229 - Fanny and Alexander, 1982, Sweden. Dir. Ingmar Bergman.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

229 - Fanny and Alexander, 1982, Sweden.  Dir. Ingmar Bergman.

NOT FOR PLEASURE ALONE

Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat Major

The cardboard curtain rises.

Alexander looks into his puppet theatre.  Little flames form the footlights.  He places the cardboard cut-out of an actress onto the stage.  He looks at his creation.

He leans over.  He lies down on his arm.  He smiles.  He lives in his imagination.

Alexander gets up and walks through the great apartment.  A palace in the city.

He calls for his sister.  "Fanny!"  He calls for his mother.  "Mother."  He calls for Siri.  "Siri!'

No one answers.

Alexander walks through the open rooms.  He turns the key and opens the door.

He passes the drapes, the rugs, the furniture, the clocks, the statues, the chandeliers, the lamps, the candelabra, the paintings, the tapestries, the mirrors, the piano, the plants, and the flowers.

He hides in his someone else's bed.

He looks out the window.

Outside the cut flowers flash against the white snow.

A horsedrawn flatwagon passes.

Alexander hides beneath a table.

A statue in the corner moves.

Alexander is afraid.

"It was a kind of secret terror that I recognized again in Cocteau's Blood of a Poet," recalls Bergman.

One of the women enters and sees him.  She offers to play cards before dinner.

Outside the river rushes past the snowbanks.

The lamplighters light the gaslights with wicks on long poles, like secular accensors attending to tapers, lighting the votive candles.

And so begins our epic film about a little boy in an increasingly small family.

It is Christmastime.

The many family members are converging to celebrate.

A party proceeds by horsedrawn sleigh.

In telling Helena, Ester the maid tells us: "This is the 43rd Christmas we're celebrating together."

Everything is being prepared.  Everything is grand.

The servants are trimming the tree.

The cooks have been trimming the trimmings.

Helena checks on the preparations and give notes to the servants.  Yet she betrays a worried look in her eyes.  What does she feel inside her?

Before the guests arrive, we see them at their various places.  Her sons at the theater.  Her dear old friend at his shop.

At 1:00 pm on Christmas Eve the curtain rises in the local Theater.

The townsfolk come to see the Christmas play.

Inside snow falls.

Worthy Joseph, do not fear.
Thy angel is thee ever near.
I come in haste to bring thee word
From thy creator and thy God.
Mary and the child now wake
And quickly into safety take.
Herod with his murdering hand
Threatens every man-child in this land.

All this I have noted well
And shall do as you foretell.
Praised be God upon his throne,
Who thus protects my only son.
Thus, good people, ends our play.
It all ends well this holy day.
The son of God, saved from the sword
Is our savior, Christ the Lord.

Alexander's father Oscar plays Joseph.

Oscar runs the theater.  And like him, Alexander has his puppet theatre at home.  And like Christmas celebrations, the family measures its theater life in decades.

After the play, the food is carted on to the stage.  Or shall we say the feast.  The cast and crew of the theater are going to celebrate in style.

Oscar's youngest brother Gustav Adolf gives a speech.  He expects everyone present to share in the joy of the occasion and to engage with one another in openness and warmth.  He carries the flaming punch bowl in a procession to the table--as they descend into the basement--and begins the festivities. Gustav Adolf is "beaming with goodwill and high blood pressure."

Meanwhile, the middle brother Carl is upstairs with his classmates from college, wearing their graduation caps (not mortarboards as in the United States, but something akin to round white sailor caps), drinking, getting drunk, and singing lustily.  His sourpuss wife Lydia comes in and practically drags him out by the earlobe, complaining of his adolescent behavior and threatening that they must arrive at his mother's house on time.

Oscar now gives his speech.  He has given this speech as theater manager for 22 years and claims to have no talent for speechmaking.  He compares himself to his own father, whom he says was brilliant at giving speeches.

"My only talent, if you can call it that, is that I love this little world inside the thick walls of this playhouse.  And I'm fond of the people who work in this little world."

We can feel Ingmar Bergman expressing himself.  He gave his life to the theatre.  In Sweden he is known more as a theatre director than as a filmmaker.

Isak Jacobi runs a shop around the corner.  But what he does there is a mystery.  The screenplay states, "Nobody has ever seen Isak Jacobi selling or buying anything in his shop."

He is the grandmother Helena's old lover and close friend.  He arrives early and gives her a present, a brooch.  She looks to see if no one is looking.  She kisses him.

The family arrives.

Helena greets each of her sons and his family, as well as the relatives and other guests.  The children look under the tree at the presents.

We see the feasting and the celebrations and the secret dalliances.

"There is an abundant choice.  Countless varieties of pickled herring, sausages, head cheese, pâtés, galantines, aux bretons, meatballs, steaks, and cutlets."

They dance.  Helena leads the line.  The servants dance with the family, intermixed in the line.

Gustav Adolf takes the maid Maj behind a screen and sets up a tryst for later in the evening.  His wife says, "I think it's sweet."

Oscar leaves the line and collapses, an omen of what is to come.

Carl invites the children to a fireworks show.  Fireworks made by him.  He takes the children out to the stairs where he indulges in three explosions of flatulence, the last one blowing out a candle.

Oscar reads from the Bible.  Luke 2.  Everyone sits and listens, again, the servants (in their black and white dresses and aprons) with the family (with their red dresses).

The children have a pillow fight.  Down flies up.  Down floats down.

Alma addresses Maj.  She slaps her, presumably for allowing the fight, but below the surface to let her know she is watching her and what she might do with her husband.

The children say their prayers.

Maj tucks in the children.  The children go to sleep.

Not Alexander.  Alexander goes to his Magic Lantern.

The feasting will continue secretly into the night--the children with the Magic Lanter, Helena with Isak, Gustav Adolf with Maj, Carl with Lydia, Gustav Adolf with Alma.

Breakfast.

It has been a wonderful time.

Alexander lives a great life.

His is a loving family.

His is a happy home.

Then comes Hamlet.

Everything is about to change.

They go to rehearsals.  Alexander watches his father upon the stage.

Oscar has a stroke.  What am I doing here?  Suddenly, he cannot remember things.

He will die.

Alexander will watch him die.  Just as he is embracing him in bed.

And his mother will remarry.

And the second half of the movie will contrast with the first.

Her new husband is strict and cold and cruel.

Their lives grow small and lonely and sad.

Alexander retreats within his imagination.  He makes up stories.  He is heavily punished.

Emelie gets pregnant.  Grows afraid.  And reaches a breaking point.

She finds a way to escape.

And seek for help for her children.

Her mother-in-law's former lover and friend.  The shop owner.  Isak Jacobi.

Maybe he can help.

Maybe he can.

The film turns into intrigue.  Adventure.  Escape.

And a new life.

With new magic.

New imagination.

And new hope.

This was Bergman's magnum opus.  His last and largest film.  More than five hours for television. Cut down to more than three hours for the cinema.  He wanted the longer version for the cinema. Sometimes one can find it.

It took 130 days of shooting.

He used a great number of his usual players (minus Liv Ullman, Max Von Sydow, and Bibi Andersson), and a great number of Sweden's top actors.

Everything was meticulously planned.

He kept the sound stage set to 64 degrees.

He used long lenses and made long takes.  He cut only when necessary.  His camera was fluid and steady.  Sven Nykvist won his second Oscar for cinematography.

The look of the film is rich and lush and lavish.

And we can feel his whole career contained herein.

And he says so.

"Fanny and Alexander is like a summing up of my entire life as a filmmaker."

Yes.

We can see.