So we begin with 1961's Through a Glass Darkly. Harriet Andersson plays a mentally disturbed woman who's convinced that she's waiting to be visited by God. This is one of Bergman's big ones; it won the Academy Award for best foreign film, and it was the first film to be shot on his famous island of Faro. Max von Sydow plays Andersson's husband and Gunnar Björnstrand her father. If you're a secular viewer, it can be hard to feel the degree of affinity for the characters' struggle in the face of God's resolute silence that Bergman was trying to foster here during his own crisis of faith that he was going through at the time. But it's still a powerful dramatization of a family collapsing under the stress of forces seemingly beyond their control.
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2003 US Criterion DVD top; 2018 US Criterion BD bottom. |
The DVD was light on extras, though it had a nice on-camera overview by Peter Cowie, plus the trailer. Happily, the blu didn't just keep that but added to it, including one of those Bergman Island intros and a chat with Harriet Andersson recorded at some public event. Still not exactly a packed special edition, but it does feel a little more filling now.Two years passing brings us the second film in this trilogy, Winter Light, with the most obvious connection: the second film that uses a spider as an image of God. In this film, Max von Sydow meets with his pastor, Gunnar Björnstrand, because he's become despondent over the looming threat of nuclear annihilation. It's another crisis of faith and through their debate, Sydow actually convinces Björnstrand to renounce his belief in God - whoops! You know things are grim when you successfully talk your priest out of his religion. But it could be good news for Ingrid Thulin (probably Bergman's most under-appreciated leading lady), the schoolteacher who's long been in love with Björnstrand, yet couldn't be with him due to his role in the church. What do you do if you've spent your entire life following a path you now no longer believe is correct?
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2003 US Criterion DVD top; 2018 US Criterion BD bottom. |
The extras here are similar to the last disc. The DVD includes a sit-down with Cowie and the trailer, which the BD keeps. The blu adds another one of those intros, and also slaps on the entire Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie documentary, which was given its own, separate disc in the DVD set. It's a pretty excellent and thorough behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Winter Light, the sort of first class and refreshingly candid documentary Bergman seems to have allowed during the filming of many of his masterpieces, and which we've seen throughout this boxed set. It's over five hours and broken up into five parts, from the initial script writing to the premiere - a genuine treat directed by Vilgot Sjöman, a famous filmmaker probably best known for the I Am Curious (Yellow/ Blue) movies. So, no, Criterion didn't cook up any new features for this blu, but after watching the full doc and Cowie's retrospective, what more could you want?
Finally, still in 1963, we come to The Silence. It feels a little less a third of a whole than the previous two films. For one thing, there's no spider, and Sydow and Björnstrand have left us. There's also very little talk or sign of religion, although perhaps its absence is itself an important point. This time, we're following two sisters (Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom, who'd quietly stolen the show in The Virgin Spring) who stop at a hotel during a long journey home. Thulin is older, physically ill and sexually repressed, while her younger sister is healthy and free, each resenting the other. Lindblom also has a son who gets into a bit of a subplot with some circus midgets, because this was made in the 60s, and the small boy's exploration of his large, dominating environment are very reminiscent of Fanny and Alexander. But at its heart, this film is really about the distance that's grown between the two sisters, and how to reconcile it... or even if they ultimately should.
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2003 US Criterion DVD top; 2018 US Criterion BD bottom. |
Again, the DVD gives us a nice, brief once over from Peter Cowie and the trailer. There's also a very brief photo gallery as well this time. The blu-ray keeps all of that, but the only thing it adds is the introduction. Plus, of course, each DVD (except Makes a Movie) has an insert with notes, the contents of which have been carried over to the boxed set's 248-page tome.
And that takes us through all of the films Criterion had already previously issued before their box. As we move into Part 3, things should start to get a little more interesting, as the DVD comparisons will start involving some of the obscure import editions I'd been collecting over the years. See you there!
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