Under the non de plume John Le Carre, David Cornwall penned a series of best-selling spy novels including “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” ‘The Little Drummer Girl’’ and “The Russia House,” that are cerebral, unadorned, gritty. The antitheist of Ian Fleming’s suave James Bond. In fact, his most popular character George Smiley just blended into the crowd: “Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession,” Cornwall described him in “A Murder of Quality.” “The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colorful adventure of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, had lived and worked for years among his country’s enemies learns only one prayer; that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim.”
Before his death at the age of 89 in in December, 2020, Cornwall sat down for a rare interview with award-winning documentarian Errol Morris...
Before his death at the age of 89 in in December, 2020, Cornwall sat down for a rare interview with award-winning documentarian Errol Morris...
- 10/23/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Stellan Skarsgård is finding the “Melancholia” in fellow marriage film “Mamma Mia!”
Skarsgård compared filming the beloved 2008 Abba-centric musical movie to starring in a Lars Von Trier film as “Mamma Mia!” echoed the same “relaxed” feeling as leading a Von Trier film like “Nymphomaniac” or “Dogville.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relaxed on a movie set,” Skarsgård told Vogue of “Mamma Mia!,” adding, “except with Lars von Trier — which I know sounds strange. But his films are very arthouse, to where I always felt like I could take risks, and it was the same with ‘Mamma Mia!'”
He continued, “The thing you want to achieve in a film is real life, which is hard to capture and cannot be done without you feeling safe. You can be skilled and elegant, but the charm of the film is that we were all enjoying ourselves immensely.”
Skarsgård...
Skarsgård compared filming the beloved 2008 Abba-centric musical movie to starring in a Lars Von Trier film as “Mamma Mia!” echoed the same “relaxed” feeling as leading a Von Trier film like “Nymphomaniac” or “Dogville.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt more relaxed on a movie set,” Skarsgård told Vogue of “Mamma Mia!,” adding, “except with Lars von Trier — which I know sounds strange. But his films are very arthouse, to where I always felt like I could take risks, and it was the same with ‘Mamma Mia!'”
He continued, “The thing you want to achieve in a film is real life, which is hard to capture and cannot be done without you feeling safe. You can be skilled and elegant, but the charm of the film is that we were all enjoying ourselves immensely.”
Skarsgård...
- 9/15/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Ingmar Bergman is the Oscar-winning Swedish auteur who helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot...
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot...
- 7/8/2023
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
The cover of Time magazine once proclaimed Liv Ullmann “Hollywood’s new Nordic star,” a designation that never sat well with the Norwegian actress. She was a committed performer, starring in some of Ingmar Bergman’s greatest films of the Sixties and Seventies. She was an accomplished director, with a résumé that includes the Bergman-scripted 2000 gem Faithless. She became a vocal humanitarian, traveling to hardscrabble parts of the world as a Unicef ambassador. But a star? “I never became a star,” Ullmann tells Rolling Stone in a recent interview to...
- 6/24/2023
- by Chris Vognar
- Rollingstone.com
In Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s “Pirate Jenny” from “The Threepenny Opera,” a peasant hotel maid avenges herself for the cruelty she suffers from her fellow townspeople by imagining a pirate ship that sweeps into town, flattening the village and everyone in it. So, of course, the Danish king of saintly put-upon martyrs, Lars von Trier, found this material suitable for making a film every bit as alienating to the audience as the works of Brecht: 2003’s “Dogville.” Von Trier also centered his film around a blockbuster movie star, whose under-a-bell-jar image he set upon to deconstruct: Nicole Kidman.
Freshly off her Best Actress Oscar win for “The Hours” and also out of her messily public but oddly inscrutable divorce from Tom Cruise, Kidman flew to rural Trollhättan in Sweden to get on a soundstage with a truly there-are-no-words-amazing cast: Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Harriet Andersson, Stellan Skarsgård,...
Freshly off her Best Actress Oscar win for “The Hours” and also out of her messily public but oddly inscrutable divorce from Tom Cruise, Kidman flew to rural Trollhättan in Sweden to get on a soundstage with a truly there-are-no-words-amazing cast: Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Harriet Andersson, Stellan Skarsgård,...
- 4/14/2023
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The ex- movie star Mai Zetterling found more satisfaction in directing. In interviews she denied that she is an intellectual, but more intelligent films about male-female emotional politics are hard to come by. Unusually frank and intense, these dramas for the 1960s art film circuit pack a visceral impact — the extreme situations and content disturbed critics concerned with Good Taste. It’s a trilogy of respected works: Loving Couples, Night Games and The Girls.
Three Films by Mai Zetterling
Blu-ray
Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls
The Criterion Collection 1162
1964-1968 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2022 / 79.95
Written by Mai Zetterling & David Hughes
Directed by Mai Zetterling
The immensely talented Mai Zetterling began as an actress on stage and film and eventually found herself most satisfied writing and directing. Initially an exotic export from Sweden, she didn’t care for Hollywood but found creative opportunities in England,...
Three Films by Mai Zetterling
Blu-ray
Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls
The Criterion Collection 1162
1964-1968 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2022 / 79.95
Written by Mai Zetterling & David Hughes
Directed by Mai Zetterling
The immensely talented Mai Zetterling began as an actress on stage and film and eventually found herself most satisfied writing and directing. Initially an exotic export from Sweden, she didn’t care for Hollywood but found creative opportunities in England,...
- 12/27/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)
The Movie: "Hard Ticket to Hawaii"
Where You Can Stream It: Tubi
The Pitch: "Hard Ticket to Hawaii" may be nothing less than the best B-movie ever made. It is the "Die Hard" of schlock and the "Bicycle Thieves" of gratuitous nudity. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers," but Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin are played by Playboy centerfold models, Liv Ullmann is a hunky dumb jock who can't shoot straight, they're actually spies on the island of...
The post The Daily Stream: Experience the Glory of Hard Ticket to Hawaii appeared first on /Film.
The Movie: "Hard Ticket to Hawaii"
Where You Can Stream It: Tubi
The Pitch: "Hard Ticket to Hawaii" may be nothing less than the best B-movie ever made. It is the "Die Hard" of schlock and the "Bicycle Thieves" of gratuitous nudity. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers," but Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin are played by Playboy centerfold models, Liv Ullmann is a hunky dumb jock who can't shoot straight, they're actually spies on the island of...
The post The Daily Stream: Experience the Glory of Hard Ticket to Hawaii appeared first on /Film.
- 4/8/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Bergman’s 1972 film is rereleased, the story of sisters waiting for one to die, and it shocks and disturbs in equal measure
Ingmar Bergman’s 1972 feature is rereleased for its 50th anniversary and it looks even more intimately disturbing and pornographically painful than ever: a supernatural horror-tragedy of three sisters, and nothing could be less Chekhovian. Tableau scenes from a spiritual hell are vouchsafed to us, with cries of pain, surging and insistent zoom shots on troubled faces, together with inner-life static portraits, whose subjects stare dispassionately at us out of the screen in half-shadow while the whispering of despair susurrates on the soundtrack.
In the early years of the last century, or the late years of the century before that, Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is living alone in the house where she grew up, attended by the family maid Anna (Kari Sylwan). Lonely, wretched Agnes has never married and is now dying of cancer.
Ingmar Bergman’s 1972 feature is rereleased for its 50th anniversary and it looks even more intimately disturbing and pornographically painful than ever: a supernatural horror-tragedy of three sisters, and nothing could be less Chekhovian. Tableau scenes from a spiritual hell are vouchsafed to us, with cries of pain, surging and insistent zoom shots on troubled faces, together with inner-life static portraits, whose subjects stare dispassionately at us out of the screen in half-shadow while the whispering of despair susurrates on the soundtrack.
In the early years of the last century, or the late years of the century before that, Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is living alone in the house where she grew up, attended by the family maid Anna (Kari Sylwan). Lonely, wretched Agnes has never married and is now dying of cancer.
- 3/31/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
by Cláudio Alves
Did you know that Juan Carlos Ojano hosts one of the best film podcasts around? The One-Inch Barrier started last year, examining the Best International Film race, going backward in time. As its penultima season is drawing to an end, I was honored enough to return for my third stint as a guest.
The subject, this time, was Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, which won the Oscar in 1961, beating Denmark's Harry and the Butler, Japan's Immortal Love, Mexico's The Important Man, and Spain's Plácido. Though the Swedish flick about God's silence and Harriet Andersson's general awesomeness isn't an especially joyous piece, this was a fun, thoroughly entertaining conversation. Topics ranged from faith to class warfare, from ironic movie titles to Toshiro Mifune's hotness. There was even time to throw shade at some 2021 Oscar contenders, though I refuse to name the mediocrity in question. Take...
Did you know that Juan Carlos Ojano hosts one of the best film podcasts around? The One-Inch Barrier started last year, examining the Best International Film race, going backward in time. As its penultima season is drawing to an end, I was honored enough to return for my third stint as a guest.
The subject, this time, was Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, which won the Oscar in 1961, beating Denmark's Harry and the Butler, Japan's Immortal Love, Mexico's The Important Man, and Spain's Plácido. Though the Swedish flick about God's silence and Harriet Andersson's general awesomeness isn't an especially joyous piece, this was a fun, thoroughly entertaining conversation. Topics ranged from faith to class warfare, from ironic movie titles to Toshiro Mifune's hotness. There was even time to throw shade at some 2021 Oscar contenders, though I refuse to name the mediocrity in question. Take...
- 12/18/2021
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
Swedish stage and screen actor best known for her work with the film director Ingmar Bergman
The Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was renowned for writing complex and demanding roles for women such as Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Further down the cast list, but prized by the director throughout his career, was Gunnel Lindblom, who has died aged 89.
She appeared in several of his best-known pictures, including The Seventh Seal (1957), in which she was the young mute woman who accompanies a knight’s squire (Gunnar Björnstrand) after he saves her from being raped. When she eventually speaks, it is to deliver the film’s final words: “It is finished.” Lindblom had played the role in an earlier stage version. “I am a rather silent person,” she said, “so maybe he gave me those parts just because he knew I don’t like to talk a lot. I prefer to listen.
The Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was renowned for writing complex and demanding roles for women such as Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann. Further down the cast list, but prized by the director throughout his career, was Gunnel Lindblom, who has died aged 89.
She appeared in several of his best-known pictures, including The Seventh Seal (1957), in which she was the young mute woman who accompanies a knight’s squire (Gunnar Björnstrand) after he saves her from being raped. When she eventually speaks, it is to deliver the film’s final words: “It is finished.” Lindblom had played the role in an earlier stage version. “I am a rather silent person,” she said, “so maybe he gave me those parts just because he knew I don’t like to talk a lot. I prefer to listen.
- 3/17/2021
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
Q&a: Writer/Director Ivan Kavanagh Discusses Working with Andi Matichak and Luke David Blumm for Son
A mother's fierce love stands between her child and a mysterious cult in the new movie Son, and with the horror film now available in theaters, On Demand, and Digital from Rlje Films, we caught up with writer/director Ivan Kavanagh (The Canal) to discuss the inspiration for his chilling new story, collaborating with Andi Matichak and Luke David Blumm to create a realistic mother-son bond, and the joys of working with Rlje Films and Shudder.
Thanks for taking the time to answer questions for us, Ivan, and congratulations on your new movie, Son! How and when did you first come up with the idea for this film?
Ivan Kavanagh: The initial idea came to me just after the birth of my first son, five years ago. He had a very difficult birth and my wife and I were very worried about him for months afterwards, and it was a very stressful time for us,...
Thanks for taking the time to answer questions for us, Ivan, and congratulations on your new movie, Son! How and when did you first come up with the idea for this film?
Ivan Kavanagh: The initial idea came to me just after the birth of my first son, five years ago. He had a very difficult birth and my wife and I were very worried about him for months afterwards, and it was a very stressful time for us,...
- 3/5/2021
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
by Cláudio Alves
Ingmar Bergman is my favorite filmmaker of all-time. That being said, I'm aware of the difficult reputation his cinema has earned over the decades. As Nick Taylor wrote in his fabulous piece about Harriet Andersson, few directors have so masterfully captured the overwhelming pain of unhappiness as Ingmar Bergman did. In his films, God is either dead or a giant stony-faced spider, a monster intent on causing suffering to everyone, making for a cinematic cosmos where agony is the most universal experience of all. It's heavy stuff which justly earns the fame of depressing art, though I'd argue that there's more to Bergman's cinema than constant unbearable ache.
Just look at his 1957 masterpieces, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries…...
Ingmar Bergman is my favorite filmmaker of all-time. That being said, I'm aware of the difficult reputation his cinema has earned over the decades. As Nick Taylor wrote in his fabulous piece about Harriet Andersson, few directors have so masterfully captured the overwhelming pain of unhappiness as Ingmar Bergman did. In his films, God is either dead or a giant stony-faced spider, a monster intent on causing suffering to everyone, making for a cinematic cosmos where agony is the most universal experience of all. It's heavy stuff which justly earns the fame of depressing art, though I'd argue that there's more to Bergman's cinema than constant unbearable ache.
Just look at his 1957 masterpieces, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries…...
- 7/5/2020
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
Ingmar Bergman would’ve celebrated his 101st birthday on July 14, 2019. The Oscar-winning Swedish auteur helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life,...
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life,...
- 7/14/2019
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Seen from the vantage of 2019, the extraordinary actresses who came to prominence in the films of Ingmar Bergman — Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin, and the sunny and anguished, incandescent and heartbreaking Bibi Andersson, who died Sunday — enjoyed a relationship with their director that was rooted in a 20th-century male-gaze ethos. Bergman was famously obsessed with these women: with their faces, their personae, the dramatic possibilities they opened up to him. He carried on off-screen romantic relationships with most of them (including Bibi Andersson), and in his movies he placed them on a grand pedestal of extravagant expression. The pedestal was framed not with a medium or long shot but with a starkly penetrating close-up. You could say that Bergman used the camera to probe their very being.
Yet it may be the essence of the partnership between Bergman, the mythical art-house giant, and the actresses he turned into psychodramatic...
Yet it may be the essence of the partnership between Bergman, the mythical art-house giant, and the actresses he turned into psychodramatic...
- 4/15/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
In good news for fans of Ingmar Bergman and Bruno Dumont, the Criterion Collection has announced its June titles. Three from the Swedish master are making the upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray, with Dumont’s “La vie de Jésus” and “L’humanité” making their Criterion debut. Also joining the collection are John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” George Stevens’ “Swing Time,” and Sergei Bondarchuk’s epic adaptation of “War and Peace.”
More information below, as well as the ever-alluring cover art:
A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman
In 1960, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman began work on three of his most powerful and representative films, eventually recognized as a trilogy. Already a figure of international acclaim for such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and The Magician, Bergman turned his back on the expressionism of his fifties work to focus on a series of chamber dramas exploring belief and alienation in the modern age.
More information below, as well as the ever-alluring cover art:
A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman
In 1960, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman began work on three of his most powerful and representative films, eventually recognized as a trilogy. Already a figure of international acclaim for such masterpieces as The Seventh Seal and The Magician, Bergman turned his back on the expressionism of his fifties work to focus on a series of chamber dramas exploring belief and alienation in the modern age.
- 3/16/2019
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Stars: Åke Grönberg, Harriet Andersson, Erik Strandmark, Hasse Ekman, Anders Ek | Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
In Skane, a county in southern Sweden, the bedraggled Alberti Circus caravan trundles through the rain and mud. They’ve had to leave half their costumes behind and they’re running out of food. Leader Albert (Åke Grönberg) is seriously considering shooting their performing bear for food. They stop off in a small town, where potential respite comes in the form of the Sjuberg Theatre Group. But it will also create a rift between Albert and his young mistress, Anne (Harriet Andersson). Albert’s wife and kids live nearby and he wants to drop them a visit. Gripped by jealousy, Anne hooks up with a lascivious actor, Frans (Hasse Ekman), from the Sjuberg troupe.
The fallout is toxic. It turns out both Albert and Anne just want to leave the nomadic circus life and settle down.
In Skane, a county in southern Sweden, the bedraggled Alberti Circus caravan trundles through the rain and mud. They’ve had to leave half their costumes behind and they’re running out of food. Leader Albert (Åke Grönberg) is seriously considering shooting their performing bear for food. They stop off in a small town, where potential respite comes in the form of the Sjuberg Theatre Group. But it will also create a rift between Albert and his young mistress, Anne (Harriet Andersson). Albert’s wife and kids live nearby and he wants to drop them a visit. Gripped by jealousy, Anne hooks up with a lascivious actor, Frans (Hasse Ekman), from the Sjuberg troupe.
The fallout is toxic. It turns out both Albert and Anne just want to leave the nomadic circus life and settle down.
- 1/24/2019
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
“The Circus Of Humiliation”
By Raymond Benson
The Criterion Collection has upgraded to Blu-ray their earlier DVD release of Ingmar Bergman’s 1953 feature, Sawdust and Tinsel (titled The Naked Night when the picture was first released theatrically in the U.S.). The visual quality has improved with a new 2K digital restoration that looks razor sharp with gorgeous contrasting black and white imagery, and it comes with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
Sawdust was a major step forward in the evolution of Bergman’s filmography, although it was not well-received by Swedish audiences at the time of release. It was most likely deemed too disturbing for what appeared to be a movie about a traveling circus. Note that this was before Bergman’s international breakthrough, which would occur a couple of years later with Smiles of a Summer Night. At the time of Sawdust and Tinsel, Bergman was mostly known just...
By Raymond Benson
The Criterion Collection has upgraded to Blu-ray their earlier DVD release of Ingmar Bergman’s 1953 feature, Sawdust and Tinsel (titled The Naked Night when the picture was first released theatrically in the U.S.). The visual quality has improved with a new 2K digital restoration that looks razor sharp with gorgeous contrasting black and white imagery, and it comes with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
Sawdust was a major step forward in the evolution of Bergman’s filmography, although it was not well-received by Swedish audiences at the time of release. It was most likely deemed too disturbing for what appeared to be a movie about a traveling circus. Note that this was before Bergman’s international breakthrough, which would occur a couple of years later with Smiles of a Summer Night. At the time of Sawdust and Tinsel, Bergman was mostly known just...
- 12/13/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Ingmar Bergman’s ‘sad comedy’ finds desperation and adultery in his favorite milieu, the theater. He also gets to contrast the self-important thespians with those dubious circus nomads, even as both groups are shunned by civilian society.
Sawdust and Tinsel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 412
1953 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 92 min. / Gycklarnas afton / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 18, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Ake Grönberg, Harriet Andersson, Hasse Ekman, Anders Ek, Gudrun Brost, Annika Tretow, Erik Strandmark, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Curt Löwgren, Kiki.
Cinematography: Hilding Bladh, Sven Nykvist
Film Editor: Carl-Olov Skeppstedt
Original Music: Karl-Birger Blomdahl
Produced by Rune Waldekranz
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Criterion just issued a monster gift box of their entire collection of Ingmar Bergman films on Blu-ray, but they’re also continuing with single releases of the Swedish maestro’s classic titles. Step back before 1957 or so, and one will find more variety of tone in Bergman’s output.
Sawdust and Tinsel
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 412
1953 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 92 min. / Gycklarnas afton / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 18, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Ake Grönberg, Harriet Andersson, Hasse Ekman, Anders Ek, Gudrun Brost, Annika Tretow, Erik Strandmark, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Curt Löwgren, Kiki.
Cinematography: Hilding Bladh, Sven Nykvist
Film Editor: Carl-Olov Skeppstedt
Original Music: Karl-Birger Blomdahl
Produced by Rune Waldekranz
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Criterion just issued a monster gift box of their entire collection of Ingmar Bergman films on Blu-ray, but they’re also continuing with single releases of the Swedish maestro’s classic titles. Step back before 1957 or so, and one will find more variety of tone in Bergman’s output.
- 12/11/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Transit director Christian Petzold with Anne-Katrin Titze on Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country: "More than Vertigo, which is also very important. And The Searchers is also very important. But this movie is the most important movie in my life." Photo: Aimee Morris
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center reception before the sneak preview screening of Transit, starring Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, Christian Petzold told me about his new project, to be realised next year. It is an Undine story set in present-day Berlin. Earlier that afternoon the director/screenwriter met with me for a conversation that included Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country which is screening in the program Carte Blanche: Christian Petzold Selects, organized by Dennis Lim and Dan Sullivan, and presented by Goethe-Institut with the support of German Films.
Bertrand Tavernier on the end of Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country:...
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center reception before the sneak preview screening of Transit, starring Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, Christian Petzold told me about his new project, to be realised next year. It is an Undine story set in present-day Berlin. Earlier that afternoon the director/screenwriter met with me for a conversation that included Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country which is screening in the program Carte Blanche: Christian Petzold Selects, organized by Dennis Lim and Dan Sullivan, and presented by Goethe-Institut with the support of German Films.
Bertrand Tavernier on the end of Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country:...
- 12/3/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday.
This week’s question: In honor of “Widows,” what is the greatest ensemble cast ever assembled in a movie?
Emily Sears (@emily_dawn), Birth.Movies.Death.
On March 24, 1984, five high school students entered Saturday morning detention and taught us to never judge a book by its cover. Over the course of one day, the young ensemble cast of “The Breakfast Club” tear down the walls between their disparate characters by dismantling the stereotypes of the American teenager. Collaborating with writer-director John Hughes, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, and Judd Nelson contributed to the authenticity of characters that are still relevant and resonating more than three decades later. Hughes may have conceived his own idea of the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal on the page,...
This week’s question: In honor of “Widows,” what is the greatest ensemble cast ever assembled in a movie?
Emily Sears (@emily_dawn), Birth.Movies.Death.
On March 24, 1984, five high school students entered Saturday morning detention and taught us to never judge a book by its cover. Over the course of one day, the young ensemble cast of “The Breakfast Club” tear down the walls between their disparate characters by dismantling the stereotypes of the American teenager. Collaborating with writer-director John Hughes, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, and Judd Nelson contributed to the authenticity of characters that are still relevant and resonating more than three decades later. Hughes may have conceived his own idea of the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal on the page,...
- 11/12/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
“A Cruel Mistress”
By Raymond Benson
Master filmmaker and stage director Ingmar Bergman famously said that he was “married to the theatre,” but that “film was his mistress.” In a vintage interview in Margarethe von Trotta’s new documentary on Bergman, the Swedish artist is asked to define “film director.” Bergman’s brow wrinkles and he is lost in thought for a moment… and then he replies that being a film director is “someone who has so many problems to deal with he doesn’t have time to think.”
Film, then, is a cruel mistress, indeed.
An official selection of the New York Film Festival and released to U.S. theaters in November in time to help celebrate Bergman’s centenary, Searching for Ingmar Bergman is a welcome and lovingly-made examination of the filmmaker’s life and work. Director von Trotta, one of the major figures of the New German...
By Raymond Benson
Master filmmaker and stage director Ingmar Bergman famously said that he was “married to the theatre,” but that “film was his mistress.” In a vintage interview in Margarethe von Trotta’s new documentary on Bergman, the Swedish artist is asked to define “film director.” Bergman’s brow wrinkles and he is lost in thought for a moment… and then he replies that being a film director is “someone who has so many problems to deal with he doesn’t have time to think.”
Film, then, is a cruel mistress, indeed.
An official selection of the New York Film Festival and released to U.S. theaters in November in time to help celebrate Bergman’s centenary, Searching for Ingmar Bergman is a welcome and lovingly-made examination of the filmmaker’s life and work. Director von Trotta, one of the major figures of the New German...
- 11/6/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
On July 14, 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Ingmar Bergman was born, and a quarter-century later, he began to bring his cinematic voice to the world. A century after his brith, with an astounding body of work like few other directors and an influence that reverberates through the past many decades of filmmaking, his filmography is being celebrated like never before.
Starting this February at NYC’s Film Forum and then expanding throughout the nation “the largest jubilee of a single filmmaker” will be underway in a massive, 47-film retrospective. Featuring 35 new restorations, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many, many more, Janus Films has now debuted a beautiful trailer alongside the full line-up of films.
The Ingmar Bergman retrospective begins on February 7 at NYC’s Film Forum and then will expand to the following cities this spring:
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Wa
Detroit Film Theatre,...
Starting this February at NYC’s Film Forum and then expanding throughout the nation “the largest jubilee of a single filmmaker” will be underway in a massive, 47-film retrospective. Featuring 35 new restorations, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, Fanny and Alexander, and many, many more, Janus Films has now debuted a beautiful trailer alongside the full line-up of films.
The Ingmar Bergman retrospective begins on February 7 at NYC’s Film Forum and then will expand to the following cities this spring:
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Wa
Detroit Film Theatre,...
- 1/8/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. On July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five films from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942), The Late George Apley (1947), and The Story of Mankind (1957). The first three titles are among the most important in Colman's long film career. George Cukor's A Double Life earned him his one and only Best Actor Oscar; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest earned him his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; George Stevens' The Talk of the Town was shortlisted for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. All three feature Ronald Colman at his very best. The early 21st century motto of international trendsetters, from Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Turkey's Recep Erdogan to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump, seems to be, The world is reality TV and reality TV...
- 7/28/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mubi is showing the retrospective The Inner Demons of Ingmar Bergman from June 8 - August 28, 2017 in the United Kingdom.I've told this brief story of how I fell under the spell of cinema so many times I've become brazen to it. At eighteen years, in February 1993, I found Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (dubbed) at the video store. As Woody Allen spoke of the Swede in hushed tones, I decided I should try a film. Ninety minutes later I sat stunned and spellbound, not sure what to do or think, but surely sure I must be onto something. Cinematic rapture still has a psychical aspect for me, the torque the sedentary body goes through while coping with the images before it. I can always tell how good a film is if my armpits smell after. The body doesn't lie. Ingmar Bergman is an easy crush—one writer I know...
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
This time on the podcast, Scott is joined by David Blakeslee, Trevor Berrett, and Arik Devens to discuss Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night.
About the film:
After fifteen films that received mostly local acclaim, the 1955 comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) at last ushered in an international audience for Ingmar Bergman. In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock-full of flirtatious propositions and sharp witticisms delivered by such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of cinema’s great erotic comedies.
Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes
Buy The Film On Amazon:
Watch a scene from the...
About the film:
After fifteen films that received mostly local acclaim, the 1955 comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) at last ushered in an international audience for Ingmar Bergman. In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing their pretensions and insecurities along the way. Chock-full of flirtatious propositions and sharp witticisms delivered by such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night is one of cinema’s great erotic comedies.
Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes
Buy The Film On Amazon:
Watch a scene from the...
- 8/29/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
This time on the podcast, Scott is joined by David Blakeslee, Trevor Berrett, and Arik Devens to discuss Ingmar Bergman’s Summer with Monika.
About the film:
Inspired by the earthy eroticism of Harriet Andersson, in the first of her many roles for him, Ingmar Bergman had a major international breakthrough with this sensual and ultimately ravaging tale of young love. A girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. The version initially released in the U.S. was reedited by its distributor into something more salacious, but the original Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), presented here, is a work of stunning maturity and one of Bergman’s most important films.
Subscribe to the...
About the film:
Inspired by the earthy eroticism of Harriet Andersson, in the first of her many roles for him, Ingmar Bergman had a major international breakthrough with this sensual and ultimately ravaging tale of young love. A girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. The version initially released in the U.S. was reedited by its distributor into something more salacious, but the original Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), presented here, is a work of stunning maturity and one of Bergman’s most important films.
Subscribe to the...
- 7/25/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
NYC’s IFC Center has plans to expand, and they could use your help to let city officials know you support it.
Watch Don Cheadle analyze a scene from Miles Ahead:
Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan begins shooting on July 9th, Le Journal de Quebec reports.
Cinematographer Jeff Cutter discusses shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane with Filmmaker Magazine:
Anamorphic lenses just have a feeling that reminded Dan and I of what it used to be like watching these great widescreen movies when we were kids that were shot anamorphic. It just makes it feel like a big movie and that was something that we really,...
NYC’s IFC Center has plans to expand, and they could use your help to let city officials know you support it.
Watch Don Cheadle analyze a scene from Miles Ahead:
Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan begins shooting on July 9th, Le Journal de Quebec reports.
Cinematographer Jeff Cutter discusses shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane with Filmmaker Magazine:
Anamorphic lenses just have a feeling that reminded Dan and I of what it used to be like watching these great widescreen movies when we were kids that were shot anamorphic. It just makes it feel like a big movie and that was something that we really,...
- 4/4/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
In his new documentary "Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words," acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Stig Bjorkman, who has chronicled the life and work of Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier, turns his attention to his country's most famous actress. This fascinating film tells the life story of this three-time Oscar champ using excerpts from her diaries and correspondence and incorporates a treasure trove of home movies that date from the time she was three and is seen at her mother's graveside. -Break- Subscribe to Gold Derby Breaking News Alerts & Experts’ Latest Oscar Predictions For Bjorkman, this passion project four years in the making began with a chance meeting with Isabella Rosellini, who was chairing the 2011 Berlin film festival jury. "I was there to talk about Ingmar Bergman and was out for dinner with one of his favorite actresses, Harriet Andersson, who Isabella knows. She joined us and..."...
- 11/18/2015
- Gold Derby
Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...
- 8/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Fanny and Alexander' movie: Ingmar Bergman classic with Bertil Guve as Alexander Ekdahl 'Fanny and Alexander' movie review: Last Ingmar Bergman 'filmic film' Why Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander / Fanny och Alexander bears its appellation is a mystery – one of many in the director's final 'filmic film' – since the first titular character, Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) is at best a third- or fourth-level supporting character. In fact, in the three-hour theatrical version she is not even mentioned by name for nearly an hour into the film. Fanny and Alexander should have been called "Alexander and Fanny," or simply "Alexander," since it most closely follows two years – from 1907 to 1909 – in the life of young, handsome, brown-haired Alexander Ekdahl (Bertil Guve), the original "boy who sees dead people." Better yet, it should have been called "The Ekdahls," for that whole family is central to the film, especially Fanny and Alexander's beautiful blonde mother Emilie,...
- 5/8/2015
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
Whenever I sit down to review an Ingmar Begman movie I tend to bounce over to IMDb just to see how many of his films I've seen. Obviously when you're talking about Bergman we all pretty much start with the well known classics (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, etc.) and then slowly begin to explore his lesser known films. Well, having now finally seen Cries & Whispers, what very well may be the last of his well known classics I had left to see (except for "Scenes from a Marriage"), I feel there are only lesser known corners of his oeuvre for me to explore. However, with over 65 films credited to him as a director on IMDb it would seem I've still only scratched the surface as I've only 14 of his films under my belt. Criterion's new Blu-ray release of Cries and Whispers is an upgrade from their 2001 DVD release, arriving...
- 4/14/2015
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The arthouse of the 1970s was transfixed by the marriage of sex and death and its crowning figure hailed from Sweden. More than 40 years later, "Cries and Whispers," on Criterion Blu-ray this week, feels like Ingmar Bergman's gloomiest, and most glorious, creation. Three sisters (Liv Ullman, Ingrid Thulin, Harriet Andersson) mope about a manor house as one (Andersson) lies on her deathbed, coming and going through dark corridors as they brood over the awful inevitability of dying, and the gossamer nature of faith. In 1972, B-movie king Roger Corman paid $75,000 for the film's Us rights, taking it all the way to the Oscars with five nominations including Best Picture. This arch chamber drama, perhaps Bergman's angriest film, won for longterm Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist's crimson-colored imagery. "Cries and Whispers" did impressively at the box office. It offered the crucial ingredient of foreign film appeal: a shocking scene of aberrant sexual violence.
- 4/3/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Criterion repackages one of its earlier Ingmar Bergman inclusions this month, restoring his brilliant, enigmatic 1972 masterpiece Cries and Whispers for Blu-ray release. Financed with Bergman’s own money, the auteur had difficulty securing an American distributor, eventually finding an unlikely champion in Roger Corman, of all people, who had recently established his own releasing company, New World, and was in search of prestige titles to build artistic merit.
Rushed to theatrical release to qualify for Academy Awards consideration, it would secure five nominations, including for Best Picture and Director, winning Best Cinematography for Sven Nyqvist, before going on to be selected to play out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival (awarded the Vulcain Prize of the Technical Artist). In Bergman’s illustrious filmography, it’s unnecessary (and incredibly difficult) to endow any one title as his best from a body of work that sports a myriad of celebrated examples spanning seven decades.
Rushed to theatrical release to qualify for Academy Awards consideration, it would secure five nominations, including for Best Picture and Director, winning Best Cinematography for Sven Nyqvist, before going on to be selected to play out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival (awarded the Vulcain Prize of the Technical Artist). In Bergman’s illustrious filmography, it’s unnecessary (and incredibly difficult) to endow any one title as his best from a body of work that sports a myriad of celebrated examples spanning seven decades.
- 3/31/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
“Cries And Sisters”
By Raymond Benson
One of the late, great Ingmar Bergman’s skills as a filmmaker was to write and direct memorable roles for women. He was one of the few directors, such as Ford or Altman or Allen, who repeatedly relied on a “stock company” of actors throughout his career. While there were many wonderful male actors who worked for Bergman (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand), we generally remember the women—Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, among many—for baring their souls on screen in Bergman’s challenging, difficult works that always elevated the art of film to breathtaking levels.
Cries and Whispers is an excellent example of the power of the female actor. It’s essentially a four-woman chamber piece, taking place in the late 1800s in Sweden, about three sisters and a servant, their relationships to each other,...
By Raymond Benson
One of the late, great Ingmar Bergman’s skills as a filmmaker was to write and direct memorable roles for women. He was one of the few directors, such as Ford or Altman or Allen, who repeatedly relied on a “stock company” of actors throughout his career. While there were many wonderful male actors who worked for Bergman (Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand), we generally remember the women—Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson, among many—for baring their souls on screen in Bergman’s challenging, difficult works that always elevated the art of film to breathtaking levels.
Cries and Whispers is an excellent example of the power of the female actor. It’s essentially a four-woman chamber piece, taking place in the late 1800s in Sweden, about three sisters and a servant, their relationships to each other,...
- 3/30/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Identical/Identity: Villeneuve’s Doppelganger Thriller a Kafkaesque Dead Ringer
You can forget the pulpy throes of the dark hearted Prisoners, the recently released collaboration of Jake Gyllenhaal and director Denis Villeneuve, when you sit down for their latest release, Enemy (which was actually filmed first). In the fine tradition of doppelganger cinema, this is certainly a spectacular standout. And if any evidence is needed to point to Villeneuve as a director at the top of his game, look no further. Certain to confuse, perplex, and even irritate, it’s a beautiful, nightmarishly warped universe ripe for multiple readings and psychological explanations concerning hidden desires and oppositions.
A history professor at a Toronto university, Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal), seems to be living a lackluster existence, his life a series of repetitive instances mired in work and an unenthusiastic relationship with his girlfriend (Melanie Laurent). A co-worker recommends that Adam see...
You can forget the pulpy throes of the dark hearted Prisoners, the recently released collaboration of Jake Gyllenhaal and director Denis Villeneuve, when you sit down for their latest release, Enemy (which was actually filmed first). In the fine tradition of doppelganger cinema, this is certainly a spectacular standout. And if any evidence is needed to point to Villeneuve as a director at the top of his game, look no further. Certain to confuse, perplex, and even irritate, it’s a beautiful, nightmarishly warped universe ripe for multiple readings and psychological explanations concerning hidden desires and oppositions.
A history professor at a Toronto university, Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal), seems to be living a lackluster existence, his life a series of repetitive instances mired in work and an unenthusiastic relationship with his girlfriend (Melanie Laurent). A co-worker recommends that Adam see...
- 3/10/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award: Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Judi Dench are the only three female recipients to date (photo: European movies’ Lifetime Achievement Award-less actress Danielle Darrieux) (See previous post: "Catherine Deneuve: Only the Third Woman to Receive European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.") As mentioned in the previous post, French film icon Catherine Deneuve is only the third woman to receive the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award since the organization’s first awards ceremony in 1988. Deneuve’s predecessors are The Lovers‘ Jeanne Moreau (1997) and Notes on a Scandal‘s Judi Dench (2008). In that regard, the European Film Academy is as male-oriented as the Beverly Hills-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. More on that below. Male recipients of the European Film Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award are the following: Ingmar Bergman, Marcello Mastroianni, Federico Fellini, Andrzej Wajda, Alexandre Trauner, Billy Wilder,...
- 9/25/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead is potentially tricky, but one of the criteria I always use is Anthony Hopkins’s performance in Silence of the Lambs, a film in which he is considered a lead but appears only briefly; his character is an integral part of the story.
The criteria for this article is as follows: The director & actor team must have worked together at least 3 times with the actor in a major role in each feature film, resulting in a minimum of 2 must-see films.
One of the primary trends for the frequency of collaboration is the...
The criteria for this article is as follows: The director & actor team must have worked together at least 3 times with the actor in a major role in each feature film, resulting in a minimum of 2 must-see films.
One of the primary trends for the frequency of collaboration is the...
- 7/24/2013
- by John Oursler
- SoundOnSight
By Allen Gardner
Harold And Maude (Criterion) Hal Ashby’s masterpiece of black humor centers on a wealthy young man (Bud Cort) who’s obsessed with death and the septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) with whom he finds true love. As unabashedly romantic as it is quirky, with Cat Stevens supplying one of the great film scores of all-time. Fine support from Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, and Ellen Geer. Fine screenplay by Colin Higgins. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Hal Ashby biographer Nick Dawson, producer Charles Mulvehill; Illustrated audio excerpts from seminars by Ashby and Higgins; Interview with Cat Stevens. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo.
In Darkness (Sony) Agnieszka Holland’s Ww II epic tells the true story of a sewer worker and petty thief in Nazi-occupied Poland who single-handedly helped hide a group of Jews in the city’s labyrinthine sewer system for the duration of the war.
Harold And Maude (Criterion) Hal Ashby’s masterpiece of black humor centers on a wealthy young man (Bud Cort) who’s obsessed with death and the septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) with whom he finds true love. As unabashedly romantic as it is quirky, with Cat Stevens supplying one of the great film scores of all-time. Fine support from Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, and Ellen Geer. Fine screenplay by Colin Higgins. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Hal Ashby biographer Nick Dawson, producer Charles Mulvehill; Illustrated audio excerpts from seminars by Ashby and Higgins; Interview with Cat Stevens. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo.
In Darkness (Sony) Agnieszka Holland’s Ww II epic tells the true story of a sewer worker and petty thief in Nazi-occupied Poland who single-handedly helped hide a group of Jews in the city’s labyrinthine sewer system for the duration of the war.
- 6/5/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
In a reprint of his 1958 review of Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika, Jean-Luc Godard wrote of the scene captured above (and previewed to the right) saying, "One must see Summer with Monika, if only for the extraordinary minutes when Harriet Andersson, about to sleep with a guy she has left once before, stares fixedly into the camera, her laughing eyes clouded with distress, and calls on the viewer to witness her self-loathing at involuntarily choosing hell over heaven. It is the saddest shot in the history of cinema." The full review is included in the 28-page booklet accompanying Criterion's new Blu-ray release of the film along with an essay by Laura Hubner (read it in full right here) whose interpretation of the shot reads as follows: The static shot of Monika's face is scandalously close up, and she looks steadfastly at us, breaking the cinematic illusion, as the screen darkens around her.
- 6/1/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
By Raymond Benson
The red carpet label Criterion Collection has continued its mining of classic foreign language films by releasing for the first time in the U.S. two pictures that first brought famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman some attention. Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer with Monika (1953) are both fairly commercial love stories but with a slightly dark flair which only Bergman can produce. Both films are highly erotic (especially Monika) for the time, and these titles contributed to the notion in America that Sweden made sexy movies.
In fact, Summer with Monika was first released in the U.S. as a sexploitation film in 1956 by the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest showman,” Kroger Babb, an exhibitor/producer who specialized in low budget sleaze thinly disguised as “educational material for adults.” Babb re-cut Summer with Monika, added a dubbed English language soundtrack that had little to do with Bergman’s original, laid on a jazzy,...
The red carpet label Criterion Collection has continued its mining of classic foreign language films by releasing for the first time in the U.S. two pictures that first brought famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman some attention. Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer with Monika (1953) are both fairly commercial love stories but with a slightly dark flair which only Bergman can produce. Both films are highly erotic (especially Monika) for the time, and these titles contributed to the notion in America that Sweden made sexy movies.
In fact, Summer with Monika was first released in the U.S. as a sexploitation film in 1956 by the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest showman,” Kroger Babb, an exhibitor/producer who specialized in low budget sleaze thinly disguised as “educational material for adults.” Babb re-cut Summer with Monika, added a dubbed English language soundtrack that had little to do with Bergman’s original, laid on a jazzy,...
- 5/30/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullmann Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman are the subjects of former architect Dheeraj Akolkar's documentary Liv & Ingmar, produced by the Norwegian company NordicStories and to be distributed by Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri. After meeting in 1965, Ullmann and Bergman made ten (narrative) films together; they were also off-screen companions for five years. In Liv & Ingmar, Ullmann, 73, is shown spending a few days in Bergman's house on the Swedish island of Fårø. While there, she reminisces about their personal and professional relationships. That sounds fascinating enough. But what makes Liv & Ingmar even more intriguing is that Ullmann's recollections are interspersed with scenes from her Bergman films, which is supposed to show how their personal lives directly affected their professional collaboration. In that regard, Liv & Ingmar makes Ullmann and Bergman seem like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who went from The Purple of Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters...
- 4/20/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
DVD Playhouse—April 2012
By Allen Gardner
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) An eleven year-old boy (newcomer Thomas Horn, in an incredible debut) discovers a mysterious key amongst the possessions of his late father (Tom Hanks) who perished in 9/11. Determined to find the lock it matches, the boy embarks on a Picaresque odyssey across New York City. Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth have fashioned a film both grand and intimate, beautifully-adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, thought by most who read it to be unfilmable. Fine support from Jeffrey Wright, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis and the great Max von Sydow. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay) Adapted from Koushun Takami’s polarizing novel (compared by champions and detractors alike as a 21st century version of A Clockwork Orange) and set in a futuristic Japan,...
By Allen Gardner
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) An eleven year-old boy (newcomer Thomas Horn, in an incredible debut) discovers a mysterious key amongst the possessions of his late father (Tom Hanks) who perished in 9/11. Determined to find the lock it matches, the boy embarks on a Picaresque odyssey across New York City. Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter Eric Roth have fashioned a film both grand and intimate, beautifully-adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, thought by most who read it to be unfilmable. Fine support from Jeffrey Wright, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis and the great Max von Sydow. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay) Adapted from Koushun Takami’s polarizing novel (compared by champions and detractors alike as a 21st century version of A Clockwork Orange) and set in a futuristic Japan,...
- 4/13/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 22, 2012
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg are young and in love in Bergman's 1953 Summer with Monika.
Inspired by the earthy eroticism of his muse Harriet Andersson (Smiles of a Summer Night), in the first of her many film roles for him, Ingmar Bergman (Face to Face) had a major international breakthrough with his 1953 drama-romance Summer with Monika.
Set in Stockholm, the sensual tale of young love tells of a girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg, The Magician) from working-class families who run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it’s not long before the pair is forced to return to reality.
The version of the classic film originally released in the U.S. was re-edited by its distributor into notably more salacious kind of film, but the original Summer with Monika...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Harriet Andersson and Lars Ekborg are young and in love in Bergman's 1953 Summer with Monika.
Inspired by the earthy eroticism of his muse Harriet Andersson (Smiles of a Summer Night), in the first of her many film roles for him, Ingmar Bergman (Face to Face) had a major international breakthrough with his 1953 drama-romance Summer with Monika.
Set in Stockholm, the sensual tale of young love tells of a girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg, The Magician) from working-class families who run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it’s not long before the pair is forced to return to reality.
The version of the classic film originally released in the U.S. was re-edited by its distributor into notably more salacious kind of film, but the original Summer with Monika...
- 3/14/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Erland Josephson, The Sacrifice Erland Josephson, who was featured in more than a dozen Ingmar Bergman movies in addition to several plays directed by Bergman, died of complications from Parkinson's Disease on Feb. 25 in Stockholm. Josephson was 88. Even though most of Bergman's best-known players were women — Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Harriet Andersson, Ulla Jacobson — the director frequently worked with the same male actors as well. Max von Sydow, a Best Supporting Actor nominee this year for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is the only one to have become internationally renowned. But among Bergman's recurring collaborators were also the likes of Gunnar Björnstrand and the Stockholm-born stage actor Erland Josephson. Perhaps Josephson failed to become an international star because he played supporting roles in most of his Bergman films, while his few leads for the filmmaker were generally subordinate to the leading ladies' roles, e.g.
- 2/29/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Martin Scorsese Max von Sydow Martin Scorsese and Max von Sydow at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills on Monday, February 6, 2012. Scorsese is in the running for Best Director for the period fantasy Hugo, starring Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Von Sydow is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which also features Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks. (Photo: Greg Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.) Scorsese's competition for the Best Director Academy Award consists of Alexander Payne for The Descendants, starring George Clooney and Shailene Woodley; Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Penn; Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Marion Cotillard; and Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. Von...
- 2/21/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
George Clooney, Max von Sydow George Clooney and Max Von Sydow chat away at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills held on Monday, February 6, 2012. Clooney is a Best Actor nominee for Alexander Payne's The Descendants. Von Sydow is a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. (Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.) Clooney's competition for the Best Actor Academy Award consists of Demián Bichir for Chris Weitz's A Better Life, Brad Pitt for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, Gary Oldman for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Jean Dujardin for Michel Hazanavicius' The Artist. In the acting categories, Clooney has three previous Oscar nominations: he won as Best Supporting Actor for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana (2005), and was nominated as Best Actor for Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton (2007) and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Here's wondering...
- 2/19/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
Cries and Whispers
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden, 1972
The inanity of Bergman’s canonisation has always baffled me: I have tended to endure his films as a bitter medicine – worthwhile but unenjoyable, classics that everybody wants to have watched but nobody wants to watch. Subjecting myself to Cries and Whispers on the merit of Bergman’s reputation (a reputation which must have originated from a claque of obsequious film critics and scholars who probably jumped on some incomprehensible-European-language-arthouse-must-be-praiseworthy-though-unwatchably-tedious bandwagon) with no background knowledge of the film, cemented my hitherto opinion of his oeuvre.
Multi-award nominated Cries and Whispers is a stolid, stodgy tableau of three upper-class, turn-of-the-nineteenth-century sisters in their family mansion. These strikingly winsome aristocratic Scandinavian beauties (most of the cast are part of Bergman’s habitual posse with two of the priapic director’s mistresses, Harriet Andersson and Liv Ullmann, as well as best pal Erland Josephson keeping...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Sweden, 1972
The inanity of Bergman’s canonisation has always baffled me: I have tended to endure his films as a bitter medicine – worthwhile but unenjoyable, classics that everybody wants to have watched but nobody wants to watch. Subjecting myself to Cries and Whispers on the merit of Bergman’s reputation (a reputation which must have originated from a claque of obsequious film critics and scholars who probably jumped on some incomprehensible-European-language-arthouse-must-be-praiseworthy-though-unwatchably-tedious bandwagon) with no background knowledge of the film, cemented my hitherto opinion of his oeuvre.
Multi-award nominated Cries and Whispers is a stolid, stodgy tableau of three upper-class, turn-of-the-nineteenth-century sisters in their family mansion. These strikingly winsome aristocratic Scandinavian beauties (most of the cast are part of Bergman’s habitual posse with two of the priapic director’s mistresses, Harriet Andersson and Liv Ullmann, as well as best pal Erland Josephson keeping...
- 2/7/2012
- by Zornitsa
- SoundOnSight
Clouzot and Romy Schneider on the set of L'Enfer
"Watching a film by the French master Henri-Georges Clouzot, you often feel as if the walls were closing in on you — even when there are no walls," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "The Wages of Fear (1953), the movie that opens the Museum of Modern Art's Clouzot retrospective [today], takes place almost entirely out of doors, yet it's as claustrophobic as a stretch in solitary confinement…. It is perhaps fortunate, for the sanity of his viewers, that he managed to complete only 11 features between 1942, when his deceptively light-hearted L'Assassin Habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at No. 21) was released, and 1968, when his last movie, La Prisonnière, came out.... All 11 will be screened before the series ends on Dec 24, along with odds and ends like a couple of early-40s pictures for which he supplied screenplays and a 2010 documentary, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno,...
"Watching a film by the French master Henri-Georges Clouzot, you often feel as if the walls were closing in on you — even when there are no walls," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times. "The Wages of Fear (1953), the movie that opens the Museum of Modern Art's Clouzot retrospective [today], takes place almost entirely out of doors, yet it's as claustrophobic as a stretch in solitary confinement…. It is perhaps fortunate, for the sanity of his viewers, that he managed to complete only 11 features between 1942, when his deceptively light-hearted L'Assassin Habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at No. 21) was released, and 1968, when his last movie, La Prisonnière, came out.... All 11 will be screened before the series ends on Dec 24, along with odds and ends like a couple of early-40s pictures for which he supplied screenplays and a 2010 documentary, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno,...
- 12/10/2011
- MUBI
To celebrate Film4’s Ingmar Bergman season starting tonight, Monday July 4th, I decided to use the director as the first subject in this new regular weekly series of beginners guides for WhatCulture!
Ingmar Bergman is one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema. Thematically and stylistically his work lives on through various filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodovar and most famously Woody Allen. He began his career in his home country of Sweden, where he worked as a script writer for a production company in the early 1940’s. The company asked him to watch a regular dose of American films and copy the Hollywood way of script writing but Bergman, a young man with ambitions far greater than those around him, grew frustrated as the movies he had to watch all seemed fake and superficial to him. The narrative structures too linear, the characters...
Ingmar Bergman is one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema. Thematically and stylistically his work lives on through various filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodovar and most famously Woody Allen. He began his career in his home country of Sweden, where he worked as a script writer for a production company in the early 1940’s. The company asked him to watch a regular dose of American films and copy the Hollywood way of script writing but Bergman, a young man with ambitions far greater than those around him, grew frustrated as the movies he had to watch all seemed fake and superficial to him. The narrative structures too linear, the characters...
- 7/4/2011
- by Tom Ryan
- Obsessed with Film
To celebrate Film4’s Ingmar Bergman season starting tonight, Monday July 4th, I decided to use the director as the first subject in this new regular weekly series of beginners guides for WhatCulture!
Ingmar Bergman is one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema. Thematically and stylistically his work lives on through various filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodovar and most famously Woody Allen. He began his career in his home country of Sweden, where he worked as a script writer for a production company in the early 1940’s. The company asked him to watch a regular dose of American films and copy the Hollywood way of script writing but Bergman, a young man with ambitions far greater than those around him, grew frustrated as the movies he had to watch all seemed fake and superficial to him. The narrative structures too linear, the characters...
Ingmar Bergman is one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema. Thematically and stylistically his work lives on through various filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Pedro Almodovar and most famously Woody Allen. He began his career in his home country of Sweden, where he worked as a script writer for a production company in the early 1940’s. The company asked him to watch a regular dose of American films and copy the Hollywood way of script writing but Bergman, a young man with ambitions far greater than those around him, grew frustrated as the movies he had to watch all seemed fake and superficial to him. The narrative structures too linear, the characters...
- 7/4/2011
- by Tom Ryan
- Obsessed with Film
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