I wouldn’t call this a great or harrowing drama. It
really is only an everyday drama. Almost a comedy…
Well, this five-disc set is a feast of film covering the
start of the legendary director’s career with eight films from 1944 to 1950,
six directed by him and the other two featuring his script (and, as it
transpires, some direction).
Much like the pupils in the opening film, Torment
(1944), force-feeding themselves Latin in an attempt to cram it through their
final exams, Bergman has seemed to be almost a chore for some of the admittedly
lazier boys in class. He’s unavoidably part of the curriculum but his aversion
to Hollywood happy endings and focus on long takes and mood presents a barrier
to simply enjoying his work for the less familiar. I was that lazy student but,
as I sat down to do my filmarbete i hemmet I soon abandoned my notebook
and just fell for the rich characters and on screen.
Sometimes we can study too much and look for the early
signs of patterns established much later but, honestly, watching these films
from a time when Bergman had no idea how his career would pan out, is a
positive joy. So, ahem, here’s “to joy” and to switching our analytical minds
off as we relax and float down the stream of Swedish films second great coming.
Not that I can stop myself looking for the influence of Victor Sjöström from
the first… Bergman learned a lot from his friend, but he is clearly also picking
up ideas from expressionism as well as neo-realism.
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| Alf Kjellin and Mai Zetterling in torment... |
There’s also a good deal of humour in these films and I
love, for example, the man who learned his craft in the theatre having his narrator
introducing his first directed film, Crisis (1946) with the words above,
followed by “let’s raise the curtain” just as one of the characters does
exactly that in Ingeborg Johnson’s music room… he’s confident enough to play on
words and with the form from the beginning.
The first film on the set is Torment (1944) for
which Bergman wrote the screenplay and direction was provided by the experienced
Alf Sjöberg – who directed the rather marvellous polar-bear hunting epic Den
Starkaste (1929) - apart from the closing section which, as the latter was
unavailable, ended up becoming the first film directed by Bergman and powerful
moments they are too. That said Alf won the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix for
his work which is full of impressive atmospherics and technically advanced
dynamics.
It’s always hard to know the split between script and
directorial interpretation but the opening shot of Torment features the
two leads, Alf Kjellin as Jan-Erik Widgren and the eternal Mai Zetterling as
Bertha Olsson, in close-up huddled together against some existential menace,
comforting each other as a world of threats mingles in the darkness around
them. As filmmaker and writer Leigh Singer says in his excellent video essay,
this sees Bergman start as he means to go on with this focus on uncertain love,
extreme close-up and the invisible torments that plague us all. Bergman himself
gives great credit to Alf Sjöberg in the Guardian Interview from 1982, also
included here, film and style have many godfathers.
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| Stig Järrel torments Alf Kjellin |
Torment is painful to watch at times given the moral situations of the leads, Widgren’s discomfort at school reflecting Bergman’s own experiences, as he struggles to cover the work and to meet the expectations of his exacting, cruel, Latin master known un-affectionately as "Caligula" (Stig Järrel) whilst meeting his parent’s expectations and falling in love with Bertha, the girl who works at the local tobacconists. Caligula is a superb creation from writer and performer, a monster in the classroom who covers his own frailty and fear with aggression and manipulation. This is a coded attack on Adolf Hitler, a man with complicated resonance for Bergman…, an inadequate who constantly excuses himself because he’s “ill” but who keeps on returning to cruelty.
He not only victimises Widgren, possibly as he senses
weakness, but also preys on Bertha who is driven to drink by his unrelenting
attentions. Once the “triangle” of love and abuse is complete something is
going to have to give but, whilst there are life lessons to be learnt, there
are also teachers who believe in nurturing and kindness…
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| Experiencing her lessons - Inga Landgré |
Crisis (1946), Bergman’s first film as both writer
and director, follows the theme of inter-generational friction in ways that
easily pass the Bechdel Test. Bergman’s women are well wrought even as his male
characters are also nuanced and riven with faults. Here there’s also a tussle
between town and country as a woman from the city, Jenny (Marianne Löfgren)
arrives in her home village to try and reconnect with the daughter she left
there 18 years before. Jessie now owns a beautician’s and wants her daughter, Nelly
(Inga Landgré) to come and join her.
The central character is Ingeborg, marvellously played by
Dagny Lind, who must decide whether her claims as mother are to stand in the
way of Nelly’s decision to find out what the life beyond is like. Matters are
complicated by Jack (baby-faced Stig Olin who is in Torment and several others
here) and occasionally employed actor who is with Jenny but quite fancies Nelly
and has a way of gaslighting those around him.
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| Sisters? Marianne Löfgren and Dagny Lind |
Jack offers to help Ingeborg to the station on one visit and uses the occasion to skilfully cast doubt on her motivations for wanting to “keep” Nelly; is she really selfish? The answer is no and nor is she stupid… she knows Nelly needs to find out about life for herself, the only way to learn is to go through it and that she does. What is so interesting about all these characters though is that everyone has good and bad to varying degrees, shades of grey, mistakes and misfortune.
All of this is already being expressed though framing and
mis-en-scene as with later works and, as Singer again points out, if you want
to tick off Bergman’s later preoccupations you will find them all here: physical
journeys, signify major life changes, the restrictions of social institutions
on independent feeling, sexual jealousy, doomed romance, a Godless universe…
But these are eternal questions and ones that Bergman’s self-examination would
never leave unaddressed.
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| Inga Landgré and Stig Olin |
The director was also gathering a troop of regular actors
as any theatre producer might and as he did throughout his later career. His next
film, Music in Darkness (1948) directed from Dagmar Edqvist’s script, features
marvellous Mai Zetterling again (anyone else see a resemblance to Emily Blunt?)
whilst Stig Olin is in Port of Call (1948) and Prison (1949) both
written and directed by Ingmar.
He’s also in Eva (1948), written by Bergman but directed
by Gustaf Molander – another silent stalwart who had directed Alf Sjöberg as an
actor in Ingmarsarvet (1925) a partially lost film that also features
Swedish superstar, prima ballerina and actress, Jenny Hasselqvist.
Thirst (1949), released as Three Strange Loves
in the United Kingdom, has a screenplay by Herbert Grevenius and features Birger
Malmsten who is in no less than six of these films including the last… To
Joy (1950). This is the only one of the films I’d seen before and one which
sees Bergman really hitting his stride now as writer and director. This also has
an excellent performance from his pal Victor Sjöström who really had no limits.
Four years into his career and still with so much said and left to say, what a remarkable
man he was. Here Bergman’s belief in the alignments of music and film come to
the fore in the form of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony… it’s a powerful
argument.
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| Victor Sjöström and Stig Olin in To Joy |
This is, of course, an essential set and these restored gems come with a hefty side-order of extras:
The Guardian Interview: Ingmar Bergman (1982, 62
mins, audio only): Ingmar Bergman pays tribute to Alf Sjöberg, the director of
Torment, discussing his influence and impact on his own career
Ingmar Bergman: First Cries, Early Whispers (2021, 20 mins): a new video essay by writer, filmmaker and film journalist Leigh Singer
100-page perfect-bound book featuring new essays by Jan Holmberg (CEO of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation), Philip Kemp, Geoff Andrew, Jessica Kiang, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Kat Ellinger and Laura Hubner
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| Prison (1949) |
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| Port of Call (1948) |
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| Music in the Dark (1948) |
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| Thirst (1949) |
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