Scott Lord
Preface: Modern Swedish Film
I wrote too much of this while I was married not to preface it for anyone I might happen to be currently involved with or become involved with in the near future. I was legally married at city hall to a heterosexual woman in 2004 which coincided with our common law date. Much of the writing had been outlined before that, while cohabitating with her for six years and ten or eleven months. Technically while being engaged for eight, which is the common law requirement. Twelve years of sharing the same apartment, and of course I've been writing a novel and poetry during the year since the seperation. If it hasn't been clear, she asked for a divorce, which has been uncontested. There were boxes of manuscript. The filmic novel written in the interim was entitled Scott Lord Inga's Veil, Evening, whereas the novel I have now began writing, found under my name, Scott Lord is as of yet untitled, there a possiblity that the former may still be in progress and the two could be combined. I have spent almost every night for nearly the last nine months in a skyscraper that over looks where I spent the honeymoon, in fact it almost touches it. A very beautiful woman that I had met before 2001 kissed me. I am presently in the bed of the aspiring novelist Dana Lynn, which is the "pen name" of the poet I'm in love with and the poet to whom I have been making love.
We became involved in June, 2011 and have neared becoming inseperable. In all honesty, we have met again. Not entirely at a loss for words, but collecting myself as though for further revision, I'll never want to forget the look on me ex-wife's face as she walked passed today and stopped briefly while I was with the other woman, which is the only reason we saw each other. Of course we have seen each other since and only silently stared at each other, and silently again stared in the next larger city shortly thereafter, and, I tried everything to keep that from the woman with whom I am now involved, and that ending the subject, with only the profoundest feelings and with compassion about revising this page being put into question.
In all honesty, although it is part of the film theory that surfaced during the latter part of Ingmar Bergman's career as a director, with what I was reading at the time I was apathetic about the volume Society of the Spectacle, written by Guy Debord, but as it was then being taught at Harvard, and I have yet to see the film made by Debord. In the United States, to begin 2012, I exchanged a "Good to See You" with the film director near Harvard University, an Oscar winner, that I knew the week of the death of Ingmar Bergman, Errol Morris; I had known him primarily from his walking his dog, rather than my being Jay Gatsby, or the artist Charles Strickland , for that matter. The metal globe has dissappeared from his office, but he gave me the title of the film he made since the last time we had spoken and added, "There's going to be another." For various reasons I was silent about writing poetry or a novel during that time period and therefore any personal meanings that can be derived from the films of Sjostrom, Molander or Bergman also lay buried, despite Bergman's essential theme of the artist being and individual with the freedom to create in films like The Magician or despite the way in which Bergman uses his love for his first wife to create the layer work of character development after his seperation from Liv Ullmann. In regard to her, before we got engaged, before thinking of adopting and doing the tubal ligate ordeal while I was watching Brink of Life; ironically in a wry way, in Images, Ingmar Bergman writes, "I read Ulla Isaksson's fine short story collection Aunt of Death, and was captivated by two of the stories, which, if put together, could be made into a screenplay....But Brink of Life exists exactly as it was seen and heard at the premiere on March 11, 1958, and I sat watching the same film years later in the darkness, alone, influenced by no one."
Before the death of Ingmar Bergman, my contribution to the internet included, "He presently resides on the island of Faro, where the magic lantern of Bergman also resides; there is a theater seating fifteen that has a showing daily at 3:00."
I am serious about my love of film, especially Swedish Film. The page can be made more relevant- should anything become open to debate I will switch the subject, including my writing during the death of Ingmar Bergman and anything about the Swedish Film Institute. After all is said and done, I will primarily avoid being inconsiderate. By all accounts, during the meantime, venerated cameraman Gunnar Fischer of Sweden made it passed any difficult hour he may have had to courageously face. Fischer was born November 18, 1910. please forward any kind regards from the present author. (Gunnar Fischer passed away during June of 2011, while this webpage was being revised)
While I was married I recieved a letter from Ase Klevand, who e-mailed me on the 100th birthday of Swedish Film actress Greta Garbo, She returned to Norway, to be replaced by Cissi Elwin. Cissi Elwin, now remarkably Cissi Elwin Frenkel, during the interim decided to leave the Swedish Film Institute, her duties to currently inherited by acting manager Bengt Troll. If you are reacquainting yourself with Swedish Film as I am, Troll has continued with the publication of the magazine of the Swedish Film Institute, Swedish Film, and if you begin with issue #1, he has added a rare behind the scenes look at the work of Inmgar Bergman though unpublished photographs to mark actresses Live Ullmann, Gunnel Lindblom and Harriet Andersson having attended the Berlin Film Festival. Please welcome Anna Serner with me, who will reside as the new CEO of the Swedish Film Institute on October 1, 2011.
During revision, I would switch verbs and their tenses to follow Swedish Films in production through to their post-production, notably, the press releases on Ingmar Bergman's film Saraband, a film that declined being unspooled at festivals in Cannes and Venice. For example, the phrase "will be screened" would be revised to "it having been screened" and the webpage was easily updated. It was that e-mailed newsletter from Norway that to me reported the death of actresses Ingrid Thulin and Eva Dahlbeck, who notably had appeared together in a film I would screen frequently, Brink of Life (Nara Livet, 1958). It is one of several films that had brought the topic of the Swedish tradition of connecting character to the enviornment thematicly and symbolicly into a deeper level through its contrasting style of filming interior scenes that are dependent upon theatrical dialoge, which was first explored by sound film director Gustuv Molander upon Victor Sjostrom's return to Sweden as an actor. As Ingmar Bergman was finishing his last sequence to the film Saraband, shot in Solna, at Stockholm's Filmstaden with assistant director Torbjorn Ehrnvall, the e-mailed newsletter announced when it was slated for theatrical release and its possible entries in film festivals while it was still in post-production and while Bergman was still at work on the digital print of the the film. Ingmar Bergman would announce his decision against theatrical release of the film and his decision that after that, he would continue with writing, but not directing. I then quoted Begnt Forslund, an author whose biography on Victor Sjostrom I often mimeographed pages from, as having remarked upon the teleplay, "He had announced that Saraband would be his last artistic endeavor- no more theater directing, no more films, no more television, no more radio. In this article I will take him at his word, though he's made that promise before." Long before the two new seminal biographies filmed by Stig Bjorkman, Swedish television aired the documentary In the Direction of Bergman (I regi av Bergman, it then adding a three part series of interviews conducted by Marie Nyrerod with the broadcast of Bergman and Cinema (Bergman och Filmen), Bergman och Theatern), and Bergman and Faro (Bergman och faro), and again, although my writing on the subject was incomplete, it was only a matter of diligently conjugating the be verb to update the Geocities webpage. Please allow the present author to update the webpage again to mark the passing of Swedish actor Erland Josephson during 2012.
Having said goodbye to Geocities, "good grammar is clarity". Please note that in the wake of Geocities, video.google.com has announced that it may closing and that films that are embeded into personal webpages maybe in question. Since the death of Ingmar Bergman, Birgitta Steene. along with author Emil Tornquist, has translated the letters of August Strindberg in Strindberg on Drama and Theater. Tonight, I just completed a blog entry during a film starring Marie Liljedahl, which is easy to type if using the Blog This feature while the film is in progress. The Lunascape browser has a split screen feature while watching films on Veoh.com and Veehd.com.The film has so far had two beautiful scenes, one where Marie Liljedahl is show in a bathtub before a scene where the two women are suntanning nude and applying lotion before they begin to kiss- the other a scene filmed entire in red and silhouette, more haunting than Bergman's Cries and Whispers, where Marie Liljedahl is on her bed before she is seduced, the use of showing her pubic hair, as in the tub again an erotic effect, but far more sensual with the contrast in atmosphere in the two scenes. I donnot as of yet know what's going to happen in the film and apologize for the difficulty of its availability in the United States. And yet, since revising this page, I discovered from the Scandinavian Film Periodical Film International, that another Swedish Film actress, one central to my points of departure on the seminal work of the time period has since passed away.
Modern Swedish Film- Ingmar Bergman, Svenska Filmindustri and the emergence of the Svenska Filminstitutet
If it seems that after Persona (1966,) the film made in Sweden was influenced more by the Swedish Film director Arne Mattsson and his paen One Summer of
Happiness/She Danced Only One Summer (Hon dansade en
sommar, 1951) with Ulla Jacobsson and
Folke Sundqvist, it may only be that
Persona was in particular to
follow Bergman's Winter Light trilogy, during which he had worked with Vilgot
Sjoman and, oddly enough, during which Par Lagerkvist published his religious
trilogy, beginning with the novel The Death of Ahasuerus in 1960 and
continuing with the novels Pilgrim at Sea (1962) and The Holy Land (1964);
there are themes that connect some of Ingmar Bergman's films and those that
can be seen in some way in almost all of his films- they are themes that find
variation within the particular film in which they appear. Perhaps Dreyer
anticipates Ingmar Bergman by writing, 'Abstraction allows the director to get
outside the fence with which naturalism has surrounded his medium. It allows
his films to be not merely visual, but spiritual.' Also in Swedish bookstores
while the Winter Light trilogy was in theaters were The Destitute, written by
Swedish author Birgitta Trotzig in 1957, and The Expedition, written by the
Swedish author P. O Sundman in 1962. Eyvind Johnson during this period was
writing primarily historical novels, notably, The Days of His Grace (Hans
Naden Tid, 1960), and including Nag Steg Mot Tystnaden (1963) and Livsdagen
lang (1964). Whether or not his modernity has been put into question, it has been pointed out that there is an element of mysticism in the poetry of Tomas Transtrommer, leaving the question as to whether any form of modernity expresses a mystical relationship with past and present or whether it simply echoes a demystification of the surrounding present as it slowly drips off the the everflowing current swirl of events. In 1962, the poet published the volume The Half-finished Heaven (Den halvfardiga himlen). It is interesting to look at Swedish filmmaker Svenolow Olsson, who directed and photographed the 1961 film Bo Bergman, Svenska diktare. Through his correspondence with Hjalmer Sjoderberg, the poet of decadence anticipates there being a flanneur theory of gendered spectatorship in film criticism, but, as a poet, had published the volume Marionetterna in the year 1903 when a literary critic for Ord och Bild. Olsson, in his earlier film, Jan Fridegard, Svenska diktare, also looks at the more prolific poet Fidegard, who published one work a year untill the posthumous publication of Hallonflickan in 1968. In 1965 he published two volumes, Noveller and Lattingen. His 1961 work was entitled Mot oster soldat, which was follwed by Soldatans Karleck and Hemkonsten.
Swedish bookstores were to also see the publication of the erotic poem En Karleksdikt, written by Lars Forssell in 1960. The novel The Costume Ball (Kostsymbalen), written by Swedish Modernist Sven Fagerberg, appeared the following year, his then in 1963 having published the novel The Fencers (Svardfaktarna). Meanwhile, Sveriges Radio during 1960 produced the television film Ovader, directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Mona Malm, Birgitta Gronwald, and Gunnel Brostrom. The assistant director to the film was Gertrude Bjorklund. John Simon, author of Ingmar Bergman directs outlines that with Through a Glass Darkly, Bergman embarked upon a style of, and sturucture to, filmmaking new to him. Without comparing the disparate styles of technique of Sjostrom and Molander, the author sees the line more directly from the plays and theater of Strindberg, "the cast of characters does not usually exceed four or five, the action is confined in space and time, and the story is intensely intimate, although larger implications are by no means excluded, if anything, they are invited." If this analysis harkens back to the early work of the director, it can still certainly be applied to Cries and Whispers. Winter Light is seen as covering a three hour time period of plotline, reminiscent of John O'Hara's novel Appointment in Samsara, and as being divided into three "movements", which occur at three separate locations. John Simon looks at a close up that as a continuous take uses five minutes of screen running time, "with only Ingrid Thulin's sensitive and deeply sincere facial play, her expressive line readings and the slight movements of her head to hold our attention and provide variety." And yet John Simon restores the belief that film criticism is film appreciation by openly differing with Jorn Donner about Bergman's use of a short flashback as technique, in the same way that I would take being the proponent that the diegetic time elapse in this type of film should be intentionally left vague or ambiguous- that two hours of onscreen story could transpire in three hours of the characters fictional life on any given day, but if so, then the actual events should remain symbolic so as to impart the value personal subjectivity and the meaning of the storyline open-ended- the character's relationship to the three hour period is in itself a question, and so is the actual duration of event.
Peter
Cowie likens the film Blue Week (Sininen vikko, 1954)
directed in Finnland by Matti Kassila, thematicly to Bergman's Summer with
Monika and
Summer Interlude, his even going so far as to compare its photography,
filmed by Osmo Harkimo, to that of Gunnar Fischer. By 1970, one would only need look at the beautifully shot poster to the film Naisenkuvia, a nude woman on her knees photographed for the glamour of diaphaneity with lens filters, to know that director Jorn Donner had accompanied Scandinavian film into a then open-minded discussion of free love and love is to art as nudity is to marriage. Seminal to Swedish cinema,
A Crime (Ett Brott, 1940), directed by Anders Henrikson with
Edvin Adolphson and Karin Eckelund is distinguished as having brought the
themes of marital complications to the screen. Strindberg writes, 'The author
must be bound by no definite form, for form is conditioned by the plot and the
subject matter.' Why themes of marriage are fitting subjects for literature is
not merely because they are concerned with truth, as they particularly seem to
be in the short stories of Strindberg, but also because they involve the
character, known to himself and as participating in the drama of being
individual. Writing in Film Quarterly, while reviewing Ingmar Bergman Directs
by Emil Tornqvist, Sidney Gottlieb looks at Bergman's use of theme in a way
similar to Strindberg. Although appreciative of Tornqvist's book and its
examination of the theatricality of Begrman's films, Gottlieb cautions that
Bergman's use of symbolism and abstracts shots that are seemingly, if not
altogether, unconected to the narrative of the particular film, is not
necessarily theatrical in a way contrary to the realism inherent in cinema,
although Bergman may depend upon Strindberg, and possibly Ibsen. The author
Maaret Koskin has added Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (The Queen's Diadem; Amorina,
1839) to the influences upon Bergman. A member of a mailing list had sent an
e-mail this September announcing the publication of a new book by Emil
Tornqvist entitled Bergman's Muses.
Ingmar Bergman relates that 'Strindberg's way of experiencing women is
ambivalent.' An 'obsessive worshiper of women' he examines them obsessively,
'most clearly in Miss Julie where the man and woman never stop swapping
masks.' Why sadness depicted in film is beautiful at all is because it belongs
to the individual, faced or confronted by the other character or characters;
the over the shoulder, shot reverse shot dialouge scene more often than not
can be used within the structure of storyline to connect character and theme.
If the superimposure in Persona is metaphoric, it may be that characters build
a relation to what is thematic and connect to it when with other characters. How a film is constructed aesthetically is often a matter of emotion, those emotions of the viewer in relation to the text and those of the protagonist, interpellated as subject through identification, it being the text that can bring about spectatorial positioning. Birgitta Steene views the film as being constructed around the two characters and their 'withdrawl from life and identification with one another'.
It could be seen that the scene is a reworking of the wearing of the
theatrical mask, if not both the wearing and the removing of the mask, the
thematic itself a mask untill both characters dissolve on the screen. In that
the silence of God is not ostensibly reffered to during the film and the
silence of the actress is, it being in fact a visual referrent, silence
becomes a mask worn by the actress and a mask that could be worn by God as
well. There is a shot early in Persona of Liv Ullmann in close up after
the exit of the nurse, the camera stationary and her head motionless as the
light changes during the shot; only when the room has become darkened does she
move her head into profile-thematically the change in light is a similie for
the putting on and taking off of theatrical masks as it slowly moves over her
(it can only be a telescoped or subtle metaphor for orgasm or post-coital
resolution the way it is filmed, despite its being a bedroom scene). Later in
the film, Bibi Andersson nearly combines the silence of God and the silence of
the actress by putting them both into question when she imploringly adresses
that silence by claiming that artists create from and out of compassion, as
does Bergman in the concluding montage sequence, in which the camera intercuts
shot of Liv Ullmann as the actress on stage, in front of the camera with shots
of Bibi Andersson silently leaving. The shots are dramaticly linked when cut
togther and have a temporal continuity similar to the spatial continuity in
the early close shot scenes.
The concluding shots of the actress on stage are much like the shots of Max
von Sydow that conclude the Ingmar Bergman film The Magician (The Face, Ansiktet), the mask that Volger has removed
toward the end of the film being that of the thespian, the relationship
between the writer and society being a theme that is often central to the
early films of Ingmar Bergman, a relationship that can be extended to the
actor in front of the camera, if not to in front of the camera posited as a
disembodied spectator.
In Images, Ingmar Bergman does explain more fully, or less abstractly the theme of The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet), "My fear of death was to a great degree linked to my religious concepts....Suddenly I realized that is how it is. One could be transformed from being to not-being- it was hard to grasp." He summarizes with a feeling of liberation that one is now alive. He continues, "Everything is of this world. Everything exists and happens inside us," which of course he later develops into a transcendent silence. In the first drafts of The Seventh Seal, of
which there were five, Ingmar Bergman had written the role of the Knight (Max von
Sydow) as having had been being silent, without dialouge. Death in the film,
particularly after Bergman's having used the relationship between silence and
a longing for belief or desire for faith as part of his characterization of
the Knight, in many ways symbolizes silence and the unresponsiveness of the
unknown, the game of chess a pursuit of something that is silent.
Interestingly, Bergman on The Seventh Seal writes, 'Bengt Ekerot and I
agreed that Death should have the features of a white clown.', which leaves
the question of whether it may in part only have its origins in Bergman's
early aquaintance with silent film, whether the Knight is a medieval symbol
not only of Death but also of art as a personification of the immortality of
the artist in that art, after it has already been created, is silent- in being
silent nothing can be added to it and it can have nothing to add.
Bergman, in regard to the double exposure scene in Personna, writes
that it was while filming the monolouge, which to allow both characters to
mirror each other appears in two forms, that it was decided to add to the
screenplay the shot of both faces merging into one face, it being improvised
but only so much as the screenplay had already been written. During an
interview Liv Ullmann has said, 'We did not rehearse at all.' and that Bergman
only rehearsed before each individual shot, his having seldom rehearsed before
the shooting of any film. She as well explains that the double exposure was
'an idea he had thought about during the shooting.' During an interview with
Torsten Manns, Ingmar Bergman related, 'The girls didn't know I meant to do
that. It was an idea that came to me while we were shooting...They didn't
recognize their own faces...Yes, it was easy to put the corresponding light
sides together because one half of the scene is in virtual darkness.' Writing
about the scene having been filmed twice, John Simon views it as being that,
'This repetition shows two identities sharing the same consciousness in one
happening in time.' In outlining the scene, Simon looks to The Stronger by
August Strindberg, 'The Stronger is a problem play, and one cannot be sure
which of the two women really is stronger. And so it is in Persona.' He notes that
there is an uncertainty on the part of the spectator as to what is taking
place in the scene. In a subchapter on the later film of Ingmar Bergman,
Stephen Prince notes that Bergman has filmed the narrative so that why the
actress is silent is inexplicable, his remarking upon there subsequently being
an emptiness between the two characters; in his advancing that the
superimposure creates a fictional third person it may be that Prince, while
observing the theater of the two onscreen characters and their two masks, at
first neglects to note that Bergman has filmed the two characters in the third
person, behind the camera as though a spectator.
During the interview, Stig Bjorkman remarks upon Persona being shot
mostly in close up and long shot, asking whether it was to contrast intimacy
and detachment. Bergman replied that his decision to use close ups would often
be contingent upon the content of the scene. Again discussing Persona,
Bergman cautions, 'But at the same time the long shot demands tremendous
density and a hight degree of awareness. It must never be used at random.'
There is something, no matter how unintentional, that can metaphoricaly
connect the character portrayed by Liv Ullmann and our image of Garbo, the
reticient Greta Garbo that had fascinated the world at a distance, that had
fascinated it sexually both on screen and after having left Hollywood. (The
island that is the background in the film Persona is in fact remote, it
serving as a metaphor for isolation and withdrawl.) There is a mystery to the
eroticism of Greta Garbo. Writing in 1974, Richard Corliss concludes his
volume Greta Garbo with a brief section about her retirement from film,
claiming that neither she nor the studio had expected it. About her being
reclusive and her need for solitude, he writes, 'she became the chief curator
of her film image by staying completely as possible out of the public eye.'
Objectively, it is the author's interpretation of a legend, written before
Garbo had begun to again give interviews, particularly the conversation
published in Bunte Illustierte, a magazine from West Germany, and yet, still,
in the chapter it is almost as though the author writes to Garbo, 'the woman
she is today.'
Fredrick Sands writes about having interviewed Greta Garbo in 1977, 'The
Garbo I met still recoils at the sight of strangers...her shyness is not
fiegned.' She spoke fondly of Sweden and her hope that she might return. 'She
spends her days mostly walking, reading, waiting- 'I don't know what for.'' It
is in keeping with earlier biographies that Sands mentions that her
aquaintances would ask not to be quoted after having been interviewed. Sands
gives the account that, 'Garbo never answers the telephone at all unless she
expects someone she wishes to talk to call her at a prearranged hour. Even
then, she cannot be said to 'answer' the telephone: she simply picks up the
reciever and waits for the caller to speak.'
It is by being integral to, an element of the
image, as in Cries
and Whispers (Viskingar och rop, 1972), within the image as being
in motion either toward the foreground or background of the shot or toward
either sides of the frame, that each character can be 'integrated in the
landscape in a completely different way' (Stig Bjorkman) and that a director
can seperate them 'out from each other and show their oneness, or lack of
oneness, with the enviornment.' (Bjorkman). There are two adjacent shots
during Cries
and Whispers where Ingmar Bergman reverses screen
direction. A voice over delivers the line, 'I remember she would often seek
the solitude and peace of the grounds.' and as the woman on the screen is
walking slowly through a park, in the first shot she crosses the screen from
left to right, in the second, from right to left. In both shots she is kept in
longshot, the angle of her movement as her white gowned figure crosses similar
in both shots, and what has a particular effect is the height of the trees;
they are framed so that their top one fourth is above the frameline, the grove
she is in seeming to contain ancient silence, ancient hollow space.As the two
shots are adjacent, there is a unity of space between them. Fascinating to how some films are particularly made is that Cries and Whispers showcased actress Ann-Christine Lobaten, who happenned to pass away while I was independently studying Swedish Film with my not having seen any notice of it it and having been unnoted and neglected by me, and who brought with her previous working relationship with director Ingmar Bergman by her having been the art director for Bergman's 1971 Beroringen, a film which brought Swedish Film director Anders Henrickson's beautiful wife back to the screen. Aino Taube had been one of the most experienced actresses ever to have worked with Bergman.
Victor Sjostrom had
cautioned Bergman to 'Film actors from the front; they like that and its the
best way.' In The Scarlet Letter (Den roda bokstaven, 1926, nine
reels), Sjostrom introduces Lillian Gish by filming her frontally in medium
shot, frequently using dissolves during the film. After her leaving the frame,
the camera cuts to a medium shot of her in profile and then back to filming
her frontally in a mirror shot of her deciding which hat to wear. It is almost
as though Sjostrom uses reverse screen direction between two characters when,
after structuring the film by reintroducing Gish with a dissolve, she one
moment is crossing the screen from right to left, the next momement Lars
Hanson crossing from left to right. Charles Affron writes, 'Seastrom redefines
the space of the town square, making it an area successively filled and
emptied, now a formal pattern with paths cleared, then serried with ranks of
extras. The church, the town hall and the scaffold are other spatial elements
that constitute the dynamics of the public drama.' Remarking upon Sjostroms
'sensitivity to landscape and texture', Affron looks to their being a
'stylistic unity' to the film. Lillian Gish, in her book Dorothy and Lillian
Gish, writes of her having seen The Story of Gosta Berling and that,
'Mr. Mayer sent to Sweden for Lars Hanson, let me have Victor Sjostrom, the
great Swedish artist, as director and put it into my hands. I worked with
Frances Marion on the script, and we made a successful film that is regarded
as a classic to this day.' Ingmar Bergman has said that when directing
Sjostrom; it had in fact been that he 'drew his attention to the fact that he
was playing to the gallery.' When the film was reviewed in the United States,
Sjostrom was seen as 'painstaking in his studying his characters' and that
there were 'some cleverly pictured scenes in the church and the sights of the
crowds betray(ed) imaginative direction both in the handling of the players
and in their arrangement to the shades of their costumes.' There had been an
earlier film adapation of the novel, The Scarlett Letter (1917, five
reels) starring Mary Martin, Stuart Holmes and Kittens Reichert, directed by
Carl Harbaugh. There is an account of Sjostrom's shooting the exterior scenes
to The Scarlet Letter, during which he climbed down from a platform
after Stiller had announced he was there, Stiller then saying, 'This is
Garbo.'; Stiller and her had met Warner Oland and his wife, Anna Q. Nilson
earlier. Warner Oland later began the series of films featuring the Earl Der
Biggers detective with Charlie Chan Carries On and The Black
Camel, both made in 1931.
In the film Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie (Ingmar Bergman gor en film, 1963), Vilgot Sjöman begins with a brief synopsis of the film Winter Light before his interviewing director Ingmar Bergman. Bergman discusses his use of complete silence in the film, a silence that has fallen upon the character. He explains the use of the actors' eyes in the film. Edited into the film is behind the scenes footage, including numerous shots of Ingrid Thulin trying on various pairs of glasses. Sjöman shows Bergman filming and his methods of blocking, 'The faces and the dialogue are to tell the whole story.' Sjöman's camera films Bergman's tightly enough to fill half the screen with the same shot as Bergman's from a different angle. Sjöman then interviews Bergman during the postproduction of the film, 'You always cut during movement. That way the flow isn't interrupted.'
All of the films of the Winter Light trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly (Sasom i spegel, 1961), Winter Light (Nattvardsgasterna, 1963) and The Silence (Tystnaden, 1963), were photographed by Sven Nykvist and scripted by Ingmar Berman.
Katherina Farago was the script girl for to Ingmar Bergman's The Silence, which in fact only briefly opens silently with Gunnel Lindblom and Ingrid Thulin in a train compartment, both exhausted, the camera panning up on Gunnel Lindblom's tightly-fitted gown and curved body. As a sex-symbol, she has been deppened by the emotion of being drained, presumably from a journey. The metaphor of their being exhausted is kept intact by the camera shifting to the next interior, where, contrastingly, she crosses the set almost to avoid the camera, it briefly filming her from the knees down as she is waling, it near obliquely avoiding that she is in a dressing gown that outlines her movement. If , thematically, the mirror introduced early in the film is an objectification of
an inward journey or, an objectification of the distance from which she is from the mirror spatially as a metaphor for her presently being on a journey itself, it is one that is reiterated throughout the film, as thoug it were a knowingness
on the part of Lindblom. In a tub, bathing, the shimmer of water reflected upon her is almost to bring her nudity to a double symbol, it only being then in the film that the exhaustion on the train could be symbolic of her having tried to make love to God only to be tired of its being both fulfillment and the conception of the unattainable, the silence between both women being that they have found something that has only been answered in their exhaustion. Now within a calmness, the water fairly still while she bathes, the smoothness of her nudity complemented by her emotion of having been soothed. She then lays on a bed filmed horizontally over the shoulder, the semi-nudity filmed quickly from shot to shot, in bed, the curve of her hip motionless. She again is seen bathing, washing her face in two brief shots, which are in reverse angle, the first a strait-on shot, the camera panning out of frame during the second shot. She again is in front of the
mirror, briefly, but not coyly, the camera then following her movement. Later, again in front of the mirror she pivots while undressing. Then seen in the mirror, after its presence has almost been replace by the camera, she is shown in an over the shoulder shot, combing her hair, pivoting during a close-up follow shot. During a later dialougue scene, the camera shows her in an evening
gown as she is sitting, it almost being that she is aware of her being voluptuous, it quickly cutting to a reverse angle only to abruptly introduce a legnthy dialogue scene filmed in close shot in near darkness. The scene is continued as both actresses are filmed with sidelighting in closeshot in an adjacent room; in that it has been acknowledged by both women that they have been part of each other's journey, the exhaustion from earlier that seemed to have been left behind now is replaced be a quickness as events hasten within the film's plotline. Gunnel Lindblom moves through the adjacent scene as sex symbol, filmed nude in profile in tight medium close shot, only her being seen in the darkened room. That the scene itself is nearly silent is only later punctuated by Thulin's voice pronouncing the name of composer of classical music. She again passes the mirror in a post-coital scene, it being kept by the stationary camera to the far right of the frame as she walks toward the camera, the camera then cutting to her being filmed over the shoulder.
One of the assistant directors to the concluding film of Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light trilogy, The Silence, was Lars Erik Liedholm, who directed the 1965 film June Night (Juninatt), photographed by Gunnar Fischer and written by Bengt Söderbergh. The film stars Bibi Andersson, Lennart Svensson, Vera Graffmann and Lena Hedström. Harry Schein appears on screen in the film.
Early sound film director Tancred Ibsen wrote and directed the film Venner during 1960. Based on the play by that name it was photographed by Ragnar Sorensen and stars Eva Bergh, who had appeared in the 1949 film Doden er et kjaertegn (Edith Carlmar) and Ingervd vardund, who had appeared with Max von Sydow in the 1953 film Ingen mans kvinna (Kjellgren). It's interesting to not that Von Sydow had really only starred in less than a handful of films before working with Bergman in The Seventh Seal, one having been Miss Julie (1951).
During 1961, Gunnar Fischer was in Denmark where he photgraphed Een blandt mance, directed by Astrid and Bjarne Henning Jensen, The film stars Marina Lund and Elsa Kouran, but also appearing in the film is Lili Lani, who, having been born in 1905, had appreared in the silent films Professor Peterson's Plejeborn (Lauritzen, 1924), Polis Paulus pa skasmell (1925) and Ingmarsavavet (1925), the latter two having been directed by Gustaf Molander.
Swedish audiences in 1961 also viewed the film Halleback Manor (Hallebacks Gard), directed by Bengt Blomen and photographed by Hilding Bladh. The film starred Brita Oberg, Yvonne Ngren and Sif Ruud. Hilding Bladh returned as cameraman during 1962 when Sandrew produced the film One Zero Too Many (En Nolla For Myket), directed by Bjorje Nyberg. The film stars Birgitta Anderson, Toivo Pawlo, Mona Malm, Lil-Babs and Inger Taube.
Jörn Donner began making films in Sweden during 1963 with Sunday in September (Sondag i september and To Love Att alska (1964). Both films were to star Harriet Andersson. The latter was photographed by Sven Nykvist. Donner, after making two more films in Sweden, then went to Finnland to direct, beginning with Black on White (Mustaa valkoisella 1967). Harriet Andersson starred with actresses Marrit Hyattinen and Marja Packalen in the Jön Donner film Anna (1970). Jörn Donner recently was present at the Midnight Sun Film Festival, held in June of 2004.
Hasse Ekman in 1963 directed My Love is a Rose (Min kara ar en
ros) with Gunnel Lindblom and Gunnar
Bjornstrand, the cinematographer to the film, Gunnar Fischer. The assistant
director to the film, Christer Abrahamsen, later directed the film Drommen
om Amerika (1976). Ekman followed by directing The Marriage
Wrestler (Aktenskapsbrottaren, 1964) with Anna Sundqvist. Per G.
Holmgren in 1963 directed Anna Sundqvist in the film Mordvapen till
salu. Henning Carlsen directed his first film, Dilemma, in 1962,
then following it with The Cats (Kattorna, 1965), photographed
by Mac Ahlberg and starring Eva Dahlbeck, Gio Petre and Monica Nielsen, and
with Hunger (Svalt, 1966) with Gunnel Lindblom. Swedish director Goran Gentele in 1963 returned Maud Hansson, who appears in Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal, to the screen in the film En vacker dag, the first film in which actress Inger Hayman was to appear.
Jan Troell was behind the camera directing Max von Sydow during 1964 with the film Stay in Marshland (Uppehall i myrlandet). I usually leave Utvandrana and Nybyggarna (1972) on their respective shelfs as I was born and raised in Massachusetts, which is on the Atlantic Ocean. Karin Falk began in film as a director in 1964 with the film
Dreamboy (Drompojken), written by Bengt Linder and photographed by Tony Forsberg.
Starring in the film are Lena Soderblom, Lill Lindfors, Eva Stiberg and Sven-Bertil Taube. Falk later appeared as an actress in the 1974 film Rannstensungar, directed by Torgny Anderberg and starring Anita Lindblom, Monica Zetterlund and Monica Ekman. Swedish director Kage Gimtell during 1964 brought actress Anna Sundqvist to the screen in the film Alsking pa vift, the first film in which actress Victoria Kahn was to appear on the screen.
Having written two plays during Bergman's period of Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, in 1964 actress Eva Dahlbeck began publishing novels with Home to Chaos (Hem till kaos). In 1965 she followed with the novel The Last Mirror (Sista Spegeln), in 1966 with the novel The Seventh Night (Dem sjunde natten) and in 1967 with the novel The Judgement (Domen).
Based on the writings of Agnes von Krusenstjerm, Loving Couples (Alskande par, 1964) brought Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gio Petre, Inga Landgre, Anita Bjork and Eva Dahlbeck to the screen under the direction of Mai Zetterling. it was her first feature film as a director and photographed was by Sven Nykvist.
Jan Halldoff directed his first two films in 1965, Haltimma, starring
Karin Stenback and Bo Halldoff and Nilsson, starring Gosta Ekman. Vera
Nordin in 1965 directed the film Pianolektionen, photographed by Gunnar
Fischer. Ingela Romare directed her first two films in 1965, Kyrie, the
assistant director to the film Ingvar Skogsberg, and Mitt ar efter
morbor. Ingvar Skogsberg directed his first film in 1965 as well,
Jessica Lockwood, his following it in 1966 with Krypkasino med
T.T. and Stinsen. Summer Adventure (Ett
sommaradventyr, 1965), starring Margit Carlqvist, was directed by Hakan
Ersgard and written by Ov Tjernberg.
The Vine Bridge (Lianbron), starring Harriet Andersson and Mai Zetterling, was directed in 1965 by Sven Nykvist. Zetterling would be paired with cameraman Rune Erikson for her second film as a director, Night Games (Nattleck, 1966).
The Ballroom (Festivitessalongen) was produced by Sandrew Film in 1965 and was directed by Stig Ossian Ericson, who appears in the film with Swedish actress Lena Granhagen, Georg Rydeberg and Gosta Ekman. Vilgot Sjoman was at Sandrew Film and Theater during 1965 and filmed Syskonbadd 1782 (My Sister, My Love, 1966) with cameraman Lasse Bjorne. The film stars Bibi Andersson, Tini Hedstrom, Berta Hall, Kjers Dellert, Lena Hansson, Mona-Lisa Lundquist and Sonya Hedenbratt. That year Lasse Bjorne was cameraman on the film With Gunilla Monday Evening and Tuesday (Till Sammaas med Gunilla Mandag Kvall och Tisdag), directed by Lars Gorling. Swedish cinematographer Martin Bodin was under the direction of Tage Danielsson that year filming Att angora en brygga, starring Monica Zetterlund, Birgitta Andersson and Katie Rolfson.
It is without hesitation that Rune Walderkranz and Bo Widerberg can ascribed adjacent paragraphs, irregardless of how the men differed. Chronologically Walderkranz began the first film school in Sweden after having produced two films by the director Ingmar Bergman and continued through untill the work of Mai Zetterling. At a studio founded by Anders Walderkranz was chief of production, supervising a miminimum of 67 films of which he scripted eight. He was also notable for his work Swedish Filmography, "a monumental film history in three volumes" (Astrid Soderberg Widding), it acknowledging him as "one of the most important first generation historians" (again, Astrid Soderberg Widding), to which there is added an unpublished licentiate thesis on Swedish Cinema 1896-1906.
Bo Widerberg, author of the novel Autumn Term and the collected short
stories Kissing, had directed his first film, The Pram (Barnvagnen) with Inger Taube
in 1963, it being the first film in which Lena Brundin was to appear. Vilgot Sjoman wrote about the director's having been a critic of Swedish Film, "The impulses from Bo Widerberg are the most vital that have struck swedish films since Bergman...To leap into such a complicated medium as film without knowing the first thing about it- and then to conquer it, bit by bit, while i went to school and studied with Bergman! Those who go through colledge are usually envious of self-taught men." Widerberg, who had broken ground in film criticism and film theory with his essay Vision in Swedish Films (Vision in the Swedish Cinema/Visionen i Svensk Film), has been quoted as having written, "What Bergman exports abroad consists of mystic light and undisguised exotiscm, not suggestions for alternative modes of action or moral possibilities."
His
assistant, Roy Andersson would direct A Love
Story (En Karlekshistoria) in 1970. During May of 2003,
Andersson appeared at the Saga Theatre, Stockholm to introduce one of his
films. Visiting
One's Son (Besoka sin son, 1967) and To Fetch A Bicycle
(Att hamta en cykel, 1968) were shown at the Rotterdam International
Film Festival.
Inger Taube also starred in Bo Widerberg's film Karlek 65, which was
the first film in which Eva-Britt Strandberg had appeared. Love 65 was photographed by cinematographer Jan Lindeström. That year Agneta
Ekmanner, who appears in Widerberg's Love 65 as well, was seen too in
her first film, Hej, directed by Jonas Cornell. Sjoman writes,"Just what method did Widerberg use when he made Love 65? I still don't know....In that respect "improvisation" was superior to a script-he proved that time and again." Widerberg ub 1966 directed Mona Malm and Catharina Edfeldt in the film Hello Roland (Thirty times your Money/Heja Roland).
Not only did Jan Troell in 1962 co-direct and photograph the the film A Boy with His Kite (Pojeken och draken), starring Bodil Mathiasson and Ulla Greta Starck, with Bo Widerberg, who wrote its manuscript, but Troell directed, wrote and photographed several other short television films, including Summertrain (Sommartag, 1961), New Years Eve in Skane (Nyar i Skane), The Ship (Baten), The Old Mill (De gamla kvarnen, 1964), again starring Bodil Mathiasson, and Spring in the Pastures of Dalby (Var i Dalby hage).
In the film Elvira Madigan, Bo Widerberg's more obtrusive camerawork is
during the opening sequence, the two lovers in a meadow, his camera quickly
zooming in to them after cutting from shots of a little girl with a flower. He
only briefly keeps Pia Dagermark in over the shoulder before cutting to
another angle of her; she is often kept in close up, his using shot legnth to
return to her close up. Although the sequence is intercut with shots of the
soldier's regiment, for the most part the two lovers are kept on the screen
together in brief shots from varying camera positions. Again, in an interior
that is their bedroom, her closeups are fairly brief, the camera panning
during a shot during which there is a cut that is nearly imperceptible. His
zooming into close shot is also quick. The actress later in a profile close
shot, Widerberg pans out of frame and then quickly cuts back to the previous
shot of her; on thier bed together, she is again in close shot, her left
shoulder bare while being filmed by the camera. Later in close shot, he pans
down to show that she is knitting and when she is finally looking into the
camera during a recital, he cuts back and forth between her close up and other
shots of the room. Panning out of frame from one character and into frame to
show the other, Widerberg quickly articulates the space between characters, or
between them and what they are looking at, almost swishing, his then
continuing to use brief shots from different positions. Pia Dagermark recieved
the award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, 1967. Nina Widerberg
also appears in the film. The film was produced by AB Europa Film.
The director Ake
Falk filmed Swedish Wedding
Night (Brollopsbevsvar) in 1964 and in 1966 filmed The
Princess (Princessan), based on a novel by Gunnar Mattsson,
starring Grynet Molvig and Monica Nielsen. The film was photographed by Mac
Ahlberg. In 1968, Falk directed Vindingvals with Diana Kjaer.The film is
based on the novel by Arthur Lundkvist and photographed by Mac Ahlberg. In
1959 the director Olle Hellblom had brought Christina Schollin to the screen
in Blackjakets (Raggare). Hans Abramson directed actress Christina Schollin with Harriet Andersson in
Ormen-Berattelsen om Irene (1966), photographed by Mac Ahlberg for Minervafilm. Torgny Anderberg in directed her in the film Tofflan
(1967). Torgny Anderberg in 1968 directed Anita Bjök in the film Comedy in Hagerskog
(Komedi i Hagerskog). Based on a novel by Arthur Lunkvist, the film
stars Ulf Brunnberg and Monica Nordqvist. Marianne Nilsson and Yvonne Norrman both starred in their first film in 1966, Den odesdigra klocken, as did Carina Malmqvist, daughter of the director Bertil Malmqvist.
1966 also brought Christer Banck to the screen in the title role of Peter Kyllberg's film Jag. Also in the film are Tove Waltenburg, Agneta Anjou-Scram and Magaretha Bergström. The screenplay to the film was written by its director.
As a precursor to the fast moving rise of sexual-relationship/sexploitation on screen, erotic literature in 1965 and 1966 brought the publication of novels like Forvildad Ungdom by Leif Lindgren, Atra i Mote by Sten Jonson and Syndagogan by Alban Osterlund. Twilight Woman around the World, written by Leighton Hasselrot, had been published two years earlier in 1963 and Termac, if seemingly only to add titles to its catolog or not, reprinted the volume Mitt liv lust, written earlier in the century, bu Frank Harris.
In his book I Was
Curious, diary of the making of a film, (Jag Var Nyfiken), Vilgot Sjoman
offers daily entries during the shooting of a film that he hoped would ' draw
on the actors' own lives and ways of life for material.' The girl in the film,
portrayed by Lena Nyman, is 'curious, lively, cute, with an extraordinary
appetite for reality. She wants to know everything.' Sjoman begins the diary
with an account of a discussion he had had with Swedish film director Keene
Fant, two scripts he had been writing, The Hotel Room and The Art of
Breaking it Up and a script written by Kristina Hassrlgren that he had
hoped to film, Bessie, and then continues to a dinner conversation with
Ingmar Bergman ,during 1966,where the two had discussed Sjoman's wanting to film with Lena Nyman. Bergman reminded Sjoman of his despair before his having filmed Persona. Sjoman wrote in his diary that he was also interested in bringing actress Maria Emmanuelsson-Scherer to the film, "She did a very fine screentest for The Dress." While considering, he thought highly of a screentest from actress Gunilla Ohlsson for her being cast instead the same character. Yngve Gamlin had originally loaned Sjoman the use of a summercottage on which to shoot location scenes with Gudron Brost, to which Brost had consented. During filming,Sjoman was privaleged to Lena Nyman's diary, where she begins to illustrate the character she was about to create in the first scene of the film, which the reader is immediately reminded of from her description. About the film, author Tytti Soila notes, 'Most of its content was improvised and put together with the help of those who participated in the film,' her calling it a 'metafilm where the different planes of reality flow in and out of each other.' Before filming, Kristen Berg is added as scriptgirl and Lena's diary includes the entry, "Vilgot wants us all to make suggestions. vilgot wants me to write down and send him all sorts of episodes of things that have happenned to me. Everything I've already told him and anything more I can find in my diaries." There is a patch of grass in Djurgarden that hopefully still belongs to the director Vilgot Sjoman and scriptgirl Kerstin Berg. He writes in his diary about having dinner with her, "Train as a scriptgirl? She'd make a good one. I'm suren of that." and adds, "She is twenty-three and goes to drama school (Royal Dramatic Theater). I am forty and direct films-in such a situation there's enough latent explosive material as it is." When Kerstin decided she wanted to be a scriptgirl, Sjoman visited Janne Halldoff and asked if she could become an unpaid assistant on his film Life is Just Great (Livet ar stenkul, 1967)
I Am Curious Blue begins with there being actresesses interviewed by a film director, and then cuts to a group of women filmed in alternate close ups during a discussion on sex. There is a shot of two women in near profile in closeshot, one in the foreground of the shot, the other also in profile behind her within the same frame. Sjoman zooms on one of the women during a group shot of the women together. Intercut are scenes of him in a theater watching the rushes with Lena Nyman, who is then seen with him behind the camera. She begins being filmed in Stockholm's Tidninggen, near the water, wearing a tight skirt in profile, it almost being a mini-skirt. As to foreshadow, Sjoman, who often appears on the screen as an actor playing the director of the film, says, 'A love scene without consequences would be pointless.' The film almost cuts too quickly to a scene where Nyman is seen in bed with her lover before their both orgasming and quietly on a pillow in the darkened room with him in a post coital moment. The two wait to get dressed during their conversation, their being nude together as they talk possibly seeming prolonged compared to the legnth of the previous scene where they were in bed. The next scene begins with exterior shots of her kept in an introspective voice-over narrative, the scene itself being filmed mostly in a church and during a discussion on marriage, particularly in the churches of Sweden. It may seem as though the character is encountering what she sees as complacency within a culture then aspiring toward being moderately liberal, and yet this itself is for character interest, almost to where the actress in the film is kept too far from her sexual fantasies during the story line, and kept from disclosing them in as much as the plotline keeps it to the periphery. The story line is often kept minimal during the film, as though condensed as it follows Lena throughout its locations and yet the nudity is not entirely placed as being gratuituous be the film's being cenetered around her. Later, Lena Nyman is filmed at a lake in a nude swimming scene, her getting out of the water in full shot, in profile, the camera stationary as she moves in front of it. The camera is again stationary as she sits indian style by the waters edge. The scenes by the water are almost seperate from the scenes where she is making a film with Sjostrom. She is then filmed at what seems to be near dusk, watching two women making love, which ends abruptly as Lena leaves.
During the revising of this webpage, the lovely, erotic fleshy sexually experienced Lena Nyman, passed away on February 4,2011. Hakan Bergstrom had directed Lena Nyman in her first film, Fargligt
lofte (1955), that year her also appearring in the film Luffaren och
Rasmus. Ms. Nyman appeared in the film Skenbart (2003), directed by
Peter Dalle and starring Gosta Ekman, Anna Bjork and Kristina Tornquist, its
screenplay having had been being penned by Lars Noren. She has also recently
filmed under the direction of Colin Nutley. The films
of Vilot Sjoman were screened of at the Festival du Cinema Nordique during the
second week in March, 2004.
Having directed Gia Petre The Doll (Vaxdockan) with Per
Oscarsson in 1962, Arne Mattsson also that
year directed Eva Dahlbeck, Christina Schollin and Sigge Furst in Ticket to Paradise (Biljet till paradiset) and Anita Bjork and Lena Granhagen in
Lady in White (Vita frun) . In 1963 he directed The Yellow
Car (Den Gula bilen), starring Barbro Kollberg and Ulla
Stromstedt and Yes He Has Been With Me (Det ar hos mig han har varit). Actress Elsa Prawitz wrote three screenplays that were filmed in Sweden, all directed by Arne Mattsson, this the first, scripted under the name Pia Elitz based on a novel by Eva Seeberg. Produced by Nordisk Tonefilm, it is a film in which Eva Sjostrom, Lena Nyman and Britt Ekland appear on the screen, as do Elsa Prawitz, Inga Landre, Britta Petterson and Viveka Linder. Prawitz also wrote the screenplay to Mattsson's 1967 film Den Onda cirkeln. Swedish Film director Arne Mattsson followed in 1964 with Blue Boys. Arne Mattsson his then
directing Morianera (I the Body, 1965), a film which starred Eva
Dahlbeck and Elsa Prawitz. Gunnell Lindblom was in front of the camera for two films directed by Mattsson ,A Woman of Darkness (Yngsjomordet,
1966) and Den Onda Cirkeln (1967). The latter also stars Gio Petre, Marie-Louise Hakansson and Eva Larsson. Also that year Mattsson directedMordaren-en helt vanlig person (1967) with Allan Edwall.
Before Hon Dansade en Sommar had been adapted to the screen by the
director Arne Mattsson, the Swedish author of erotic literature, Per Olof Ekstrom had published
his first novel, En Ensamme, in 1947. Mattsson was later to pair the
actor and actress of the film together for a second film.
Ulla
Jacobsson and Folke Sundquist, along with Gio Petre, starred together in The Teddy
Bear(Bamse, 1968). Bergman has said, possibly only softly, 'Take a
look at any of Arne Mattsson's films and you'll see how camera movmement
replaces everything. What I call technique is knowing how to affect the
viewer. And that's why its a wrong use of words to say that Arne Mattsson and
Torbjorn Axelman are clever technicians.' And yet it is particularly this that
in the art film can be combined with narrative; especially beautiful is the
scene where harpsicord is being played in Ann and Eve (Ann och
Eve, 1971); especially beautiful is Marie Liljedhal,
varying camera positions keeping her on the screen. One of the opening scenes
to the film is an interior dialouge scene where she says, 'All I know is that
I love him and that's enough for me.' and 'I'm sure marriage isn't easy.'. In
the scene there is almost a dramatic use of space that carries their
conversation and lends added significance to each line as it is delivered. To
conclude the scene, Mattsson tightly films her in medium close shot from a low
angle, her then pivoting during the shot to walk away from the camera in over
the shoulder shot, it then cutting abruptly, almost before she is in medium
shot. Marie Liljedahl has not yet been seen nude or semi-nude in the film. While in the
opening scene the camera zooms into close shot on each character as they are
looking at each other in two adjacents shots, one instance of an approximation
of the feminine gaze later in the film is where both female characters in the
scene are looking off camera toward anothe