206 - Torment, 1944, Sweden. Dir. Alf Sjoberg.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

206 - Torment, 1944, Sweden.  Dir. Alf Sjoberg.

Our profession is a vocation.  That means it is a calling.
A tormentor of human beings.  That is what you are.

So says one of the teachers to another.

Have you ever heard of Alf Sjoberg?

We are not so sure Criterion cares if you have or not.  They are not focusing on the director of this picture.  They want you to know the writer.

They have published another of Sjoberg's films, his adaptation of the August Stringberg play Miss Julie, starring Anita Bjork and Max von Sydow.  But that choice may be for the writer as well.

If you look up Alf Sjoberg's profile on the Criterion website, you will see that it is left blank.  They have nothing to say about him.

The writer in this case is someone you may have heard of before.

He dominated European cinema for decades.  He was a theater director turned screenwriter turned filmmaker.

His works are known for plumbing the interiors of the human mind and heart and soul.

His influence is incalculable.

He is regarded by many as the master.

His name is Ingmar Bergman.

And for the record, he was not in any way related to Ingrid Bergman.  He married an Ingrid, but she was someone else.  Our Ingrid did work with him, and we will see it.

We will see plenty.  Criterion has twenty-seven films connected to him, twenty-four directed by him, one written by him and directed by someone else, and TWO documentaries about him and his work.

And two of the titles are works done each for television and for theatrical release.

That locks us in to just under four weeks of watching Bergman.

Fasten your seatbelts.

You are in for a ride.

Jan-Erik Widgren is a high school student.

In an age when high school seemed more like college today.

Or like nothing today.

This is the type of school where the teacher puts his hand on you and says, "My dear boy."

The boys wear jackets and ties.  They begin the day with chapel.  They sing in Latin.  In key.  On pitch.  They pray.  In class they translate Latin aloud.  Reading the Latin off the page and saying the translation in their own language.  Which, in this case, is Swedish.  They are being prepared for great lives as citizens in a civilized society.

Well, at least that is the intention.

Through the eyes of Bergman it is not so great.

He hated school.

And he uses this script to take out his hostility on it.

The Latin teacher is weak and cruel.  He threatens and taunts the students as he brandishes a long stick.  Throughout the film the students refer to him as the Sadist.  They also call him Caligula.  He is listed as Caligula in the credits!  We never know his real name.

Our protagonist is Jan-Erik Widgren.  He is tall, handsome, intelligent, earnest, and seemingly good-hearted.  He looks like a college student.  He looks like an all-American.  I know we are in Sweden, but he does.  He wants to read and play the violin.  He is everything one would think the school would wish to have--a future great alumnus, a future graduation speaker, a future benefactor.

But not in Caligula's eyes.

Caligula belittles him, berates him, embarrasses him.

And Caligula seems to take pleasure in it.

Final exams are approaching.  These boys are seniors.  They will soon graduate and enter society. But not if Caligula can help it.  He seems determined to stop as many as he can.  He seems to desire to ruin lives.

Widgren meets a girl at the tobacco shop.  He later runs into her late at night, out on the street, upset about something that has happened--presumably mistreatment by a male--and Widgren takes her home.  They start dating, and he is good to her.  He brings over his violin and plays it.

There is just one little problem.

Caligula entered the tobacco shop at the same time.  Widgren was too young to buy any, but Caligula was not.  The film makes a point about this.  Caligula takes his tobacco from the girl--Bertha--and treats her in a smarmy kind of way, in front of Widgren and on after Widgren leaves.

Widgren gets his torment at school, and when he visits Bertha he discovers that she gets her torment at home.

Eventually they discover they are being tormented by the same man.  Caligula is coming over to Bertha's apartment and trying to break in!  Trying to do things to her.

Yes, Bergman had some serious hostility against teachers, or at least one teacher.  His school's response to the film, and his counter response, are documented.

Things are going to end badly for somebody.

The film features moments in the lives of a couple other students, a couple other teachers, Widgren's family, and the Dean.  Another teacher is portrayed as being the kind of teacher one would want, and he confronts Caligula.  The Dean is portrayed as being fair-minded but forced to follow school policy. The father is portrayed as being stern and unsupportive of Widgren.

What stands out in this film are its cinematography (Martin Bodin) and production design (Arne Akermark).  It is done in the Expressionist tradition, with the school's being composed of great staircases and balconies, and with high-contrast lighting throwing shadows all over the place. Caligula's own hand as it comes up over Bertha may as well be Nosferatu's--or Count Orlok's, as it were.

Bergman's first screenplay already feature psychology, and the inner life of a man.

And it just so happens that Widgren has a classmate in his class.

Named Bergman.

Who graduates first.

With honors.

Someone is having some fun.