TITLE: Some thoughts on Bergman AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 2:58:00 PM ----- BODY:
It's probably not great promotion to tip my hand so early - long before a program actually hits the ether - but, this seems as good a time as any to reflect on Ingmar Bergman. Over the last two months, my wife and I have watched eleven Bergman films in preparation for the next Watching The Directors podcast. Along the way, we were confronted by a surprising barrage of talent, humanism, thought and light. It's not the discovery of anything new - people have know that Bergman's films were significant long before our little podcast attempted to fill 75 minutes of commuter time. But somehow, there's a sense that we stumbled upon a secret.

Perhaps the greatest single-word description of what Bergman offers is "substance." His films, even an eighty minute chamber piece like Winter Light, seem more thoughtful, deliberate, impassioned and honest than most films that need three hours and eighty million dollars. Perhaps Bergman understands something about character and story - that a real story, with a touch of poetic and production embellishment - will stand long after the effects and blitz of the blockbuster.

Now, before this comes off as elitism - some statement that only foreign films are real films, it's probably worth clarifying that Bergman's "real" stories do not require sparse surroundings. The effectiveness of something as grand as The Lord of the Rings wasn't merely spectacle. It worked because it had something that large movies often lose: truth. The characters - hobbits and wizards - were grounded in truth. They existed in a world where integrity had consequences and personality made a difference. They sacrificed for one another and wept at the fear of losing life and friendship. The goal may have been to save the world, but it was a real world with beer and food and families.

Bergman is a naturalist. His characters behave with subtlety and frailty. There's something familiar and positively accurate about them. But still, Bergman isn't above the exaggeration and manipulation essential to great filmmaking. His camera moves are intended to draw us into a feeling of claustrophobia, terror or loneliness. His positioning of actors and objects creates energy and tension. Bergman is a master in the same way Shakespeare was: not that they came up with deeply original stories, but they captured the beauty and horror in common stories and decorated them with genius.

Of course all films can't exist at this level. If every film was Autumn Sonata or The Silence, we would all go mad from the sheer intensity of life. There's room for Michael Bay, Brett Ratner and John Hughes, just as there's room for Grisham and Chrichton. What an artist like Bergman does is remind us of the transcendence of philosophy, religion, love and great music. He captures something rare and fleeting, but important and deeply humanistic.

Labels:

--------