quint
Posts 94
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7/31/2007 7:57 PM
posted awhile ago
Crazy Swedes
Wow, I'm so glad for this group. I'm glad to think that at least if their deaths result in some sort of revival of their works, say if Criterion were to put out a box set covering the whole of Bergman and the whole of Antonioni at say $500 a pop, well, at least the library would have it. At least Blockbuster would have them in a warehouse somewhere. I would love to see a comprehensive retrospective of their works. That aside, my wife and I were talking about Bergman tonight and I was confessing that I never really "got" The Hour of the Wolf. She is Swedish herself, so she "got" it instantly. Long lonely winters. Stern Swedes cooped up together. They go crazy. You have to go crazy to live in such a strange world as the far north. Long nights, long days. Everything gets topsy-turvy and even the heartiest fracture eventually. She saw strong cultural bias in nearly every setting of Bergman's. Idyllic Summers and dark lonely Winters. Strict shadows. Cold air. And these moments of fragmented abandon. So I thought perhaps a discussion about what is quintessentially Swedish might be in order. I wonder what Swedish cinema holds in the shadow of Bergman. With all that goth metal, there must be more madness up there. What new films are coming out of Scandinavia? I noticed Film Movement has a ton.
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blakngold
Posts 40
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8/3/2007 11:16 PM
posted awhile ago
Swedish and Italian
There have been many criterion collections of Ingmar Bergman's work. I own Scenes from a Marriage and Fanny and Alexander in the Criterion edition and I still haven't made time to watch their full length versions. Now that he has died I feel a burning need inside that I must watch these films. Not only watch them with my 5 senses but embrace the magic he created with these stories and a camera. I have not seen many Antonioni films but I plan on watching all of his after I am finished with Bergman's films. You're right quint, they should come out with a complete criterion collection of all of their films. They both create such thought provoking films that i'm always amazed that they made the films they did. Roger Ebert once wrote that he flew down to Sweden many years ago so that he could interview Ingmar Bergman. He said that when Ingmar Bergman arrived at the set of his new film that he was directing at the time, that everyone acted like he was the pope. I think you can say that he was the pope of films for the time he made these films. His films were religious and were as thought provoking as many verses in the bible. Antonioni had a completely different style of filmmaking but he still made films that were as challenging as Bergman's films. What are some of your favorite Bergman or Antonioni films? How did you interpret them? Let us discuss them now because this is the time to look back at two masters of the cinema who contributed so much more than we could ever imagine!
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