Word: bergmanic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...INGMAR BERGMAN HAS left the New Wave and its tormented pessimism far behind. His light-hearted, sunny, extraordinarily intelligent film version of Mozart's The Magic Flute proves that the judicious egotism of one master can actually enhance the genius of another. Bergman has gotten both practical and romantic all of a sudden; having perceived all the traditional problems of staged opera, he has pretty much solved them all, making room for his own rose-tinted theatrics. To make the story move more smoothly he shuffled several scenes out of their original order, omitted a few, altered the plot...
Like most operas, The Magic Flute has its cultists, opera purists have harrumphed at Bergman's "popularization" of the original libretto. But he's done the rest of us a service--to the uninitiated The Magic Flute's message can be hard to fathom, seeming alternately simpleminded and ponderously abstract. The opera is an allegorical celebration of the ideals of the Masonic brotherhood, a secret, illegal society to which Mozart belonged, and the elaborate rituals that take up over half the opera are closely modeled on the initiation rites of the Order. Eighteenth century audiences would have instantly recognized...
...Bergman took up the challenge here, too. He has cooked up a few plot devices in an effort to give the tale some grit and human motivation, and comes dangerously close to melodrama. About halfway through the film we learn that Sarastro, High Priest of the Temple, was once the Queen of the Night's consort, is actually Pamina's father, and has snatched her from her mother's clutches out of paternal concern for her own good. According to the original text this is all wrong. The High Priest is traditionally a somewhat remote cult figure; here...
...MAGIC FLUTE. Mozart and Ingmar Bergman: a combination made somewhere in the higher celestial regions. An ebullient and quite ravishing version of Mozart's morality tale that is part recreation, part reinterpretation...
Thanks again to Bergman's usual collaborator, Cinematographer Sven Nykvist, The Magic Flute is ravishing to look at. The acting is exceptional, partly be cause the performers have been allowed to concentrate on nuance rather than volume. The music was recorded separately, so that when the sing ers open their mouths to sing, the action is as natural and spontaneous as if they were speaking. During the overture and between scenes, Bergman cuts to faces in the audience, returning continually to one, the wondering, wise countenance of a girl who seems ageless. Recalling the director's childhood memories...