Ingmar Bergman Box Set (MGM)
Picture: Sound: Extras: Film:
Persona B- C+
A
A
Hour of the Wolf B- C+ A B+
Shame B- C+ A A-
The Passion of Anna B C+ A B+
The Serpent’s Egg B C+
A B-
supplement disc B
B- A
B
My introduction to Ingmar
Bergman came just as it did to most when I first saw The Seventh Seal (1957) and it was at that point that I became
aware of how passionate filmmaking could be.
From that moment, I became more aware of this filmmaker and his ability
to make potent, passionate, and personal films unlike any other. Of the greats where does Bergman fall into his
place in cinema? While he may not be at
the top, he certainly occupies a very respectable place among the pantheon of
great directors. He is certainly the
best thing that came out of Sweden and made his mark on the world in the 50’s
and the 60’s with an ability to make quality films at an impressive rate.
Bergman was the type to
use the same crew as much as he could.
Once he found a combination that worked, he liked to stick with it,
which would explain his lifelong collaboration with master cinematographer Sven
Nykvist, who would provide the palette for Bergman to paint his emotions
on. Also a major regular to Bergman’s
films would be actor Max Von Sydow and Actress Liv Ullmann. This box set fully captures the excellent
work that when all the people are at the top of their performance can produce.
The versatility of Bergman
is also impressive as looking through his work you will find material like The Seventh Seal a glorious black and
white film that dealt with symbolism and religion. A man in search of himself towards the end of
his life would be the center behind 1957’s Wild
Strawberries. Then in the early 60’s
he did a trilogy starting with Through a
Glass Darkly, followed by Winter
Light and The Silence, which was
a film that was influential on Stanley Kubrick and more exclusively The Shining (1980). This trilogy would
certainly show his resentment to his upbringing into a Religious family, as his
father was a priest. One can quickly
notice the way that Bergman is searching with this material for answers, but
seldom finds them.
That trilogy was shot in
black & white, but Bergman also worked well in color doing 1972’s Cries and Whispers, which was followed
by his TV mini-series Scenes from a
Marriage. This proved that he would
work in Television as well, and in 16mm at that. Scenes
from a Marriage was originally constructed as a six-part mini-series until
he re-edited it down to a three-hour runtime for American audiences. Criterion has recently released that film as
a 3-Disc set offering both the mini-series version and the theatrical cut.
Taking it one step
further, Bergman would also in 1975 do a live version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which would also be
broadcast for Swedish Television. It
would seem that since the Criterion Collection has been the basic resource for
Bergman fans that the remainder of his catalog would have to await the release
from Criterion, which often time takes the long process of getting the rights
to the material and then doing any necessary restoration in order to bring it
to DVD as best as can be for the time being.
However, MGM has serviced us well with this great new box set that
easily rivals anything that Criterion has done to this point!
First, the MGM set is a
6-disc collection, which puts together the more important films from Bergman
from 1966-1977. This would be a great
place for those less familiar with Bergman to begin as well. With this one is quickly thrown into the
ability of the director to work in different aspect ratios, black & white,
color, shorter films, longer films, and just a general idea of the
capabilities. The easiest way to break
down this box set is to do it one film at a time:
Persona (1966)
83-minutes
This is by far one of Bergman’s
most intimate works, which deals with a woman (Liv Ullmann), who has decided to
stop speaking and has withdrawn from society completely. She then is ordered by doctor’s to be sent to
a remote cottage and assisted by a nurse (Bibi Andersson) in order to bring the
woman back into reality. What
particularly drew me into this film is the simple fact that Bergman creates
this world that is foreign to us and his cameraman (Nykvist) uses a technique
that makes the viewer become disconnected from the material until a crucial
point in the film. The film progresses
and the two women almost become one personality in their stay at the cottage,
we the viewer also feel connected to them.
This of course touches on the idea that if we hang around a person long
enough, how much of them wears off on us, or do we rub off on them?
Hour of the Wolf (1968) 87-minutes
In this film, we finally
see Bergman expressing himself through intense psychological means, in that
this film invokes a haunting presence as our main characters are forced to
choose between the love they for one another, or their own sanity. Johan Borg (Sydow) and his wife Alma
(Ullmann) play a typical couple, but problems arise when Johan is struggling
with his artistic visions, which end up leading to near hallucinogenic
proportions. Being a devoted wife, Alma attempts to keep his mind clear and bring him back
to reality, but she ends up falling into the same world as he pulls her in, she
must decide whether her love or her life is more important. This is certainly one of the most interesting
films to ever play with the idea of sanity without taking place in a mental
institution. Not only that, but it asks
us the question whether sanity is just another form of madness altogether.
Shame (1968)
103-minutes
There are many faces of
war, but few films are able to capture a few faces and project the idea of a
worldly viewpoint on war in general. In
other words, how many films are able to deal with war without dealing with it
on a huge scale? Films like Stanley
Kubrick’s Path’s of Glory (1959)
come to mind as do The Cranes are Flying
(1957), and Ballad of a Soldier
(1959) both Russian. Shame also captures the atrocities of
war through the couple Jan and Eva played by Sydow and Ullmann. They retreat to their vegetable farm in hopes
of isolating themselves from the civil war that rages on, located on a remote
island, but soon soldiers invade their makeshift paradise and their lives are
turned upside down. Now they must
survive even amidst the struggles of war.
The suffering of man is eased with the companionship of another, but is
the couples love for one another enough to endure?
The Passion of Anna (1969) 101-minutes
Bergman once again tackles
the psychological world of four people isolated on an island. Andreas (Sydow) and a widow Anna (Ullmann)
and their neighboring couple (Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson) are
entangled into a web of deceit as secrets emerge from both Andreas and Anna’s
past. Their future is now determined by
how they handle their attempt to love one another despite the
circumstances. With the island being
their isolation point, Bergman is able to capitalize once again by focusing
just on these people put into this world he has created. People do crazy things when they are in
isolation from the world around them, or even the world they have created
within themselves.
The Serpent’s Egg (1977) 119-minutes
Probably the weakest film
within this set is The Serpent’s Egg,
which takes place in Germany circa 1920.
Instead of using his usual cast (minus Ullmann), Bergman uses David
Carradine in an unusual portrayal of a trapeze artist named Abel, who is
currently out of work. He retreats to a
world of drunkenness, but even in his lowest moments he manages to stumble
across a bizarre set of events as those around him start to die and even more
bizarre, they are dying in violent ways.
Can he keep his life straight and handle being sober in order to control
his life, or will he use it as a means of escape in order to forget the events
surrounding him?
Rather than cover the
technical aspects of each film individually I am going to cover them within
this section and deal with each, as I feel appropriate. Persona,
Shame, and Hour of the Wolf are all full-frame (1.33 X 1) transfers in
accordance to their original aspect ratios*.
The Passion of Anna and The Serpent’s Egg are presented in their
European 1.66 X 1 aspect ratio in accordance to their original aspect ratio,
and are also the only color films in the set.
It is quite fair to say that these films certainly exceeded my
expectations for their image quality.
While the quality does progress from the older to the newer films, the
overall quality is quite good and grain is kept to a minimum with detail
looking very good. Sharpness is pretty
decent overall with only some softness occurring throughout. The differences in quality do not range that
dramatically from each title, so there is a consistency throughout.
*Early copies of the
Bergman Box set were sent out in February 2003 with Shame and Hour of the Wolf
cropped at 1.66 X 1 instead of their 1.33 X 1 full frame aspect ratios, but
this problem has been fixed with all new boxes.
All of the films are from
brand new digital transfers, and demonstrates that these films have been
preserved quite well over the years, which was not the case with The Seventh Seal and a large amount of
that film has not survived so well over the years. It is a blessing to see that these films have
been handled better. These transfers are
also on par with some of the royal treatment that The Criterion Collection has
been doing all along, so it is great to see another company stepping up the
test of being able to do excellent restoration work on important titles. The two color films look slightly better than
the black & white films, but they are also the most recent.
All of the films are
presented in Dolby Digital with their original 2.0 mono soundtracks, which are
also nearly identical in terms of overall presentation. Most of Bergman’s pictures are subtle and
quiet with the exception of dialogue, which for those reading subtitles will
hardly be a factor. The compression is
held to a minimum even if they are mono tracks, which is a good sign. Sometimes in order to minimize distortion or
poor higher range noise companies will compress the sound to subdue the
problems, but this does not seem to be the case here. There is some minor hiss presented
throughout, but trying to get rid of this may have been more detrimental than
it would have been worth.
Each title also comes with
its fair share of supplements as well, but most of them are nearly the same, so
they shall be discussed here as well.
Each film has a commentary track provided by Marc Gervais (Bergman Biographer)
with the exception of The Serpent’s Egg,
which has a commentary track with David Carradine. Since Gervais is a biographer he essential
talks about how each film had a certain placement within Bergman’s life and how
it affected him and how those involved were affected as well. He puts the films into an overall context and
discusses certain traits that each have in common as well as differences. Even more important he also discusses certain
common characteristics and themes that Bergman used regularly. Carradine was a nice choice for the
commentary on the film he starred in and gives much praise to working on that
film and seems to remember it quite well.
Each film also contains a
small featurette, which is designed exclusively for that title alone, while
each disc also contains on-camera new interviews with members of the cast such
as Ullmann or Andersson. The following
is a list of the titles for the featurettes:
A Poem in Images from Persona
The Search for Humanity from Shame
Disintegration of Passion from The
Passion of Anna
Away From Home from The Serpent’s Egg
The Search for Sanity from Hour of
the Wolf
Now as if having each of
these films presented with their original specs and a handful of extras for
each one, including commentary, plus being restored, MGM has gone the extra few
miles by throwing in a sixth disc, which is purely supplements!
The bonus disc contains
the lengthy goodies that could not be put onto the actual discs for each
film. Starting with Intermezzo (2002), which
is a conversation with Ingmar Bergman and is entirely in Swedish, which is odd
because the 1970 interview on this disc Bergman speaks very fluently in
English. Both this newer conversation
and the 1970 version are quite rare and its unusual to hear Bergman comment on
his films, since he rarely likes to discuss them. He is a film believer that the films should
speak for themselves. Just having these
two segments is worth having this box set!
In conjunction with the
amazing documentary Light Keeps Me
Company, which I reviewed on this site, MGM has put together Sven Nykvist: With One Eye He Cries,
which celebrates the long relationship between Bergman and his
cinematographer. I highly recommend Light Keeps Me Company, but this
segment also pulls together some material that the documentary did not touch on
or goes beyond some of that as well.
Faro Island Mystique is a new featurette,
which explores the primary locale that Bergman was fascinated with using and
appears in a majority of his work, especially here in this set. This is all done through photographs and
interviews, which compliment the interviews presented on the films themselves,
but deal exclusively with the use of the Island as a location that Bergman used
to isolate his ideas and themes of his films.
Articles from American Cinematographer from April 1972, which centered on Filmmaking in Sweden are collected and presented here including: Film-Making
in Sweden, Film
and Creativity, A Passion for Light, Making Feature Films in Sweden,
Film House, and An Interview with Ingmar Bergman. Each of these show just how astute the
magazine was even back then and continues to find fresh and interesting ways to
cover important films and filmmaking in general.
Finally, there is a large photo gallery,
which highlights the career of Bergman and his entire life’s work, including
very intensely the films within this set.
It is amazing that all this material could be compiled for a release of
this caliber. There is no denying that
MGM wanted to bring these films to the DVD surface with all the power that they
could and knowing that this is one of their best back catalog sets that they
could issue, they spent the time wisely!
Ingmar Bergman may not be one of the most
technical of all filmmakers, but his love of cinema surpasses so many that it
would be nearly impossible not to notice his love within each frame of every
film. As human beings watching each
other and ourselves fascinates us.
Filmmaking is further proof that we enjoy watching people and life
before our eyes. We like to be taken to
worlds that don’t exist, to experience problems that wouldn’t happen, and to be
intertwined with characters that fascinate us.
Bergman understood the connection between people and film, which was
reflective in his work as each frame was filled with our yearning to understand
the characters. Our interaction with
these films is just as vital as the interactions they share with one
another. To walk away from a Bergman
picture without feeling change is to be a character within that film and never
desire to change.
- Nate Goss
