The romantic idea of the artist and the silence of God - in Autumn Sonata

Adding a note to previous post on Bergman's 1978 film, one of his last, Autumn Sonata: Watched the Criterion "commentary" version and made several observations. First, after the long night of drinking and confession and gut-spilling, culminating in Eva (Ullmann)'s charge that her mother, Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) caused the illness of her daughter Lena through her abandonment and neglect, yes, we see Charolotte as a narcissist and a monster - she's so cold to Eva and indifferent to Lena, so wrapped up in her own world - as noted in the haunting he final scenes with her riding off on a train with her English manager, she'd much rather be there, talking business, than with her daughters - but there's a sense in which Bergman (Ingmar) is actually on her side: Yes she's a horrible parent and an unfaithful spouse (like the two Bergmans?) but she gives all for her art. The scene in which she plays the Chopin prelude, showing Eva how it's done and totally showing her up, says it all: the art is brilliant, and the artist steps over everyone, even (especially?) her daughter to get there. Eva is the more sympathetic character by far - and Bergman emphasizes the sympathy for her - just as Ingrid B is playing part of her life in this role, so is L Ullmann, w/ her then preteen daughter silently portraying the young Eva in a # of flashbacks, emphasizing on the literal level the bond she - unlike Ingrid B - feels w/ her daughter) - but Eva is also rather dull and bland, only opening up after a night of drinking, and then closing everything down again with a cringing letter of apology to her mothers. It's as if Bergman is saying: that's the wrong path, the wrong decision, at least if you have talent and genius. It's the romantic idea of the artist for sure, but it's an idea he lived: suffer, and give up everything else, for your art. On re-viewing the film, other haunting moments emerge, esp Lena's calling out for her mother at the end: Mama, come!, bleating it, while lying on the floor at the head of the stairs. And the silence and absence of Eva's minister husband - completely uninvolved in, even unaware of, the drama and struggle going on all around him - like God.

A late chamber film from Bergman still worth watching: Autumn Sonata

Ingmar Bergman's 1978 film, Autumn Sonata, is another one of his "chamber" films, involving only 4 actors (save for a near-silent role toward the end), and w/ almost all of airspace taken up to 2 of the greats, Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann as mother daughter in a life-long love-hate struggle: Ullmann is married to a minister, quite a bit older than she, living a quiet and contemplative life in rural southern Sweden (or Norway?), Ullmann psychologically very frial, a hint that she'd suffered some kind of breakdown, that she married to get away from a difficult relationship. Mother Ingrid comes to visit - they had not seen each other for 7 years, mothers is a famous and completely self-absorbed concert pianist. At first mother and daughter embrace in happiness, but in moments they're picking apart their relationship the damage the mother has inflicted over a lifetime: abandoning her husband and, later, her 2 daughters (one of whom is near death from what seems to be MS, now living w/ Liv U., to the mother's chagrin), humiliating her daughter (a terrific scene in which the mother puts a knife in the wound, showing the timid and solicitous Ullmann all that's wrong with her piano playing), and on it goes. Ullmann's character builds in strength as toward the end she really lets rip and tells her mother all that she'd done wrong - but of course this changes nothing, and the disengaged, feckless husband watches from afar - like a distant and silent god? This film isn't as well known as Bergman's great b/w chamber films from the 60s - his reputation was beginning to ebb at this time, when he seemed so removed from the political and social uprisings that were shaking the world in the late 70s, but it's still powerful and beautifully filmed by the great Sven Nyquist.