The Fenland Gent

Tonight Film 4 is screening Ingmar Bergman’s “The Silence’” (14/7/10)

I like Bergman. He brings out the moody adolescent in me but there is way more to Bergman than merely the stuff that feeds the imagination of dull witted goth type youths. What I really like about his films is that he never really compromised, there is very little sentiment and very little that offers redemption.

It can make for pretty harrowing viewing.

But I’m not sure The Silence is the bleakest film ever made. I reckon it to be the second bleakest.

This film was the third in what is sometimes called Bergman’s “Faith Trilogy” and all 3 films are real contenders for the “Most Miserable Film Ever Made Gold Cup”.

The first of the trilogy was “Through A Glass Darkly” where a young schizophrenic after having sex with her brother (probably), has the stark realisation that God does not give a toss about us. She also thinks God is a spider. She then thinks that the spider god violates her.
All pretty bleak stuff – but the brother has a bonding moment with his dad at the end – and this late burst of redemption means that it can only get bronze in the search for the bleakest film ever.

The second of the Trilogy is “Winter Light” where a Priest in a remote Swedish village realises, a bit like the schizophrenic girl, that if there is a God then he is indifferent to our problems. One of his parishioners sees things the same way and as such he takes himself of to the woods and shoots himself. The Priest’s reaction to his parishioner’s death is to tell his (the Priest’s) fiance how much he hates her, really hates her, how he has seen her in her most intimate moments and how he hated what he saw. What follows is footage of a lonely hate filled priest carrying out a religious ritual he sees no point in.

For me – “Winter Light” is the bleakest film ever made. It’s where Bergman fumbles about in human intimacy and ends up finding existential angst. It’s because of this, and because it’s done subtly and because “The Silence” does tack on an ending which hints at a bit of “there’s always the children” type redemption that I would say “Winter Light” gets the “Most Miserable Film Ever Made Gold Cup”.

I like Bergman’s films but I do think that if you think about this stuff too much it could drive you potty. It’s probably because they do make for difficult viewing that this quite lurid trailer (with it’s talk of lesbianism and incest and “the flesh”) was produced to try to flog “The Silence” to American audiences.

Film 4 is showing Ingmar Bergman’s “Through A Glass Darkly” tonight.

“Through A Glass Darkly” is the first of what are sometimes called the Faith Trilogy , the three films Bergman made in the early 60s with the other two being “Winter Light” and “The Silence”. 

Bergman was never really compromised as a director and screen writer and throughout his career he made pretty much the films he wanted  even if did mean that his films can be troubling, bleak and difficult to watch. And amongst his oeuvre of bleak and miserable films the films in this trilogy are probably the bleakest.

Here’s a rather pompous trailer for Through A Glass Darkly:

In the three films that make up the Faith Trilogy Bergman is exploring his own crisis of faith. Interpretations vary but you can argue that in  “Through a Glass Darkly” God’s presence is everywhere but he is oblivious to human suffering, so God becomes “manifest” in a schizophrenic’s vision as a stony faced spider god who is indifferent to providing solace for our troubles. In “Winter Light” God is absent and with no God comes no possibility of solace. (The scene of the Priest, wracked by religious doubt,  performing his religious rituals in an almost empty cold church illuminated by the winter light is, for me, the most important scene in the trilogy). In “The Silence” we see the consequences of this absence of God and solace – there is only suffering where characters lead random, meaningless lives, and who try to fill this emptiness with random, pointless acts of sexual intimacy or, as they die, try to fill the indifferent universe’s void with screams of pain and realisation and horror.

I’m currently reading 2 books about Bergman and both book’s authors keep making the point that whilst this bleak vision is at the heart of Bergman’s work it is the director’s search for redemption in this indifferent universe that marks his genius.

Maybe?

I struggle to see much that is redemptive in the these films. There are the merest hints, a helicopter arrives to take the mentally ill girl away in “Through A Glass Darkly”, the Priest’s ritual provides some sort of solace in “Winter Light” and there is a scene with a dead woman’s child at the end of “The Silence” which may possibly hint at some sort of “children are the future” moment – but if that sounds ridiculous in a Bergman film it’s because it is. It’s certainly not very convincing.

Someone, (I can’t remember who), asked the question on Twitter “If something is truly depressing can it be great art?” It’s a good question when considering the work of Bergman.  I can see that “Winter Light”  is a pitch perfect film and I’d also argue that it is Bergman’s  extraordinary talents as a  filmmaker which made “The Silence” fill me with the same cold terror that I’ve felt on my occasional visits to the crematorium. He is a great craftsman and he can press the right buttons. But does that make his films great art?

I’m not sure, and this may be an old fashioned view of creativity, but I want to believe that for art to be art there has to be something transformative or redemptive or enlightening about it.

This is why I’m reading a few books about Bergman and am re-watching his films. Good for him for documenting with forensic clarity a world of anguish, loneliness, frustration, dysfunction and anger and I don’t have any difficulty in accepting Bergman’s view that the Universe is Godless and therefore possibly pointless*. But I do think I’ve missed something? Is there anything more to the works of Bergman than this resolutely bleak vision? Is it possible to argue that by the very act of making these films Bergman’s own creativity somehow negates the very pointlessness that these films preoccupy themselves with.

Or maybe I should stop worrying about Bergman and just laugh at him.  It’s not hard:

*Obviously this is not true and I have immense difficulty in accepting that we live in a Godless and possibly pointless universe. We do I think but I’m hardly jumping for joy about the fact. It would be idiotic to react otherwise.