Word: tubal
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...down. Shakespeare contented himself with telling us that Shylock has oft been spat upon. Here, at Shylock's last exit, we actually see Gratiano (ironic name!) spit upon the Jew-- just as, in an earlier scene, we are treated to the spectacle of seeing his fellow Jew, Tubal spat...
...world (visually depicted by the carefully-directed progression from impenetrability to utter weariness in his facial expression) occurs while a committee of cynical officials reviews the troupe's act to see whether it is suitable for the towns-folk. The enertainers--a youthful coachman, the cunning and comical manager, Tubal, Vogler's wife disguised as a man, and an old hag who claims to be a witch 200 years old--then go off on their own to adventures both comic and serious, romantic and metaphysical...
Comedy, as in other recent Bergman films, is deftly handled and usually interwoven with the serious. As Tubal vends his "love potion," the old housekeeper is won over by the manager's hilariously cavalier manner, but her impatience for the potion derives, we learn, from her starvation for physical love. Conversely, wit is injected just after a particularly grim section when a drunkard who has been picked up by the troupe dies in their carriage. Nothing in the film, however, is quite so enjoyable as the uninterrupted bucolic clowning during the seduction of the inexperienced, yet swaggering coachman...