Bergman: The Faith Trilogy
Bleak. Stark. Gloomy. Despairing. These are some adjectives that come to mind when many people think of the work of Ingmar Bergman. I think the seed of that can be found in the films that make up the trilogy commonly known as The Faith Trilogy, which Bergman made over 1962-1963. Though excellent films, these are the kind of movies that make you want to hug your loved ones or run into the night screaming.
Bergman was the son of a pastor, a rather strict man, and for much of his life he was conflicted about his religious upbringing. Peter Cowie, who provides analysis on these three films (and excellent commentary for many of the other Criterion Bergman releases) describes this trilogy as Bergman ridding himself of religious baggage. In the first two films, characters contemplate the meaning of God, while the third has a complete lack of Him. This was filmmaking as psychotherapy.
While faith is the over-arcing theme, there is a strong parallel theme running through each of these three films, and that is communication, or more precisely, the lack of communication between people.
Also, these films are also described as "chamber" works, involving very small casts and limited locations. Sven Nykvist shot all three (his first pairing with Bergman was on The Virgin Spring, and they would go on to work together for twenty more years) and he uses only natural light. This is used to astonishing effect in Through a Glass Darkly, the first film in the trilogy, which is shot on the island of Faro in the Baltic Sea (Bergman so fell in love with the stark beauty of this place that he ended up living the last thirty years of life there). It involves a family of four on holiday: the father, David (Gunnar Björnstrand), who is writing a novel, his daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson), her husband Martin, a physician (Max Von Sydow) and a teenage son, Minus (Lars Passgård). All appears initially to be quite pleasant, as the four frolic in the surf. But it soon becomes apparent that there's something wrong with Karin--she's a schizophrenic, and Martin has been told that her condition is incurable.
Karin has hallucinations about a group of people waiting for the arrival of God. Her father, an ineffectual man who has been away from his family on long trips, feels a terrible guilt because he is using Karin's illness as a plot point in his novel. When she reads his diary and finds out, a turning point in the family takes place. Also, there is a hint of an incestuous relationship between brother and sister. When Karin finally cracks up, God is revealed to her, but it is as a monstrous figure.
God is also referred to as something monstrous in Winter Light, the second film (the title in Swedish is roughly translated as The Communicant, or one who takes Communion). The unity of time is even tighter in this film, as it covers three hours in the life of Tomas, a pastor (again played by Björnstrand) who is having a spiritual crisis. He deals with two things over the course of these three hours--counseling a man who has thoughts of suicide (Von Sydow) and the woman who loves him, a needy schoolteacher played by Ingrid Thulin. Tomas grieves for his dead wife and despairs at "God's silence." But then a parishioner discusses scripture with him, and says that he doesn't think Christ's suffering had to do with pain, but with the feeling of being forsaken by God, and Tomas gets a fresh perspective on things.
The final film is The Silence, and if one views these movies as a triptych (as Bergman intended), the title refers to the silence spoken of in Winter Light, as God is not present. It is the deceptively simple story of two women, sisters, traveling by train. One of them, Anna, (Gunnel Lindblom) has a small son, the other, Ester, (Thulin) has an illness. She is too ill, in fact, to continue traveling, so they stop in an unspecified country and take up residence in an opulent but nearly empty hotel. The country would seem to be an Eastern bloc nation, with tanks roaming the street.
This film is notorious because of its shocking (for the time) sex scenes. Cowie mentions that is the most-attended Bergman film of all time, for precisely this reason. Early on we get some uncomfortable vibes when Anna takes a bath and has her son scrub her back, and then they nap together while she is nude. Oppressed by the heat, she goes out to look for anonymous sexual encounters, while the boy wanders the hotel, meeting a troupe of dwarf acrobats. Ester, meanwhile, remains in the room, smoking, drinking, masturbating and working (she is a translator). Her illness is unspecified, but it could be grave, as she mentions that she does not want to die away from home.
Like I said, God and faith are never mentioned in this film. In fact, the only mention of religion is when Anna tells Ester that she picked up a stranger and had sex with him in a church. Instead, this film is more focused on the difficulties of communication. Ester is a translator, but she does not speak the native language, so her encounters with a waiter are done in pantomime (although they do connect while listening to Bach, music being universal). In a pre-shadowing of Persona, Ester and Anna are like two halves of one person, with Anna representing the physical, carnal attributes, and Ester the intellectual.
Though these films can be rough sledding (there are no light-hearted moments in any of them) they are exquisite filmmaking. Marvel at Bergman's sense of composition, at Nykvist's photography, and the brilliant acting. There are some startling scenes displaying Bergman's gift as a writer. In Through a Glass Darkly there is a stunning scene on a boat when Martin blasts his father-in-law for his callousness. In Winter Light there is a remarkable scene in which Tomas reads a letter from Thulin, in which she categorizes how he is tormenting her. Instead of using voiceover, Bergman has Thulin reading the letter in a closeup, looking straight into the camera. It is a six-minute monologue, in one take. No one had seen anything like it.
Bergman also is a master of sound. Through a Glass Darkly uses a minimal score, a melancholy cello suite by Bach, while the other two films have no score at all. As Tomas sits in his office, the loud ticking of the clock resonates like a funeral bell. The Silence, true to its name, has frequent stretches when there is absolutely no sound, but then will be punctuated by moments such as the blaring of a siren.
Though these three films can be derided as being too depressing, it is interesting to note that all three end with hope. In Through a Glass Darkly, after Karin is helicoptered to a hospital, Minus has a conversation about God with his father, and he is happy because his father has actually spoken to him meaningfully. In Winter Light, Tomas goes through with the afternoon mass, even though there is only one person in attendance, a symbol that even one person can carry on hope, while in The Silence the boy reads a letter from his aunt, in which she teaches him some foreign words, a sign that communication barriers can be broken.
Bergman was the son of a pastor, a rather strict man, and for much of his life he was conflicted about his religious upbringing. Peter Cowie, who provides analysis on these three films (and excellent commentary for many of the other Criterion Bergman releases) describes this trilogy as Bergman ridding himself of religious baggage. In the first two films, characters contemplate the meaning of God, while the third has a complete lack of Him. This was filmmaking as psychotherapy.
While faith is the over-arcing theme, there is a strong parallel theme running through each of these three films, and that is communication, or more precisely, the lack of communication between people.
Also, these films are also described as "chamber" works, involving very small casts and limited locations. Sven Nykvist shot all three (his first pairing with Bergman was on The Virgin Spring, and they would go on to work together for twenty more years) and he uses only natural light. This is used to astonishing effect in Through a Glass Darkly, the first film in the trilogy, which is shot on the island of Faro in the Baltic Sea (Bergman so fell in love with the stark beauty of this place that he ended up living the last thirty years of life there). It involves a family of four on holiday: the father, David (Gunnar Björnstrand), who is writing a novel, his daughter Karin (Harriet Andersson), her husband Martin, a physician (Max Von Sydow) and a teenage son, Minus (Lars Passgård). All appears initially to be quite pleasant, as the four frolic in the surf. But it soon becomes apparent that there's something wrong with Karin--she's a schizophrenic, and Martin has been told that her condition is incurable.
Karin has hallucinations about a group of people waiting for the arrival of God. Her father, an ineffectual man who has been away from his family on long trips, feels a terrible guilt because he is using Karin's illness as a plot point in his novel. When she reads his diary and finds out, a turning point in the family takes place. Also, there is a hint of an incestuous relationship between brother and sister. When Karin finally cracks up, God is revealed to her, but it is as a monstrous figure.
God is also referred to as something monstrous in Winter Light, the second film (the title in Swedish is roughly translated as The Communicant, or one who takes Communion). The unity of time is even tighter in this film, as it covers three hours in the life of Tomas, a pastor (again played by Björnstrand) who is having a spiritual crisis. He deals with two things over the course of these three hours--counseling a man who has thoughts of suicide (Von Sydow) and the woman who loves him, a needy schoolteacher played by Ingrid Thulin. Tomas grieves for his dead wife and despairs at "God's silence." But then a parishioner discusses scripture with him, and says that he doesn't think Christ's suffering had to do with pain, but with the feeling of being forsaken by God, and Tomas gets a fresh perspective on things.
The final film is The Silence, and if one views these movies as a triptych (as Bergman intended), the title refers to the silence spoken of in Winter Light, as God is not present. It is the deceptively simple story of two women, sisters, traveling by train. One of them, Anna, (Gunnel Lindblom) has a small son, the other, Ester, (Thulin) has an illness. She is too ill, in fact, to continue traveling, so they stop in an unspecified country and take up residence in an opulent but nearly empty hotel. The country would seem to be an Eastern bloc nation, with tanks roaming the street.
This film is notorious because of its shocking (for the time) sex scenes. Cowie mentions that is the most-attended Bergman film of all time, for precisely this reason. Early on we get some uncomfortable vibes when Anna takes a bath and has her son scrub her back, and then they nap together while she is nude. Oppressed by the heat, she goes out to look for anonymous sexual encounters, while the boy wanders the hotel, meeting a troupe of dwarf acrobats. Ester, meanwhile, remains in the room, smoking, drinking, masturbating and working (she is a translator). Her illness is unspecified, but it could be grave, as she mentions that she does not want to die away from home.
Like I said, God and faith are never mentioned in this film. In fact, the only mention of religion is when Anna tells Ester that she picked up a stranger and had sex with him in a church. Instead, this film is more focused on the difficulties of communication. Ester is a translator, but she does not speak the native language, so her encounters with a waiter are done in pantomime (although they do connect while listening to Bach, music being universal). In a pre-shadowing of Persona, Ester and Anna are like two halves of one person, with Anna representing the physical, carnal attributes, and Ester the intellectual.
Though these films can be rough sledding (there are no light-hearted moments in any of them) they are exquisite filmmaking. Marvel at Bergman's sense of composition, at Nykvist's photography, and the brilliant acting. There are some startling scenes displaying Bergman's gift as a writer. In Through a Glass Darkly there is a stunning scene on a boat when Martin blasts his father-in-law for his callousness. In Winter Light there is a remarkable scene in which Tomas reads a letter from Thulin, in which she categorizes how he is tormenting her. Instead of using voiceover, Bergman has Thulin reading the letter in a closeup, looking straight into the camera. It is a six-minute monologue, in one take. No one had seen anything like it.
Bergman also is a master of sound. Through a Glass Darkly uses a minimal score, a melancholy cello suite by Bach, while the other two films have no score at all. As Tomas sits in his office, the loud ticking of the clock resonates like a funeral bell. The Silence, true to its name, has frequent stretches when there is absolutely no sound, but then will be punctuated by moments such as the blaring of a siren.
Though these three films can be derided as being too depressing, it is interesting to note that all three end with hope. In Through a Glass Darkly, after Karin is helicoptered to a hospital, Minus has a conversation about God with his father, and he is happy because his father has actually spoken to him meaningfully. In Winter Light, Tomas goes through with the afternoon mass, even though there is only one person in attendance, a symbol that even one person can carry on hope, while in The Silence the boy reads a letter from his aunt, in which she teaches him some foreign words, a sign that communication barriers can be broken.
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