of Bergman showing his actors a reproduction of an ancient bronze mirror, which reflects the world rather obscurely. So it’s not inappropriate to include the word ‘darkly’ in the title, but I think ‘through a glass’ is a bit misleading. The film begins with several shots of reflected images in water, followed by an image of four people partially cut off by the water they’re standing in. We see them as a happy family when they’re in this obscuring ‘mirror’, but when face to face with them we find out how broken they really are – and yet, as I said before, we retain something of that initial sense of unity and love. And later on, the wallpaper that Karin stares at serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting light and shadows from outside, showing her different things depending on what passes by the window. Just thought I would raise this point in case anyone wants to make further suggestions about the title’s significance.
The expression "through a glass darkly" comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians and (I'm looking this up) meant we can't see/understand reality until the end of time, so there's probably (also) a relationship to the metaphysical "absence of God/meaning to existence and its sufferings" query in this film.

I don't know if it's significant that the line in Paul contains another Bergman film title!... For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#54 Post by Black Hat » Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:06 pm

I want to preface this by saying it's been a long time since I've seen this. I'm at times a Bergman fan, but I'm more of Bergman voyeur* so I've seen most of his stuff. What struck me the most about this at times excruciating watch was Karin's sexuality. It seemed to me part, if not all of her mental illness was being a nymphomaniac which given the simplistic, titular way this topic was explored — especially in film at the time — seemed par for the course. What stood starkly in contrast in this film was her sexuality standing in opposition to the repressed in one way or another male characters. I always took this as representative of how Bergman felt about his life at this stage of his career.

*There's times where I don't think the dude's as smart as he thought he was and in fact rather full of it, but is this my general view of eggheads who bang on and on about anything incessantly.

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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#55 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:09 pm

It was always my impression that Karin suffers from schizophrenia and/or schizoaffective disorder.

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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#56 Post by knives » Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:08 pm

I remember that being the linear notes' assumption as well.

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ando
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Re: Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)

#57 Post by ando » Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:09 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sloper wrote:One other interesting point: the film’s title literally means ‘as if in a mirror’. On the Tartan DVD, there’s a clip of Bergman showing his actors a reproduction of an ancient bronze mirror, which reflects the world rather obscurely. So it’s not inappropriate to include the word ‘darkly’ in the title, but I think ‘through a glass’ is a bit misleading. The film begins with several shots of reflected images in water, followed by an image of four people partially cut off by the water they’re standing in. We see them as a happy family when they’re in this obscuring ‘mirror’, but when face to face with them we find out how broken they really are – and yet, as I said before, we retain something of that initial sense of unity and love. And later on, the wallpaper that Karin stares at serves as a kind of mirror, reflecting light and shadows from outside, showing her different things depending on what passes by the window. Just thought I would raise this point in case anyone wants to make further suggestions about the title’s significance.
The expression "through a glass darkly" comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians and (I'm looking this up) meant we can't see/understand reality until the end of time, so there's probably (also) a relationship to the metaphysical "absence of God/meaning to existence and its sufferings" query in this film. But Karin's (and Nina's) role in the awakening in the young men is indispensable and, frankly, I suspect that had the narratives been written by women altogether different.

I don't know if it's significant that the line in Paul contains another Bergman film title!... For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
If you keep in mind the verse that proceeds Corinthians 13:12, which is:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
(KJV)

It sheds light on Minus' journey in the film, certainly. And, yes [Lachino] Mingus' character parallels that of Konnstantin Gavrilovich Treplev, the young dreamer/playwright in Chekhov's The Seagull. The other character equivalents are easy to spot; especially Karin/Nina (Chekhov's young aspiring actress) and David/Irina (Chekhov' seasoned actress and mother of Treplev). And I'd argue that the Minus/Treplev role is the pivotal one in both, primarily because of the awakening of sorts that happens in both stories. The other characters have already been formed and don't change much, though the projectory of the Karin/Nina role is one of disintegration - just the reversal of the flowering that occurs with Minus/Treplev.

The most striking - and effective - comparison between The Seagull and Through A Glass Darkly is in the play-within-a-play (or in Bergman's version, play-within-a-film) sequence. In the Chekhov's play Treplev creates a highly abstract pastiche of a play which is vociferously ridiculed by his mother. In the Bergman film it's the father, David, who feels ridiculed due to Minus' portraiture. In both the plays are springboards for the exploration of relationships that are developed as both stories proceed. It could be that behind Irina's belittling of her son's theatrical presentation she also feels somehow implicated or judged which would explain her impatience and derision toward it. The intentions and emotional/psychological motivations behind Chekhov's characters are always layers deep despite the surface appearance of calmness and even boredom. But these are seldom revealed in public - or between more than a group of two or three characters. Similarly Bergman presents the facade of a placid family primarily when they're all assembled. It's only when the characters are one-on-one with each other that the truths of their emotional conditions surface. And in both cases when these truths do surface in a gathering of more than two or three the scenes are either hysterical or farcical. Why is this? The Ancient Greeks didn't do it. Or the Japansese. Certainly not Africans. Even in African American theater oftimes the most cathartic moments are scenes involving the largest numbers of people. With the Chekhov and Bergman pieces emotional turmoil must occur in private or closed quarters. It gives a kind of unreality - certainly shock - to whatever emotional eruption occurs outwardly. There's almost an implicit assumption that the truth of one's emotional life is irrelevant as long as the accommodation (the "set-up" or societal structure) successfully camouflages it.

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#58 Post by ianthemovie » Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:06 pm

According to the specs for the reissue the essays will only be available on the DVD. So the DVD version will have a booklet but the Blu-ray version won't? Have they ever done this before?

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#59 Post by dwk » Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:10 pm

No:
On the Blu-ray: An essay by film scholar Catherine Wheatley and an excerpt from Bergman’s 1987 autobiography, The Magic Lantern
So different content, but the Blu-ray will have an insert of some kind.

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#60 Post by ianthemovie » Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:54 pm

dwk wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:10 pm
No:
On the Blu-ray: An essay by film scholar Catherine Wheatley and an excerpt from Bergman’s 1987 autobiography, The Magic Lantern
So different content, but the Blu-ray will have an insert of some kind.
Thanks but where is that? The website only mentions essays for each film that are DVD only.

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#61 Post by movielocke » Fri Mar 15, 2019 7:02 pm

ianthemovie wrote:
dwk wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:10 pm
No:
On the Blu-ray: An essay by film scholar Catherine Wheatley and an excerpt from Bergman’s 1987 autobiography, The Magic Lantern
So different content, but the Blu-ray will have an insert of some kind.
Thanks but where is that? The website only mentions essays for each film that are DVD only.
On the box set page: scroll down more, nope, keep scrolling further down.

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#62 Post by Close The Door, Raymond » Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:51 pm

Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie, a five-part documentary by Vilgot Sjöman made for Swedish television during the production of Winter Light
This will likely be on the "Winter Light" blu-ray just on like the Bergman's Cinema megaset. It will be the fourth disc on the DVD release.

Interview from 2012 with actor Harriet Andersson (Blu-ray only)
This could be the same bonus feature as the one on the "Through a Glass Darkly" blu-ray from the Bergman's Cinema megaset.

I don't think the other two interviews are featured on "Winter Light, "Through a Glass Darkly" or "The Silence" discs on the Bergman's Cinema megaset. Can anyone confirm if they are on any of the other discs in the set?

Audio interview from 1962 with actor Gunnar Björnstrand (Blu-ray only)

Illustrated audio interview with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, recorded in 1981 (Blu-ray only)

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#63 Post by phoenix474 » Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:59 pm

The book doesn’t mention the Björnstrand and Nykvist interviews, and I just watched Winter Light today and neither appeared on the disc either

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Re: 208-212 A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

#64 Post by dwk » Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:17 pm

I believe the Nykvist interview is on the additional supplements disc (disc 30) in the box set.

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