225 - Scenes from a Marriage, 1974, Sweden. Dir. Ingmar Bergman.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

225 - Scenes from a Marriage, 1974, Sweden.  Dir. Ingmar Bergman.

BREAKING NEWS:  INGMAR BERGMAN DOES TELEVISION!

Do you remember earlier this year when we were watching the German wunderkind Werner Rainer Fassbinder (5/31/1945-6/10/1982)?  Have you started to feel some similarities in productivity? While Fassbinder lived to be 37, Bergman lived to be 89, so they are different in that sense.  But oh how we love prolific output.  The artist who makes art.  Just keep working.

Since this is a Film Blog, we will look not at the nearly 6-hour television mini-series but instead the shorter theatrical release version of the same show.

Shorter means only nearly three hours!

Yet let us say this up front.  While watching Scenes of a Marriage as a film, one does desire to see more.

So it is nice to have the longer mini-series sitting there awaiting your attention.

If Bergman was anything, he was honest about his own flaws.

This film is searingly, unflinchingly honest about the choices, thoughts, feelings, desires, and consequences that adults may face in a lifetime relationship.

Since Bergman stepped outside of the faith of his father, he looks at it through the eyes of contemporary psychology.

Johan and Marianne engage in self-analysis.  She is initially content in the marriage, but he contemplates every aspect of it and rationalizes it away.

He tries other options and they have devastating consequences.  And the couple keeps working through things as the years roll by.

The faith of Bergman's father could just as well explain what is going on.  It is the human condition. The problem of original sin.  The consequences of sin.  And the need for forgiveness and grace.

That love is not about feelings but about covenant.  And keeping covenant.  No matter what.

Johan and Marianne do not see it that way.  For them--well, at least for him initially--love is about feelings.  If my feelings change, them I am going to leave.  If my feelings return, then I am going to come back.  So he starts them on a roller-coaster ride of pain and suffering interspersed with moments of reconciliation and concession.

Johan and Marianne are played brilliantly by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson.  One cannot say enough about the fine quality of acting and writing in this story.  The master is firing on all cylinders. The two leads are shockingly authentic--grounded and nuanced and wide ranging.  And Bibi Andersson and Jan Malmsjo as their friends Peter and Katarina are amazing as well.

This is a masterpiece.

Johan and Marianne finally declare themselves to be emotional illiterates.  Which is a humble admission for a well-educated, professional couple born into privilege.  For all they know, they do not know how to do this.

Yet they keep at it.

And somehow in the end there is something good.