Word: bergmans
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Four long essays fill most of the book, one each on the films Simon considers to be Bergman's best: The Naked Night (1953) which Simon, setting a welcome precedent, calls by its correctly translated title The Clown's Evening: Smiles of a Summer Night (1955); Winter Light (1962)) and Persona (1966). Simon's analytical and descriptive abilities, seen most often in his film reviews in The New Leader, flourish in these expansive essays, unencumbered by the disputatious color of his reviews...
Simon's most enduring articles have always been on the few films he loves, while he has been quick to trifle with or even denounce the imperfect nascent films so influential in the development of a classical style like Bergman's. In dealing with the classical, he is on his own firmest ground, and in his Bergman book Simon is willing, for the first time, to take his stands, in relation to--not merely above--other crities...
JUST AS MANY PEOPLE think of John Simon only as a malicious theater critic, so for many the quintessence of Bergmanism remains, unfortunately, The Seventh Seal. Simon mentions the film only a few times, and in passing; his omission is one of his best critical judgments. In 1956, the film made Bergman intellectual chic. In later years, its fame, coupled with its lack of substance, led many to a premature disenchantment not only with Bergman but with foreign films as a group. The labored allegory's saintly sheen cannot disguise its sanctimony; stark and serious do not by themselves make...
Viewed in perspective--as a compelling project Bergman had to get off his chest--The Seventh Seal can be recognized as an impressive failure. Its ostentatious images, with a couple of exceptions (the witch-burning, the flagellants), make better stills than film. But the concerns of the film find more coherent treatment elsewhere. The spiritual plagues are more carefully distilled in Winter Light; the worldly ones are more powerful in The Clown's Evening...
...Clown's Evening, Bergman's first masterpiece, sums up attitudes Bergman had suggested in his films of the preceding three years. During the course of a single day's action, we see the owner of an impoverished travelling circus and his mistress, the bare-back rider, each betray the other. Albert tries to return to the wife he had left long ago. Anne, partly in retaliation, has a pitiful affair with a condescending actor. Both are rejected in these attempts to escape the circus life, and, after still further torment, the day ends with the pair together again, walking...