Was it a year, two years ago? Via discounts, coupon codes, and sheer megalomania, I acquired the Criterion box sets of both Fellini and Bergman, and all I can say is “Je ne regrette rien,” or some such pretentious thing. (You can’t fake pretension, not when you’re speaking French in an American accent—that’s the genuine article—’specially iffin you don’t even know French in la première place.)
I binged on some of the Fellini a ways back, while Bergman bided his time; whereas more recently, I finally began the Bergman, and even the earliest, let’s-face-it hamfisted examples have been blowing me away. A brutal energy and honesty in Bergman, you might even call it uncomfortable, right from the beginning. This is going to be a ride! The box set contains something like 30 movies, arranged ingeniously NOT in strict chronological order, but rather in a sinuous motion through the developing artistry of Bergman over time in the medium of film. You get the bright stars of his masterpieces with the minor works sprinkled evenly between. Keeps you interested: you don’t have to wade through all the juvenilia before finally getting to the “good stuff.”
The one I watched last night (competent juvenilia) was called To Joy (1950), whereas the last one I watched a few weeks ago (masterpiece) was Wild Strawberries (1957), which melted me right into my cushions. We’ll see how that assessment holds up to my next viewing, of course, at which point maybe I’ll write about it… if I’m still writing about films by then. Kinda like keeping a dream diary, you’re enthusiastic for the first few entries, then it all just fades away, doesn’t it? In any case, I don’t feel prepared to react to that one, especially since it’s been a few weeks now, I don’t have fresh images, and I really want to watch it again.
For now, To Joy. Hmm, what could THAT title be referring to? You guessed it, Einstein: Beethoven. And lo, the film is filled with classical music, our protags being violinists in an orchestra, dramatically portrayed with various saucy angles and a surprisingly agile camera swooping around like some harpy haunting the concert hall, seeking out our lovely couple in their respective seats.
Right as the film starts, Stig learns that his wife Marta has been killed by an exploding kerosene stove. His head arcs down to the table where his weeping begins, dissolves into literal harp strings (from their orchestra), and we are delivered into the past to examine the journey of their relationship: from its inception through marriage and concluding in Marta’s death, survived by Stig and their children. What a strange feeling, to KNOW Marta’s fate in every scene, in which so many transmissions of sympathy and deep feeling pass between their animal spirits; to see Stig’s enjoyment of her vitality and generosity, having already seen his future grief.
Bergman blocks the actors in provocative ways. He doesn’t just throw some actors on the screen and direct them to say their lines at each other; instead, he finds ways to position them against each other in space. You might call it Psychological Geometry. For example, in one scene, he places Stig to the left, Marta in the middle, and a mirror on the right, arranged so that Stig seems to be looking away from Marta, whereas the mirror image of Stig looks toward her, and meanwhile, her gaze is moving everywhere! Another scene on some rocks at the seashore: the actors shift into different orientations within the shot, depending on the development of feeling in the scene. Stig and Marta face each other—he leaning back, she leaning forward—but then he sits up and his head crosses to the other side of hers, so that now they’re looking in opposite directions—at odds with each other—but then they move again for a fervent locking of eyes and a rise in feeling… It’s all precisely staged and for my money, pretty effective!
The ocean, the seashore, the waves crashing in and rolling out, an emphasized image in this film: the perpetual cycle of wrath and retreat enacted both by Nature and by Melodrama. Incredible, indeed infuriating at times, how bipolar these people are! Screaming one second, ecstatically embracing the next. It’s hard to gauge who they actually are underneath it all. Keeping us audience members off-kilter in this manner is extremely effective at ensnaring our sympathy for the characters. We experience their love more strongly as it becomes more tempestuous and unbalanced. You yearn for them to come together, and then you’re cringing as one or the other throws unwonted bombs into their seemingly imminent serenity. I almost felt like an abused lover myself in this storm! Stig keeps flying into adolescent fury or miring in depression, but he’s always grounded back into cheerfulness by Marta’s steadiness… not before he’s hurt her in some careless fashion, of course. So you hate him for hurting her, but you love him even more for what appears to be his unfeigned feeling for her that always draws him back into her orbit.
And you understand also that this whole film is his flashback—she’s already dead before we even catch sight of her—so everything is subjective to him. The result being, she’s mostly angelic and faultless throughout, while he’s wracked with guilt over every little misstep that he’s made, every destructive decision, every selfish failure to see and love her as she has deserved. You sense he resents her for having this power over him, but he’s also grateful for being held securely and safely in that power. (And naturally devastated to lose it.)
Curious bit in the film that kind of threw me: Stig deems himself a loser and a mediocrity (especially after he fucks up his violin solo debut), and so he seeks solace and excitement in an extramarital affair. Openly—he doesn’t even hide it from his wife! That is some swingin’ bohemian clique these people are rockin’ in midcentury Sweden, eh? The girl he swoons for is a nymphet type, fully grown but coquettish and, hm, limber, shall we say? She is the wife of an elderly fella who loves to, in the modern parlance, get cucked; I’m not sure what they called it back then…. In any case, he’s the one who brings them together and luxuriates in the lather of their concupiscence. This film came out in 1950! Scandalous! (Admittedly, I’m kind of overselling it here; it’s nowhere explicit.)
Even though the film is a flashback from Stig’s perspective, I wasn’t sure what to make of a few breaks in that structure, when we hear the thoughts of other characters. Even the conductor of the orchestra has his say! I wonder if Bergman simply didn’t care about narratorial consistency, or were these bits meant to portray how Stig imagines other people view him and his relationship? This is something we do: imagine the reactions of others to our own actions. Being in a relationship is to be observed by others in the activity of that relationship; one observes the observers and experiences a vicarious thrill wondering what they think of it all.
After all, everyone is completely alone, their relations always mediated by social forces or physical distances or even interior monologues, which no matter how ardent and seemingly full of feeling, no matter how sincerely felt, are just self-serving propaganda, a stream of words designed to persuade ourselves that we are feeling what we believe to be appropriate in a given context. Building ourselves moment by moment through the living process, creating the person we present to the world and also to ourselves. What is underneath it? Who really built that person? With what consciousness, what design, did he or she do it? Did you make choices? Did you wish for what you got? Or for something else, something you never got? Did you feel helpless to make yourself in a shape of your choosing, or did someone else make you, and you merely accepted the “gift”? Who’s “responsible”? (We’re getting into Vivre sa vie territory, here! That one has really haunted me, I’ve got to get back to it soon!)
Just realized, A Ship to India (1947) has the exact same narrative structure as To Joy. It starts by revealing the fates of the main characters, then flashes back for the rest of the story before returning to the present for a final resolution of emotional elements… Intriguing! I wonder how often Bergman uses this particular structure… I’ll keep an eye out as I progress through the oeuvre. What it comes down to is the nonlinear exploration of consciousness. What is a consciousness? What form does it take in time and space? A person, a WHOLE person, doesn’t even exist in time, but rather folds time endlessly within himself as he grows and progresses through the naturally encoded stages of his organism. Wildly different parts of your life will butt up against each other within your consciousness, separated by years, yet simultaneous in YOU… you could be an old man peering across time into your own childhood, seeing it so clearly you weep…. and that’s exactly how Wild Strawberries works! Holy fuck.
That’s probably a good note to end on. Writing undeniably aids the understanding, doesn’t it? Wasn’t really the intention here, but I feel pretty good about the result…. Shit, I can’t do this much work for every movie I see, though, can I?… Ha ha! Whatever.