To be fair, you can guess why this first film might've been left out of Criterion's box. 1944's Torment, a.k.a. Frenzy or Hets, is Ingmar Bergman's first produced screenplay, but he didn't direct it. Now, I'd argue that Bergman's talents as a writer are at least as important to his works becoming masterpieces as his direction, quite possibly moreso. But okay, they're sticking with films he directed for their set. Makes some sense; they're narrowly defining what constitutes "Ingmar Bergman's Cinema." Still, it's odd considering Criterion already licensed this film for DVD. Like, it's obvious the only reason Face To Face is absent from their set, for example, is that Olive Films beat them to the US rights. But this is the only Bergman film already inducted into the Criterion catalog that didn't make the box.
It's certainly not undeserving. The tense drama is more gripping than most of the other films in this collection. Directed by Alf Sjöberg, the direction does feel a bit more static and boxy, more akin to other films of its period than Bergman's dynamism. But some shots produce a real noir flair, and more importantly the story and the characters are certainly there. Stig Järrel, who'd go on to play Satan himself in Bergman's The Devil's Eye, plays a headmaster nicknamed Caligula who's all to happy to live up to the moniker. He delights in terrorizing his students in the classroom, but things come to a head when a twisted sort of love triangle develops between him, one of his students and a young woman who works in a campus shop. It all becomes dangerous to the point that this film shifts from drama to thriller.
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UK 2004 Tartan DVD top; US 2007 Criterion DVD bottom. |
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UK 2004 Tartan DVD top; US 2007 Criterion DVD middle; US 2018 Criterion BD bottom. |
All three discs include the original Swedish mono, but the blu bumps it up to LPCM, and all three include removable English subs. There are no special features at all, except for the same Persona and Autumn Sonata trailers on the Tartan disc, and of course, all the other movies and stuff in the Criterion blu-ray boxed set. But the only thing that's Crisis related are the notes in the massive book. Oh, and the Tartan DVD has another insert with notes by Mr. Strick.
1948's Port of Call is next. This one starts out strong, with some powerful performances and insightful writing, but like Crisis, things get a little too elevated. It's the story of a young woman dealing with depression who tries reaching out one last time to a local sailor. It can be a little hard to relate to the pre-feminist values of this 40s film, the way women are demonized for having a past boyfriend and outcast from society for having had an abortion. But it's not just a question of changing times with the campy ways this film deals with reform school girls, which is a little too reminiscent of those cheesy Arkoff films from the 50s, including a cast easily pushing 30 playing teenagers. But it's important to note that even when some scenes in these early Bergman films induce a little eye rolling, they're surrounded by terrific characters far better than you'll find in the work of almost any other filmmaker. There's also some great, atmospheric locations thanks to the debut of Bergman's first longtime DP, Gunnar Fischer.
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UK 2004 Tartan DVD top; US 2007 Criterion DVD middle; US 2018 Criterion BD bottom. |
1949's Thirst, a.k.a. Three Strange Loves, finds Bergman getting a grip on his compulsion to go over the top. We're easing out of that brief "early Bergman," and into his more consistently mature work already. The biggest weakness of this film, for me at least, is that nothing really stands out. Thirst wasn't written by Bergman, and while he clearly still brings his sensibilities to the characters' intimate scenes to make it fit into his oeuvre, that makes it less memorable. It's the one that I've watched a couple of extra times just because I couldn't remember if I'd seen it before. Like the Three Strange title suggests, the story is fairly disjointed, apparently because the book it was based on was actually a collection of short stories. It has some moments and definite qualities, and like I said before, doesn't quite embarrass itself like some of his previous efforts did in their most heightened moments, but it also never reaches their peaks. It's cursed with just being all around average.
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UK 2004 Tartan DVD top; US 2007 Criterion DVD middle; US 2018 Criterion BD bottom. |
And we end with probably the best of all these films, 1950's To Joy. Stig Olin is back as Stig, a violinist who winds up marrying the only woman in his orchestra, Martha. They get married and have children, and the film chronicles the utterly relatable ups and downs of their life together. Wild Strawberries' Victor Sjöström is excellent as their conductor who winds up taking a father figure role in their lives, and if you blink, you'll miss one of Erland Jospehon's earliest roles. I'm not sure he even has a line. To Joy feels like an effective forerunner to Scenes From a Marriage, but with the added element of Bergman paying homage to the power of classical music.
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UK 2003 Tartan DVD top; US 2007 Criterion DVD middle; US 2018 Criterion BD bottom. |
The take-away here is that none of Bergman's work is to be overlooked. His worst films still out pace almost all other filmmakers', and not all of his earlier films rank among his worst at all. While we've seen that all five of these films had perfectly serviceable DVDs for their time, Criterion's blu-rays take it to a whole different level. It's just a shame they neglected Torment, but maybe they'll see their way to releasing it down the road, even if it would've been nicer to have it in the box. And while the 'Early Bergman' set includes his very earliest films, these five aren't strictly speaking his first five. We've actually skipped six other films on our way to 1950's To Joy, six more films that are absent from the Bergman box that I plan to take a look at a little later in the year.
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