214 - Smiles of a Summer Night, 1955, Sweden. Dir. Ingmar Bergman.
BREAKING NEWS: INGMAR BERGMAN CAN BE FUNNY!
While watching Smiles of a Summer Night, one finds himself thinking, Hey, this is entertaining.
Then one discovers it was a big-budget, full-fledged comedy. And a romantic adventure.
Peter Cowie makes a good insight when he interviews Jorn Donner.
Cowie observes, "His dialogue is funnier than the situations he creates." That is true. We have been witnessing this phenomenon in his movies all along. Bergman is an excellent writer of dialogue. And often during his most serious moments the words people use are witty and amusing.
This film changed everything for Bergman. Up until now, his films were not making money, and its being seven years since his first one, he is on his last leg. If this one does not make money, it may be hard for him to keep going.
But Smiles did make money. Lots of it. And it won at Cannes without his even knowing his producers had submitted it.
He says he was sitting on the can reading the paper when he saw the headline "Swedish Success at Cannes," and he felt happiness for his country. Then he saw that it was about his film, and he could not believe it. He did not know he was in contention. He borrowed money from Bibi Andersson for a plane ticket and went down to Cannes. He said his producers were like an old spinster who has never been asked to dance who suddenly has every man in the room around her seeking her attention.
From then on he never had trouble getting funding again.
He reminisced, "That film was a turning point for me in every way." And he continued to like it until he died.
The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. On that day the geographical pole of the given hemisphere is most inclined toward the sun, and the sun is at its highest position as seen from that pole in the given hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere the Summer Solstice occurs between June 20 and June 22.
Many cultures have feast days, festivals, and holidays that center around the Summer Solstice. In Christendom it is known as Midsummer, and on the Christian calendar it is observed with St. John's Feast Day in honor of John the Baptist.
Because the Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, it is also the shortest night of the year. Often European countries celebrate Midsummer on the night before, or the night of Midsummer's Eve.
People stay up all night because it is the shortest night of the year. And they build three types of fires.
The three fires include one of clean bones (bonfire), one of wood (wakefire), and one of both bones and wood (St. John's fire).
During the night of Midsummer's Eve magical things can happen.
In 1595-6 William Shakespeare wrote about the magical events that occurred during the night of one Midsummer's Eve in his comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream.
During this shortest night of the year, the fairies put a spell on the humans and everyone is transformed and switches partners for the night. By the next morning they have all returned to themselves and to their partners.
Ingmar Bergman took this idea for his film Smiles of a Summer Night (1955).
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler turned Bergman's film into a musical with their Broadway hit A Little Night Music (1973). (Remember "Send in the Clowns.")
Woody Allen told his version of the story in his film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982).
So let us set up our Midsummer Night, Smiles on a Summer Night, and see if we can keep up.
Fredrik Egerman is a fifty-something lawyer. He is married to Anne Egerman, a 19-year old girl. They were married two years ago, when she was 17, and she is still a virgin. Although he was once known as The Wolf, he is now acting like a shepherd towards her, patiently waiting for her to be ready to consummate their marriage.
The only problem is that his son Henrik, in his early twenties, is also in the house.
What do you do when you are older than your step-mother?
And what do you do when you are the wife of a man whose son lives with you and is closer to your own age?
Well, Henrik has his own challenges. He is studying theology and seeks to keep himself pure while finding himself increasingly attracted to his (younger) step-mother Anne.
Meanwhile, Petra the maid is openly flirting with him, or shall we say, trying to seduce him. Petra is played by Harriett Andersson, whom we just saw as the sex-starved girl two days ago in Summer with Monika (1953), so you may imagine that she can play this role.
After Fredrik's first wife, with whom he had had his son Henrik, and before his current wife Anne, he had had an affair with an actress named Desiree Armfeldt. Two men in the beginning of the film, associates of Fredrik at the law firm, describe her this way:
A woman of easy virtue.
I should say so. But then, she is an actress.
Well, that says it all.
Later in the film she will effectively counter when she describes things this way: "You are a terribly boring, normal person. And I am a great artist."
In any case, Fredrik and Anne are going to the theatre tonight and Desiree Armfeldt just happens to be the star of the evening.
As they are sitting in their box seats, Anne wonders why the actress Desiree keeps looking up at them from the stage and smiling. Fredrik blows it off. She is just responding to our applause, he says. But Anne senses something going on, and seeing as how the play's themes are indiscreet anyway (Desiree is telling other women on stage how to use sex to manipulate men), Anne wishes to leave.
Anne should not worry about Desiree. Desiree has long moved on from Fredrik and is now in a relationship with the Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm.
Well, she does have a little boy named Fredrik, and she will of course protest adamantly that he is not the elder Fredrik's son. But let us at least say for now that she has moved on and that she is with the Count.
Meanwhile, the Count is married to the Countess Charlotte Malcolm. And like every good man with two lovers, he is faithful to both of them.
And jealous of both of them. Earlier, when he believes Fredrik is trying something with Desiree (Fredrik is not; they are talking) the Count runs him off, stating "I can tolerate my wife's infidelity, but if anyone touches my mistress, I become a tiger!" Later, when he believe Fredrik is trying something with his wife Charlotte, he challenges him to a duel, stating "I can tolerate my mistress's infidelity, but if anyone touches my wife, I become a tiger!"
The tiger versus the wolf.
All of this will come to a head when Desiree's mother invites them all out to the country to stay for Midsummer's Eve.
We get the chaos and confusion that we all enjoy in a good farce.
And by the next morning people are back together. Perhaps not everyone with whom he began the evening, but at least presumably everyone with whom he should be.
Petra's new boyfriend, the servant Frid, sums it up in the end.
No, not when she asks, "Do you promise to marry me?" and he responds, "I promise! Just let go of my ears!"
But when she says, "And the Summer night smiled for the third time." And he responds, "Yes. For the sad and dejected, for the sleepless and lost souls, for the frightened and the lonely."
And now the clowns will have a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
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