Word: bergmans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
HOUR OF THE WOLF. Sweden's Ingmar Bergman returns to his favorite themes of spiritual crisis and psychological trauma in this dark parable of the deepening madness of a reclusive artist...
HOUR OF THE WOLF. In this eerie symbolic tale of the deepening madness of a reclusive artist, Sweden's Ingmar Bergman paints one of his most effective portraits of the dark night of he soul...
...enters by dread, but sin in turn brought dread with it," wrote Kierkegaard, describing the guilt that floods the dark night of the soul. Another Scandinavian, Ingmar Bergman, plays out that quasi-religious concept by examining one soul in the blackness just before dawn-the Hour of the Wolf, "when nightmares are most palpable,' when ghosts and demons hold sway...
Shattered Shards. As he traces the history of Von Sydow's agonies, Bergman draws almost too straight a line: as a boy, the painter was chastised by his parents, locked in a dark closet, then caned repeatedly by his father until he begged forgiveness from his mother. As Von Sydow descends into insanity, he keeps re-enacting that scene in the closet. His dread of the dark, his punishment and redemption, are constantly replayed; the characters who destroy him are shards of his shattered personality that, by direct transference, come to obsess his wife...
...Bergman does not mean his story to be taken solely on the literal level. Von Sydow is also the Creative Artist beset by the bourgeoisie; the island is a metaphor of man's tragic isolation from :he mainland of humanity. Though he has glaring faults as a scenarist, Director Bergman is supreme in handling us troupe; the actors, like Sven Nykvist's phosphorescent photography can ender reality and surreality without missing a heartbeat. Von Sydow is gothically brilliant as the madman; Ullman's ragedienne reinforces her position-already secured by Persona-as one of Scandmavia...