Ingmar Bergman: Wild Strawberries

Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries is one of the Swedish director's most surreal pieces of work. The film combines his traditional subjective reality style with dream sequences and flashbacks. As an old bitter doctor named Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom) journeys across Sweden to receive an award, the viewer is given a glimpse into his hopes, fears, and regrets through Bergman's unique portrayal of subjective reality. Bergman's vision here carries a lighter, more positive take on themes such as love, loneliness, regret, and family.

Isak's brother Sigfrid picks strawberries with Sara.

As Isak makes his journey to Lund, he is faced with a series of events which cause him to reflect upon his past, and strive towards a more positive change for the remainder of his life. His most intense reflection surrounds a hitchhiker named Sara (Bibi Andersson) who Isak picks up along with two young men, both of whom seem to have a romantic interest in. Their presence, along with Isak's visit to his childhood home, sends Isak into a flashback where he recalls his cousin, also named Sara (also played by Bibi Andersson). These two Saras mirror each other, as Isak remembers how his cousin Sara rejected him in order to marry Sigfrid. While the stories of both Saras have similarities, they are different in the fact that the younger Sara is "freer than her predecessor"1. The old Sara was troubled and torn between two lovers, while the new Sara is playful and full of youthful spirit. Isak also encounters an unhappy bickering couple after a car accident who causes him to reflect on his past. Their relationship sends Isak into a fever-dream, in which he recalls watching his own wife cheat on him. In the dream, she complains about how unhappy she is with their relationship. This dream sends him deeper into loneliness and regret, two important existential themes which are reflective of Bergman's philosophical style. 

Bergman draws upon his tradition as an expressionist auteur through his use of the environment to express the mind state of characters within the film, as he did in The Seventh Seal (1957) as well. Isak's good memories are portrayed in sunny, warm environments, while his nightmares and bad memories are portrayed in bleak, dark environments such as the nightmare in the beginning, and the storm signaling his nightmare towards the end. Bergman also uses other objects of the environment to reflect Isak's mind state such as dead trees, wild strawberries, and sunflowers. Another important motif within the film is the clock without hands, which represents Isak's struggle with mortality which he battles throughout the film. 

By the end of the film, Isak has undergone a great transformation. He has learned to accept and love his son and daughter-in-law, despite their rough, cold relationship at the beginning of the film. Like many other characters in Bergman's films, he has gone through a spiritual transformation and came out better in the end. Instead of sulking on his failed relationship with Sara, he ends the film looking back on the brighter memories of his childhood with happiness. 

Bibliography

Wood, Robin Grant, Barry Keith Grant, Author Reviewer Series Editor Barry Keith. Ingmar Bergman. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012. Accessed April 18, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Ingmar Bergman: The Seventh Seal

Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal proves to be one of the director's deepest expressionist films. The film is heavily philosophical in its subject matter, pushing the viewer to think deeply about topics such as the existence of God, superstition, evil, and ultimately, death. The film follows a knight named Antonius Block (Max Von Sydow) who returns to his country after the crusades only to find it in a broken state, terrorized by fear of the black plague. During this period, he engages in a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot), which he cannot get away from throughout the rest of the film. The existential themes plague Block and the rest of the characters throughout the film, as they look for answers to the unknown questions surrounding their existences in such a dark time. The society portrayed within the film is desperate for answers and solutions to the plague brought upon them, and resort to torture and murder in their search. Despite the attempts, no solutions are found, leaving Block to ponder what the point of it all is.

A young woman accused of causing the plague is crucified.

The film carries on Bergman's trademark auteur style of portraying a subjective reality through the eyes of the characters. Whether or not Death is an actual physical entity or merely a vision seen through the subjective eyes of the characters remains unclear. He seems to only appear to the characters who encounter him and face their deaths, except in the case of Jof (Nils Poppe), who is able to see Death's game of chess with Block. His wife Mia (Bibi Andersson), however, is unable to see Death, bringing forth the question of whether Death actually exists within their reality or not.

The cast dances off with Death in the end.

The  bleak setting and dim, murky lighting for the majority of the film creates a dark atmosphere, reflecting the somber, fearful mind state of the characters Bergman is portraying. This dark atmosphere created within the film is in line with the expressionist tradition, of which Bergman could be considered a part of, in his own unique manner. This expressionist tradition can be traced back to German expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), which also created an atmosphere which reflected dark mind states of the characters. The film also contains plenty of close-ups of the character's faces, another trademark technique of Bergman. Whether it is a stone-cold glare from Death, or a pondering glance from Block, the close-ups help emphasize the emotional impact. 

Despite the dark subject matter of The Seventh Seal, there is a glimmer of hope for the future. This glimmer of hope is important for the film's role in post-WWII Europe, as the film was only released 12 years after the war. This hope is shown in the very end, as Jof and Mia head off with their newborn child, having narrowly escaped death. The sun is out, and uplifting strings come in to end the film on a positive note. Even the dead characters do not end the film on a negative note, as they dance off into the sunset with Death. Like post-WWII Europe, medieval Sweden here has been ravaged with death, but there are future generations to survive and carry on the underlying sense of love and hope existing within the film.

Ingmar Bergman: A Retrospective

Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish auteur active from 1945-2003. Bergman helped define postwar cinema through his deeply personal visions drawing off the expressionist tradition. It is hard to define Bergman as being a part of any certain film movement due to the fact that his filmography spans over 50+ years. Richard Corliss of Time Magazine even went as far as describing the director as a "one-man film movement"^1. Many other prominent film movements happened in European countries such as France and Italy during his most famous years, but Bergman stood apart from them. His films revolve around deep, moral issues such as religion, sex, suffering, human relationships, and mortality. His work includes many characteristics which help enforce his strong presence as an auteur. One characteristic of his work is the close-up of the face, which allows the viewer to “see, think, and feel existential sureties in different states of crisis"^2. Bergman's 1966 film Persona most adequately highlights his ability to show psychological reflection through his use of close-ups of the face. The film revolves around Alma (Bibi Andersson), a nurse who is assigned to take care of an actress named Elisabet who has suddenly stopped speaking (Liv Ullmann). Without saying a single word, Bergman is able to give Elisabet lots of emotion through his focus on her facial expressions. Despite her lack of speech, Elisabet engages in a psychological battle with Alma, as their identities fuse together and Alma becomes the voice for Elisabet.

A close-up of Liv Ullmann in Persona (1966).

 His work also includes characteristics such as deep-focus, long takes, and flashbacks. His use of such characteristics can be seen as part of the post-WWII modernist filmmaking drive to portray subjective reality. This drive allowed directors to look "ever further into characters' minds, revealing dreams, hallucinations, and fantasies"³. A perfect example of Bergman's ability to portray subjective reality can be seen in his classic 1957 film Wild Strawberries starring Victor Sjostrom. In the film, a stubborn aging professor named Isak Borg who takes a road trip and encounters a group of young hitchhikers on the way. His encounter with the hitchhikers triggers a series of memories and dreams, causing him to reflect deeply on past relationships with friends and family, and ponder about his inevitable death. Bergman's ability to show Isak's inner demons through the use of dreams and flashbacks provides a moving in-depth look at the character's mind which cannot be achieved merely through the use of realism. Instead, the viewer journeys out of reality and into the character's mind to reveal inner demons, regrets, and fears. 

Isak's dream sequence from Wild Strawberries (1957)

Despite Bergman's reluctance to conform to any certain film movement makes him stand out as one of the most unique auteurs of the post-WWII film era. His films are unique journeys into the depths of the mind, willing to go to places which most filmmakers of the time would not dare to venture. 

Bibliography

Bordwell, Kristen, Thompson, David. Film History: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Corliss, Richard. "Why Ingmar Bergman Mattered" Time Magazine, July 30 2007, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1648084,00.html

Ford, Hamish. "Ingmar Bergman" Senses of Cinema, December 2002, http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/bergman/

Notes

1. Richard Corliss "Why Ingmar Bergman Mattered" Time Magazine, July 30 2007, Accessed April 4, 2017 http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1648084,00.html

2. Hamish Ford "Ingmar Bergman" Senses of Cinema, December 2002, Accessed April 2002 http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/bergman/.

3. Kristen Bordwell and David Thompson Film History: An Introduction (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 385.