Saturday 31 May 2008
Tuesday 27 May 2008
STONE (1973)
SIDNEY POLLACK DIES....
THE SLENDER THREAD, CASTLE KEEP, THE SCALPHUNTERS
THE YAKUZA, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
ABSENCE OF MALICE
Monday 26 May 2008
HE IS NOT DEAD, JUST SLEEPETH!
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Thursday 22 May 2008
EMMA ZUNZ
Sunday 18 May 2008
CRY OF THE CITY (1948)
Saturday 17 May 2008
Friday 16 May 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR.ROBERTS!
Saturday 10 May 2008
LA CASA DALLE FINESTRE CHE RIDONO/The House with Laughing Windows (1976)
Friday 9 May 2008
LA MARIEE ETAIT EN NOIR/The Bride Wore Black (1967)
Tuesday 6 May 2008
Monday 5 May 2008
ROCKY BALBOA (2007)
BERGMAN'S NIGHTMARES
Writing about WINTER LIGHT set me off thinking about Bergman in general and one aspect of his work in particular : his ability to shock. This works in many ways. On one of the Imdb noticeboards for Bergman's THE RITE somebody posted that they felt embarrassed and actually blushed at the scene where one character describes how he brought a woman to orgasm. But it is Bergman's ability as a filmmaker to physically make one jump in the same way that a horror film might. Ingmar Bergman is on record as saying that he grew up watching Universal Horror films and even a very basic knowledge of his movies proves that the imagery of these films has influenced him. Bergman has often shown an interest in the supernatural in such films as THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE DEVIL'S EYE and suggestions of the supernatural in many other films. THE MAGICIAN is not a true horror film (although if features a classic scare sequence) but it uses much of the traditional imagery of the Gothic tale. Just look at the opening sequence of this film with its coach travelling through a wood, the sinister figure of Vogler (Max Von Sydow) - it could easily be the opening of a very up market vampire movie. HOUR OF THE WOLF begins with Liv Ullman talking directly into the camera about the disappearance of her artist husband and almost without changing the dialogue this could almost be the prologue to a story by H.P.Lovecraft! (am I alone in thinking that the young Von Sydow would have been the ideal actor to play Lovecraft ?) In flashback we see her husband's mental deterioration as he is beset by the demonic/ghostly residents of the nearby castle(one of whom bears a remarkable resemblance to Bela Lugosi - which I'm sure is not accidental), eventually being drawn into their company as surely as Jack Torrance became a resident of the Overlook Hotel. Two of Bergman's greatest films feature sequences that come close to being honest to goodness depictions of some sort of vampirism. In the extraordinary PERSONA one of the characters dreams (or does she?) that another character visits her bedroom at night. What adds to the mystery of the scene is that Bergman shoots the scene in a way that wouldn't be out of place in a film version of LeFanu's CARMILLA and it is hard not to believe that in this film and the others mentioned above that he isn't deliberately invoking the classic horror film. In CRIES AND WHISPERS the vampiric dream sequence (although we are never quite sure that it is a dream) is far more explicit. A dead person returns to life and embraces the living and blood is drawn. It is a powerful and genuinely unsettling sequence like all Bergman's nightmares and these moments in his films are, for my money, worth all George Romero and Wes Craven's films rolled into one. My final offering is the night fright that awakens Ingrid Bergman in AUTUMN SONATA (and is followed by a real spiritual horror between Ingrid and Liv Ullman). If you don't jump at this you are probably already dead.
Saturday 3 May 2008
NATTVARDSGASTERNA/Winter Light (1962)
I saw my first Ingmar Bergman films in the early Sixties. My first was, not unsurprisingly, THE SEVENTH SEAL. I followed this with THE MAGICIAN and THE SILENCE and some years later HOUR OF THE WOLF. Over the last three or four years I've been catching up with a lot of the Bergman films I missed first time around. I rate Bergman right up among my favourite four or five directors, his films reach parts of me that other films don't reach. When I finally caught up with THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable as the film progressed and I was unsure why. Eventually I had to turn the film off. It was a rental disc and had to be returned but I immediately purchased a copy. It sits on my shelf still in its shrink wrap. I figured out why I couldn't watch it : the film dealt with a painful reality of my own life. I trust Bergman enough to know that the film will be meaningful to me -but now is not the time for me to watch it. WINTER LIGHT also falls into the category of very personal films. It is very much a chamber piece - set mainly in two churches in a remote snowbound area of Sweden. The film deals with Pastor Tomas (played brilliantly by Gunnar Bjornstrand) who is going through a crisis of faith. He feels ineffectual both in his calling and his personal life and strives to understand "the silence of God" in the face of the world's pain and his own private hell. The film is not, for me, an easy watch as I identify with Pastor Tomas although I feel that by the end of the film we have both come to the same conclusion. If you visit the discussion boards at Imdb you will see that it is the end of this film that really intrigues people and there seem to be two opinions - the first is that Tomas has completely lost his faith (the final nail being driven in by the crippled churchwarden who may or may not be Satan) or that it has been renewed as he begins again the familiar words of the Mass. My own view is somewhere between and although he still does not have an answer he is keeping the lines of communication open. I have stood both sides of the altar during Mass and know its power to communicate (the translation of the original title is THE COMMUNICANTS). This is very much a "religious" film and as such it is a hundred times more powerful than any Hollywood Biblical epic and, of course, like most great religious films it is made by an atheist. Christian directors for the most part seem hampered by the need for apologetics and a restraining sense of reverence. This film is, along with PERSONA, my favourite Bergman. He holds up a mirror to our deepest self and what we see in that mirror (Through a glass darkly) may not always be what we want to see, maybe disturbing and painful, but it is the truth. Rating *****