Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art 9781501744174

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Artist's Masks
2 The Magic Lantern
3 The Comic Device
4 The Ritual
5 The Masks Of Violence
Conclusion
Notes
Filmography
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art

Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art PAISLEY LIVINGSTON

Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright

©

1982 by Cornell University Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof,

must not be reproduced

writing from the publisher.

Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca,

First

in

any form without permission

in

For information address Cornell University

New

York

14850.

published 1982 by Cornell University Press

Published in the United

Ely House, 37 Dover

International Standard

Kingdom by

Street,

London

Cornell University Press Ltd.,

W1X

4HQ.

Book Number 0-8014-1452-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number

81-17440

Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information

appears on the

The paper

in

last

this

durability of the

page of the book. book

is

acid-free,

and meets the guidelines for permanence and

Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of

Council on Library Resources.

the

To Cheri

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/ingmarbergmanriOOIivi

Contents

Acknowledgments

11

Introduction

15

1

The

Masks

22

2

The Magic Lantern

66

3

The Comic Device

110

4

The Ritual

143

5

The Masks of

Artist's

Violence

180

Conclusion

232

Note*

255

Filmography

271

Bibliography

276

Jrwfe*

289

Illustrations

1.

The Seventh

Seal: Primitive theatrics.

A

2.

Through

3.

Monika: Harriet Andersson in the

4.

Illicit

a Glass Darkly:

Interlude:

Images

play

24

staged.

26

title role.

28

is

in a mirror.

51

Humiliation of Anne.

54

Bergman

58

5.

Sawdust and

6.

Secrets

7.

The Seventh

8.

The Magician: Vogler's troupe of traveling

9.

The Magician:

10.

The Magician:

11.

Cries and Whispers:

12.

The Magician: Vogler and

Tinsel:

of Women: Another

Seal: Preparation for

use of mirrors.

witch burning.

performers.

61

71

A

violent confrontation

between 76

Vergerus and Vogler.

79

Sara.

A

magic lantern show. Ottilia Egerman.

13.

The Magician: Vergerus assaulted

14.

Illicit

Interlude: Ballerina

and

in the attic.

ballet master.

of Women: Fredrik and Karin Lobelius.

82 102 105

113 127

15.

Secrets

16.

From

17.

The

Ritual:

18.

The

Ritual: Interrogation

19.

The

Ritual:

Attack on Thea.

20.

The

Ritual:

Thea menaces the judge.

156

21.

The

Ritual:

The judge begs

158

the Life

of the Marionettes: Peter

and

Katarina Egerman.

131

The Performers.

147

of Hans.

151

154

Sebastian for mercy.

Illustrations

Thea in clown garb. Hans with circus poster. Thea miming.

22.

The

Ritual:

23.

The

Ritual:

24.

The

Ritual:

25.

Persona: Elizabet

her

27.

The Magic

10

164

182

The

Persona:

162

Vogler questions the value of

art.

26.

160

and the nurse.

205

Tamino and Pamina.

238

actress

Flute:

Acknowledgments

I

express

whose me.

I

my

extreme gratitude,

first

of

all,

to

Rene Girard,

writings and teachings have been of boundless value to

am

also greatly indebted to

Tobin

Siebers for his friend-

and constant intellectual stimulation; his many incisive comments have greatly improved this book. I thank Richard Macksey and the Humanities Center of the Johns Hopkins University for granting me much assistance and the freedom to develop as a teacher and scholar. I am grateful as well to Josue Harari, George Wilson, and Jean-Pierre Dupuy. I also thank the staffs of the British Film Institute Library and Swedish Filmhuset Library for facilitating my research. The Bibliotheque de l'lnstitut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques deserves mention as well, if only for the appropriateness of its location situated obliquely between an abandoned slaughterhouse and a circus, this archaic institution offers the perfect place for reflecting on Ingmar Bergman's films. I am grateful to Svensk Filmindustrie for permission to include the photographs and to the Museum of Modern Art Film/ Stills Archive and Janus Films, Inc., for supplying the prints. Finally, I acknowledge my gratitude to my wife, Cheri, whose warmth and support made this work possible, and to ship,

advice,

—

whom

it is

dedicated.

Paisley Livingston Montreal, Quebec

11

Ingmar Bergman and the Rituals of Art

To

be perfectly honest,

I

regard art (and not only the art of the

cinema) as lacking importance in our time:

power and

possibility to influence the

Literature, painting, music, the cinema,

give birth to themselves.

New

art

no longer has the

development of our

lives.

and the theater beget and

mutations and combinations emerge

and are destroyed; seen from the outside, the movement seems to possess a nervous vitality.

With magnificent

zeal the artists project to

themselves and to an increasingly distracted public pictures of a world that

no longer asks what they think or

artists are

steering.

the

me,

punished, art

On

is

snakeskin

believe.

free,

is

intense, almost feverish;

full

of

ants.

from within, deprived of meddlesome life.

On

a

few preserves

considered dangerous and worth stifling or

the whole, however, art

movement a

is

its

The snake

is

shameless, irresponsible: it

resembles,

it

seems to

long since dead, eaten out

poison, but the skin moves,

—Bergman,

filled

with

"The Snakeskin"

Introduction

The "demonic"

Ingmar Bergman's art is notoa morbid and enigmatic figure driven by a predilection for the dark moments of life. Here is a director who appears to choose his motifs entirely from a catalogue of evils: madness, violence, perversion, mental and The list is long, moral bankruptcy, humiliation, death. but Bergman's forty-year career in the cinema has given him ample time to "revel" in every sort of unpleasantness, in every

rious.

quality of

For many, Bergman

is

.

human least

frailty, in

every

crisis

.

.

capable of disrupting

of frightening the viewer. For

this is often

—or

life

at

taken to be the

"pessimistic" filmmaker's ultimate goal. "Wallowing in sickness," he wants to thrust the audience into the spectacle of his

private anguish,

to

challenge every value and to demolish

every certitude. Thus Bergman becomes a scandalous figure and his works are perceived as a menace as so many sadistic assaults designed to engulf the spectator in the waters of annihilation. Cherishing only doubt and negation, Bergman

—

seems to repeat the dreary conclusion announced by Spegel, the actor, in The Magician: "One walks step by step into the darkness.

Once

The movement

itself is the

the gaze has been fixed

on

only truth."

this

image of Bergman, the

responses to his "modernity" or "nihilism" generally follow with no more subtlety than the reactions in a litmus test. The

demon must

be enthroned or condemned.

Some

praise

for the stringency of his "existential revolt," and others

him

for "spreading sickness."

The

sickness

may

him

blame

be ascribed to

15

Introduction capitalism,

Bergman's childhood,

to

to the

weakness of

his

character, or even to the harsh Swedish climate, but the search

for causes rarely delays the passing of the verdict.

1

Bergman's "pessimism" requires a much more careful conit has generally been given by critics preoc-

sideration than

cupied with the business of praising and blaming. Nonetheless, these violent reactions provide the correct point of departure

of Bergman. The controversy is interesting, much more interesting and pertinent than another sort of response that has become increasingly prevalent. For many, today. Bergman is more irrelevant than demonic. Although his "classics" serve as standard fare in cinema society programs and in courses on film, they receive less and less critical attention. The filmmaker who still best exemplifies to a large part of the public the serious and difficult artist is often ignored by critics whose stated concern is the art of film. To them, Bergman represents only a stage of film history that has been bypassed by the inexorable progress of the avant-garde. As a modernist who is no longer new, Bergman falls prey to the danger identified in one of Oscar Wilde's sayings: "Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow oldfashioned quite suddenly." Fashion would indeed have it that the questions raised by Bergman's works have already been answered or are no longer worth asking. To the avant-garde, a return to Bergman represents a repetitive if not wholly regressive gesture, for his films belong to a "classical" tradition that has now been surpassed. It is the premise of this book, however, that the insights and innovations Bergman offers have never been adequately explored and that his films are far from exhausted. Those who react strongly to the "demonic" and controversial aspects of for our study

the director's

works display more

perspicacity than those

who

mildly praise them as respectable but uninteresting classics and those who ignore them entirely. The "troublesome" quality of

Bergman's works should be taken

seriously, for he truly gives

his spectator reasons to feel unsettled. This statement does

not

imply, however, that the image of the demonic filmmaker is wholly accurate, and by discussing its limitations we can move

16

— Introduction closer to understanding

Bergman's

films.

It

is

true that these

films have an undeniable affinity for violence and disorder.

—

Bergman's early title Crisis is emblematic, for each of his works hinges upon a crisis of some sort. The crises he takes up begin with the problems of adolescence and marriage; as the artist matures, he addresses the problem of faith and the modern doubt concerning aesthetic and ethical values. He examines the contemporary plague of the self that is schizophrenia and advances to consider large-scale social disorders, describing warfare in Shame and the general collapse of Weimar Germany in

The Serpent's Egg. Although Bergman

places a crisis at the center of each of his works, it is not his only goal to frighten the spectators or to "contaminate" them with his sickness, as many critics have claimed. In keeping with these claims, Bergman is often said to have represented himself in Albert Emanuel Vogler, a magician who employs a magic lantern to fascinate and terrify his audience. Yet when asked which of the characters of The Magician he most admires, Bergman responds that it is not the magician, but Vergerus, the scientist. "Why, then, do you make him a fool?" the interviewer pursues. Bergman admits that Vergerus is foolish, but explains his sympathy for the character: "I like his dream of finding out the truth about magic." 2 So frequently taken to be a conjuror whose greatest ambition is to frighten and mystify his audience, Bergman is in fact guided by the goal of understanding. And what he seeks to understand, first of all, is the magic of art, the strange dynamic in which the artist causes violent and ambivalent reactions in the audience the very reactions of fear and reverence that have characterized the general response to Bergman's own works. Although the filmmaker's role has something to

—

do with conjuring, we must not conclude too hastily that Bergman finds his ideal in Vogler, for The Magician is a lucid commentary on the conjuror's craft and on the reactions of his audience. Bringing the magician into contact with the townspeople, Bergman sets in motion the ritual of their interaction not in an effort to mystify his own viewers in the manner of Vogler, but in an attempt to "find out the truth." Thus the

—

17

Introduction characters of The Magician represent different

ing to the magic of film: Ottilia

Egerman

is

ways of respondthe believer

who

and dreams onto the performer whom projects her she adulates; Starbeck, the chief of police, is a censor who fears that the artist is a threat to the public order; Tubal is a producer who sees in the magic only a source of profit, and so on. Observing that the magician's arrival brings a crisis to the household, Bergman studies its nature and social basis, offering us not another of the commercial cinema's conjuring shows, but a profound reflection on this sort of spectacle. Bergman has been defended by critics who point out that his subjects are not so very different from those taken up in many of our most revered classics. That violent crises also figure at the center of Greek tragedy, for example, suggests that Bergman merely returns to the oldest traditions of dramatic art. In ancient Greece, krisis was fundamental to drama, law, medicine, and religion; similarly, Bergman portrays the crises touching each of these domains in modern culture. It is crucial to note, however, that Bergman's use of crisis diverges from this tradition. The Greek krisis signified, as does the modern word, a violent disorder. But it also designated the resolution of the disturbance, and was thus intimately linked to the notion of order. In the religious language of ancient Greece, krisis meant the interpretation of oracles as well as the act of selecting sacrificial victims whose immola-

own

tion

desires

would bring

a

return to

harmony.

In medicine,

krisis

sudden and decisive change law and drama, krisis was similarly related to the moment of judgment and decision. 3 Such a usage persists as late as the eighteenth century: in Marivaux's theater, for example, "The affair is in its crisis" meant that the resolution of the dramatic conflict was near. Bergman, however, tends not to see crises as necessarily in the patient's condi-

referred to a

tion;

in

linked to the return to order.

Bergman

puts in question,

when

he does not wholly efface, the moment of decision traditionally achieved in the theater. He grants the aesthetic crisis a new significance and perhaps a new role: the fictional disorders set 18

Introduction

motion in his films are critical in that they employ crisis as a means of inquiry and critique. A schematic example of this method is offered by the popular television drama Scenes from a Marriage, a work dissecting a marriage held together by what Ibsen termed the "life-lie." The film begins with the media's customary manner of posing in

questions and then proceeds to the type of query characteristic

of Bergman.

A

magazine reporter interviews a couple about and the responses evoke an image of the ideal relationship, a perfect harmony composed of "security, order, comfort, loyalty, and love." Since the reporter's questions fail to challenge this image, the interview remains superficial. Yet in the ensuing episodes of the film, it is as if Bergman takes up their marriage,

the interviewing himself: the false

marriage undergoes

a

crisis

harmony

and the

tissue

is

disturbed, the

of deceptions

is

unraveled to reveal the tension, insecurity, and disloyalty hid-

den

at

the heart of the couple's relations.

these unpleasant realities public)

is

means

to

to arrive at live

must be faced

The if

film implies that

the couple (and the

some genuine understanding of what

together; furthermore,

no simple solution

it

is

given.

Bergman's career, then, is a sustained interrogation of conflict and crisis, neither a series of frenzied and gratuitous revolts nor an agonized, purely symptomatic chorus of desperate cries. The notorious gloominess of his films is dictated by the real violence and disorder that he perceives in culture and is the consequence of his effort to confront these crises without

having recourse to culture's violent and illusory means of bringing the return to order. The enigmatic and troublesome aspects of Bergman's films become more comprehensible once we attend to his critique of what one character in From the Life of the Marionettes calls the "prescribed patterns" and "dark gov-

Bergman's supposed demonic quality springs from his rejection of blinding conventions that are at once aesthetic and social. Traditionally the artist, charged to imitate crises and their resolution before the eyes of the community, has found a role in this ritual, but this tradition is no erning forces" of

life.

19

Introduction

longer tenable for Bergman,

mode of exchange between

who would

substitute for this

and audience a more difficult and constructive form of communication. He appears to be demonic because he probes the real crises that have disrupted so many aspects of contemporary culture, and because he asks his spectators to follow him in this exploration without offering them the guarantee of a reassuring conclusion. Bergman's guiding value has always been communication with the audience, and the aim of this book is to stimulate and contribute to this ongoing process. Specifically I want to extend and clarify the director's interrogation of conflict in many areas of culture. The social role of the artist and the modern crisis of this role will be a central point of focus. This topic is less a theme than an issue and process at work at every level of Bergman's productions, for the director queries his own role in his statements and essays, in his many fictional depictions of art and artists, and in his development of cinematic form. That Bergman repeatedly examines his own craft should not imply that he is absorbed solely in self-reflection, for his reflections on the interactions of art are part of his general vision of culture as well as a critique of art's position in social life. No attempt will be made here to cover every topic, to detail the long development of the director's career, or to place each of his films within an elaborate "knappologi" Strindberg's term for a pedantic system of labels. Nor will an effort be made to assess the formal merit of each Bergman film or to pursue every literary and philosophical comparison at once. That sort of book already exists. What is lacking in the literature on Bergman is a comprehensive framework capable of bringing forth something of the depth, coherence, and importance of his interrogations. By discussing a few fundamental artist

—

issues at length in relation to selected films,

confront

a

few of the

I

will attempt to

significant questions that

Bergman

has

raised.

Although the American distributors of Bergman's films have taken many unfortunate liberties in translating the titles, I shall adopt most of these incorrect translations to avoid con-

20

Introduction

fusing the reader. Thus, Ansiktet

(literally, "The Face") becomes The Magician, and Sommaren med Monika ("Summer with Monika") is Monika. I shall, however, make two exceptions. Gycklarnas ajton (which I would render as "Evening of the Clowns") will be called Sawdust and Tinsel, the title under which it was distributed in Britain, rather than The Naked Night, which is utterly remote from the original. And I will not refer to En passion as The Passion of Anna, but simply as A Passion. Bergman never ascribes the problem or its resolution to a single individual, and thus the American title betrays the thrust of the entire film. It should be noted that the American and British translators have no monopoly on distortion. The French present Sommaren med Monika as Monica et le desir, and perhaps following similar impulses, offer Eva as Sensualite.

—

—

In

South America, Sommarlek

comes Juventud, Divino ally,

(literally,

"Summer

Play") be-

and Kvinnors v'dntan (litertransformed into Confesion de

Tesoro,

"Women's Waiting")

is

my

filmography for further information condates of Bergman's films, given after the first mention of each title, refer not to the time of production but to the year of initial distribution. Unless otherwise indicated, I cite dialogue not as it appears in the published screenplays, but directly from the films.

pecadores.

See

cerning the

titles.

The

21

1

The

Masks

Artist's

People speak with justice of the "magic of art" and compare artists to

magicians. But the comparison

nificant than

it

perhaps more sig-

is

claims to be. There can be no doubt that art

did not begin as art for

art's sake.

— Freud The

many of Ingmar Bergman's works

central characters in

are artists,

artists

of every

sort:

circus performers,

dancers,

and comic actors, musicians, painters, magicians, and filmmakers. Bergman's artists wear a diversity of masks, and it might seem futile to suppose that these varied figures have anything essential in common. Although critics discussing Bergman's depictions of artists have identified many of the salient features of these characterizations, the unity of the portraits remains to be found. The unity exists, however, and the tragic

contours must be ascribed to the limitaof the observer. These limitations have been accentuated

failure to perceive its

tions

because

Bergman

often directs a harsh light on the actor, a

light that brilliantly illuminates ily

casting

contrasting features,

whose

identity

is

Yet we might Proteus

one

shadows on the other

is

lights each

artist

of his

role,

temporar-

Displaying, as

appears as

a

a result,

protean figure

impossible to grasp. recall

that the

myth

also stipulates that if

held he must speak the truth. As

Bergman high-

of the contradictory aspects of the artist's masks, a is formed. Like the characters' names that

coherent whole

22

the

facet

side.

The

Artist's

Masks

Bergman

repeatedly employs, the different roles of the artist appear and reappear throughout his films, thereby finding a place within a comprehensive scenario. The artist's varied positions are determined by an underlying pattern, and the na-

from the

ture of his status emerges

masks and the

Bergman artist's role

and

rift

between the diverse

face.

some of

most

basic aspects of the

depicts the primitive

drama staged by Jof

sets forth

when he

the

troupe in The Seventh Seal (1957). On one side are the stand forth on their platform to be seen, the differ-

his

who

artists

ence of their actions and strangeness of their masks designed to entertain, amuse, and enthrall. And on the other side, beyond

crowd of curious peasants whose gazes converge on the actors. Thus the performance begins and the display of masks is set in motion. Jof 's play is a show the edge of the stage,

is

the

of cuckoldry and mock dispute (see Plate 1). One actor is the triumphant seducer, the other the husband wearing the horns of humiliation. Between them passes the woman who is made the object of their dispute. After observing this performance for a moment, Bergman turns his camera to the crowd, cutting back and forth between actors and audience, observing the interplay. Part of the audience is greatly amused and enjoys laughing at the foolishness of the performers. Some jeer at the cuckold and others throw fruit at the actors, the play somehow having aroused a sudden animosity. If actors thus serve as objects of ridicule, they may also be quite seductive as well, for the play of cuckoldry becomes quite real when one of them slips offstage to seduce the village blacksmith's wife, who is thrilled by the glamour of his trade. "My wife has always been interested in the tricks of the theater," the

immune

blacksmith

later

complains, yet he himself

to theatrical tricks

and

is

duped by the

is

actor's

hardly

mock

suicide.

The

primitive theater illustrated by

Bergman

is

a lively

and

passionate affair where the illusions created on the stage are

capable of crossing

And stage.

its

boundary

to invade the villagers' lives.

the actors' roles are not limited to the time spent

on

Their imitations pursue them; they are never really

al-

23

Ingmar Bergman and

1.

the Rituals

of Art

Primitive theatrics from The Seventh Seal: Jof (Nils Poppe) plays the at left, Skat (Erik Strandmark) is the seducer, and Mia

cuckolded husband

(Bibi Andersson), the

Art/Film

lowed

Stills

woman who passes between them (Museum of Modern

Archive).

There is something magical about something giving the actors a mysterious power over those who are entranced by the spectacle. The villagers go on identifying the performers as essentially different beto stop being actors.

the roles,

ings, as almost mythical creatures belonging to another plane

of existence. The masks, the artist's tricks, may be illusory, but this does not mean that the consequences for performer and spectator alike are unreal. To announce that the mask is not the face hardly concludes the discussion. The mask holds fast,

successfully representing "something for someone":

24

it

rep-

The something very

resents

whose

real for the

Artist's

members of

belief in the illusion gives rise to ambivalent

Masks the crowd,

and highly

charged reactions.

Bergman

frequently stages a play within a play, or frames a

film or play within a film (see Plate reflexive gestures

meant merely

to

2). These are never selfremind us that the film or

"only an illusion"; the illusion is taken seriously, for it sometimes proves to be the most efficacious reality. Rather, in play

is

manner Bergman is able to illuminate the context of artisperformances by studying the interplay of aesthetic form and social interaction. Thus he devotes his attention not to aesthetic values but to the space where they may appear or fail to appear. This space is like a terrain surrounding the sanctuary of art, a terrain that must be traveled if the location of the sanctuary is to be known. Art finds its role in the turbulent world of the interests, conflicts, and desires that precede and sometimes permeate creative activity. The artist's work may be intended for contemplation, and may at times achieve a certain distance from more immediate and practical pursuits, but this possibility does not imply that aesthetic exthis

tic

—

removed from life or that its values are erected within some pure and autonomous enclosure. The artist's quest for autonomy is indeed addressed in several of Bergperience

is

of Persona (1966) and Shame (1968) can be said at the outset that the supposed autonomy of art is never given as an unquestioned

man's

films,

as analyses

will demonstrate,

ideal in

What maker

but

it

Bergman. is

Bergman's characters holds for the filmBergman, the traditional concepts and even the "modern" category of representation

true for

as well. In discussing

of aesthetics cannot suffice, for the questions that they advance are not as searching as those broached in his works. Here the artist's activity is not the object of some detached or disinterested contemplation, nor is the interest that it evokes a purely cognitive matter or a problem of "interpretation." To begin to analyze the works' beauty or fine formal qualities would at this point be fruitless. Bergman's manner of filming Jof's play suggests that we can understand a work properly only by

25

Ingmar Bergman and

2.

"It's

the Rituals

almost Shakespeare," Martin

within the film Through

a

tells

Glass Darkly.

of Art

the audience before this play

From

turning our attention to those for the artist's identity

is

who

to right: Minus (Max von Sydow).

left

Passgard), Karin (Harriet Andersson), and Martin

join in

its

(Lars

apprehension,

established in his relation with the

onlookers.

The

between actor and audience do not medieval theater of The Seventh Seal. The vitality of the illusion is not so very different when Bergman portrays the reactions of a modern Swedish couple to the commercial cinema, thereby making a statement about his own context. Here too the images of the performer carry the power of seduction, and the glamorous appearances fascinate those volatile relations

arise solely in the

26

The

Artist's

Masks

believing in the reality of the actor's mythical qualities.

Monika see a

(1953),

romance begins

Hollywood

watched the

film together

"first kiss" scene,

In

at

the movies: the adolescents

on

their first date,

they repeat

it

and having

outside the theater.

Bergman films their embrace in the same romantic lighting and with the same poses, thereby capturing the imitative quality of the young couple's behavior. Monika and Harry's illfated flight from society follows the scenario common to the Hollywood productions they have seen together, and their romance fades once the reality of the affair ceases to correspond to the ideal realm of the pictures. Monika proclaims her love by telling Harry that he is like "someone in a film," and when their idyllic island loses its charm, she announces the decline of her affection by complaining that she misses the cinema.

Bergman Girl

titles of MonSong of Love, Lawless Lover, and The so many hackneyed models for the

reveals his irony as he concocts the

ika's favorite "pictures":

Who Was

a

Dream

—

day dreamer's desires. Monika has fashioned herself after the of dreams, and "We've been dreaming" is Harry's lament has finally had enough of such fantasy and its disastrous consequences for their lives. Oddly, critics who would never deign to write about films such as Monika's favorites prove unable to note the essential difference between such works and Bergman's film. The director is said to have identigirl

when he

fied

completely with Monika in her adolescent revolt, her

longing for a more romantic or note the irony, these

critics

"artistic" existence. Failing to

miss Bergman's critique of

a cine-

matic Bovaryism in which they themselves seem to participate.

Monika brazenly

faces the

camera

at

one point

in the

where on those whose dreams she imi-

film, directing her seductive regard out to the audience, it

does not

fail

to take effect

Harriet Andersson is described as a semi-sacred "monster of eroticism," and a still photograph of her, printed and reprinted in film journals, becomes a fetish of a modern cult

tates.

(see Plate 3).

In

1

Monika Bergman

spectator. This critique

critiques a certain type is

of cinema and

developed throughout

his career as

27

Ingmar Bergman and

3.

the Rituals

of Art

Printed and reprinted, the star's image becomes a

Andersson

as

Monika, the

girl

of dreams,

in

modern

fetish.

Harriet

Monika.

he attends to the mythical aspects of the artist's status and social role. In order to demonstrate the pertinence of this critique to the cinema in general, we will examine, like Berg-

man, the

spectator's relation to the images

displays.

28

and masks

that

it

The

Masks

Artist's

Since the inception of the "Seventh Art," the film industry has been haunted

by

public's interest in

its

a

single problem:

products,

how

how

to sustain the

to motivate the viewers'

desire to see the image. If the film spectacle

is

audiences that provide

offer

must

to attract the

something of interest to the public. Sometimes the cinema provides harmless distractions, and at its best, edification or an aesthetic experience, but the interest is not, on the whole, stimulated by such offerings. The appeal of the commercial cinema resides more often in the pleasure of participating in glamorous and captivating fictions. There is something mythical about this appeal, something magical or spell-binding in the image and in its fascination of the spectator. The magic of the image and the spectator's enthrallment can not be dismissed as a marginal aspect of film, for it can be traced from the very origins of the cinema. The Lumiere brothers won fame by displaying shots of banal, everyday reality a train arriving at a station, workers leaving a factory, and so on. Contrary to a long-standing cliche of film theory, this was not the beginning of a realistic or documentary tradi2 tion. Only a minimum of motion differentiated these earliest film spectacles from the familiar representations of still photography, but this motion was nonetheless quite spectacular and exercised an almost magical influence on the first cinema audiences, who were at once terrified and delighted by what they saw. The reaction of these civilized spectators, who ducked in fear before the image of an onrushing train, is precisely the same as the reactions of members of primitive cultures when presented with motion pictures. Edmund Carpenter had the its

livelihood,

it

—

occasion to bring the cinema to remote tribes in

New

Guinea,

and reports that the villagers' response to their first viewing of a motion picture was an immediate and extremely intense terror and fascination. 3 Virginia Woolf, in turn, observed cinema audiences in London, and spoke of "the savages of the twentieth century watching the pictures." 4 fined,

was

similar,

Woolf 's own

reaction, although

for in describing the

more

new medium

re-

she

wrote that in film things acquire qualities lacking in still photography and in real life: "They have become not more beauti-

29

Ingmar Bergman and fill,

in the sense in

call

it

the Rituals

which

(our vocabulary

is

of Art

pictures are beautiful, but shall

miserably insufficient) more

real,

we or

which we perceive in daily life?" Thus, the first film images bestowed a difference on the most indifferent scenes. Here was an invention capable of creating a magical prestige quite automatically, simply by recording and representing images of reality. The magic of the moving image was given the name photogenie by Louis Delluc, who in coining this term responded to the same insufficiency of vocabulary noted by Woolf. 6 For Delluc, photogeny was the "essence" of the cinematic art, the specific quality acquired by things when filmed, the attractive difference between these things as they first appeared and the images of them projected on the screen. Photogeny the genius of cinematography was cinematography itself, its inexplicable charm. Although the word soon lost its charm, film real

with

a different reality

from

that

5

—

—

theorists persist in attempting to define a similar

tautological quality, praising, quite variously, effect, its

ity."

"charge,"

its

its

"magic," and more recently,

and equally "hypnotic" its

"filmic-

7

Film aesthetics begins with a profound admiration for this elusive magic and continuously seeks to grasp it, to refine its efficacity by finding the proper stylistic formula the magic words capable of fully releasing the power of the image. For the magic is not always present. If photogeny is the essence of the cinema, the cinema is not always faithful to itself. Jean Epstein, for example, can find only a few seconds of photogeny in full-length feature films, and condemns various stylis8 tics for betraying the essence of the medium. Thus, although film aesthetics begins with its admiration for the magic, it develops as a sustained effort to save a charm that loses its

—

force.

The

stipulation distinguishing

serious

from the apologies of the commercial cinema

is

film aesthetics that the

magic

formula, once found, should be put in the hands of "authen-

and not be left to the use of the moneylenders, who crowd's fascination only a source of profit. There has ensued, of course, much debate over what constitutes a legitimate use of the medium, which leads us a step closer to tic" artists

see in the

30

The Bergman, who demonstrates

a

Artist's

Masks

deep concern for the ethics of

illusion.

As

the novelty of the invention faded,

it became necessary had begun to lose its power. It was necessary to develop a startling array of tricks and transformations, a task assumed with great ingenuity by Georges Melies, whose fifteen years in his Theatre RobertHoudin had taught him something of illusionism and the various means of enchanting an audience. The film industry continues to grapple with the same problem: how to renew the magic, how to enhance the difference of the image and thus sustain the spectator's fascination. The commercial cinema, progressing through its perpetual crises, responds to this problem in various manners, first of all by having recourse to a purely technical wizardry. Technical innovation, however, is never sufficient. The audience derives a certain pleasure from the wide screen, technicolor, and the sophisticated reproduction of sound, but these refinements of the instruments supporting the illusion do not attract the public to the ticket booth for long. The industry develops a second response, drawing a crowd by tapping increasingly shocking themes: violence, erotanything dificism, disaster, witchcraft, and demonology fering radically from the course of everyday experience, or from the spectacles offered by television, the cinema's rival. The appeal of such themes is significant, but is still not the source of the cinema's most powerful magic. The mainstay of the commercial film has always been the star system, a powerful cult to which all other cults are secondary. The star is a major term in every producer's formula

for filmmakers to

enhance

a

magic

that

—

for the successful film; the other terms, although important,

Edgar Morin, whose excellent book on stars inspires these remarks, makes the proper analogy: the star is to film what gold is to paper currency a standard of value guaranteeing the worth of an image, assuring the security of an investment. 9 Indeed, many films depend on the star for their very existence. Either the star is chosen first and the film financed and conceived in function of this decision, or the star produces the film and guides its making. are variables.

—

31

— Ingmar Bergman and

What

the Rituals

differentiates a star

of Art

from other

actors?

The answer

is

not to be found by examining the particular talents of the most famous performers, or by describing the physiognomy of a

Brando or

Bardot.

a

The

difference resides in the audience's

fascination with these figures and finds

nature of the crowd's admiration.

its

The

basis in the specific

strange affective rela-

a phenomenon overflowing the domain of aesthetics, bringing the cinema into contact with the logics of magic and primitive religion. The

tion passing

between

star

and audience

is

may be beautiful and talented, but the star's image shimmers with some other quality, with the kind of sacredness actor

attributed to transcendent beings.

The word

itself

suggests the

by mortals to move in the firmament, and are imagined to exist on some higher plane of existence. The Italian term for the star system divismo is essential difference: "stars" are seen

—

even more telling; the star system draws its vitality from the dynamics of cult and myth, and it is no mere metaphor to speak of the "idols of the screen."

The and and

audience's response to the star

desire.

The viewer

is

marked by adulation

desires the star, desires to be the star

with the ideal model that he or she represents. sometimes verges on absolute faith: here are performers thought to embody the mask. The cosmetics, the lighting, the role all of the many props contributing to the star's seductive appearance are ignored. Thus, if the actor and actress begin as human beings, in becoming stars they are posed as living ideals whose entire existences are held to be beyond the ordinary. Since we are dealing with myth, it would be appropriate to speak here of a modern Pygmalionism: aided by a technological Venus, the artist causes Galatea to descend from her pedestal and invade the world. The media describe the free, exciting, and scandalous lives led by stars whose separation from everyday affairs seems complete. The admirers are led to imagine that their favorite performers are just as heroic and marvelous in life as they appear to be on the screen, and expect them to incarnate the ideal at all times. The actor must never be caught

The

identifies

public's belief in the star's mythical qualities

—

—

32

The

Artist's

Masks

out of role, and some, through their unceasing imitation of the part, go quite a long way toward perpetuating the image of a

human As

a

divinity.

mythical model, the star

is

the product of a curious

between actor and role. A star is a performer who transcends any given role, who lends the glamour of a singular presence to every part played, elevating these roles above the level of mere fiction. The star transcends the films, which become vehicles for the descent of the sacred to earth. Each interaction

role, osis,

each film, only provides the occasion for another apotheand it is unthinkable that the god does not persist be-

tween appearances. A strange process is at work here. If the superior being of the performer permeates each of the roles, these roles in turn are what constitute the superiority of this being. An actor becomes a star only when the heroic qualities of

his roles are attributed to his person: the fictions establish

the star's singular status. Yet this status, created and enhanced

by the roles

fictional roles,

is

endowing

responsible for

itself

with the mythical difference: the

the

star establishes the fic-

A

John Wayne transcends each part he plays and each of the films in which he appears becomes a "John Wayne movie." Yet the actor only becomes the mythic "John Wayne" after appearing in films where his roles allow tion's singular status.

him

to display "his" heroic exploits. Similarly, the starlet lends

her real beauty to the parts, but her beauty the beauty possessed

by scores of other

is

women

elevated above

when

only

it is

exhibited and enthroned in these very roles.

The imaginary taminates the

contaminates the reality.

The

difference of the star's fictional status con-

of

life

a

person, and this heroic

fiction,

process

pears to defy logic,

is it

giving

it

tautological still

— but its

if the circularity

efficacity,

that a paradoxical logic should not be considered

to understand

it

as

is

not to deny

an ongoing process

affective relation to performance.

in turn,

the appearance of a higher

maintains

The way out of the paradox

life,

It

desires, that the illogical constitution

at

is

its

work

ap-

suggesting

any

less real.

possibility,

10

but

in the viewers'

here, in the viewers'

of the

star's difference

33

is

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals of Art

accomplished. The difference between actor and role collapses, the rift between audicreating the truly important difference

—

ence and model, worshipers and

idol.

In order to measure this essential distance between audience and star we must abandon the metaphor of earth and heavens and replace it with a geometry of desire. The spectator desires

the star, desires to become the star. Monika is dedicated to becoming the girl made of dreams. The spectator is told that anyone has a chance to be "discovered," that anyone might someday become a star. Hollywood may appear as some modern Olympus, but the avid reader of Silver Screen muses

one can get there and be discovered at the But Silver Screen is an outdated example. Today's titles, People and Us, heighten the paradox, inviting the reader to join a community of stars from which he is necessarily excluded. The personalities admired in these pubover the

fact that

price of a bus ticket.

lications are indeed people, but that

is

not exactly

why

they

are admired.

The

possibility that

men and women

could become gods

is

held forth as a tantalizing ideal by the star system. Tantalizing,

of course, because the chance of sharing in divinity is both promised and withheld. Withheld, because the divinity is

The viewer's participation in the star when the identification is so extreme that it

purely imaginary.

is

imaginary, even

is

continued beyond the film's conclusion and carried through life of the fan who goes on imitating his model. Such imitations, even when elaborate, are doomed to failure and always end in caricature, as in the case of the perfect copies of James Dean seen sipping expresso in Parisian cafes. How could the fan succeed when even the actor can never truly abolish the difference between his life and his fictional role? Yet Tantalus is the appropriate figure: the unattainable image reappears to promise satisfaction, and only dis-

into the everyday

solves

The

when

touched.

fascinating gestures of the star's role are acted out not in

the heavens, but in the worldly situations of fictions having

of the appearances of

life.

The

possibility

of embodying them

thus looms large in the eyes of the viewer, and

34

all

is

held forth as

The possible impossibility. In

Artist's

Masks

La Dolce

Vita, Fellini approaches of the spiritual exercises of atheists, and captures the paradox and ambivalence of our modern mythologies in a single sequence. Marcello, the reporter, a

Bergman

in his exploration

adores Sylvia, the star portrayed by Anita Ekberg. She descends to Rome and invades his existence, accelerating his passion as

come closer and closer within reach. Venus-like, she models herself amid the cascading waters of the Trevi she seems to

fountain and beckons

him

to approach.

gasps, exhilarated and confused

"Who

are

you?" he

by the proximity of

his idol.

In response, she sprinkles the sacred waters over his head and

opens her arms. Marcello draws near to kiss the deity, but in the same instant the fountain stops and the illusion, suddenly touched by the light o{ day, dissolves. Marcello withdraws: idols are better seen

The

from

a distance.

who

doubts the significance of the star system, or that the performer can become a quasi-divine model in the eyes of the public, is invited to refer to the many examples reader

presented by Edgar Morin. This author catalogues the eruption of primitive belief within the context of a

modern, "ra-

tional" society: the sacred ambivalence of the starlet,

virgin or

vamp

is

cast as the

who

as

model of purity or vice; the amounting to so his mail James Dean received

fetishism of the fans evidenced in letters

many

sacrificial

offerings.

In

charms, promises of undying servitude and devotion, and even the flesh and hair of worshipers whose greatest desire

was somehow

to participate in his being.

11

The

thinker

who,

Levy-Bruhl, would like to study the workings of so-called "prelogical" thought need look no further for his examples; there is no need to travel to distant lands in search of the remnants of archaic cultures. In depicting artists, Bergman explores the mythologies surrounding performers, consistently highlighting the contamination of aesthetic values by the paradoxical logics of magical

like

and desire. The star system is only an extreme example of the type of relation that governs the artist's existence and forms the basis of his singular status in society. Returning now to the little scene staged by Jof in The Seventh Seal, we can

belief

35

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

begin to isolate the contrasting aspects of the artist's ambivalent position. The performer's first mask is that of the seducer: the blacksmith's wife identifies Skat as the

"handsome lover"

he played on the stage, and he does not hesitate to profit from her confusion of actor and role. Thus we can establish a rubric for many of the beliefs about artists: the artist is seen as a seducer, as an

immoral creature who

cination with his role.

He

who manages to advantages. He spreads

ous

liar

is

profits

taken to be a

exchange

from

liar, a

others' fas-

truly danger-

his falsehoods for

very

real

coming between husband

disorder:

and wife, this devilish figure exploits and humiliates both of them, for the power he wields is as costly as it is deceptive. Leaping from the medieval landscape of The Seventh Seal to the late nineteenth-century setting of Sawdust and Tinsel (1953),

we

find that Skat has established a place for himself in the

legitimate theater. Frans, the tragic actor,

fellow than Skat, but

ter

may

be

a

more

sinis-

personality combines equal

if his

measures of coldness and snobbery, his designs are essentially those of his predecessor. The tragic seducer rehearses a suicide beneath the desirous gaze of Anne, ignoring her presence just as Skat cleverly feigns indifference to his admirer in The Seventh Seal. Frans surprises first

as

she stands before a mirror,

declaring his love and then his contempt in a successful ef-

and fascinate

fort to unsettle

on

Anne

a lie:

dangling

her.

The

entire seduction

is

based

the actor promises her a seemingly valuable jewel, it

before her eyes as

if to

mesmerize

her; in fact, the

amulet is only an ordinary bauble. Frans's guise may be decepbut the consequences Anne's shame and her cuckolded lover's anguish are nonetheless real. Here a side-glance to one of Bergman's stage directions can clarify his manner of presenting the seducer. Staging Moliere's

—

tive,

—

Dom Juan, Bergman

alters the first act by bringing the famous nightgown. The seducer is seen to be a wretched creature who scratches at his fleas and tugs at his

rake on stage in

disheveled hair.

a

Only

after

he dresses himself in an elaborate

costume and painstakingly applies his makeup is he transformed into a stunning and handsome figure; only then does the play of seduction begin. Revealing the face behind the

36

The seducer's mask,

Bergman makes

Artist's

Masks

certain that the spectator per-

ceives the nature of the deception. 12

The next subtle and

more modern: the exploitation is more consequences more shattering. David, the writer

entry

its

is

Through

a Glass Darkly (1961), is not content with his sucpopular novelist and wants to be acclaimed as a serious author as well. He devises a formula for a true work of

in

cess

as

a

and plans to give his next fiction the attractive glare of modernity by depicting the workings of a schizophrenic mind.

art

Having never experienced this condition, he compensates for his lack of knowledge and imagination by using his own daughter's illness as material and sets out to document the stages of her psychological fragmentation. The daughter discovers the scheme by reading her father's diary and realizes that he perceives in her difficulties only a cure for the banality

of

his prose.

The artist becomes a cannibal or vampire in the other's eyes. The actress in Persona, whose enigmatic silence draws forth the nurse's confidences and desires,

is seen to suck the blood from Alma's arm. Vilgot Sjoman notes that Bergman once broached the topic of cannibalism in conversation; deeming it to be one of the artist's primary motivations, the director adds that 13 this is the source of his ethical questioning of the artist's role. Such a notion belongs to Bergman's tradition and recurs, for example, throughout Strindberg's works, where it takes the form of a vampire motif. Alice, in The Dance of Death (a play that the author first planned to entitle The Vampire), explains that a vampire is a person dwelling in others as a parasite: "He has no interests, no personality, no initiative. But once he gets hold of someone he sinks his teeth into them, drops his roots into their flesh and starts to grow and bloom." 14 In The Cloister, one of his autobiographical novels, Strindberg equates the vampire and artist:

What an

occupation; to

put the skins up for

them back.

It

his dog's tail

was and

sit

sale,

and skin

his fellow

man, and then

to

claiming even that they should buy

as if a hunter,

about to starve, were to cut off dog the bone,

eat the flesh himself, giving the

37

Ingmar Bergman and its

own

bone.

To

the Rituals

spy on other people's

friend's birthmark, to use his

sected, to ravage

and

sell.

What

everyone

own

of Art secrets, to reveal his best

wife as

a rabbit to

be vivi-

like a Croatian, to kill, dirty,

burn

horror! 15

—

—

That Bergman notes and on occasion emphasizes the vampire motif in Strindberg is demonstrated in his staging of The Ghost Sonata. In the first scene, when the Old Man asks the Student to take his "immeasurably" cold hand, Bergman directs the actor to make the Old Man's relentless grip appear to be a "vampire gesture." This stage direction provides further motivation for the Student's shriek: "You're taking away 16 Furthermore, the similar exchange between all my strength." Elisabet Vogler and Alma in Persona finds its model in Strindberg's one-act play, The Stronger. Yet the references need not be limited to Strindberg. The relation between the novelist Trigorin and the aspiring actress in Chekhov's The Seagull, staged by Bergman in 1961, repeats the same pattern: the seduction provides the writer with a plot for another successful story, but for the girl

who

is its

victim

it

brings ruin.

17

The artist appears as a seducer who presents a glamorous and deceptive facade to others in order to inflame their desires. Wearing the frightful mask of the vampire, the artist conceals his own emptiness while drawing his substance from others. Pretending to be self-sufficient, original, and detached, the artist is seen to depend on others while doing them harm. Elisabet Vogler, the predatory actress in Persona, combines these mythic traits and adds another to the list. Wanting to assume a part that she has never played, she becomes a mother, but is soon revolted by the incessant demands placed on her by a dependent child. Deciding that a change of scene would be advantageous, she retires to a hospital and attempts to efface herself. Yet letters pursue her, bringing news of her family and a photograph of her neglected son. Tearing the image into shreds, she wishes him out of existence, just as she might expel from her mind an uninteresting former role by discarding the publicity stills. 18 A similar relationship forms the 38

The

Artist's

Masks

of Autumn Sonata (1978). The antagonist in this film is an who, preoccupied by her career, ignores her family. Her devotion to the ideal harmonies of music has disastrous consequences for her two daughters. Thus in illuminating a first series of the artist's masks, Berg-

basis

egotistical pianist

man

casts

as selfish individuals

artists

whose detachment

is

a strategy used to profit from others. Their immorality seems to consist of taking as passing episodes relationships that

only

The

are painfully real for the other parties involved.

actor

"imitates" and plays parts while the others remain faithful to their roles.

by

Consequently, the performer's identity

is

marked

constant ambivalence: as long as the others find in the

a

seductive appearance the promise of a prestige from which

they too can revered.

But

somehow if

the actor will be praised and

profit,

the illusion entertained

by

the admirer dis-

solves, the actor will be cursed for "his" duplicity. Thus, crucial to consider the artist's identity in terms

between the mask and those who perceive is

it,

it is

of the relation

for this relation

the source of the beliefs constituting the artist's status.

The

both glamorous and pernicious, are to a large extent the product of the others' expectations and accusations. actor's qualities,

The roles are fixed in advance. Only part of the mythologies surrounding performers has been touched upon at this point. Half of the artist's masks have been highlighted, and

now

second rubric can be established so that another series of beliefs and guises may fall into place. At times the sole art of Bergman's performers seems to reside in their capacity to suffer, in a reluctant but unceasing a

willingness to step forward and expose themselves to a jeering

crowd. The

artist

may evoke

admiration and desire, but the

marked by hostility. If in The Seventh Seal the actor wins the favors of the lady, he also arouses the anger of her husband. The artist, we have seen, is seductive and wins a strange power in the eyes of the onlooker, using it to fascinate, exploit, and at times, to humili-

attention directed to

ate.

A

artist

hierarchy is

is

him can

set up,

humiliated and

also be

but the roles can be reversed

exploited in turn.

Once

as the

again,

39

the

— Ingmar Bergman and guiding motif for

this less

the Rituals

of Art

glamorous dimension of the

artist's

position can be found in Strindberg, whose autobiographical

poem

provides an appropriate epigraph:

Then at

took up position nearest thoroughfare I

and pounded on

my drum

while showing off

there

a bear.

The bear was given sugar but

me

they tried to beat

and when I started singing none listened in the street. I

then put on

my

fool's cap

and blurted out some jest; and when I stuck my tongue out they roared with gleeful zest. .

In

one of Bergman's

earliest scripts,

.

The

19 ,

Fish:

A

Farce for

Film, the second facet of the artist's status receives a simple

and stark illustration. 20 Here Bergman gives full play to the mimetic contamination to which the artist is prey, focusing specifically on the violence of his encounter with society, the painful mockery at the heart of the clown's role. The scenario, which was never filmed, is formulated as the diary of a pioneer filmmaker, Joachim Naken (Joachim "Naked"), and describes both the making of his films and the turmoil of his life and desires. Joachim and his troupe find that the roles they play exert a mysterious power over them: what begins as a romantic farce in which adultery and jealousy are only mimicked gives rise to a real continuation of these very afflictions. The dangerous passions meant only to provide comic material for a film seem to have a life of their own, or rather, they acquire one by dominating the lives of the members of the film company. A most revealing diary entry is a description of one of Joachim's films, and will be examined in some detail here because its simple schema introduces elements fundamental to Bergman's perspectives on the artist.

40

— The

Artist's

Masks

The

action of Joachim's little one-reel comedy begins with comic protagonist taking a stroll, feeling quite content with his life. Yet his happiness is disturbed when the people he meets on his walk first a young woman, then a policeman laugh at him as he passes. He can think of no justification for their unsettling reaction to him, which is as spontaneous and violent as it is inexplicable. Momentarily ashamed, he goes to the

—

a

mirror in order to check his appearance but finds nothing no oddity or defect that should make him so visibly

different,

ridiculous to others. Continuing his walk, he discovers that

the laughter nonetheless returns to plague him.

He

is

accosted

band of hoodlums, whose crude bello wings echo over the street and attract a crowd. Old ladies sitting in their windows peer down and point. The laughter redoubles, resonating "like a powerful torrent" in which the clown is "drowned." The hideous mockery penetrates him, and returning home, he makes bitter plans for revenge.

by

a

The next

day, Joachim's nameless protagonist returns the

laughter to those he meets on his walk, surprising the police-

man and

the girl by laughing first. This action turns against however, and succeeds only in increasing the others' anhim, imosity. His laughter transforms the former ridicule into something more threatening. The policeman, infuriated, blows his whistle and begins to chase him, in the manner in which "clowns have been chased since time immemorial." 21 The hoodlums hunt him down, cast him to the ground, and beat him while a crowd observes. Looking up at the old ladies who glare down from their windows, the defeated clown weakly tries to retaliate, issuing a final, "pathetic, broken little laugh" a flowerpot is cast down that brings him one last punishment onto his head. The filmmaker concludes his description of the film by noting that during the production of this little farce "the laughter echoed spectrally and mechanically under the

—

studio's glass roof."

22

What is most sinister about Joachim's primitive comedy and what gives it its greatest element of truth is the complete absence of justification for the crowd's reaction to the protagonist.

Nothing

in his appearance

marks him

as laughable, yet

41

Ingmar Bergman and

some

the Rituals

inexplicable and mechanical consensus singles

the object of collective ridicule.

he

is

Everyone laughs

denied the right to reciprocate. Indeed, his

return the laughter

and

of Art

is

him out

as

him, yet attempt to

at

immediately perceived as a transgression him, animating a violent chase after

sets the others against

the "culprit."

The

unrelated individuals passing on the street

movement of a "many-headed monster," forming its unity solely in opposition to the individual who has been identified as being different, as the one

join together, caught up in the

who will be guilty of laughing. The clown is hunted down, Joachim notes, as clowns have always been pursued; the mob's violent treatment of the individual who is "differperson

is said to be an original and fundamental aspect of the comic performer's social position. The scenario makes it possible to clarify one crucial element of the artist's position, for it directly poses the question of the difference in status attributed to the performer. Here it is not a matter of an artist who intentionally solicits the others' attention. Rather, the position is imposed on him, against his will and at his expense. The status of the individual who stands out from the group is indeed singular and different, but must also be seen as a certain lack of status, as a marginality denying him the rights and security possessed by the members of the community. The chase, which continues to play an important role in the commercial cinema and which has been called the cin-

ent"

ematic trope par

excellence,

appears here in

a different light,

having been shown to take its model from a mob's relentless pursuit of an innocent victim the hapless individual whose difference is imposed on him by others in a violent and arbitrary manner. Reading Joachim's description of the crude little farce, we must try to imagine the photographic qualities of the earliest silent films the graininess of the image, its stark contrast and harshness of resolution, the jerkiness of the action, and of course, the silence of a laughter that might resound all the

—

—

more penetratingly because left to the imagination. Bergman never filmed The Fish, but its inspiration did not remain untapped. A single, emblematic sequence of Sawdust and Tinsel 42

The

Artist's

Masks

appears to be an almost direct reworking of the silent film narrated in the farce.

a

Early in Sawdust and Tinsel, a film that follows the plight of band of circus performers, the action is interrupted by a

named Frost. This of a primitive film, and like The Fish, depicts a crowd's cruel humiliation of a clown. One day Frost is called forth from the circus tent and told that his wife is making a spectacle of herself on a nearby beach. Running to the bleak shore, he is mortified to see that she is bathing nude with a group of soldiers. As a mob looks on, Frost plunges into the water and carries his wife back toward the circus ground, cutting his feet on the jagged rocks, bending abjectly beneath his burden, falling painfully to the ground. Bergman cuts back and forth between shots of the tormented couple and close-ups of the hideous faces of those who jeer and point, greatly amused by the humiliation of the circus people. In the script, members of the crowd throw clods of dirt at the clown, a detail that might be related to the puzzling etymology of the word "clown," said to have its root in flashback recalling the agony of a clown

sequence has

all

of the

stylistic features

"clod." 23 If the clod in question it

is

not the dirt thrown

at

clowns,

who, exposed to a mob, is "driven down." Gycklarnas afton,

surely related to a figure

is

violently humiliated

the Swedish

—

that

is,

of the film, contains the essential: gycklare, meaning "clown" or "buffoon," finds its action in the verb title

gyckla, to joke, jeer

the

maker of

at,

or ridicule.

And

the joke, but the person

here the clown

made

is

not

the butt of the

joke.

The sequence

establishes, according to

ing point and theme of the film. social

position finds

its

basis

24

Bergman, the

His exploration of the

in

the

start-

artist's

mob's humiliation of

an individual, and the ensuing actions, the rest of the film

within which the sequence

is

framed, offer variations on

this

fundamental encounter. Variations and repetitions: the village the same, the crowd is the same; Frost and his companions return seven years later to be subjected to the same humilia-

is

was itself already a repetition: around the clown "since time immemo-

tion. Frost's earlier experience

the

mob

forms

itself

43

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

and the repetitive victimage of the performer points to The idea of repetition central to the film and to the dynamics of performance in general has a formal equivalent in Bergman's making of the Frost sequence. Many critics have speculated that the photographic qualities of this segment were achieved with a technique of overexposure, as is indeed suggested by the harshness of the images illustrating the naked clown's merciless exposure 25 to the mob. Yet Bergman disclosed his actual procedure in an interview: the film was exposed in the usual manner and a copy was made of this original; this print was then reproduced in turn, and copies of copies were made until the final stark imagery was obtained. 26 An original humiliation is repeated and reenacted in series. The clown's encounters with the community move in a cyclical pattern, the cycle recommencing once the troupe returns to the village. The status of creatures of derision is fixed for rial,"

the remote origins of an institution.

them

in advance, for the villagers

deem

the performers

mem-

bers of a separate caste. Outcasts, they are permitted only to

camp

at

the

boundary of a town where their role amusing spectacle at any cost. Even

a sufficiently

is

to provide

their right to

perform is contested. They lack costumes, the external signs of a status which, although marginal, would at least assure them a place in the ring. They must borrow their costumes from the local theater, an institution granting its performers a role within the community. The theater director, although he displays his scorn for the pitiful troupe, acknowledges the fact that the actors and circus people belong to the "same contemptible pack." The two professions are the same, and as rivals, compete for the favor of the villagers, the actors risking their "vanity" and the circus performers, their "lives."

The

would themselves like nothing better than town in the same manner as the members of the theater, but their status as outsiders clings to them in spite of their efforts to be rid of it. These efforts only make them more vulnerable and lead to further humiliations becircus people

to settle

down

in the

—

Attempting to ad-

ginning with the theater director's

insults.

vertise the evening performance,

the troupe appears in the

44

The center of the

jeering

mob

town square, but and menaced by

is

Artist's

Masks

immediately surrounded by

a

the local police. Later, Albert,

the director of the circus, visits his wife, but as she has

no need seedy figure in her for such a tidy shop she refuses to forgive him for having left her. While Albert is attempting to regain his place

actor,

next to his wife, his lover

Frans, but

is

discarded by

tries to attach herself to

him once

the

the seduction

is

completed. Having failed to abandon each other for a more stable life, Anne and Albert return to the circus wagon.

Cuckolded by Anne, Albert experiences the same humiliaby Frost. Bergman emphasizes this parallel

tion suffered earlier

number of ways, heightening the sense of repetition that dominates the action. When Albert spots Anne in town and guesses what has happened, Bergman presents his expression of anguish in a close-up that reduplicates the shots portraying Frost when he perceived the spectacle of his own wife's humiliation. The close-up of Albert's anguished look dissolves to a close-up of a playing card, which in turn gives way to an image of Anne playing cards in the circus wagon. These two shots recall the image of the soldiers playing cards on the beach before Alma's arrival, the game evoking the rigorously

in a

patterned interactions in which the performers' roles

them in a mechanical and arbitrary manner. The series of humiliations continues when

fall

to

the troupe per-

Alma leads her bear into the ring and the crowd baits and mocks the pathetic beast. Two clowns play out a mock battle, dealing each other one comic blow after another. Anne enters the ring on her horse and falls to the ground when forms.

someone

in the audience

her mount. dience,

throws

The members of

a little

bomb

and frightens

the town's theater join the au-

which already includes some

whose presence is Frans makes a point

soldiers

another reminder of Frost's humiliation.

of insulting Anne before the crowd by boasting crudely of his conquest. The audience finds this amusing, but their laughter turns against Frans when Albert skillfully knocks the actor's hat off with his whip. Even Frans's feminine companion, who moments before was gleefully proud of his sarcastic wit, suddenly turns against him to join in the group's laughter. When

45

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

him move-

Frans steps into the ring to retrieve his hat, Albert knocks to the

ground with

a graceful little

kick from behind,

a

ment that is an exact repetition of one of the lazzi just performed by the clowns. At this point the performance takes another turn, remaining a performance but also becoming something more than a performance. Whereas the line between spectacle and reality is blurred as the two men face each other in bitter confrontation, this

is something less than a real duel and reperformance. The ensuing brawl maintains a ritual

confrontation

mains

a

form: rising to his

feet,

the theater director takes the role of

the master of ceremonies and announces the beginning of the

boxing match to the usual circus stunts, the crowd laughs and jeers as actor and circus performer viciously fight it out. Stunned and half-blinded by the actor's fight. Preferring this

cruel blows, Albert staggers about in the ring like a bear until

he

finally collapses, his fall

announcing the conclusion of the

spectacle.

Humiliated, defeated, and convinced that his circus ished, Albert retires to his

wagon. Facing

mirror, he raises a pistol to his

own

fin-

comprised of constant humiliation. When the he aims it at the mirror and destroys his

to an existence

gun does not

is

dressing-room temple, prepared to put an end his

fire,

image. Rising from the stool, he rushes outside to the

cage where the performing bear

is kept, and puts the animal to few more minutes, but suddenly finds The circus that was about to disband recovers

death. Albert sobs for a a

new

resolve.

its vitality;

wagons advance again across a bleak horizon, ends at its beginning. The action of Sawdust and

the

and the film

of the bear, which decisively of the circus and sends it forward once again into another repetition of the cycle. This ending has puzzled many of Bergman's critics, who either deem it incongruous or attempt an interpretation. Birgitta Steene, for example, argues on the "authority" of Jung 27 that "the killing of a bear signifies the murder of the Mother." It is difficult to imagine how such an act would explain the troupe's sudden renewal, the resolution of one disastrous cycle Tinsel culminates in the killing

halts the decline

46

The

Artist's

Masks

and the initiation of another. The bear motif and the cyclical of Bergman's performers demand a more satisfactory explication, which can be reached not by referring to Jung but by comparing the sequence to another of Bergman's episodes. In The Seventh Seal, another troupe of nomadic performers moves across a somber landscape. Jof and his companions visit a village and stage a play, holding their audience quite well until the show is interrupted by the more gruesome and stirring spectacle offered by a band of flagellents. The terrified villagers gather at an inn (named "The Inn of Humiliation" in the script), and try to avoid thinking about the fearful plague that contaminates the land. Yet a merchant ignites the flames, announcing that people are "dying like flies." Fear begins to spread through the dim and smoke-filled room. An old woman recalls the awesome omens and monstrous births attending this Day of Judgment. The panic mounts. Jof sits among the others and listens until a spiteful fellow rises to single him out, identifying him as an actor and a liar. The current of tension and fear pervading the room is galvanized, finds its direction, and is conducted through the pointing finger of Jof 's accuser. Jof, who moments before was an inconspicuous member of the group, suddenly is labeled an "actor," a deceptive creature of illusion and worse an outsider who represents a dangerous element of contagion. The blacksmith is present, ready to blame him for his wife's infidelity, for since it was Jof's camarade who seduced her, Jof too is deemed guilty. "It's logical," the accuser says, and following fate

—

—

Jof is responsible not only for the blacksmith's marital strife, but also for the villagers' uneasiness and for the plague itself. Every eye focuses on him. Jof searches in vain for a sympathetic face but finds himself surrounded by contorted masks of hatred. Another "performance" begins. At knife-point, Jof is told to jump onto the table-top and to dance like a bear. The saltimbanco is baited, mocked, and menaced from all sides, and as he dances, it seems for an instant that the mob's animosity might be translated into a real act of violence. Flames mount about the table, and the rhythm of Jof's dance accelerates with this strange logic,

47

Ingmar Bergman and the increasing is

the Rituals

of Art

vehemence of the crowd. The mounting frenzy by the arrival of Jons, who slashes the face of putting an end to the spectacle perhaps by giv-

arrested only

Jof's accuser,

ing the

mob

Bergman's

—

the display of blood

artists

may wear

it

desires.

a diversity

of masks, but the

mediations of the performer's identity follow tern. Certain constants

discussed, and

by

a definite pat-

appear in the episodes that have been

isolating

them we can begin

to define the

a group or audience forms in opposition to an individual. Joachim Naken's nameless clown, Frost, and Jof are singled out by a crowd that casts them in essentially the same role. The performer is the one person who is ridiculous, the one person subjected to a brutal humiliation, the one person whose exposure provides a spectacle. In each case the group attributes to the individual a mythical difference. That the qualities attributed to these artists are mythical, that their identity is established in an arbitrary and circular manner, in no way lessens the power of the group's belief in the reality of the difference. Once fixed, the mask holds, and the artist is firmly positioned at two extremes. Existing in the eyes of the group as a being belonging to another plane o{ existence, the performer is either praised or blamed, elevated or abased. Thus, although the mythical difference attributed to stars is radically opposed to the abjection marking the clowns, these contrasting masks arise from a single process. Stars can, after all, be famous for villainy as well as heroism. Finding his role at one of two extreme poles, the artist is seen to be infinitely more powerful and appealing, infinitely more dangerous and contemptible than the members of the community. At times a single performer is capable of occupying each of these contrasting positions in succession and lives through a series of radical oscillations a possibility that will be explored more thoroughly in relation to The Magician

underlying model. In each of the episodes

—

(1958).

The exchanges between

the performer and the

community

measuring of self and other violently resolved by humiliation. Each time one of Bergman's follow

a single process: a violent

48

The

Artist's

Masks

encounters the group, humiliation ensues in an automatic and mechanical manner. Joachim's protagonist has only to take a walk in order to be pinpointed by the others' laughartists

He

can find no difference in his appearance that could the derision is focused on him, but the others even if it does not exist. The conclearly see the difference is sudden: the clown is ridiculous and they are not. Jof sensus ter.

explain

is

why

—

an inconspicuous customer

discovers him,

naming him

at

the inn until a pointing finger

as the

one "guilty" party. Humil-

iation awaits these individuals; prepared in advance,

held in

it is

store for them, and the chorus of laughter arises as if directed

by an

invisible conductor.

Violence and humiliation, the violence of humiliation: Berg-

man

whether discussing

interaction

One of his

issues.

tions

human

consistently returns to these crippling patterns of

throughout

statements

—

his writings

artistic,

political,

or religious

many

similar formula-

and interviews

to the

that finds

—leads us

heart of his unifying problematic:

We

are

all illiterate

in relation to ourselves

and to others.

If

we

could learn from the beginning of school and in every form of education to

know

ourselves, to

know

our reactions, our

own

aggressivity, to understand violence, humiliation, relations with others, if

we

could learn to read in souls and

faces, if

we

could

most elementary things about what human beings are, this would make a certain progress possible. It's naive, but it's the only path. I've the impression, for examlearn very simple things, the

that children take pleasure in humiliating each other.

ple,

Our

system is in reality a humiliation. Bureaucracy is to a great extent founded on a system of humiliation. The person humiliated asks himself constantly how he will be able, in turn, to humiliate someone else. It is one of the most terrible entire educational

poisons that exists today. 28

Bergman

finds humiliation to be at the basis

of a wide range

of social institutions. Criticizing Sweden's "rational" welfare state,

he asserts that

spread

it

its

like a cancer.

any of the organized

bureaucracies thrive on humiliation and For similar reasons he cannot adhere to religions:

"If I've objected strongly to

49

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

it has been because Christianity is deeply branded very virulent humiliation motif." 29 The same critique is sharpened when Bergman turns to the institutional context of

Christianity,

by

a

his

own

activity, for

tion, the artist

action.

even

has no

if art

monopoly on humilia-

consistently imbricated in this

is

Bergman

describes his

relation

to

form of inter-

both

critics

and

public as "humiliating," and deems his association with the

Swedish Film Industry "one long humiliation." that the very identity

then,

of the

artist,

It

appears,

the institutions of

aesthetic activity, are grounded in humiliation. In short: "It's one of the most fundamental experiences. I react very strongly to every form of humiliation; and a person in my situation, in my position, has been exposed to whole series of real humiliations. Not to mention having humiliated others!" 30 Humiliation is advanced as Bergman's single greatest concern and thus as the central concept needed to explain his works. It is posited as the crucial question to which all other possible ques-

—

tions are secondary.

humiliated?

man

How

What does

mean

it

to humiliate, or to be

could these experiences be bound, as Berg-

"what human beings are"? We can begin to bring forth something of the notion's complexity by tracing a few of the connotations attached to the word. To humiliate is to insult someone's pride or dignity, to discountenance, unmask, or mortify a person. To be humiliated is to be exposed by someone, to be confused, to be made ashamed of oneself. Humiliation, then, is always a matter of the relation between self and others, for even if someone husuggests, to the very basis of

miliates himself another person

words

is

for humiliation, the Latin

The from which our English is

present, if only in mind.

derived, the Swedish for enedring, with their roots of "grounding" and "lowering," establish a spatial framework for the

one is made low or "abased." And lowering of esteem, finds its opposite in those emotions where a contrary movement occurs, in haughtiness, pride, the sentiments won with fame and prestige. What is at stake in these relations is personal identity, an identity which is not isolated or secure, but which depends on

action. In being humiliated,

humiliation,

as

a

a self-esteem that

50

is

determined, sometimes violently, by the

The

Artist's

Masks

Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) examines a self governed by clown garb, guides her introspection (Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive). 4.

In

Illicit

Interlude,

relations to others as her ballet master (Stig Olin), in

presence of another person. Here we touch upon what is perhaps Bergman's most fundamental assumption. In Bergman's films, identity

is

never established in isolation, but

is

the prod-

uct of a basic, inescapable reciprocity. Arising only through interaction,

a process

of

whenever Bergman sends one of

his

personal identity

private reflection. Thus,

is

never fixed in

characters to a mirror, he includes in the scene those

mediate the vision of self

(see Plates

4

& 6).

who

Marie, the dancer in

Bergman's Illicit Interlude (1951), faces the dressing-room mirror and reflects on her life. The mirror frames two faces: the image that she examines as she peels away her makeup is joined 51

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

by the mask of an old clown who guides her introspection and challenges her art of detachment. (1957), literally raises the mirror

Sara,

in

Wild Strawberries

of identity to show Isak Borg

his real face in the glass. In Cries and Whispers (1972), the doctor

mirror and proceeds to read every line and marks of her indolence, coldness, and indifference. She concurs, but adds that in describing her he leads

Maria to

a

wrinkle in her face as the

has also described, quite perfectly, himself

Such examples could be multiplied. The values of the action vary: the reciprocity to which the self is necessarily subject is at times violent and disturbing, but can on other occasions be wholly constructive. The presence of others can be an invasion bringing more pain than truth, but involvement may also lead to a genuine awareness.

The

potentials of self are lost in the

darkness of the glass, or discovered in the other's open

each case,

Bergman demonstrates

or immediate and that

of

self to self.

unity

is

The

not

it

that identity

does not reside in

The boundaries of

rigid,

self are

is

face. In

never simple

a static

equivalence

open and

fluid; its

but evolves through contact with others.

reciprocal nature of identity reveals

its

negative facet in

the experience of humiliation. Humiliated, the self

is

defined

negatively in relation to the other; humiliating, the self measures itself positively in terms of the other. Yet these opposites are simply the rical relation,

two

facets

of a single

situation.

As an asymmet-

humiliation implies the assault of one person on

another, the elevation of one's pride

at

the other's expense.

Thus, the "positive" elevation cannot be detached from the reciprocal nature of the relation, and finds its basis in the degradation of another person. Looking in the mirror, I suddenly perceive that another person is watching me, and it is as if his gaze disturbs the image I have of myself, unsettling the smooth surface of the glass. My privacy, my relation to myself, has been invaded by the other. Before his gaze I am humiliated, ashamed, unmasked (see Plate 5). Alma, the nurse in Persona, speaks freely of her most private experiences to Elisabet, the actress placed in her care. Elisabet remains silent, and because Alma's reflections

interrupted, she

52

is

incited to reveal

go un-

more and more of herself.

The Yet

in reading

one of

Elisabet's letters,

Artist's

Alma

Masks

learns that her

confidences have been a mere spectacle for the actress,

who

was privately "amused" by the display. The other's vision of her is burned painfully into Alma's awareness, and she is deeply ashamed. Stepping out of the car where she read the letter, Alma gazes at her own image reflected in a pond, and an anxious, critical introspection, clouded by thoughts of the other

A

woman,

begins.

many of the writings exploring emotion. Kurt Riezler observes that in shame "your image of yourself is broken." 31 Kant describes shame as the anguish similar scenario figures in

this

caused by the contempt another person shows for oneself, the one is not in the eyes of the other what one

realization that

32

Humiliation arises when a lack of suddenly betrayed. Sartre singles out the ambivalent nature of an emotion arising when the subject's relation to self and his relation to others suddenly converge. For Sartre, shame is in one sense a movement of self-reflection, a discovery of the reality of self: "I am ashamed of what I am. Shame realizes, then, an intimate relation of the self to the self. " Yet this intimate relation and the process of introspection are mediated by the presence of another consciousness: "Shame, in its primary structure, is shame before someone. 33 I am ashamed of myself as I appear to others." Humiliation arises from a violent collision between people and brings a momentary crisis and disorientation. The image of self is disturbed, suddenly "broken"; for a moment the self is lacking, dissolved. Darwin describes shame as a "confusion of mind" and notes that a person humiliated is sometimes said 34 to be "covered with confusion." Sartre, in his dramatic dewishes or believes one

autonomy

is.

is

.

.

.

between two consciousnesses, speaks of an "internal hemorrhage" in which the order of the scriptions of the violent conflict

subject's entire perceptual field

is

disturbed.

It

is

correct to

emphasize in this manner the critical nature of the interaction, but the "crisis" has a double nature: as confusion, it brings the momentary disruption of the self's stability; as decision, it suggests that emotions such as humiliation also serve to resolve the conflict. If humiliation

is

at first a disorientation,

53

it

Ingmar Bergman and

5.

In Sawdust and Tinsel,

Frans (Hasse

Ekman)

the Rituals

Anne

of Art

(Harriet Andersson)

is

humiliated

when

surprises her at the mirror.

second movement, a new orientation. The spatial in the word evokes the idea of hierarchy, so that if a shameful experience is dislocating for the person humiliated, it is also a location of that person. Humiliation may be a fall but it is not endless. Positions are fixed, the one dominant or "higher," the other dominated and "lower." The conflict and confusion are stabilized as a relation characterized by a radical disparity is established. The person humiliated finds himself fixed by the other's dominant gaze and measures his position as if through the eyes of this person, who appears, in the same instant, to possess a more elevated status. Although creates, in a

metaphor implicit

—

54

The violent and

disruptive,

—

also give a pattern

the

relationship

Artist's

Masks

of humiliation can

a pathological stability

—

to interpersonal

dynamics. Thus, Bergman's private obsession, humiliation, far from appearing to be a simple or isolated experience, opens upon quite a large perspective. certain philosophers

who

If the

phenomenon

has interested

analyze the dialectics of detached and

rather abstract "intentionalities,"

its full significance is not limHumiliation involves fundamental aspects of human interaction that extend from the philosophical problem of others to the organizational patterns of society as a whole. Stating that humiliation is central to bureaucracy and to the institutions of art and religion, Bergman suggests that

ited to these terms.

the interactions giving rise to this emotion have a profound affinity to the constitution

society.

Due

to

its

of worth, rank, and status within

role in creating hierarchy, humiliation

may

be at the very foundation of institutions and the distinctions of power, dominance, and submission on which they depend. Another of Bergman's indications is equally important: noting that the experience of humiliation can cause a person to seek to humiliate another person in turn, he suggests that the interaction should not be considered as a stable "structure." Humiliation is instead a dynamic and ongoing process, a pattern repeated in cycles. Just as it causes and cures a certain confusion of the self, it is involved, at a higher level, in both the dissolution and creation of a social order. Bergman's treatments of humiliation in his films require that logic of a

mode of social

disorder, crisis and resolution in a

The two positions

we

attempt to grasp the

organization that combines order and

dynamic equilibrium.

poles of the artist's status correspond exactly to the

engendered by the dynamics of humiliation that

Bergman makes the focal point of his works. The humiliation occurring when the artist encounters the group is spontaneous and quickly creates

a hierarchy.

A

radical difference

of degree

established as persons who begin on an equal footing are suddenly distinguished by the double movement of humiliation: one party is abased, cast at the feet of the others, who are in the same moment elevated. This process is circular in that

is

55

Ingmar Bergman and the hierarchy it.

The

is

"justified"

by the very movement

that creates

may indeed be no way possess the

singled out in these episodes

artists

different

the Rituals of Art

from the

but they in

others,

of being attributed to them. No one is truly responsible for the plague, just as Joachim's clown is no more guilty of laughing than the others. The blacksmith is ready to accuse Jof and his companion of seducing, but he has not witnessed the role played by his wife in the seduction. Yet guilt is nonetheless assigned and the sentence passed with frightening rapidity. Bergman's performers are in much the radical difference

same position

as the prisoners in

Kafka's penal colony,

learn the nature of their crime only as the sentence

ously inscribed on their

ishment occur

in a single

from the other finger provides

The sault

as its rightful its

own

consequence. In

fact,

the pointing

proof.

violence of humiliation takes various forms.

on the person's esteem,

it

may

is

real

sketched during Jof 's performance

ence's "glee" leads to the throwing of fruit.

ment of Jof

in the inn carries this

but the spiraling violence

is

As an

as-

be limited to mockery,

but can also progress to the mockery of

movement

who

murderbacks. Accusation and violent pungesture, yet the one is held to follow is

blows. This

when

the audi-

The group's

treat-

sequence one step forward,

interrupted

—when

— or

at least

displaced

Jons intervenes. Frost's humiliation may not be a when he finally finds shelter from the mob, he collapses, as if each laugh had delivered him an excruciating blow. The progression runs its full course in the

physical assault, but

case of Joachim's clown,

for here the humiliating

derision

quickly turns into blows that leave the victim unconscious.

Underlying each of these episodes

is

a recurrent pattern

of

mechanism of humiliation is set motion and distributes the roles. The idea of mechanism is suggested by the automatic and repetitive nature of these encounters and is explicitly indicated when Joachim writes that

interaction. In each case, the in

the laughter resounds "mechanically." In this regard, Berg-

man's comic episodes offer an interesting commentary on Bergson's definition of laughter as "the mechanical encrusted

56

The

Artist's

Masks

on the

living": the social corrective against rigidity would appear to be a rigid and mechanical pattern of group behavior, a scenario rigorous in its directions. On one side are positioned

those

who become members

other, those cast as

its

victim.

of

As

a

mob, and on the shown in more detail

jeering

will be

Chapter 3, the director suggests that Bergson's phrase could be rewritten: the laughter of humiliation is the mechanical encrusted on the mechanical. 35 The individuals singled out in the episodes discussed above are all performers, but their role in these interactions is not,

in

strictly speaking, a

performance.

It is

one thing when

a

clown

stands forth and invites an audience to laugh at his role;

another thing spectacle of

when

the audience

is

a

mob

forcibly

it

making

is

a

someone. In one case the mockery and violence

are only represented, but in the other the violence

is

painfully

and unrestrained. In Bergman's episodes the difference becomes blurred: performances where violence is only mimicked threaten to become bloody spectacles and often regress to violence. Bergman's performers balance precariously at the edge of this difference. At times the conventions of aesthetic performance protect them, holding the crowd's emotions real

within certain boundaries;

at

other times the boundaries col-

lapse and the line separating stage and audience, performance

and victimage, dissolves. The actor in Sawdust and Tinsel, like Skat in The Seventh Seal, passes back' and forth across this limit, playing at seduction in one scene, truly seducing in another. Taking his place in the audience beneath the circus tent, Frans transgresses the limit by hurling insults at Anne and is drawn into the ring in the ensuing brawl that is at once a real fight and a ritualized competition. The circus appears as an intermediary form positioned ambivalently between violence and theater, combining, like sport, elements of real violence with a conventional acting out of the same violence. Clowns and comic performers in general occupy an equally ambivalent position, for their role is to draw forth a laughter that both inflicts and depicts a violent humiliation. By focusing on these intermediary forms and on the

57

Ingmar Bergman and

6.

Kaj

the Rituals

of Art

Bergman's use of mirrors is illustrated in this shot from Secrets of Women; portrayed by Jarl Kulle and Anita Bjork fills the role of Rakel.

is

between violence and representation, Bergman

critical relation

raises a

number of

crucial questions. In these forms, dramatic

performance approaches the kind of repetition ual behavior, as

Bergman himself frequently

at

work

in rit-

indicates:

game the artist plays with his audience, beand society all this confusion of mutual humiliation and mutual need for one another. That's the ritual

The

ritual

tween the

is

the

artist

—

element. 36

The

practice of art as sorcery, as ritual action, as prayer, as re-

ciprocal

gratification

strongly. 37

58

of needs

—

this

I

have always

felt

very

The The

medium

film as a

is

Artist's

well suited to destructive acts, to acts

of violence. The paramount function of film lence.

Masks

is

to ritualize vio-

38

These brief but pregnant remarks identify the relations cenBergman's aesthetics. Humiliation and victimage are models of interaction in no way limited to artistic activity, but tral to

Bergman

artists somehow have a strong them. Thus, he brings together terms that are generally thought to have little or nothing in common. Ritual is the concept mediating between these terms: the ritual element is the underlying pattern connecting aesthetic performance and exchanges governed by violence and humiliation. Art ritualizes violence and is balanced between its reality and its repre-

suggests here that

affinity for

between the violences disrupting society and the community's ritual resolutions of these same crises of vio-

sentation,

lence.

The bear

that appears enigmatically in Strindberg, in

and

dust and Tinsel,

In

many

in

The Seventh Seal can

now

be

Saw-

identified.

primitive societies, a bear was domesticated and re-

vered by a community that would one day put the sacred animal to death in a sacrificial ritual. 39 Raising his pistol at the

moment when

his circus

about to collapse, Albert repeats at the inn strongly resembles

is

this gesture. Jof's

humiliation

such

he dances

a ritual, for as

and is made suddenly confronted with

like a sacrificial bear

to play the part of the victim he

is

the reality of his role. 40

Yet the relation between art and and emphasized by Bergman,

trated

equation. Art, like ritual, as the cyclical

The

onstrate.

is

ritual, is

depicted as

a repetition

movements of Sawdust and spectacle of humiliation

consistently illus-

by no means

is

a simple of a model,

Tinsel clearly

dem-

reenacted in a long

back to some remote past. Each new perforcopy of another copy, and the mob chases down its victim "since time immemorial." Yet the temporality of this repetition is not simple. If drama appears to find its model in a ritualized victimage, it also gains a certain distance from this

series stretching

mance

is

a

pattern as

its

own

conventions develop. Representation chan-

59

Ingmar Bergman and nels

and

the Rituals

restrains violence, lessening

of Art its

degree, substituting a

Only when the conventions does drama suddenly return to the

surrogate victim for a person.

wear thin and collapse model as performance degenerates Ritual, because

it

incorporates

into a

gruesome

more elements of

—

spectacle.

real violence

and humiliation into its repetitions the actual killing of the example remains closer to the model, but is still a conventional reenactment of victimage. Victimage stands, then, as a pattern or mechanism anterior to both ritual and drama. Bergman shows us the critical moments when drama and ritual lose their distance from the model, and thus highlights their common parentage. He measures both the difference between violence and representation and their underlying source. Drama and ritual move, through repetition, away from the model of victimage, recalling it ever more dimly until a disruption of convention brings the individuals back to the bloody scenario. The Seventh Seal provides a paradigmatic example of these ambivalent movements. Jof is forced only to imitate the sacrificial bear, and like Albert in Sawdust and Tinsel, does not share its death. The painful laughter to which Jof is subjected may be cruel, but it is less cruel than the murder for which it substitutes. As long as Jof dances, the violence is contained and does not completely overflow the limits set by a spectacle which, although brutal, remains a mere entertainment for the crowd, a temporary diversion of their violence. Although Jof plays the victim, he does not truly become the victim. Rather, he is indeed victimized, but the full cycle of

bear, for

—

victimage does not run

its

course. Certainly the experience

is

both frightening and painful for him, and this performer's relation to the mob is a stunning example of the humiliation of the artist to

which Bergman repeatedly

refers. It is

much more

primitive than the other types of humiliation mentioned by the director, for example, the artist's critic's

shame when exposed

to a

accusations.

In another sequence of

The Seventh

Seal,

Bergman

illustrates

the complete cycle of victimage, demonstrating the possible

outcome of Jof 's experience. 60

A

young

girl

accused of witch-

The

1

.

In his quest for answers, the Knight,

Artist's

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow)

interrogates the victim of a witch burning, portrayed

The Seventh craft

is

Masks

by

Maud Hansson

in

Seal.

made

the object of a collective

movement

carried to

its

violent end. Burnt at the stake for having "caused" the plague,

the girl dies in the

community's grotesque

effort to put an

end

to the contagion.

The Seventh Seal was

first

conceived

as a

one-act play, and

the earlier version, Painting on Wood, contains an interesting

—

monologue a long description of the young girl's agony told from her perspective. As she narrates how her accusers torment her, how she is beaten, interrogated, and mocked, her innocence is made manifest. When the soldiers come for her again, she knows that this time they will take her to the stake: 61

Ingmar Bergman and

"They

my

the Rituals

didn't laugh and joke with

hair."

No

41

of Art

me

who

like those

laughter displaces the violence.

No

cut off

laughter

mockery, however violent, for the final violence of the murder. In the film, the Knight and Jons witness the witch-burning, and their disgust for the mob's murder of the innocent girl assumes the same function as the monologue in the play. Bergman condemns rituals in which a community attempts to resolve its own violence by directing it toward an individual unjustly accused of being its cause. For it is indeed the violence of the community that is in question: Bergman explicitly states that the mythical plague touching this medieval landscape stands for another sort of pestilence the warfare that disrupts our societies, the nuclear contamination that substitutes a

—

could bring an ultimate destruction. 42

The

killing

of purification

of the in

obeys the logic of every archaic ritual which a human or animal victim is sacrificed girl

community in crisis communal order from the threat of a violent The community employs the violence of victimage and

in an attempt either to restore order to a

or to protect the crisis.

humiliation to stabilize

Asked

human

explain

to

Bergman

its

such

order and to found allegorical

its

hierarchy. 43

representations

of

evil,

declares that evil exists as a "destructive tendency" in

interaction:

—

Three little children go out for a walk together two little girls aged four, with a little boy of two. They take a skipping-rope with them. They put it round the neck of the two-year-old and tie the ends to a couple of trees just high enough for the boy to have to stand on tip-toe. And walk away. And we don't know what it is that causes these two to agree to do such a thing. There has been a whole series of such events. Unmotivated cruelty is something which never ceases to fascinate me; and I

—

.

would

like

very

much

to

know

the reason for

.

.

44

it.

Bergman's example of evil presents, once more, in its most schematic form, the model of interaction present in each of the

The two community between them by

episodes that have been analyzed in this chapter. individuals "agree," forming a

directing an unjustified violence against a third party. Berg-

62

The

Artist's

Masks

man criticizes the cruelty of a social dynamic that controls violence and creates a consensus in a wholly violent manner. He explores the obscure source of an agreement having its basis in the exclusion

of

and

and

a third party,

brings forth the violence hidden

in so doing,

at the origin

of

he

social orders

institutions.

As an

man

whose motivations

artist

are expressly ethical,

Berg-

represents certain patterns of social interaction in order to

many

interrogate their value. Depicting the tion,

he vividly

illustrates

can lead to violence, and

faces

of humilia-

how the measuring of self and other how humiliation, appearing to arrest

this violence, only institutes a destructive and inequal type of exchange. The peace maintained within the hierarchies set up

by humiliation already present

is

is

subjected to a harsh critique as the violence

unleashed. Focusing on the violence hidden at

the heart of an apparent order,

Bergman would appear

sympathize with the cry voiced by Katarina

From

the Life

in the script

to

of

of the Marionettes (1980):

There is something you must take seriously! Can't you see that? There is something menacing going on which we don't speak about because we have no words. What sort of damned idyll is it we are clutching on to tooth and nail, though it is hollow and the decay is oozing through all the holes? Why don't we let all that is black and dangerous come to light? Why do we block up all the exits and pretend it isn't there? Why don't we stop hoping for all kinds of political wonders, although we hear the roar getting louder and know that the catastrophe is approaching? Why don't we shatter a society that is so dead, so inhuman, so crazy, so humiliating, so poisoned? People try to cry out, but

we

stuff

up

their

mouths with

verbiage.

The bombs explode,

children are torn to pieces, and the terrorists are punished; but for every terrorist that

is

killed, ten are

standing ready

invincible because they are in league with a

reason with. are.

are victims like their

own

—they

that

we

are

can't

victims, just as

we

45

Bergman would have human interaction, he

If

of

They

power

us attend to the destructive aspects also strives to

aspects of the reciprocal nature of identity.

evoke the positive The unmasking of 63

Ingmar Bergman and the self

by others

shown

is

of Art

the Rituals

times to be

at

a painful

destructive experience, yet on other occasions cates that the mediation of identity

take a destructive form.

The mask

is

and purely

Bergman

indi-

necessary and need not

can be crippling, and removal necessary: "Everyone plays his role, carries his mask, but you know, somewhere in your face the mask doesn't fit. And it's beautiful if you can somehow see the contradiction between the mask and the real face." 46 Attempting to find alternatives to the various masks of humiliation, Bergman rejects the illusion of individualism and implies that a genuine realization of self occurs not in the flight from others but within the context of community. The alteritself

its

native to the positions fixed along a scale of humiliations

simply humiliating instead of being humiliated, ing "answer" carried to

constructive form of exchange

method

often

make

to

is

not

a self-defeat-

drastic conclusion in the figure

its

The question of what

the artist in Shame.

is

is

of

constitutes a just or

never simple, and Bergman's

the spectator feel the price of the

absence of such an alternative, engaging the audience in the pain caused by negative forms of relations.

modern music,

to

harmony

lost possibility. Lost,

in absentia,

Referring,

Bergman evokes

it

like as a

but not impossible: the pessimistic ex-

tremes that supposedly mark his films betray, in

fact,

an im-

moments of despair. Briefly, the nature of the alternative toward which Bergman strives can be indicated. He attempts to conceive of interactions that would not be marked by continuous strife yet which would not mense hope, present

in the

—

achieve order through the methods prevalent in existing social

namely, the strife that is channeled, the rivalry and humiliation that serve a costly equilibrium. Rather, the alternative resides in humility, a position not imposed on one person by another, but instead, a stance taken by persons on

institutions,

an equal footing. Art, insofar as violence,

man's

it

continues to model itself on the patterns of

victimage,

critique.

transition, at

He

and humiliation,

focuses

once facing

on an its

subjected to Berg-

is

art that

ritual past,

is

point of

modern crisis of The question fun-

the

the ritual model, and an uncertain future.

64

at a critical

The

Artist's

Masks

damental to Bergman's critical investigations of the imbricaand ritual is whether his critiques can truly lead to an alternative to the agreement founded in violence an alternative to humiliation and an alternative form of art drawing its inspiration from a different form of community. tions of art

—

65

,

A

The Magic Lantern

The man who

brings actors,

does not realize what

a

mimes and dancers into his home demons enters along with

gathering of

them.

— Saint Augustine The cinema began

as circus. In Scandinavia, the first public

film screenings found their place

"Variety" circus of Oslo.

1

among

the sideshows of the

Throughout Europe

in the first de-

cade of this century, entrepreneurs of the cinema traveled from

town

to

town

projecting primitive motion pictures

on make-

of the countryside in the same manner as their predecessors in the circus and traveling fairs. 2 If the mode of distribution adopted by this nomadic cinema corresponded to the wanderings of earlier forms of popular entertainment, a more fundamental correspondence existed in the contents of the films, which were often direct transpositions of circus attractions. The titles are indicative: in France, the public was offered such curiosities as La Vie des saltimbanques, L 'Animal fantastique, Le Cirque a domicile, and La Gipsy; in Stockholm, Akrobat med otur (The Unlucky Acrobat) and Tre downer frdn cirkus Olympia (Three Clowns from the Olympia Circus). 3 These titles evoke the circus of the nineteenth century, but others recall the bloody spectacles offered by the circus of antiquity: Spartacus, La Bataille d Austerlitz 4 Slagsmal Gamla Stockholm (Duel in Old Stockholm). Although the traveling cinema was superseded by the estabshift screens, enthralling the inhabitants

i

66

The Magic Lantern lishment of permanent motion picture theaters, the nature of the spectacle's appeal did not change. The cinema slowly

within society, yet

gained

a place

ginal.

The charges

traditionally

forms of popular diversion found

this position

leveled a

new

remained mar-

against

the

earlier

object in the cinema,

deemed by many

to exercise a pernicious influence on the mores of the public. The debate over the social value of the cinema goes on, just as to this day the popular cinema continues to thrive on standard circus fare: violence, danger, monsters, exoticism, medicine, and the occult. The invention of 5

television finally realizes the old dream, bringing domicile,

household

circus.

Thus,

if the

modern medium

gates the nineteenth-century sideshows to the past,

by taking

their place,

of the circus

Bergman

methods

the

common

parentage of cinema and

directly addresses a lineage that others

like to obscure.

filmmaker's

the inspiration and

rele-

does so

it

too faithfully.

all

Acknowledging cus,

by adopting

cirque a

le

When

role,

cir-

would

he begins his fictional exploration of the

he turns

first

to the figure of the

clown and

continues to refer to the circus and other primitive forms of theatrical activity as er.

6

Like

Fellini,

he depicts the

many masks of the perform-

he takes the curious spectacles staged in the

circus ring quite seriously, for they provide the correct point

of departure. The clown's mock battles and stupendous falls, the horseback rider's precarious equilibrium, the rise and fall of the trapeze these are the literal equivalents of the artist's more general but equally risky social condition. Every performance is an act of balance. Moving dangerously along a tightrope stretched above the onlookers' heads, the artist is "always at the very edge of disaster, always at the very edge of great things," and must risk his esteem if not his neck to win the crowd's admiration. 7 Such is the position of the filmmaker as well, for the demands of his producers and public require that he perform "without a net," knowing that a single misstep can bring the end of his career. 8 Bergman's interest in the denizens of the circus, his method of illustrating his own role by depicting nomadic performers of every sort, may seem anachronistic, but this does not lessen

—

—

—

67

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

the validity of his approach.

simple. Facing in

two

of Art

The chronology of

directions at once, art

while marking off its distance from

art is

draws on

this past. Its

never

its

past

progress must

be charted on a double scale: finding its appeal in the irrational logics of fascination and desire, patterning itself on myth and ritual, art alters its models with every repetition and develops its

own

conventions.

By

focusing on primitive intermediary

forms of spectacle, Bergman is able to highlight the ambivamovements. The fragments of the archaic vividly displayed by the circus, for example, allow him to follow the continued functioning of ritual within the contemporary context, yet also make it possible to measure the modern transformation of the ritual model.

lence of these

If

we

are to follow

Bergman

in studying these paradoxical

we must combine anthropological and historical on his aesthetics, gauging temporal variations within the framework of certain cultural invariants. Such an chronologies,

perspectives

approach

entails contradictions

as a result, to capture the truly

and difficulties, but promises, ambivalent nature of the con-

temporary situation. The cinema is a singularly anachronistic form. Its study requires a paradoxical mingling of perspectives, for neither the modern nor the primitive face of the medium should be obscured. Although the film's mechanical basis is the product of modern technology and its commercial institutions are in step with the most advanced developments of monopoly capital, the cinema nonetheless continues to draw its vitality from more archaic cultural formations. 9 Walter Benjamin's famous attempt to make the cinema or at least its mechanical mode of reproduction the decisive weapon in the struggle against 10 art's "parasitical dependence on ritual" was wishful thinking. Although Benjamin realized that art relies on cult values or the "aura," he underestimated the extent to which the cinema would sustain this ritual function. There is little or no evidence that the cinema necessarily disrupts the aura as Benjamin imagined; the machine may be wonderfully modern, but when harnessed to the most primitive mechanisms of belief and be-

—

havior

it

reproduces

68

—

— ever so mechanically— the values of the

The Magic Lantern Benjamin himself seems

cult.

to

touch upon

when he comments

in passing that the star

industry's principal

means of maintaining the

problem

this

system

is

aura.

the film

The con-

cepts of ritual, "primitiveness," and "cult values" cannot be

limited to purely historical or geographic definitions; rather,

they refer to collective representations and patterns of interaction that remain prevalent in the

most modern and developed

societies.

Bergman tles

himself as the heir of Melies, whose

identifies

ti-

often indicate the nature of the cinema's primitive attrac-

tion:

Pygmalion

ique,

Le Magnetiseur, u

Galatee, Altercation au cafe,

et

In his early

tidigitateur

.

Bergman

describes his

recognizes

La Lanterne mag-

Illusions funambulesques,

manifesto,

medium

Seance de pres-

"We Are

the Circus!",

and

terrible" and commercial cinema sustains itself on dreams, and devilry." The goal of film, he as "delightful

the

that

"magic, illusions,

somber multitude

magic." 12 In another essay, Bergman calls himself a conjuror and notes that the single feature distinguishing the modern magician from his forebears is that he has at his disposal "the most precious and writes,

is

"to bind the

in

its

astounding magical device that has ever, since history began, been put in the hands of a prestidigitator." 13 His insistence on the cinema's relation to magic and his acknowledgment of the difficulties arising from this situation could not be more explicit:

When show I

a film

constructed on

am

I

guilty of deceit.

I

employ an apparatus

physical imperfection of man, an apparatus

a

with which I cause in my public powerful shifts of emotion the swinging of a pendulum. I can make them laugh,

like

scream with

terror, smile, believe in legends,

yawn with boredom.

shocked, seduced, or

—when the public

I

become

indignant,

am, then,

either a

—

aware of the deception a performer of tricks. This fact awakens, or should awaken, an unsolvable moral conflict in those who are occupied with makdeceiver or

.

.

is

.

ing or selling the film industry's products. 14

Bergman's interrogation of the primitive heritage of his art of the nature and value of art's social role

raises the question

69

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

and establishes a context for considering the progress of aesthetic modernism. Although Bergman consistently emphasizes both the relation of his role to the past and the specificity of the contemporary situation, it is possible to distinguish, for the purposes of analysis, between two series of films in which the degree of emphasis differs. It is tempting to suggest, first of all, that Bergman's films of the 1950's underscore one side of the question while his later works stress the other, but this division is not entirely accurate. Yet works such as The Fish, Sawdust and Tinsel, and The Seventh Seal, because they focus on early and intermediary forms of spectacle, do stress the ritual patterns present in artistic performance. This tendency achieves a powerful synthesis in The Magician, a film plotting the career of a latter-day shaman who finds a tenuous livelihood in the remnants of superstition and occult belief in nineteenth-century Sweden. Other films, such as Persona, Shame, and The Hour of the Wolf (1968), although they continue to depict the relations between art, myth, and ritual, bring forth more strikingly the modern transformations of these relations by portraying the fragmentation of a cultural tradition. In fact, both tendencies are present in each of these films, but it is necessary for us to provide a more complete definition of the ritual processes at work in art before moving on to discuss the modern crisis of this model. For this reason we will turn first to The Magician, attempting, in an analysis of this work, to isolate the dynamics of belief and desire sustaining the magician's seemingly outdated practice. The Magician begins with a shot recalling the opening and moments of Sawdust and Tinsel: a carriage is filmed in silhouette against the crest of a hillside. Once again the camera moves in to present the members of a troupe of wandering closing

performers. This time the carriage belongs to Albert Emanuel

Vogler, a mountebank

who employs

a

magic lantern and the

of Mesmer to produce mysterious cures. Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater, like Jof's company in The Seventh Seal and the circus of Sawdust and Tinsel, is a marginal affair and travels from town to town offering fascinating spectacles practices

to the curious.

10

The Magic Lantern

8.

From

Vogler's troupe encounters the townspeople in The Magician.

left

Granny (Naima Wifstrand), Vogler's wife, Manda, disguised as (Ingrid Thulin), Albert Emanuel Vogler, mesmerist (Max von Sydow),

to right:

Aman

and Tubal (Ake

Vogler's

Fridell)

(Museum of Modern Art/Film

Stills

Archive).

company moves toward Stockholm, but

the gates of the city

residence of a certain

is

by the local police and escorted Consul Egerman. The performers

met

at

to the are led

meeting and come into conof the city (see Plate 8). Vogler is

to the consul's library for a first flict

with

faced

their counterparts

by Dr. Vergerus,

a

confident rationalist

who

as royal

counselor of medicine represents the scientific discipline that

makes the

of and deems these illusionists a threat to the public order. The doctor and the police chief insult Vogler and his people, demonstrating a total contempt for magical trickery. Yet the wealthy Egermans express an police,

is

charlatan's practices obsolete. Starbeck, the chief

hostile to the troupe

77

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

and welcome Vogler to their swayed by Vogler's mysterious appearance, and her husband makes a wager with Vergerus over the existence of the occult. The troupe is ordered to perform the following morning in broad daylight so that the magician's supposed powers might be put to a test. The performance begins quite poorly when Starbeck amuses the audience by revealing the trick behind an act of levitation. But the amusement immediately turns against him. The magi-

interest

in

supernatural

the

home. The consul's wife

is

already

—

—

make a person speak only the truth, chosen to demonstrate this magic. Seated before the audience, she gushes forth a giddy stream of insults, calling her husband a dolt and a repulsive swine who is not even the father of her children. In the next trick, Antonsson, the consul's coachman, is made the reluctant subject of another mysterious feat. Bound cian,

seems,

it

is

able to

and Starbeck's wife

is

in invisible chains, he

becomes furious and throws himself on in a vicious stranglehold. Antonsson

Vogler, clutching flees the

When dead;

him

room and

all

but the

members of

the troupe exit.

the doctor and Starbeck return, Vogler it

is

is

proclaimed

decided that Vergerus will perform an autopsy

The trunk

at

however, has a false bottom, and contains not only Vogler, who merely feigned death, but also the corpse of an actor disguised as the magician. In the attic Vogler lurks behind the doctor, attempting to frighten him. Vergerus is indeed startled when an eyeball peers up from his inkwell, and again when a detached hand advances toward him across the desk. Assaulted by what he believes to be a ghost, the rationalist collapses, screaming with terror. Yet once.

when

carried to the attic,

the deception

is

revealed,

his panic quickly subsides.

Now

in rags, Vogler begs for his wages and the troupe is ordered to leave the city at once. Driven out into the rain, Vogler huddles, exhausted, in the carriage that will deliver him from the contemptuous gazes of

the household.

It

appears that the Egermans and city officials

no longer have any use longer

a

for his dubious art, that there

is

no

place for Vogler's kind in an enlightened country, but

a final, surprising reversal

12

overturns this conclusion.

The

rain

— The Magic Lantern messengers unexpectedly and brilliant sunlight falls on the carriage. The Magnetic Health Theater has been issued a royal invitation, and the troupe is led to the palace in a triumphant procession accompanied by the loud fanfares of a brass band. The music rises to a crescendo as the carriage races up a narrow cobblestone lane, brushing past a hanging lantern, setting it in motion. The music stops quite abruptly, and as the carriage moves out of sight, the camera remains in place, focusing on the swinging lantern, holding it in view for a few moments until the music bursts forth once more for a concluding flourish. ceases, quite magically, as the king's arrive,

The Magician closes on

a

curious detail, enigmatically insist-

ing on the swinging of a lantern. This might be discounted as a willfully

puzzling

thought, or perhaps,

stylistic quirk,

as

as

some whimsical

after-

an accident that occurred during the

of Bergman's sequence of the sudden bestowal of the king's favor on Vogler the film as a gratuitous twist failing to proceed from the rest of the 15 action. At least one critic labels this a deus ex machina, understanding this to mean a conclusion added to the end of a work 16 in an unconvincing manner. Yet this ending, like the swinging of the lantern, requires further consideration, for it offers a key to the understanding of the entire film. The lantern, emphasized by the interruption of the music and by the lingering of the camera, calls attention to the overruling logic of the work and presents itself as an emblem of the dynamics of oscillation and reversal at work throughout the film. Let us consider, then, the swinging of a lantern. This simple movement graphically displays a process at the heart of Vogler's career, binding together all of the film's strange reversals, including the final sequence that certain critics would like to detach from the work. For it is this back and forth rhythm that establishes the unity of the film even as it creates an appearance of difference and disruption. The swinging of the lantern points to the oscillations that animate the film at each of its levels. By unfolding the work's various layers, we can filming. In fact,

interpreters,

—

it

who

has been ignored by almost

tend to

all

criticize the entire final

73

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

bring forth several interrelated operations of reversal, several

metronomic tempos of advance and return. The pendulum movement is most evident, is felt most immediately by the spectator in the surprises and reversals of the dramatic action, and in the radical shifts of the film's mood. The story is told with a parallel narrative that moves freely between two different yet corresponding spaces the kitchen

—

and the Egermans' chambers. Bergman cuts back and forth between the buffoonery of the servants and the gravity of the drawing room: a farcical seduction in a laundry basket is followed by the "spiritual" unveiling of the consul's wife, just as the lamentations on death and uncertainty in the salon alternate with the telling of ridiculous ghost stories and lies in the kitchen. Deliberations of Angst are balanced by the metaphysics of the maid. It would be futile to explain these shifts in terms of some Shakespearian mixing of comedy and tragedy, because the two terms of this explanation have themselves never been adequately explained. Aristotle's barometer is available, but does not answer the question, for how can we determine here whether a given character represents, to the spectator, a difference that is noble, and thus tragic, or ridiculous, and thus comic? In order to measure this difference it would be necessary to refer to a stable identity, but in this ters' identities are

reversals,

work

the charac-

subjected to a series of radical oscillations,

and doublings.

Thus Vogler,

the silent and mysterious figure possessing

occult powers, also

hiding behind a

shows himself

false

beard and

a

to be an insecure charlatan

feigned muteness. Dr. Ver-

gerus describes this ambivalence of character quite precisely:

On

the one

hand we have the

idealist

Doctor Vogler

who

prac-

medicine in accordance with Mesmer's rather dubious methods. On the other hand we have the somewhat less highminded conjuror Vogler who arranges all kinds of hocus-pocus tices

according to entirely

homemade

correctly, the activities

lously between these

14

recipes. If I've grasped the facts

of the Vogler troupe

two extremes.

vacillate

unscrupu-

The Magic Lantern is momentarily lucid about the of Vogler's identity, his own character is hardly stable and offers no firm basis for a judgment of Vogler. Vergerus is quite blind to his own vacillations and is in fact something of an inverted image of the magician. The enlightened atheist and authority on the science of medicine is also a man driven by a belligerent fascination for the charlatan and by his

Although Dr. Vergerus

oscillations

desire for

Manda, Vogler's

The

wife.

materialist

be

ghost.

The profound ambivalence of Vergerus'

a creature

shows him-

capable of being terrified by his fear of a

self to

attitude

is

be-

"As soon as you you your faces, your silence, your natural dignity." But two lines later he adds: "You represent what I most detest in the world." The logical mind re-

trayed in his arrived

veals

its

I

conversation with

felt a

friendship for

.

.

.

contradictions. Vergerus pretends to have an objective

viewpoint, but he

Vogler during

ment

his rival's wife:

is

animated by hostility. Examining he betrays a cold exciteholds a letter opener and directs a harsh

in fact

their first meeting,

(see Plate 9).

He

light into Vogler's eyes, addressing

attempting to terrify him: "There

him is

quite dramatically, as if

only one thing that inter-

me. Your physiology, Mr. Vogler. I would like to make an autopsy of you. Weigh your brain, open your heart, explore your nerves. ..." And when Vogler raises his eyes to meet the ests

doctor's stare, he adds: "Lift out your eyes." Mrs. asks Vergerus at this point tions aroused in

him by

why

he

tries to

Egerman emo-

conceal the

the magician, yet the doctor denies that

any such emotions exist. If anything, he comments, he regrets their absence, and has a nostalgic envy for those naive enough to believe in magic.

Vogler and Vergerus occupy seemingly opposite positions. The one stands for superstition, outdated beliefs, and primitive forms of medicine, while the other represents the established science of medicine, distinguished from the ineffectual practices of magic by its rigor and objectivity. Yet these two positions appear to be mutually determined, and the distinction between them is drawn into the oscillation and rendered unstable. Vergerus claims that he "has no prestige to defend" in confronting

Vogler, but this

is

far

from

true. "Prestige,"

we

recall, signi-

75

Ingmar Bergman and

9.

of Art

Dr. Vergerus (Gunnar Bjornstrand), right, subjects his rival Vogler to

a violent

Film

the Rituals

examination

Stills

as Vogler's

wife looks on

(Museum of Modern

fled in the seventeenth century a conjuring trick,

from the Latin, prestigium, meaning tringere means to bind fast, to blind, gerus

Art/

Archive).

may

not be

a prestidigitator,

illusionist here: the

"illusion."

and

is

derived

The verb

dazzle, or fascinate.

but Vogler

doctor indeed claims

is

praes-

17

Ver-

not the only

a certain prestige,

and

defends the illusion that the science of medicine gives him

a

wholly rational and complete knowledge of man. His premise is that nothing in reality defies explanation, for if this were not so it would be necessary to conceive of God. Yet if the position adopted by Vergerus were as secure as he pretends, he would hardly feel the need to address the charlatan so vehemently; he knows that if the mesmerist were to 2l

16

The Magic Lantern failed, the inadequacies of the modern would be revealed. Vergerus indeed recognizes in Vogler a rival whose appearance is a threat to his authority. It who is interesting that Bergman cast Gunnar Bjornstrand,

succeed where he has science

played the theater director in Sawdust and Tinsel,

as

Vergerus,

between these roles. The theater director expresses his contempt for the circus performers while recognizing that they belong to the same group; theater and circus vie with each other for the public's favor, even if the one has already established a more secure place in the community and thus has the upper hand. Similarly, the magician and the doctor compete, both offering cures to the townspeople. Vergerus, like the theater director, is immediately contemptuous of his nomadic counterpart, but denies that there might exist any similarity in their practices. As far as he is concerned, the rivalry has been decided, and medical science alone has the right to minister to the people's health. Yet the doctor still feels challenged, and in the course of the film the stability of for there

is

his position

a parallel

is

indeed unsettled.

The viewpoints of Vergerus and Vogler

are

combined

in

Granny, a character who suggests the common ancestry of science and magic, medicine and witchcraft. This crone, who repeatedly voices an

unbounded confidence

in her mystical

knowledge, is also a cynical entrepreneur who handles her finances even more skillfully than does the philistine Tubal, the manager of Vogler's troupe. At the end of the film she leaves the troupe, having decided to use her savings to set up a respectable pharmacy where her primitive herbs and potions will become licensed drugs sold on prescription. "One must show the proper respect for the new religion," she comments. It would seem that rationality and superstition, as different forms of belief, are bound together as antipodes within a single dynamic. Any effort to separate them totally as Vergerus desires is doomed to failure. Here a reference to the dynamic career of Strindberg may be instructive. Strindberg adopts, at various stages of his life, each of the contradictory perspectives marking the cultural fragmentation of the nineteenth century, appearing in turn as a naturalist and alchemist, revolutionary

—

—

11

— Ingmar Bergman and and Nietzschean,

the Rituals

rationalist

and

of Art

disciple

of the mystic Sweden-

borg. 18 In such works as "Genvagar" and "En haxa," Strind-

berg quite

literally

focuses

on the

conflict

between

naturalist

demystification and occult belief, represented by his central characters. In

The Magician, Bergman

also sets in

motion the

conflictual interplay of similar positions that only appear to be

mutually exclusive. Vogler, the maker of myths, confronts in Vergerus a modern skeptic, yet the difference between their two viewpoints is hardly absolute. Neither mystification nor demystification seems able to win a decisive victory, and the outcome remains hanging in the balance of a profound ambivalence. Bergman's treatment of this conflict recalls Kierkegaard's remark that the modern age produces myths at the same time that it attempts to extirpate all myth. The ambiguity of a film in which the characters' identities

—

and the philosophical positions that they represent undergo such radical reversals would seem to present a formidable obstacle to any attempt at a coherent interpretation. Aristotle's much discussed distinction between comic and tragic heroes appears useless in relation to this work; another of Aristotle's indications seems more helpful, however, even if it only leads in the direction of another series of oscillations. The philosopher notes that the origin of the word "comedy" is sometimes said to be comae, designating the outlying hamlets of the city, and that comedians would consequently receive their name not from the comoe, or revels, but from their endless strolling from hamlet to hamlet, a lack of appreciation keeping them out of the city. 19 However, in the case of Vogler's troupe, even this lack of appreciation has no stability or certitude, given that the illusionists are alternately expelled and recalled, held in esteem and subjected to derision. Such a movement defines the entire career of the Magnetic Health Theater, as it is both recounted and witnessed in the film. Vogler's wife reflects on their past triumphs and disgraces, recalling that they have been driven away and welcomed by courts all over Europe. Their most recent engagement in Denmark has ended in disaster. If they approach Stockholm with the hope of winning the king's favor, they also flee from" the 78

The Magic Lantern

10. Sara (Bibi

Andersson) runs to join Vogler's troupe in The Magician.

police and fear being arrested at any

moment. Granny de-

had a great success with her magic in Ostende, a success, however, that did not exclude a public flagellation. It is the same during the troupe's stay with the Egermans. The outsiders are ridiculed by Vergerus and Starbeck during the scribes having

79

Ingmar Bergman and first

encounter and,

the Rituals

when

of Art

sent to the kitchen, hear derisive

laughter behind them. Yet during the same

first

encounter,

Mrs. Egerman already shows herself to be quite fascinated by the magical presence of Vogler and later that evening throws herself at his feet.

Starbeck enjoys making

a joke of the troupe's paltry feat of immediately afterward finds himself the butt of an even greater joke when his wife casts him in the role of the fool. Starbeck, who applauded sarcastically, is now subjected to the same derisive applause as Tubal returns the compliment,

levitation, but

repeating the police chief's gesture.

when Antonsson

From

here the reversals

Vogler and the magician is pronounced dead, Starbeck enjoys another moment of triumph and grants himself the insolent pleasure of making Manda a rather degrading offer. But again the reversal is only momentary, and only prepares for another shift of the pendulum. After the autopsy, it is Vergerus' confident rationality and not the corpse of Vogler that is dissected, and the magician prevails over the self-assured doctor, who is terrified by the accelerate:

attacks

—

—

uncanny occurrences

in the attic.

The

doctor's confidence

is

immediately restored, however, when Vogler appears in rags and begs for his wages. Now the doctor is again in the position to boast. "You produced a little fear of death, nothing more, nothing less," he comments coolly. Flinging a coin at the unmasked magician's feet, he says, "It was a poor performance, but naturally you must be paid." Vogler is no longer recognized by the others, who enjoy one more fleeting instant of superiority, which is overturned with the arrival of the king's messengers.

pendulum movements animating the film at the levels of characterization and plot, we must now examine these dynamics more closely, seeking to define the nexus within which this logic of oscillation is generated. Having begun with

What

is

the

movement of identities between opposite extremes? The question hinges

the source of this ambivalent

that vacillate

on the nature of Vogler's craft, for each of the film's reversals bound to the status of a figure who gives rise to ambivalent shifts of emotion in those coming into contact with him.

is

80

The Magic Lantern Vogler

is

alternately

admired and

ridiculed,

feared and be-

seeched, recalled and expelled. In a sense, his magic

powerful, for even

them

when

is

always

the others scorn his tricks and reject

as a fraud, the intensity

of these negative reactions

still

suggests that the magician continues to exert a strange in-

Antonsson, like the consul's wife, is clearly fascinated by Vogler from the start; the one feels an immediate fear and hatred, the other an irresistible desire. Whatever the others think of Vogler, they are never simply indifferent to his presence; their responses to him may vacillate between radical extremes, but both the negative and positive reactions are determined by some underlying attraction having a consistent fluence.

Similarly,

force.

Bergman

notes

when

discussing the film-

maker's influence on the public that he "has an unbounded power even over those who despise him." 20 What, then, is the source of this power, which engenders the volatile relations between the members of the troupe and inhabitants of the city?

We can begin to deal with these questions by attending, once more, to the swinging lantern that set in motion our reading of the film. Perhaps it should be related to another device appearing in the work the magic lantern that figures

—

here as a metaphor for the cinema.

would thus be derived from

The

a singularly

illusionist's

force

deceptive instrument

capable of projecting highly persuasive images, and The Magician

would be Bergman's of

lation

his

own

self-reflexive statement

The medium allows him to

films to the public.

noted that the film

about the re-

director has indeed

transport the spec-

between diametrically opposed feelings in shifts of emotion like the swinging of a pendulum. The character Vogler and the dynamics of illusion and belief depicted in the film

tator

would

refer, then, to

of the film

erties

cinematic processes.

medium and

sentation that the apparatus supports basis

tion

of the is

technical prop-

would be

the ultimate

illusion's psychological efficacity. If this interpreta-

correct the demystification follows quite simply. Point-

ing to the machine, tion:

The

the powerful system of repre-

the conjuror

we is

can easily reveal the basis of the decepable to

dupe the audience because of 81

Ingmar Bergman and

11. In Cries

the Rituals

of Art

and Whispers, Fru Holle's magic lantern provides the occasion

for a family gathering

(Museum of Modern Art/Film

Stills

Archive).

the representational function of a device that produces, quite

unmatched realism. Such an exupon an issue central to the cinema in general; it finds a more the contemporary film theories that

automatically, images of an

planation of Vogler's magic touches

Bergman's works and

to

elaborate formulation in

take the cinematic language as their privileged object of study. Briefly, these theories consider film as a

mode of

through

representa-

photographic transparency, an illusion of presence obscuring the real absence of the referent. 21 Bergman indeed designates such an explanation in his film, but evokes it only to reveal its inadequacy. This is essentially the same response given by both Aman and tion:

the

82

cinematic sign creates,

its

The Magic Lantern Tubal when interrogated about the magician's pretended powers: "Sir! It's our laterna magica. A ridiculous and entirely harmless toy." The response

an evasive one, designed to disarm the authority's suspicions. Starbeck is only too willing is

answer and thinks by showing the audience

to believe their

that he can defeat the

gician

the

ma-

apparatus making the

performer's stunts possible. Rising from his seat during the act

of

levitation,

but

wires;

he pulls aside the curtain and reveals the hidden equipment hardly exhausts the magician's

this

resources, and a

few moments

the police chief powerless.

He

another "trick" renders

later

how

cannot explain

the situation

has been reversed so suddenly, and cannot put a stop to his wife's insults

by pointing

to

some

The woman can

device.

continue her tirade with impunity because the magician

is

"responsible" for her sudden freedom of speech, and she gladly

pompous hus-

takes advantage of the opportunity to put her

band

in his place.

Relating the filmmaker's powers of persuasion to the art of conjuring, Bergman refers to the kind of demystification attempted by Starbeck, and suggests that the explanations of magic remain incomplete whenever they single out only the technical devices employed:

One can explain his tricks, point at the machinery and say: "so and so and so"; one can break the whole into fragments and say: you don't "here we have this part and this part and this part .

.

.

fool us."

But

this is just

what

the apparatus and says:

duplicate

what

I

am

the conjuror does, for he

"By

all

means, borrow

shows everyone

my

machines and

doing. Take your time. Learn to be agile

with your fingers, learn how, just at the right moment, to divert the attention of the audience with your spiel, learn speed and the mysterious illumination. You will still not do what I am doing,

you

will

still fail.

You

see,

I

perform magic!

I

conjure!"

22

It is significant that in The Magician the magic lantern plays only a minor part. The apparatus is present in the hall when Mrs. Egerman comes to declare her passionate trust in Vog-

ler's

powers, but she scarcely glances

at

the

image of 83

a face

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

on the magician's truly none of the magician's successes depends on a mechanical device. His single most "magical" achievement occurs when Antonsson believes himself bound by invisible chains, yet the coachman's paroxysms are that

it

projects and instead focuses

fascinating countenance. In fact,

more

the product of his

He

trickery.

Manda

lifts

is

own

captivated

by

expectations than of a technical the convincing

the invisible chains and wraps

manner in which them about him;

through her powers of suggestion the imaginary chains take on weight and substance for him. More important, Antonsson is

ready to believe.

When

called forth for the experiment, he at

already being terrified of the troupe, already be-

first refuses,

lieving fully in the magician's dangerous powers. Antonsson,

however,

is

bound

in service to

Consul Egerman and has no

choice but to take part once his master

commands him

forward. As Vogler's assistant advances,

to step

lifting the chains in a

most solemn and

forceful manner, this behavior is immediand imitated by the brutish servant, who feels the chains about him and falls to the floor, hopelessly bound. ately believed

If

it is

clear that the charlatan's psychological influence has

no purely

technical basis, one

must seek

a real

explanation for

the highly charged relations between the magician and the

audience.

It

must be determined how Antonsson and the oth-

ers come to believe in Vogler's craft, and how this belief gives him such a high degree of influence over those fascinated by

him.

And why

qualities, sire?

does his fascination include radically opposite

combining

Perhaps

it

is

bitter

animosity with admiration and de-

more important

to ask

what Vogler repre-

sents to the others than to analyze the specific techniques that

contribute to this representation.

The swinging of the lantern suggests another line of investigation. Its movement reminds us of one of the methods employed by hypnotists, who sometimes fascinate their subby holding before their eyes a swinging chain. Vogler, we know, is a disciple of Mesmer, which suggests that his influence over others may be derived from his use of hypnosis.

jects

This possibility can be explored without abandoning the idea that in The Magician Bergman reflects on his own art, for the

84

The Magic Lantern director has referred to the hypnotic quality of the film-view-

ing experience:

I

think also the reception by the audience of a picture

very hypnotic.

You

sit

is

very,

room, very

there in a completely dark

anonymous, and you look on a spot, on a lighted spot in front of you, and you don't move. You sit, and you don't move, and your eyes are concentrated on that white spot on the wall. I, think this is exactly what some hypnotists do. They light a spot on the wall and ask you to follow it with your eyes, and then they talk to you and then they hypnotize you. The film medium is some sort of magic. 23 .

In another interview,

Bergman

discusses his

.

.

method of stag-

ing in film and theater and underlines the importance of direct-

ing the spectator's attention in a highly controlled manner.

Every scenic

space, he remarks, has a specific point of focus, a

"radiating point" (utstrdlnings punkt) determined tions

on the

by

the posi-

stage and their relation to the audience. If the

"magnetic point" {magnetiska punkt), his performance will have the greatest possible impact on the viewer: such a person, Bergman notes, "is always captivatactor

is

placed

at this

ing.

— and

to the spectator's ex-

resides in hypnosis,

which would thus be

Perhaps the key to Vogler's perience in general

—

art

the source of a magician's or filmmaker's powers of sugges-

To

follow Bergman in proposing that hypnosis is at the of aesthetic experience may seem implausible, but the idea has already been advanced, most notably by Bergson, who claims that the processes of art are a refined and "spiritualized" form of the methods used to induce states of hypnosis. The work of art seeks to soften the subject's resistance so that the ideas and emotions suggested will be received passively and experienced more fully. The object of the work of art is, in Bergson's words, to put the active forces of the personality to sleep: "Thus, in music, rhythm and measure suspend the normal circulation of our sensation and ideas by causing our attention to oscillate between fixed points." 25 That the persuasive force of artistic illusion finds its basis in tion.

basis

85

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

hypnosis was also advanced by Strindberg, whose remarks in this regard may have directly influenced Bergman. Like many writers of the late nineteenth century, Strindberg believed that the phenomenon of "suggestion" was a pervasive mode of influence and control involved in the very fabric of social

life.

Suggestion thus appears throughout Strindberg's works, par-

of his "naturalist" period. At the beginning of a power of suggestion in both theory and

ticularly those

story illustrating the

he elaborates on his ideas:

practice,

Suggestion

the stronger brain's struggle with and victory over

is

the weaker brain. This procedure

everyday

life.

on unconsciously in and authors move automatically. The actor hypcompelling them to applaud, cry, or

The minds of

compel those of others to waking public,

notizes his

laugh; the painter

is

imagine that he sees

carried

is

politicians,

who

an enchanter a

landscape

when

crowd

thinkers,

can it

make

is

the viewer

only color on

a

whatever stupidities he likes, if only he has a gift for speaking and powerful rhetoric; and what is a priest not capable of doing when dressed 26 in the luxurious robes of the church? canvas; an orator can cause a

to believe in

The comparison between aesthetic experiences and hypnosis advanced by Bergson, Strindberg, and Bergman is reflected in the person of Vogler, a magician and performer who is said to employ the specific techniques of Mesmer. This historical reference is worthy of consideration, for the practices of the first "hypnotist" contain certain elements that can indeed contribute to our understanding of the magician's craft and of the

nature of his audience's responses.

Franz Anton

Mesmer was born

practicing physician in

Baden in 1734, and was a Vienna until his growing interest in in

animal magnetism antagonized the faculty of medicine there. Arriving in Paris in 1778, where he found receptive

to

his

theories,

Mesmer

a

climate

more

and newly developed methods. established

a

clinic

began to practice cures using his His fertile imagination, which led him to formulate elaborate metaphysical theories, was joined by an acute sense of theatrics:

the bizarre decorations in his clinic contributed to the

86

The Magic Lantern mysterious staging of seances designed to bring his patients into contact with occult powers.

The

Parisian scientific estab-

lishment was skeptical about Mesmer's doctrine, and

commission investigated the matter, reporting

a

royal

that the exis-

tence of magnetic fluids could not be supported

by empirical

evidence. Yet Mesmer's success with the public was irrefutable,

while the vogue lasted he did not lack wealthy patrons. 27

Mesmer's after his

practices

were taken up by

death in 1815. His theories

a

number of followers reached Sweden in

first

were practiced intermittently throughout the nineteenth century. Count Carl, who was to become King Charles XIII, was a fervent believer in the occult and was particularly interested in mesmerism. A journal on the subject was published in Sweden from 1815 to 1829. After a period of waning interest, mesmerism found a new proponent in the person of 1789, and

Carl Hansen, skeptical

who

in

1864 demonstrated the technique to the the Swedish Medical Association. In

members of

1884 another mesmerist was even invited to the royal palace. 28 Thus Bergman, in setting the action of The Magician in 1846, accurately positions the activities of Dr. Vogler at a time the practices of

when

it

Mesmer enjoyed

would not be

at all

when and

at least a partial favor,

implausible that

ticism could be joined, quite paradoxically,

a

Vergerus' skep-

by

a king's

ap-

proval.

Mesmer and

his various followers devised diverse

techniques in order to hypnotize their subjects,

props and

and

their

theories concerning the nature of the "magnetic fluids" and the

metaphysical realm varied even more. 29

Mesmer wore

a bizarre

and carried a wand as he moved among his patients, who were seated in a dark room hung with mirrors and decorated with mysterious astrological signs. The sick were positioned about the baquet, a large tub filled with water, iron filings, and powdered glass. Mesmer claimed that he had magnetized this device, and that the iron rods emerging from its lid could thus transmit the magnetic force to those touching them. His patients joined hands and waited as he approached, making passes with his wand and fixing others with his charismatic stare. The music of a glass harmonica lilac-colored silk robe

87

a

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

contributed to the eerie atmosphere established by this elaborate mise en scene.

Other mesmerists

altered the props, but the scenario

was

basically the same. Essentially, each mesmerist posits the exis-

— magnetism, the — and presents himself someone capable of

tence of a supernatural agency the spiritual force

vital fluids,

as

putting others into contact with this invisible power. Sickness, in

Mesmer's view, occurred when the usual harmony of the

person had been disturbed. The cure consisted in reestablishing the lost harmony, and was brought about by applying the magnetic force to the sick person, there-

magnetic

fluids within a

by causing

a beneficial crisis:

convulsions, screaming, tears,

or an uncontrolled gaiety. These crises were followed by calm,

and

in

many

cases,

by

the remission of nervous

symptoms

—

cure achieved, in Mesmer's view, by the reequilibrium of the individual's magnetic fluids.

An

examination of the practices of various mesmerists relies not in the mechanical devices and other props, but in the subject's relation to the mesmerist, who projects himself as the mediator of the occult force. The Marquis de Puysegur, one of Mesmer's followers, quite lucidly organized his techniques in function of a single goal, the establishing of the subject's dependence on the illusionist, who casts himself in the role of authority and is thus able to incite in the patient the beneficial crisis. What must be retained then are the following essential and unvarying elements of the mesmerist's therapeutic method: faith in the existence of magical forces and a belief in some singular individual's ability to contact and control them; and the process of a cure in which a violent crisis and its resolution cause the subject to pass from the state of sickness to health. Sickness, understood as a form of disharmony, is treated by stimulating an even more radical disharmony, which is quickly resolved in a cathartic outburst 30 that leaves the patient in a state of harmony. Mesmer can hardly be credited with the discovery of the veals that the essential

The

formula.

curious figure of the mesmerist, dressed in his

wizard's robe and wielding

shaman with

the tribal

88

a

magic wand, evokes the image of mask, sacred drum, and

his strange

The Magic Lantern staff.

A number

of striking

similarities

between these figures

The shaman, like Mesmer, is predominantly a healer, someone who presents himself to the ordinary individual as a mediator of an invisible domain and who claims to be capable of drawing upon an occult force in can be observed immediately.

order to produce beneficial cures. Mesmer's fluides recall the mana or ubiquitous power that Marcel Mauss identifies as the

of all primitive magic. 31 The relation between the mesmerist and his patients is similar to the ritual interactions initiated by the more primitive therapists, and the healers seek to produce a similar curative effect. Thus the mesmerist's procedure appears to draw upon an archaic model and to be a modern reformulation and repetition of the types of magical operations performed by shamans, witch-doctors, and medical clowns. Vogler has led us directly to the mesmerist, who in turn draws our attention to the shaman, as if this figure could facilitate our analysis by offering an even more vivid image of the conjuror's craft. Such is indeed the case, for certain anthropological studies of magic and ritual in fact illuminate the modern conjuror's practice. To puzzle over the enigma of the mesmerist's and charlatan's methods without referring to these sources is like studying a faded and incomplete portrait when a clear image of the model is at hand. If art is related to the cult, as Bergman and modernists such as Benjamin suggest, we should perhaps turn to the cult if we wish to understand a relation that continues to condition art in an age of apparent basis

demystification.

Mircea Eliade makes possible a more precise description of methods and of the processes involved in this type of therapy. He delineates in his cross-cultural survey of shamanism the essential stages present in the initiation of primitive healers and in their ritual cures, thereby positing what should be recognized as cultural invariants. 32 The shaman is summoned when a member of the community falls ill, and the cure includes four major stages. The shaman's performance begins with the invocation of the spirits. The healer sets out to discover the specific cause of an affliction thought to result from an invading spirit, the theft of the patient's soul, or the primitive healer's

89

Ingmar Bergman and the presence of

some

next engages in

a

the Rituals

of Art

foreign object in his body.

The shaman

heroic struggle with the evil presence,

liter-

upon himself. The shaman's ritmimicks a journey through the land of demons. Possessed by the malignant spirit, the shaman sings, cries, and ally taking the patient's crisis

ual dance

screams while beating his drum and shaking his rattle. He experiences nervous convulsions and becomes delirious. The expulsion of the evil force achieves the cure: the shaman vanquishes the bad spirit or draws the alien object from the sick

man's body with his mouth, spitting it out. The sacrifice of an animal often concludes the ritual, and in the final stage of the cure, the shaman climbs to the top of his hut in a ritual ascension.

Eliade specifies that the shaman's ability to combat the evil spirits that

menace

his patient

The shaman does not simply

is

due to

his "ecstatic" capacity.

exorcise the

evil,

but ingests

it,

allowing himself to be possessed in order to defeat and expel the

demon. The primitive

illness,

tion.

accentuates

its

healer undergoes the crisis of the

violence, and wins a beneficial resolu-

According to Eliade, he can transform

a crisis into a

cure

manner because he has previously acquired his powers by surviving a similar crisis during his initiation. Eliade describes the initiation in detail, bringing forth two essential

in this

moments

that correspond to the central elements

of the cure:

the initiation begins with a crisis involving illness, possession,

and a ritual death (often a violent dismemberment demons); a resolution of this crisis completes the initiation: by death is followed by a resurrection characterized by ritual ascent and purification (often achieved after the reconstitution of the individual's dismembered corpse and a renewal of his orsuffering,

The shaman can administer the cure because his own initiation has provided him with the knowledge of evil disorders and has acquainted him with the full cycle of their resolution. Thus in his initiation, the shaman learns the "ecstatic" gans).

techniques

at

the basis of his therapy.

Although Eliade draws his evidence from a wide range of cultures and organizes his case in a clear and compelling manner, his explanation of these beliefs and practices is in90

The Magic Lantern complete. He accurately describes the salient features of the shaman's magical operations, but does not explain why the unvarying elements of the cure are deemed necessary by those involved. Although he does not address the question of the real existence of the transcendent domain of spirits, he understands religious practice solely as a "communication" with this other world, never asking, for example, why the members of diverse cultures think it of central importance to handle the spirits with such care or why they go to great lengths to lead the souls of the dead away from the tribe. Thus Eliade fails to determine how the shaman's methods are efficacious, or in the cases

where

repeated.

this efficacity

is

lacking,

on

crucial to insist

It is

why

the rituals are

ingly fantastic representations and practices are

modern

primitive and a

real

role.

A

still

seemmaintained by

this point, for if the

must be because they fulfill thorough analysis of these practices would societies,

it

ground them in the social life of the participants, thereby setting forward a reason for their existence. Mauss, for example, achieves a more viable definition of magic when he remarks that its central goal is "to modify a given state." The magician is primarily a "maker," someone who employs specific techniques with the aim of attaining 33 certain ends. Thus, the list of magicians encompasses the shaman and the first experimenters in chemistry and metallurgy and extends toward Dr. Vergerus and modern filmmakers. Jacques Soustelle advances a similar argument, making a significant addition: "Magic is a complex of beliefs and practices through which privileged individuals, magicians, can act upon things in a manner different from the habitual actions of other men." 34 This definition is particularly useful because it brings forth the "privileged" status of the magician, whose special place in the community is fundamental to his role. Other writers have emphasized this same point. Jean Cazeneuve, for example, claims that the force of object springs

a

given magical operation or

from the personality of

the sorcerer; the special

being of the magician constitutes the "essential element of the ritual."

35

When

discussing singular figures such as shamans, sorcer-

91

Ingmar Bergman and ers,

the Rituals

of Art

witch-doctors, and clowns, anthropologists almost invari-

ably point out the special place that they occupy within the

community,

just as

Bergman emphasizes

the unique and pre-

carious status of Vogler and the performer in general. Laura

Makarius, for example, characterizes the plight of the mythical trickster in terms suited perfectly to Bergman's hapless clowns and magicians: "The master of magic is represented as a poor fellow dragging himself along his path, moving from humilia36 tion to humiliation."

ances

the brink of disaster, but

at

always

The magician,

at

like

is

Bergman's

also,

the edge of very great things.

as

The

artist,

Bergman

bal-

adds,

position held

by

profoundly ambivalent, composed contradictory and seemingly irreconcilable opposites: pride of and humiliation, wisdom and foolishness, strength and weakness, good and evil. The magician is deemed guilty and irresponsible, but is also admired for bringing beneficial powers to the community. Seen as a ridiculous buffoon as well as a terrifying and sacred personage, the magical clown evokes both hilarity and fear. Victor Turner terms this ambivalence a state of "liminality" (from the Latin limen, or "threshold"), and suggests that these persons "elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in culthese singular individuals

tural space."

is

37

These anthropological indications illuminate the strange osin Bergman's characters. Vogler, his wife, and

cillations

Granny ties.

are puzzling figures having highly ambivalent identiis

displayed in his different guises and

silence

and speech, weakness and strength.

Vogler's duplicity

his shifts

between

His wife's identity is literally double: as Aman, she poses as the magician's youthful male assistant, yet as Manda she appears

mature and very feminine spouse. 38 On their way to Stockholm, the troupe passes through a dark and mysterious forest where they encounter Spegel ("mirror"), an even more enigmatic figure. In the course of the film this desperate actor both feigns death and truly perishes. Posing as a ghost, he terrifies the Egermans' servants and steals a cask of liquor, assuming the roles of the trickster, who is often labeled a drunkard and a thief. An alcholic, Spegel is in a state of frenas his

92

The Magic Lantern zied dissolution and addresses his pleas to the heavens, asking

God put him to use and wishing for a sacrificial blade with which to purify himself Although describing the ambivalence touching the liminal that

individual's character

and the

efficacity

of

is

easy, explaining his presence in society

his cures

is

much more

difficult.

This

is

hardly surprising, for these issues concern the basis and power

of symbolic behavior in general. How can certain gestures, masks, images, and phrases greatly influence individuals, assuming a power of healing as well as deceit? Ultimately, this is the same question with which we began our study of Bergman, for the efficacity of symbols is central to the rituals of theater and film. Bergman poses this question each time that he focuses on the interaction between artists and the public, for he asks that we observe the power of the beliefs and desires that begin with artistic imitations but assume a more farreaching role in the eyes of the audience. To say that such beliefs are

based on "an error"

that persists in spite

the shaman,

some

of the

is

to

critic's

fail

to explain an efficacity

doubt, just as the belief in

mesmerist, or conjuror does not vanish

when

Aujkldrer or rationalist such as Vergerus waves the magic

wand of

We

must

how

Antonsson, Ottilia Egerman, and the others come to believe in the condemystification.

still

ask

juror's fascinating presence.

Claude Levi-Strauss answers the

shaman

they believe because he indeed can.

same

sort

question rather bluntly:

this

heals because people believe that he can

of paradox that

39

we found

do

Here we return at the heart

so,

and

to the

of the

star

system where the public's adulation and desire arise in a circular manner, as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The star is adored because he is a star, and is a star because he is adored. Although it is crucial to recognize the circularity, doing so is only a first step toward a real explanation of its operation. The most compelling anthropological theories seek to ground such dynamics within the life of the community where they arise and where symbolic behavior finds its role. Therefore we may take as our guideline Emile Durkheim's intuition that religious phenomena such as magic and shamanism are essentially linked to the

93

Ingmar Bergman and

problem of maintaining his

the Rituals

of Art 40

Thus, Turner relates concept of liminality to the notion of communitas a form of social cohesion.

,

social transition in

which the

differentiations

normally uphold-

ing the social order are temporarily dissolved and then reinstated. In a similar

manner, Makarius links the strange ambiv-

alence of tricksters, clowns, and other sacred individuals to the

of religious taboos that underlies their varied She notes that the clown doctors of archaic cultures openly display forms of dangerous, antisocial behavior, transgressing the restrictions related to blood and other substances representing the threat of deadly contamination. The primitive doctor makes medicines of impure concoctions that would be thought fatal in the hands of normal individuals. The liminal individual, we have seen, is a creature of crisis. His strange demeanor, costume, and speech are emblems of the disruption of social norms. The primitive clown's actions are the antithesis of the rule; in some tribes, quite literally so: the Cheyenne "contraries," as the name implies, do things backwards in rituals presenting in an extreme form the sort of nonsense and bumblings through which the modern clown 42 defies the habitual conceptions of proper conduct. Other types of circus acts also have counterparts in primitive societies. Shamans often perform feats of danger and daring, manipulating fire, walking a tightrope, achieving marvelous escapes after being bound in ropes or enclosed in a basket. 43 The clown and the magician live in constant contact with impurity, danger, and confusion. This relation to disorder and crisis is fundamental to the practices of the mesmerist and shaman. Both understand illness as a form of disharmony and both respond to the afflicritual violation

actions.

41

t

tion

by

accelerating the crisis so that a beneficial resolution

may

be achieved. In the paradoxical logic of these curative becomes a weapon against disorder, and crisis is treated with crisis. Such a logic would appear to be so irrational as to defy analysis. Indeed, the predominant tendenprocesses, disorder

cy, after James Frazer, was to identify the homeopathic logic of "like against like" as some innate feature of the "primitive mentality" or of "pre-logical thought." Lucien Levy-Bruhl,

94

The Magic Lantern hoped to discover the specificity of these "repreby contrasting them to the Kantian norms of rathought. The central category of reason defied by the

for example,

sentations" tional

primitive logic of substitution, he contends, tity

and noncontradiction.

44

A

is

the law of iden-

sacred or magic person

is

and

is

not himself; such an object or person exists as a living contra-

example, the voodoo doll is the person it represents, just as this person's being resides, following the metonymy of belief, in a single lock of hair upon which the sorceror diction. For

performs

shaman

is

a

magical operation. Present before the patient, the

also believed to be

his physical convulsions are

struggle with the

away

in the land

of

thought to manifest

and ongoing

spirits,

his

demon.

Adopting the terminology, but not the inspiration, of Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl describes such enigmatic logics as "collective representations," without, however, attempting to explain their social dimension. Consequently, he is incapable of explaining the appeal and persistence of such

a logic,

course to the residual category of "affect." Reason

and has

may

re-

indeed

be contaminated by desire, but in Levy-Bruhl's writings this "affect" goes unexplained. As we have seen, the clowns' "contradictions" and the shamans' convulsions involve a special place and role in

we must

communal

life.

If their logic is to

be grasped,

explore this collective facet of "representations" that

are interactions as well as manifestations of thought.

This

is

the principle guiding the theory of

Rene Girard, who

successfully anchors the logic of these representations within social

dynamics, thereby achieving a precise understanding of According to Girard's hypothesis, the crisis

their efficacity.

menacing a community is the conflict that begins with rivalry and progresses to violence, initiating a runaway cycle of mimetic interaction. A first blow is answered by a second, and this exchange of imitated retributions threatens to disrupt the of judiciary systems designed to mediate between parties in dispute, the exchange of retributions goes unchecked and violence oscillates throughout the group, drawing more and more members of the community into its movement with each exchange. In a tightly knit soci-

entire social order. In the absence

95

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

where each individual is linked to others by an intricate and rigorous network of familial relations, an act of violence cannot fail to have far-reaching consequences because the members of clan, moitie, and familial group are bound to aid the injured party in his search for redress. The acts of retribution in turn draw others into the conflict and engender a generalized melee or the warlike struggles of the blood feud. The rapid spread of such reciprocal conflict is what gives rise to notions of the contagious nature of violence, often designated ety

metaphorically as a deadly contamination or plague.

Yet Girard

means by which such groups

identifies the

able to arrest the cycle of conflict.

An

individual

is

are

designated

person guilty of causing the disturbance, and the unity of the group is restored by the collective murder or expulsion of this scapegoat. 45 The generalized conflict is resolved, as we have seen in so many of Bergman's episodes, when the violence of the group is directed against the one who is arbitrarily singled out as being guilty of causing it. Thus, communities shaken by violence resort to victimage, resolving a violent crisis through violent means. Durkheim touches upon this principle in a passage that makes explicit the nature of the dangerous "contamination" represented by blood, held by Makarius to be the substance upon which every taboo is based: as the

drop of blood that is shed tends immediate group, the itself to destructive consequences is to seek out avoid these only way to analysis, to In the final an expiatory victim to assume them. violences that it anticipate the avenge the shedding of blood is to anticiwould engender if left unchecked, and it is necessary to pate these potential acts of violence in order to control and chanSince the principle

is

that each

produce destructive

nel

effects in the

them with discernment. 46

The

disorder caused by rivalry and violence cannot,

ever, be expelled in

equilibrium

is

found

some in a

single

and definitive

dynamic process

how-

action. Social

that incorporates

disequilibrium. Ritual addresses this problem by setting disor-

der and

made

crisis in

motion so

that they can be recuperated

and

to serve the cause of order. Girard describes ritual as a

96

The Magic Lantern mechanism of victimage through which a community seeks a resolution for a real or anticipated crisis. The sacrificial operations performed in ritual aim at regaining for the community the beneficial order first achieved in the unifying movement of victimage. repetition of the

An lence

example of is

this ritual control

of violence through vio-

presented by R. A. LeVine in his study of the

Gush

of Kenya. Members of this culture complaining of afflictions denounce suspected witches with great vehemence, claiming that these individuals are the source of their troubles. The victimage begins with accusations and progresses to murder, precisely as in the case of the young girl accused of causing the plague in The Seventh Seal. 47 In both cases, a group attempts to treat its own ills by directing the violence toward someone granted the mythical status of being both their cause and cure. This ritual pattern is institutionalized in the role of the limtribe in the highlands

inal individual.

The magician's

relation to crisis,

affirm, establishes a position in the

The

we

can

community having

now

a social

a change of of social relations. He acts on people, not things. The shaman and the mesmerist establish a relation with a sick individual and employ crisis to cure the affliction. But the process of crisis and resolution set in motion has its equivalent and model in a social mechanism and in the rituals that use crisis to resolve disturbances at the level of the social body. Positioned at the boundary of the community and its norms, the magician and clown represent the violence that threatens the equilibrium of social life. Their

function.

magician's techniques of causing

state are productive, in the first instance,

role

is

control

of

this

to carry this disorder crisis

word

by embodying

— disorder,

dynamic of

the

members of the group

social order.

by

instability,

difference

order and

at

to contain

thereby making

the

achieve this privilege

away from it,

Thus

the

—

it

community, to two senses

in the

serve a role within

the transgressions denied

are permitted to these persons,

marked

The marginal

figure's

impurity, and danger.

from the others marks the boundary between its

who

the price of assuming a status

social

disintegration; the liminal character's confusion

97

Ingmar Bergman and

of Art

the Rituals

of identity stands in opposition to the stable identities held by the members of the group. Standing in opposition to the group, these individuals appear as adversaries of the social order, but also as its benefactors.

Girard's analysis permits us to identify the origin of

the sacred individual's ambivalent nature.

deemed

guilty of causing the violent

seen as a dangerous and fearful figure

As

crisis,

the one person

the individual

is

whose maleficent powers

unbounded. Yet as his status is likewise linked to the decisive resolution of crisis achieved through sacrifice, he also appears as the source of all beneficent power. The fundamental ambivalence of the sacred illuminates, and is illuminated by, the oscillations marking the group's relation to the earthly representatives of divinities whose identities are mixtures of evil and goodness, maleficent and beneficent powers. The two poles of the sacred spring from the group's differentiation of violence. The figure accused of being the cause of violent crisis is the representative of all evil; yet as this same figure is are virtually

moment of

he will be divided in two and will also represent the beneficent and life-

intimately linked to the

unification,

giving force of the sacred. Although in mythical pantheons the is .sometimes clearly drawn, the temporal dimenof ritual permits us to observe how a single individual sion plays both roles: the sacrificial victim figures first as a frightful transgressor and then as a benign and wonderful deity. Thus the liminal individual stands for the threat of violence. In a logic of substitution and representation, he is designated by the group as the embodiment of all conflictual mimesis.

distinction

The

sacrificial

victim

is

the

first sign;

he stands for something that he theless taken to be: the cause

is

substituted for the group,

not, but

and cure of

all

which he

is

none-

disorder. Girard's

theory brings together the partial conclusions reached by other anthropologists concerning the shaman's social role, for these writers almost invariably refer, at least in passing, to the sacrificial

nature of his position. Thus Cazeneuve

the magician fice

is

is a

sacrificial figure.

Mauss

labels the trickster a

98

that

and Katherine "divine scapegoat." Makarius

often the "guiding image" in magic,

Luomala

comments

also notes that sacri-

The Magic Lantern

when

supports these notions

and clown

as

community. 48

the entire

the essential

she describes the medicine

who assume

persons

moments

man

the guilt of transgression for

and resurrection also figure as Eliade's analysis of the initiation and

Sacrifice

in

therapy of the shaman.

The magician

member of

represents

to

the

community not another

group but the social in its entirety, mimesis as the frightful and sacred force capable of destroying all order and mimesis as the benevolent power that weaves stable social relations, first of all in the unifying movement of sacrifice, secondarily in the processes of social differentiation. As the the

the victim represents the transcendental

first sign,

relation to

which

a

profane

fined and constituted.

communal order

is

Any

community and crisis

its

domain

in

laws are de-

threatening the fabric of the

henceforth attributed to the action of the

its sudden influence upon nature and the world of such occasions the liminal figures are called upon to restoration of order through ritual repetitions of the

sacred, to

men.

On

permit

a

movement in which a generalized crisis suddenly brings the unanimity of the group. Even when the difficulty faced by the group has its cause in natural processes, the logic of the sacred guides the interpretation of the crisis and prescribes the means by which the group seeks an answer to it. Viewed in these terms, both the efficacity and inefficacity of ritual become understandable to us, for the seemingly "illogical" representations and practices of ritual and magic reveal their basis and reality in the life of the community. As Eliade notes, the shaman's initiation begins with crisis, taking the form of a symbolic murder and dismemberment recalling the sparagmos of sacrifice. Resurrected, the shaman henceforth represents to the group someone in contact with danger and disorder, but more important, someone who has undergone the process in which violence suddenly creates order. The efficacity of the shaman's symbolic practice, we have seen, derives from the social dynamic upon which it is modeled and in which it originates. His costume, gestures, and demeanor are part of an unending "performance" determined by a role within a real social drama. In this light we can 99

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

begin to understand the ambivalent position of the actor, whose role has evolved from the same ritual pattern and re-

mains close to

own

it

if

only because the performer's

bodily presence, which

facilitates the

metic confusion of his person and

role.

medium

is

his

"magical" or mi-

As Girard has demon-

the contours of ritual can be traced in the earliest forms of drama, and nowhere is this more evident than in the social attitudes toward actors. Perceived as both the cause and cure of disorder, the performer continues to be considered an individual who exists at the outskirts of the community. Even today he is thought to be infamous and immoral, but also receives honor and prestige. The actor is expelled and recalled in an endless series of oscillations. Bergman notes that in modstrated,

Sweden it is impossible for an actor to town hotel in Jonkoping." 49 Here we performer's most ancient role, an attitude

room

ern

"get a decent

at the

find a vestige of the

that must be juxtaposed to the actor's fame and glory which, although its seeming contrary, is part of the same ritual pattern. Girard argues that the two poles of the sacred animate Plato's condemnation and expulsion of the "imitator" as well as Aristotle's valorization of drama. The one perceives the actor as a transgressor and would banish him from the orderly republic in a wholly ritual manner. The other inserts the actor's imitations of crisis within the ritual process, as if recapturing its second pole by perceiving the beneficial role played by the dramatic art in the community. 50 If the philosophies of aesthetics have worked to detach art from its ritual condition, thereby losing sight of the ritual processes that continue to underlie such terms as "catharsis," artists such as Bergman offer a needed corrective by recalling the real persistence of the ritual model in art and in the community's relation to it. The Magician, however, is more than a reenactment of the ritual process. Bergman's depiction of the magician's social role is also a commentary on the dynamics in which such figures are engaged. The arrival of the troupe sets off a crisis in the Egerman household. The routine of daily life is interrupted, giving way to an atmosphere of vitality and confusion. Differences of status and identity are shaken as the relations

WO

The Magic Lantern between individuals are subjected to a violent flux, or rather, to the flux of violence. For Vergerus and the consul, the crisis is a matter of jealousy and desire; the juggling of the masks incites a chaotic flurry of emotions in the other members of the household; an orgy of passion for the women and for the menservants, but also the dreadful fear of the unknown and a primitive terror of the return of the dead.

More ler

fundamentally, the disorder consists of rivalry.

Vog-

confronts Vergerus, Granny challenges Starbeck, the magi-

and the Egermans' menservants vie for the favors of the In the first meeting between the performers and others an immediate tension arises and generates ambivalent emotions. Rustan, one of the Egermans' servants, voices his spontaneous resentment of the outsiders, stating that what incenses him about Vogler and his people is their "difference"; it is this difference that makes him fear and hate Vogler: "People like that should be flogged," he says in the kitchen after Simson has stolen Sara away from him. "There's something about conjurors. Their faces are so infuriating. It's enough to drive cian's

women.

you mad when you

see a face like Vogler's.

You just want

to

him, to crush his face." If characters such as Rustan believe strongly in Vogler's "difference," this does not imply that the spectator is invited

hit

to participate in the

the "difference"

is

myth. Bergman

clearly demonstrates that

the product of Vogler's disguise and of the

expectations and beliefs already present in those meeting him.

and done nothing when Mrs. Egeradmiring glance toward him (see Plate 12), and he listens impassively as she projects her every hope and desire upon him: "I have longed for you. You will explain why my child died. What God meant. That's why you have come. To soothe my sorrow and lift the burden from my shoulders." Bergman's characterization of Ottilia Egerman thus recalls

Vogler has

man

literally said

directs her

.

Baudelaire's

phrase:

trompant d'idole."

"C'est

.

toujours

.

l'animal

adorateur

51

se

Each of the different seductions occurring same pattern: Vogler, Simson, and Tubal each set out to play the seducer, but the "objects" of the seduction in fact play the predominant role in what follows.

in the film follows the

101

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals of Art

12. The believer finds her hopes and desires and Ottilia Egerman (Gertrud Fridh).

fulfilled in the

magician: Vogler

Certain characters offer more lucid attitudes toward Vogler and thus give the viewer clues concerning his duplicity. When Spegel meets the magician early in the film, he immediately asks him if he too is an actor, having noted the false beard and wig. Although Vogler is presented to the audience and the Egermans as a mute, in the scene before the troupe enters the library we see that Tubal turns to him and warns him not to say a word.

102

The Magic Lantern Alone with

his wife,

Vogler removes his disguise and relinemblem of his difference. His first

quishes his silence, the very

words

reveal the reciprocity that binds

him

to the others, for

they virtually double the sentiments of envy and hatred

ready expressed by Rustan:

"I

hate them.

I

al-

hate their faces,

movements, their voices. But I am frightI become powerless." The action of The Magician forms a series of confrontations and competitions that begins with the argument between Granny and Tubal, achieves a first moment of intensity with the meeting of the household and troupe, and then bifurcates, their bodies, their

ened too.

And

then

surfacing in the farcical bouts of love in the kitchen and in the

somewhat more

refined but violent psychological struggles

acted out in the other parts of the house. in the

The

rivalry

wager between the consul and doctor, and

relations already existing

is

present

in the strained

— but then accentuated— between the

consul and his wife.

The

object of the rivalry can be granted

many names:

be-

tween Vogler and Vergerus

it is a question of authority and of determining which form of medicine is to prevail. Yet even this confrontation of "epistemologies" is colored by the presence of Manda, for Vergerus expresses his

prestige, a matter

from the magician. If in the library the magic and science are in dispute, in the kitchen it is a matter of what Marianne Hook aptly calls karleksmagi "the magic of love." 52 Rustan and Simson compete for Sara's attention, and Granny turns a profit by hawking her mysterious, fraudulent, and surprisingly effective love potions. Granny's

desire to steal her

truths of

—

mixtures "magically" succeed in bringing the lovers together because she sells the "good" potion to one suitor and the "bad" to the other,

who

falls

ill

and

is

removed from

the competi-

tion.

The

exchanged looks and in the accelerating exchanges of insults and barbs. The violence erupts quite brutally when Antonsson attacks the magician; it climaxes in the unrestrained struggle in the attic. Here the conjuror stages his most powerful performance. The shadowy lighting of the sequence is remarkably similar to the atmoconflict builds in the

103

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

sphere of the forest, where shafts of light filtering through the gloom created an air of mystery and danger. Vogler conceals

from the doctor and creeps about to cause a number of inexplicable events. Parts of Spegel's dismembered body suddenly become animate. The pendulum of a clock begins to his presence

swing.

A

ghostlike figure appears in a mirror, but

doctor turns, no one

The mirror

when

the

Vogler knocks the doctor's glasses to the floor and crushes them, leaving Vergerus half blind. A hand thrusts forth from behind a slatted partition to grasp Vergerus by the throat (see Plate 13). When the "specter" finally shows himself and bears down on the doctor, the mounting frenzy of the encounter is matched by the accelerating tempo of a drumbeat and rattle, sounds employed by shamans to heighten the emotions of those obis

there.

serving their frightful ceremonies.

only

when Manda

The

shatters.

conflict

is

interrupted

forces Vogler to stop at the point

when

his

performance risks transgressing the limits of theater to become a real murder. Thus the crisis brought by the arrival of Vogler's troupe sets in motion a ritual of rivalry in which power shifts relentlessly from side to side, always escaping the individual who would grasp it and establish a permanent superiority. This back-andforth movement of rivalry, the vacillating exchange of words and blows, is thus the basis of the oscillations organizing the film, graphically displayed by the swinging lantern at the conclusion.

Another etymological indication can help us to explore the ritual basis of this aesthetic form. "Oscillation" is derived from the Latin oscillum, a

word

complex of religious

practices

designating in classical antiquity a

or eorema signified something

and

that

53

In Attic Greek, aiora hangs or hovers, a hanging

beliefs.

cord or chain, or an oscillatory movement. The word also designated a game played on a seesaw-like balance. Two persons positioned themselves on its ends, each attempting to cause the other to lose his equilibrium, each striving to be the

one person remaining upright when the back-and-forth play

was

finally arrested.

104

A

painted vase depicts

two young women

The Magic Lantern

13. attic

In reversal, an

unseen Vogler clutches Vergerus by the throat in the (Museum of Modern Art/Film Stills Archive).

sequence of The Magician

engaged in such a game, the winged figure of love hovering between them, each shift of the balance promising the approach of a divinity who, in Sappho's words, "brings pain and weaves myths." Aiora was also the name for a swinging chair

105

Ingmar Bergman and suspended from

a tree

plays a girl seated

the Rituals

during

on such

of Art

festivals,

a device,

and another vase

propelled into the

air

dis-

by

a

satyr.

A myth addresses the origin of this cult of oscillation. Icarus warmly receives Dionysos in his home without knowing the god's identity and

rewarded for his hospitality with the gift powerful drink to a group of shepherds, who think that they have been poisoned when they feel its effects and who then kill Icarus in their drunken anger. Erigone finds her father's body and prepares to hang herself, praying that others should suffer the same fate if the murder goes unavenged. This prayer is answered by Dionysos, who causes a plague of suicides in the city. When the oracle is consulted, it is learned that the deaths of Erigone and Icarus must be expiated through rituals of swinging. 54 Threatened by the "plague" of violence, the community turns for aid to the logic of the sacred, which can prescribe only one cure: ritual hangings that mirror the very pestilence that they are designed to counteract. Henceforth oscillation, a graphic image o{ the back-and-forth movement of violence and of the violence employed against violence, will serve as a ritual pattern of worship, expiation, and play. Thus the mythical explanation of the origin of this pattern betrays the contours of the social dynamic depicted consistently in Bergman's art and described in Girard's theory of sacrifice. of wine.

He

is

offers the

Virgil describes a similar ritual practice in a passage that

evokes the rustic origins of theater in bacchic festivals, and identifies oscilla as the small masks and effigies suspended from trees and set in motion by the wind. Interestingly, his reference to this ritual is immediately followed by a descrip55 Virgil's ancient commentators tion of the sacrifice of a goat. suggest that the hanging figures represented not only theatrical masks but the heads and faces of victims sacrificed in honor of the

god of wine and

revelry.

The

oscilla

thus recall other cases

of simulated sacrifices in which the victim is replaced by masks, dolls, or other figures representing him, a practice that recalls,

animal

in turn,

the times

— was hung 106

to death

when

a living

victim

in a sacrificial ritual.

—human

56

A

or

wall un-

The Magic Lantern covered beneath the lava of Vesuvius brings these images together in a striking tableau that marks off the stages of this process of substitution. To the left, the head of a sacrificed bull hangs among garlands and flowers. In the center is suspended

mask of a dramatic figure, a satyr whose grotesque expresit was captured at the moment of hanging;

the

sion suggests that

to the right, the victim's retrace, here, the passage

We may

head

is

from

replaced by a cymbal. 57

Do we

ritual sacrifice to its representa-

it was customary to suspend oscilla in honor of those having committed suicide by hanging themselves the fate of Antonsson, who at the end of The Magician is seen in close-up swinging gently from a cord. 38 The unsettling conclusion of Bergman's work is illuminated by a final archaic usage. Eorema was one of the terms for the apparatus serving in Greek tragedy (particularly in Euripides) to lift the god or hero into the heavens at the end of the play, and thus designates the mechanical device instrumental in staging a decisive tragic resolution. 59 Such an ending is now deri-

tion in

drama?

also recall that

—

sively

called

a

deus ex machina,

from the machine." The same conclusion of The Magician by mechanical.

they

on

fail

The

meaning

criticism critics

is

that a play

literally

is

"the

god

directed against the

who deem

device, they complain,

to recognize

is

it

arbitrary or

too obvious.

What

of suspense based wholly

the swinging of a balance can end only in such a manner,

is, with the abrupt fall of one of the antagonists and the sudden victory and elevation of the other. Bergman's resolution is indeed a deus ex machina, but one is given to understand that a human god can appear only as the result of such a mechanism's operation. The device is meant to be obvious, and its operation is made evident throughout the work. Dr.

that

Vogler's invitation to the royal palace, his victorious exit in

no more arbitrary than the gloomy moVogler is humiliated and driven out into the rain. The resolution of the crisis is no more mechanical than the suspense created by the movement of an action oscillating between arbitrary extremes. Both the smiling mask of comedy and the frown of tragedy are figured on the effigies swaying in the breeze. glorious sunlight,

ments when the

is

conjuror

107

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

Bergman adopts

the motifs prescribed by the scenario of he does so in the mode of a demonstration, setting the mythical model in motion without striving to create the usual If

ritual,

cathartic response.

The

film

is

not mystifying, that

is,

we

are

not induced to identify with one of the antagonists or to be-

between them with each shift of the balance. Rather, Bergman views the dynamic of rivalry from the outside, a perspective revealing the reciprocity of the parties in opposition. Such a perspective undermines the operation of a ritual process based on the sacred difference of the singular individual who is labeled as both cause and cure of a crisis. Thus, Robin Wood accurately delieve in the illusory difference that passes

scribes the

work

in writing that

it

"suggests

at

times the

artist

a recipe," but misjudges Bergman's values when he speculates that the director truly attempted to make his

working from

moments of grand guignol

convincing. 60

here arises from the viewer's

own

The only

mystification

inability to detach himself

from the ritual operation or to perceive the veracity of the social dynamics depicted. Wood writes as if a stirring spectacle of horror peopled with truly evil demons and their heroic opponents would have been more satisfying and "real." The critic wishes to join the consul's wife in enjoying the powerful emotions evoked by the presence of a sacred being, and is disappointed when faced with the mechanism of his own mythical desires. Or, like Vergerus, he perceives the trick and complains that he cannot believe in a fraudulent magic. 61 It is understandable that the film was not popular. Bergman is trapped here in the "unsolvable moral conflict" that he himself has recognized and defined: either to use the model well and be a deceiver, or let the device be seen and be labeled a fraud and a failure. His alternative in The Magician is to hold both of these possibilities forth and to identify them as false choices. Such an alternative, however, demands an alert viewer, able and willing to interrogate the film's issue. Rather than be hypnotic, Bergman strives to awaken the spectator, giving him subtle clues, jolting him into awareness with surprises and reversals that become more and more expected. We

108

The Magic Lantern should not be surprised, then, displays an emblem of what is

when the director deliberately at work here, interrupting the

music of victorious struggle to ask the viewer swinging of a lantern.

to focus

109

on the

vJ

The Comic Device

Conjurors, acrobats, jugglers and clowns: whenever Berg-

man reflects upon his own craft he turns to these figures, so many vivid metaphors, it may seem, for his role. Yet he takes these performers quite literally, insisting that they embody the art. A modern conjuror, the film works a sort of magic, dazzling his audience, manipulating emotion and belief. A clown, it is indeed his task to draw forth laughter, and he must repeat the antics performed by his counterparts of the circus. The tightrope too,

of the filmmaker's

reality

director truly

Bergman though

contends,

is

equally real for the filmmaker, even

of

his acrobatics are

a different nature:

For the equilibrist and filmmaker both face the same inevitable

down and kill oneself. Now someone will deem filmmaking cannot be as dangerous as all that. Yes, I say, precisely as dangerous. Even if, as I noted earlier, one is something of a conjuror, no one can conjure the producers, bank directors, movie-theater owners or critics when the public refuses to see the film and to pay out the farthings on which the producers, bank directors, movie-theater owners, critics and conjurors live!

risk: one can fall

this

an exaggeration

—

1

Attached to the poles labeled "fear" and "incertitude," the tightrope represents the director's truly precarious relation to

economic conditions. In the same context, one of his own losses of balance. in question was Sawdust and Tinsel, and its

the film industry's

Bergman goes on The performance 110

to describe

The Comic Device box-office failure cast the position.

At the brink of

young

falling,

director in a very awkward he was forced to readjust his

posture in order to avoid disaster: "The

critics

were generally

unfavorable, the public stayed away, and the producer counted

expected to have to wait ten years for the next I were to make another two or three films involving financial losses, the producer would rightly consider that he could not dare to put his money on my

his losses.

I

attempt of

this genre. If

talent."

2

Bergman's metaphor thus

refers to certain hard realities that cannot afford to ignore. His remarks suggest that the films made in the wake of Sawdust and Tinsel were not those that he might have attempted had the earlier balance act a director

been more successful. Thus it would be quite misleading to think that Bergman evolved freely, in the absence of constraints. On the contrary, his artistic identity developed in relation to the public, critics, and the Swedish Film Industry, an institution imposing its conditions upon him. Perceived as a precarious advance along the economic tightrope, Bergman's artistic

lights

progress

of

a

is

cast in a different light, the glaring spot-

public arena where the performer struggles to

the applause that will permit

him

to continue.

And

win

unless the

various facets of Bergman's evolution are seen in this light, the critic's

perspectives

on

his career will

remain fragmentary and

wholly metaphoric. Unfortunately, the various extrinsic factors shaping Bergman's work have never been fully documented, and we have only his word on the subject. He describes his experience with the film bureaucracy as a "bitter struggle" and as "one long humiliation." The commercial failure of Sawdust and Tinsel, 3

perhaps his

first

masterpiece,

made

it

necessary for

him

to

promise not to make another "gloomy" and unpopular film. Needing to repeat the success that he had enjoyed in 1952 with Secrets of Women, he once more adopted the comic device, and it was only after the critical acclaim of Smiles of a Summer Night at Cannes in 1956 that he again found himself in a position to assert his own preferences. The success of the comedy permitted him to return to a project that had been postponed 111

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

of The Seventh

indefinitely, the filming

Seal.

Bergman's

recol-

lection of his transaction with the producer offers the needed

corrective to a purely formal or aesthetic approach to film history:

Sandrews had intimated that they were still counting their losses Dreams and Sawdust and Tinsel and that they weren't interested. Then I went down to Carl Anders with the script for The Seventh Seal and put it down on the table in front of him he was on the telephone selling Smiles of a Summer Night to every possible country. He was incredibly ecstatic, thinking that he would be able to sit on genuine carpets and look at Picassoes Carl Anders and was delighted about everything. So I said: "Now, Carl Anders, now or never," and I put The Seventh Seal 4 in front of him and said "Now make up your mind." after

—

—

Paintings by Picasso, Persian carpets and edy: so

many

a

Bergman com-

delightful artistic treasures, or rather, exchange-

able pieces of merchandise, dancing in the producer's mind. If

Bergman's account is accurate, the institution's ruling imperative would seem to be quite simple: "A good film is a film that sells," as

Bergman himself once put

maxim. For every conjuror 5

who

guides the

artist,

a

it,

quoting the producer's

Tubal, the cunning entrepreneur

helping

him

to avoid the authorities'

displeasure and to turn a healthy profit.

Bergman's

difficulties

with the commercial orientation of

the film industry did not cease with the success of Smiles of a

won by The Seventh Seal was again rendered precarious by the negative reception of The Magician. This commerSummer Night and with

and Wild

the acclaim

Strawberries. His balance

cial failure is particularly instructive,

ered in the light of Bergman's

own

especially

when

consid-

formulation of the "unsolv-

moral conflict" faced by those involved in the "making of the film industry's products." 6 Bergman conceives of himself as a conjuror forced to choose between two unacceptable alternatives: either perform his tricks well and be guilty of deceit, or refuse to create the desired illusion and be labeled a failure. Paradoxically, with The Magician he manages to achieve both types of failure at once. For some, the apparaable

and

selling

112

The Comic Device

14.

A

figure in the shadows, the ballet master (Stig Olin), calls

(Maj-Britt Nilsson) to question her values in

Illicit

on Marie

Interlude.

is too obvious; the film does not work because its abrupt movements are felt to be lifeless and unconvincing. For others, these same obvious movements of the apparatus are truly

tus

hypnotic and mystifying, each new oscillation bringing a new surprise and thus heightening the viewer's emotional response.

Yet

this

response

is

generally a sense of uneasiness rather than

pleasure. Thus, although the film includes every element

clue necessary for a coherent understanding of erate operations, the real reception

was of an

entirely different nature:

by

critics

its

rather delib-

and public

Bergman was

and alike

castigated for

having failed to create the illusion, but also for having created an illusion of the wrong sort.

113

Ingmar Bergman and

One

reviewer's

the Rituals

of Art

complaints further clarify the nature of

Bergman's violation of the norm in The Magician: the film "wobbles between drama and melodrama, alternates genuine horrors with sham tricks, comic sex with serious sex, poetry with lampoon." Bergman has failed to respect a code basic to 7

the viewer's

expectations,

more

specifically,

the

difference

between comic and serious modes. The result is a disruption of the understanding between the director and a public dismayed by his seeming inconsistencies. This observation permits us to reformulate and expand our first

statement of the institution's imperatives: the

must make films that sell, but he wishes to do this he should conform

artist is in-

structed that he

is

if

to the public's

also told that

expectations. For every conjuror a Tubal, but also, the Eger-

mans,

their servants,

mediates between the

Starbeck, and Vergerus. Tubal merely artist

and

his audience,

making

certain

exchange will be profitable. Thus the institution dicof artistic conventions along with its commercial imperative. The extrinsic determinations of art by economics and politics are intrinsic as well, for they are manifested to Bergman as reified models of what is and is not an effective or acceptable form. The director should respect, for example, the difference between comic and serious genres. For Bergman in the early 1950's, it was clear that he was also expected to give preference to the latter. The magic lantern is only a source of amusement, Tubal explains to the members of the Egerman household and to the chief of police, warning Vogler and Granny in the same breath that they must not take themselves too seriously or disturb their customers. Other institutions will minister to the townspeople in the important matters; the conjuror's art is a mere diversion, an entertainment. Bergman's struggle with such conventions is perhaps the single most revealing thread of his development. His resistance to certain aspects of the tradition surfaces early in his career, finding a first, violent manifestation in Sawdust and Tinsel and reemerging with The Magician. In their emphasis on the violence, deception, and humiliation marking the performer's role, these films present a harsh critique of the artist's tradithat the

tates a set

ng

The Comic Device with the community. A particular point of film about comic performers, Sawdust and Tinsel depicts laughter as a form of collective brutality; here, as in The Fish, the clown's painful role is forcibly imposed on

tional interaction

focus

is

comedy.

A

who

reluctant individuals

are singled out as

the targets of

Bergman's artists would like to be taken seriously compelled either to serve as objects of derision or to

laughter.

but are

Thus, when The Magician, they find relief audience's hostile laughter only by making Starbeck

single out others to replace

Vogler and

from

their

his troupe

them

perform

in this position.

in

the butt of another cruel jest; this mirth in turn

when

it

way

gives

to Antonsson's

conjuror.

The members of

and Tinsel

may

do

so in part

is

silenced only

murderous attack on the

the legitimate theater in Sawdust

enjoy the public's respect, but they are able to

because their counterparts in the circus draw

forth a collective

mockery tenuously balanced between

the

representation and reality of violence. In the circus ring, the traditional parodic conflict

between comic and serious performform of a brawl, another

ers suddenly takes the rather literal

amusing diversion for the mob. Thus, for Bergman, comedy is not always a laughing matter. Like Moliere and Marivaux, he unsuccessfully attempts, early to leave comedy behind, although unlike the French dramatists, he is eventually recognized as a "serious" author and can abandon the role of the clown. His struggle with comedy concludes in 1964 with Not to Speak about All These Women, a film in which the devices of laughter are turned against themselves and made the butt of a rather cold joke. That the critics and public found this unpleasant is hardly surprising; the operation was really a bit of revenge on Bergin his career,

man's

part,

for in a single stroke he

mocks

the humiliating

type of criticism that his works had inspired in Sweden

as

well

of mockery that had been imposed on him. Significantly, the film ends with the murder of an artist who betrays

as the role

his

own work by

indicative of solely his

playing the

Bergman's

own

In the great

own

critic's

tune,

a

death perhaps

decision to pursue, henceforth,

inclinations.

works

that follow,

Bergman moves beyond 115

the

Ingmar Bergman and specific

the Rituals

of Art

problem of comic conventions, generalizing

tique of the artist's social position and of the patterns

his cri-

imposed

upon him by the institutions of humiliation. If the relation to comedy is most pertinent, then, to an earlier stage of Bergman's

career,

the stakes in this relation are very similar to

those involved in the later works.

It

is

always

Bergman's conflictual attitude toward the toward the patterns and conventions that

a

matter of

ritual tradition its

institutions

and im-

pose upon him.

Thus

a discussion

of Bergman's relation to comedy

stage for an examination of the director's

more

sets the

general cri-

works of the 1960's and later. Why does comedy, when a film such as Smiles of a Summer Night offers such overwhelming evidence of his talent in this domain and wins him, perhaps for the first time, the tiques of art in his

Bergman

reject

complete approval of his public and critics? If Bergman indeed works for and against the conventions of comedy at different points in his career, how, precisely, does he view them? What is his conception of the difference between comic and serious modes, the difference that he sometimes accepts but tends, when given a free hand, to subvert? What reasons may have led him to deem the comic device unacceptable, to cease making comedies altogether after 1964? Bergman does not formulate, either in his essays or in interview statements, anything approaching a general position on comedy, laughter, or their relation. He does present, however, in his remarks and films, a series of striking emblems that constitutes a powerful commentary on laughter and its institutions. Bergman may not be a theorist, but his comic episodes and images resonate with the main tendencies of critical reflection on laughter and comedy. Thus, if in discussing the director's comic motifs we are led to bring them into contact with certain theoretical texts, we will discover that Bergman's works carry an implicit refinement and critique of these writings.

In

The

Fish,

Bergman

sets forth a first

image of the

differ-

ence between comic and serious works. 8 Joachim Naken's film

116

The Comic Device troupe produces what is intended to be a one-reel tragedy, but when the film is screened it becomes evident that something has gone amiss with the camera. at the

wrong

The

action has been recorded

speed, and the film's protagonists rush about in a

and senseless fashion, appearing as the ridiculous creaof some insect world. This gives rise to a great deal of laughter among the members of the troupe an effect that can be verified with any film and with any group of viewers. The difference here cannot be explained simply as a matter of acceleration, for running a projector in reverse will often achieve the same result. What, then, occurs in this transformation? The film's acceleration is sudden and startling and thwarts frenetic

tures

—

Having anticipated a ponderous and wholly serious drama, the audience is instead faced with rather incongruous and absurd actions. We are thus reminded of one of the principal tendencies of comic theory, for each of the adjectives brought to mind by Bergman's example has served as the basic term for a definition of the ridiculous. Kant and others speak of incongruity, contrast, and disappointed expec9 tations as being the essential qualities of what is laughable. A similar notion is advanced by Levi-Strauss, who writes that laughter arises from a sudden connection of "two semantic 10 fields that seemed greatly removed from each other." The hilarity caused by Bergman's accelerated film would be exthe viewer's expectations.

plained, then,

by

its

incongruity, unexpectedness, or absurdity

—or by some combination of these

traits.

The inadequacy of such an explanation nature.

These theories are susceptible

ples, for all

not

all

is

its

abstract

many counterexam-

to

incongruities or surprises are laughable and not

laughter can be

there

resides in

shown

to be caused

by them.

11

Although

indeed something incongruous and unexpected in

Bergman's example, these terms say little or nothing about its specific nature. To improve upon this explanation we may remember that the comic effect is produced by the mistiming of the camera, which evokes Bergson's famous notion that laughter arises in response to "the mechanical encrusted on the living." 12 Such an idea seems more appropriate to Bergman's example, more capable of bringing forth

its

specific quality.

ill

Ingmar Bergman and

No

the Rituals

of Art

longer appearing as convincing characters

sible for their actions, the actors in

who

are respon-

Bergman's film

are

gov-

mechanism that causes them to speed about like insects or puppets. The living beings that they represent are suddenly controlled by a machine, the operation of which has become glaringly visible. Instead of being involved in the drama, the viewer is made aware of the film's mechanical erned by

a

basis.

Bergson notes that a ceremony becomes comic when only its external form is seen: a dance witnessed in the absence of the accompanying music may seem ridiculous, because mechanical. Bergson's theory, although extremely insightful,

is

or in his own terms, comic; but attempt to qualify his ideas we must note their great pertinence to important aspects of Bergman's comedy. Taken

itself a bit rigid at times,

before

we

of inquiry, the suggestion that comedy involves the laying bare of a mechanism will yield real insights when brought to bear on Bergman's films. Certain of these insights, we will see, were anticipated by Bergson and others were not. The latter will permit us, as a second step to show how Bergman's conception of laughter differs from Bergson's. Bergman speaks of Smiles of a Summer Night as an opportune application of a formula, as a rather deliberate use of a set of devices: "I needed money, so I thought it would be wise to make a comedy. I thought it would be a technical challenge to make a comedy with a mathematical pattern: man-woman, four couples, and then mix them up and later man-woman 13 sort out the equation." This time there was no misunderstanding between the director and his public. As John Simon remarks, "the clever geometrical construction is apparent." 14 His description of the pattern in question is worth citing: "Henrik oscillates between Petra and Anne, Anne between Henrik and Fredrik. Fredrik fluctuates between Anne and Desiree, Desiree between Fredrik and Malcolm, Malcolm between Desiree and Charlotte, and Charlotte between Malcolm and Fredrik. We have come full circle." Hence, what is mechanical in the film is the network of relations linking the characters. The camera and projector run as a first line

.

.

.

15

118

— The Comic Device proper pace, but the effect is similar to that of Bergexample: people appear to be governed by a mechanism. One of Bergson's comments is appropriate in this regard, for he notes that in comedy "we are shown two or several persons who speak and act as if they were bound to at the

man's

first

each other by invisible strings." 16

Bergman

incites us to add,

however, that the strings of the puppet show have become quite visible in Smiles of a Summer Night, for the viewer cannot

The eight principal characters very obviously provide the basis for four couples, but their positions are temporarily mixed up so that the sorting out of the final equation is postponed. help but notice the pattern.

Recounted

in this

manner, the

film's entire

procedure seems

As if in response to such an objection, Simon points out that the mixing up is not, in fact, completely arbitrary. The mechanistic "skeleton" takes on flesh, and the film's geometry produces "a veritable lexicon of wisdom and folly about love." Yet the "great truth about love" to which Simon refers is never made clear, which leaves room for some further explication. Unless this "wisdom and folly" are explained, we will remain unable to show why the film would be capable of

a sterile exercise.

17

evoking laughter, or for that matter, any other emotion or response.

The mechanical construction of Smiles of a Summer Night primarily involves the relations between the characters, and more their

specifically, their relations

only concern, and

its

of rivalry and

"great truth"

is

desire.

Love

in fact rather

is

sim-

by a mechanism over which they have no control. If the four unions are delayed, it is because this mechanism generates a type of desire that seeks ple:

these characters' desires are ruled

own

is not merely contingent to the and condition. Desiree desires Fredrik because she does not possess him he oscillates between her and his young wife, Anne. Desiree who as her name implies is a category and type as much as a character is desired by the Count most ardently when he perceives that he is losing her for she oscillates between him and Fredrik. And so on. The self-defeating nature of these desires is graphically por-

its

desire,

failure.

but

is

its

This quality basis

— —

—

119

Ingmar Bergman and

of Art

the Rituals

trayed in Fredrik's fascination with his young wife's image.

The young

hand, in the next room, but he prefers to admire her photograph in the privacy of his study. After two

years,

girl is at

marriage remains unconsummated, and when husband he instantly begins to dream of

their

Anne

caresses her

another

— Desiree,

whose proximity later renewed longing for his wife.

Fredrik's

Desiree

tantalizing for a

is

Fredrik in

give rise to

she appears before

Bergman's manner of filming this scene some luminous cinematic frame

play.

a

moment when

will

causes the stage to appear as

before which Fredrik

sits,

removed from her by the of distance incites him to

at

once very close to the actress yet

The

barrier of the footlights.

illusion

leave his wife to pay Desiree a visit

performance, but once in the actress's presence he he has come and begins to speak to her about

after the

why

wonders

His indifference inflames her desire for him. Love upon absence and perishes with presence. "Love, sells poor bliss / For proud despair," Shelley writes. Or

his wife.

thrives, then,

how

it

in Desiree's

words, "One always longs for something one

cannot have."

Bergman's demonstration does not conclude, however, with which would require us to believe that human pas-

this point,

its basis in some "infinite Rougemont, Bergman indeed stresses

sion finds

lack."

Like Denis de

of

this quality

but he also points to the conditions giving

rise to

18

it.

desire,

To diswe need

cover the source of the self-defeating nature of desire, only attend more closely to the configuration of the wires linking Bergman's characters. In the oscillations that describes, the characters

become one

serve as obstacles to one another's desires. Thus,

two

different formulas for his

inversion of the other;

when

monotonous

Malcolm has

passions, each the

Fredrik seems to desire Desiree

and thus appears to be his rival for her, the Count says: tolerate tress,

I

my

wife's infidelity, but if

become

a tiger." Later,

anyone touches Fredrik seems

when

Charlotte, Malcolm's wife, the chiasmus tolerate

someone

touches

my 120

wife,

dallying with I

become

Simon

another's rivals and hence

my

is

my

can

mis-

to desire

completed:

"I

can

anyone In other words, Mal-

mistress, but

a tiger."

"I

if

The Comic Device colm's passionate metamorphoses have session of either

imagined

—of

a rival

less to

do with

his

—

woman

than with the approach

whose

pos-

real

or

desires he copies. His oscillations

find their basis not in his attitude

toward

either wife or mis-

but in his relation to Fredrik. Thus, Desiree's maxim must be amended: "One always longs for something one cannot have ..." and for something that someone else seems to have or to desire. The incomplete or self-defeating nature of desire is the consequence of its basis in imitation, for obstacle and rival are the necessary corollaries of this theorem. These "lovers of love" desire not the success of some spontaneous and individual passion which would tress,

make them,

quite simply, "lovers"

— —but the form of yearning

from imitating someone else's love at a position one step removed from that sacred state. Bergman's poetical groom states this quite nicely: "We invoke love, call out for it, beg for it, cry for it, try to imitate it, think that we have it, lie that results

about

it."

Bergman

consistently emphasizes the imitative nature of de-

Smiles of a

sire in

essential

Summer

triangular affairs centered

Night; the

A

demonstration of

Lesson

in

upon another

same point forms the Love (1954),

a tale

in the endless series

of of

—

husbands." A single example perhaps the film's most amusing sequence should suffice here. The doctor and his wife, both suffering from conjugal boredom, meet in a train compartment and are joined by a stranger who, failing to "eternal

—

perceive that they are married, sets out to seduce the

woman.

When

she withdraws momentarily, the husband makes a bet with this fellow, and derives a great deal of pleasure from a wholly artificial victory over his rival, delighting in a kiss that

more piquant because won before the stranger's envious gaze. At one point the doctor complains: "We try to be

is

all

the

ourselves but find that

we

are others too."

This condition of desire quality

—

is

stated succinctly

— what

by

Girard

calls

its

mimetic

the squire in The Seventh Seal. 19

After observing the blacksmith, wife, and actor in the woods, he points to this trio of quarreling lovers and comments that they resemble apes. The same propensity for aping leads these

121

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

three to imitate the scene that

of Art

was played

but was by no means contained within

its

earlier

on Jof's

stage,

fictional boundaries:

on the boards, the

farce of desire features the cuckand the woman who passes back and forth between them with each oscillation of their reciprocal mimickry of pas-

in life or

old, rival

sion.

In Smiles of a a

Summer

Night, Desiree figures as the heroine of

"French comedy," and

many

critics

have suggested that the

owing

a great deal to Marivaux and other French dramatists of the eighteenth century. The comparison seems appropriate, but has never been stated in any detail. When one examines it closely, one sees that similarities between the works go only so far. Certain stylistic aspects of Smiles of a Summer Night indeed recall the rococo, for example, Bergman's lovely montage interludes and some of the sets and costumes. Some of Bergman's comic devices and characterizations can be given equivalents in eighteenth-century French comedy. Henrik resembles Marivaux's lovers who vow to withdraw from the world of desire only to succumb to love's surprise. Superficially, Anne and Fredrik's marriage is made comic, and hence untenable, by their difference in age, another device employed by Marivaux. Yet this point already stretches the limits of the comparison, for it leads directly to earlier works, even if we look only as far as Moliere and

film itself is a similar affair,

It would be more significant to observe that Marivaux sometimes anticipates Bergman by capturing the moments when the border between theater and reality dis-

L'Ecole des maris.

solves,

for example,

Acteurs de bonne foi

when

the

becomes

a

mock

struggle staged in Les

real fight.

Bergman's people

have an acute sense of their own theatricality (Charlotte: "Haven't you noticed that I'm a character in a play, a ridiculous farce?"), just as Marivaux's servants and suitors demonstrate a fine sense of the mimetic as they stage their various plots. But again we could discover as many similarities in Moliere or in Shakespeare. It may be more useful to point out where the Bergman and Marivaux equation fails. In Marivaux, marriage is frequently delayed by entanglements caused by money, class difference,

122

The Comic Device or "vanity," and not simply, as in Bergman's film, by desire's

own mechanism, by

the crossing of the invisible wires of the

Bergman's remark that the film was based on "a play by Marivaux" is misleading, for none of this dramatist's specific works bears a strong similarity to the basic structure of Smiles of a Summer Night. Nor has Bergman, in his long career as a stage director, ever produced a single work by Marivaux. In terms of the dramatic interaction, characterizations, and dialogue of Smiles of a Summer Night, we need not travel outside the borders of Swedish literary history to find a more compelling comparison. Desiree's dictum and others like it fall alongside the lines voiced in Strindberg's Married: "That which one values too highly, because it is difficult of attainment, is easily underrated when one has obtained it." " Bergman acknowledges the overwhelming influence of Strindberg on his works: "In my own life, my great literary experience was Strindberg." Frequently mentioned in passing, the complex relation between these two artists requires an device. Thus,

2

21

extended discussion that would stress both their similarities and differences. In this context, however, we can only look at the striking parallels between two specific works. The short stories in Married are based on the romantic episode that led to Strindberg's own first marriage, which also provided the inspiration for Le Plaidoyer d'un fou and Playing with Fire. The latter, a

one-act play, in

us directly to the

mer Night.

It is

its

precise geometrical design returns

mechanism

significant to

this play prior to his

motion in Smiles of a Sumnote Bergman's familiarity with

set in

making of

in 1947 (and again in 1961),

Smiles of a

Bergman

Summer

Night, for

directed Playing with Fire

Swedish radio. Again, to describe the plot is to sketch triangles and to chart the rise and fall of passion against the presence and absence of the rival whose desire is imitated. The cast is composed of Wife (Kerstin), Husband (Knut), Friend (Alex), and Cousin (Adele). Alex (read: Strindberg) secretly loves Kerstin (read: Siri von Essen), but is separated from her by the husband. She, in turn, loves Alex because she thinks that he is interested in her cousin. Knut is bored with his wife except when Alex shows signs of interest in her and thus for

123

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

revives his fading passion. Jealous of Adele, Kerstin

is

chal-

lenged by Alex's seeming indifference to her. She is wholly aware of the imitative nature of her husband's feelings: "It's amazing how much he wants me when you're here. Your presence seems to inflame him," she

out to her that her

own

passion

is

Alex. Alex points

tells

not so very different:

your husband. His passions always present. Miss Adele and I seem to act

are curiously like

when

I

am

lighters."

"You

flare as

up

fire-

22

This remark makes Kerstin laugh, as if the mechanism that draws her into a triangle momentarily threatens her awareness. Alex's indifference continues to weigh upon her, however, and she finally casts herself at his feet, declaring her undying love: "You can see how I'm caught in your net I suffer and struggle to free myself, but I can't. Have pity on me, give me one kind look, don't sit there like a passionless statue awaiting adoration and sacrifice!" 23 Alex reciprocates, dropping his guise of indifference and declaring his hidden love for her. These two lovers of love present their case to Knut, who instantly

—

steps aside, offering his wife to his friend.

Knut

already re-

by the image of his wife's infidelity: "I see the two of you together and it doesn't hurt me, I enjoy it, as though I were watching something very beautiful." 24 The line can be related to Fredrik's comment, in Smiles of a Summer Night, that he was never unaware of his son's interest in his wife: "I liked it. Their movements, their fragrance, their voices and laughter gladdened my heart, and I found pleasure in their games." Both husbands entertain a passion one step removed from its comcognizes the situation and admits that he

is

fascinated

pletion in a pleasant contemplation of the rival's success.

When Knut

Alex rather "curiously" begins to a year of ceaseless longing for Kerstin, he suddenly flees at the prospect of being married to her. Thus, if Knut and Kerstin's desires have been shown to be copies of their rivals' passions, the play ends by adding Alex to their company. It becomes evident that

envy

steps aside,

his position as the

excluded party. After

Knut has served all along as the "firelighter" for The phrase applied earlier to the husband suits 124

the outsider. the lover as

The Comic Device well:

"He

has a passionate nature, but

may

get bored with

25 strawberries and cream."

A

mechanism guides

single

the action of both Playing with

and Smiles of a Summer Night, for

both works the characters' desires are shown to be directed by a mimetic propensity over which they have no control. The two works are similar in another important manner, for in both the mechanism eventually conquers the one character who initially seems to stand outside of its dominion. Alex first appears as an outFire

sider

who

observes as

a

in

mere spectator the "dangerous games"

played by Knut and Kerstin. Yet the work's surprising conclusion

is

that Alex's inclinations operate in precisely the

He

fashion as those of the couple.

Knut

as

possesses her and he cannot;

from Kerstin

same

desires Kerstin only as long

when Knut withdraws,

of the husband. Henrik, in Smiles of a Summer Night, is very similar to Alex in this sense. He is first presented as a budding Lutheran who views the corrupt passions of his elders from a safe critical remove. Having an ideal notion of love, he rises to castigate the members of the dinner party for their cynicism: "Strategy, enemy, offensive, mines. Is this love or a field of battle that you are talking about?" Young Henrik could have penned de Rougemont's passage, "The Warlike Language of Love." Desiree answers: "My dear young man, mature human beings treat love as if it were either a battle or a calisthenic exhibition," and Henrik responds: "But we are put into this world

Alex

flees

as if in pursuit

to love each other."

Henrik's sentiments are noble, but in the context in which they are voiced they take on rebellion

is

motivated by

leads to the bitter outburst in rik

withdraws and makes

calls

the

a

less

which the

when

rivalry surfaces.

a ridiculous suicide

many mock hangings

His and

Hen-

attempt that re-

by Arlecchino and his the mechanism ends, how-

practiced

kind. 26 His short-lived resistance to ever,

elevated meaning.

his desire for his father's wife

the device suddenly engulfs him. In a brilliant deus

Anne is delivered to him on a mechanized bed that moves through the wall, its operation announced by the sennet of a cupid's horn. Thus although

ex machina, the rope snaps and

125

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

device forever postpones the success of love, allowed to succumb to a machine that unexpectedly

Strindberg's

Henrik

is

works in his favor. Bergman's mechanical bed provides a second emblem for the comic operation. Having caused the characters to oscillate back and forth in their futile passions, the device suddenly produces a happy ending, permitting the young lovers to elope and leaving the others to sort out the rest of the equation. tion,

Fredrik's desire for

but

as this passion

Anne

is

sacrificed to

was presented

all

this

resolu-

along as something

comic, his defeat does not seem to matter.

Nor

is

Bergman

concerned here with the eventual fate of Anne and Henrik's love. Like Henrik, he seems to hold it forth as an ideal, as the possible alternative to a passion synonymous with conflict even if in earlier films he has shown the less than ideal outcome of such flights. "Let them have their summer," he seems to say, repeating the final line of Secrets of Women. Its province being summer and light and not the bitter winter that follows comedy concludes where Bergman's other works begin. Bergman appears to espouse a wholly Bergsonian vision of comedy and laughter. One of the director's most famous and successful comic episodes is based entirely and quite literally on a mechanism the elevator in which a married couple is trapped in Secrets of Women (see Plate 15). Karin and Fredrik have long since ceased to take their marriage seriously, but when imprisoned in the broken lift, begin to grow closer in a confrontation that ends with a passionate reconciliation. Plans for a more intense and vital relationship are made, but when the doors of the elevator swing open these projects are instantly forgotten and the two return to their former routine. The brief sojourn in the elevator's confines underlines the artificial nature of a marriage that reverts to its former state as pure externality and convention when the imprisonment ends. Marriage and elevator alike are only useful contrivances, devices that are bothered about or noticed only when they suddenly fail to function. Karin and Fredrik's sudden interest in each other is mechanical because initiated by a mere circumstance, the disrepair of the lift, yet their marriage is equally mechanical when run-

—

—

—

126

The Comic Device

15.

reality

Trapped of

a

in

an elevator, Fredrik and Karin Lobelius confront the

marriage comprised of boredom in

Secrets

of Women.

Gunnar

Bjornstrand and Eva Dahlbeck portray the couple.

ning smoothly in

its

superficial

manner. What

is

"corrected"

by laughter here is the artificial and rigid nature of the couple's entire manner of interacting. Much of what befalls Henrik in Smiles of a Summer Night also evokes Bergson's ideas. The boy oscillates rather rigidly between his moralizing stance and his sudden, awkward attempts to seduce the voluptuous maid. His sion in the device

Bergson

is

like the voleur-vole

refers: the character

who

first

final,

abrupt inclu-

movement

to

ing at or criticizing the others, quickly takes his place

them. Here

this

operation

is

which

stands outside, laugh-

among

achieved through what Bergson

121

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

"snowball effect": the mechanism accelerates, governing one person and then the next in a "runaway" that ends only when everyone has been included in the pattern. We may consider, in this light, John Simon's remarks about the women's "mastery" in the film, for it is something of an exaggeration to think that they are really in control of the puppet strings. It is true that they have more insightful maxims on their lips than the men do and that they possess a certain lucidity about the nature of the mechanism. They also scheme more actively than the men. Desiree stages the gathercalls a first

ing at her mother's

manor

that leads to the sorting out of the

women

meet in secret to coordinate their But strategy is not synonymous with control. The women's schemes work only when they obey the logic already established by the mechanism. Thus, the sole weapon available to them is jealousy: in order to manipulate her husband, Charlotte must turn him into a "tiger" by making a pass at Fredrik. Yet this is already the same tactic practiced less consciously, but with deadly consistency, by Malcolm, whose affair with Desiree is the source of Charlotte's own desire. That Charlotte is hopelessly immersed in the device is betrayed by the impassioned speech in which she speaks bitterly against her love, struggling like some animal caught in a trap. Each of the characters is captured in a similar moment of pathos. Each entertains the one "real" and irresistible love, thinking it to be different from the "games" played by the others. Each of equation, and the strategies.

them, at some point, is caught "too dowager's handy definition of love.

much

in character"

—the

Bergman

renders the distinction between comic "plots of and "plots of cleverness" wholly irrelevant: the two are the same, for the puppeteers are also puppets. We may observe, in this regard, the fate of both Tubal and Simson in The Magician. Pretending to act as experienced and masterful seducers, both fall prey to their own schemes. In Smiles of a folly"

Summer

Night, the

their release

women's

"successful strategy" results not in

from the mechanism, but

operation that brings the resolution.

when

the ritual drink takes

128

its

effect:

in

an acceleration of

The climax

is

its

achieved

no one stands outside

The Comic Device the

game once

the sacred mixture begins to work, delivering

the "gift and punishment" of love.

movement of the windmill, Bergman closes the film.

No

one escapes from the image with which

the graphic

then, is a domain where the windmills hold sway, a place where men and women become puppets as the machines ruling their lives are revealed. Bergson remarks- that "all of life's seriousness" hinges upon our freedom, and in a world of total mechanism, a world

Bergman's comedy,

of

human

folly

where our most precious choices seriously

we

are

determined for us by

a

indeed lose their gravity. But the more take this notion of comedy and laughter, the less

device, love and

life

for to be ruled by machines of affairs. Why, then, do we continue to laugh? Ultimately, Bergson's remarks have not answered our basic question about the difference between the comic and serious. If we have been led along by the "great truth" offered by Bergman's comic film, we have been led past comedy itself, as if its manner of revealing the truth also entails a certain concealment. The question left unanswered by Bergson returns: why is the mechanism funny; why does it evoke laughter and not terror? One of Marivaux's poets attempts to explain the difference to an inhabitant of the Island of Reason, but fails miserably. Tragedy, he claims, evokes tears, for its "noble criminals" have great and respectable faults and murder each other in an august and admirable fashion. Comedies, on the other hand, portray man's petty and ridiculous vices, which makes the

comic and laughable they seem,

would appear

to be a grave state

audience laugh. rather odd.

The

The

poet's reasonable interlocutor finds this

idea of noble and admirable crimes seems

laughable to him, and the ridiculous vices that

mar man's

would appear to be a more rational source of pity and fear. "To cry where one should laugh, and to laugh where one should cry! The monstrous creatures!" 27 Reason would indeed have it that the difference cannot be justified by referring to the literal contents of the two types of works, for any given subject or plot structure is open to either a serious or comic treatment. We are offered humorous films about warfare and greatness

129

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

crime, and serious ones that take the most trivial matters as their topics, presenting

them

as issues

about which

we

should

be greatly concerned. It is easy to conceive of cases in which the display of a human mechanism would not be a source of amusement. Robert Bresson provides a decisive counterexample with his Lancelot du

lac:

here the quest for the Holy Grail itself

gruesome puppet show,

a

grand guignol enacted by

men

is

a

trapped

within the rigidity of their armor, codes of honor, and diction. "I love you" and "I hate you" are voiced in mono-

between them is no less arbitrary and no laughter. Certain responses to Bergman's vivid highlighting of the device in The Magician attest to the same possibility. We may note also that shortly

tone, and the alternation

mechanical. But there

is

before making Smiles of a Summer Night Bergman depicted the same type of desire in Dreams (1955), a somber film built upon the congruent triangles that the following film. clearly

shows

become

Finally,

From

that the idea of

a

source of hilarity only in

the Life

mechanism

of the Marionettes is not inherently

comic, for these puppet scenes are anything but pleasant

—the

"prescribed patterns" of their lives dictate misery, repression,

and If

a

gruesome murder. has, as Bergson

comedy

aptly suggests, something to

do

with the revelation of a social mechanism, it must also involve a special case of its operation, perhaps a certain attitude toward it. Bergman, again, sets forth the needed emblem, this time at the beginning of A Lesson in Love. The film opens with a shot of a porcelain music box adorned with three dolls two men and the woman who moves, in a fixed and preordained path, back and forth between them. A narrator introduces the film: "This could have been a tragedy, but the gods were kind." Thus, if we want to understand the difference between the comic and serious depictions of the lovers' triangle, we must examine the nature of the gods' kindness. Perhaps "god" should be translated here as "Ingmar Berg-

—

man, Director." We must recall that the young Bergman, like F. W. Murnau, spent hours alone in his room, amusing himself

with an elaborate puppet theater where,

130

as

master of the

The Comic Device

16.

Tedious repetitions of prescribed patterns of imitation characterize the

marriage of Peter Egerman (Robert Atzorn) and his wife, Katarina (Christine

Buchegger) Stills

in

From

the Life

of the Marionettes.

(Museum of Modern Art/Film

Archive).

he could freely decide the fates of his creatures. 28 In A Lesson in Love and later in The Devil's Eye (1960), his narrators step forward to tell us at the outset that we must not worry. strings,

The

stage is set for comedy and everything that ensues will occur within the frame established by this guiding intention. A covenant is formed with the audience and specifies a set of

expectations. That in

The Magician

is

Bergman

fails

what gives

to respect such a convention

rise to the

the god's inconsistency incites a

little

viewer's uneasiness;

heresy on the part of the

critics.

131

a

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

The idea of a guiding framework is not yet a satisfactory answer to the question of the comic difference, but before we can appreciate Bergman's intuition we will have to relate it to other manners of approaching the problem. It has frequently been pointed out that most theories of laughter and comedy focus either on the psychological condition of the laugher or on the qualities of the object of laughter. 29 Such explanations always fail because the conditions specified by them are never both necessary and sufficient. A set of laughable qualities does not guarantee that the subject will laugh when confronted by them, but on the other hand, it seems justifiable to suppose that certain qualities are most likely to produce laughter. Bergson's attempt to deal with this problem is an illuminating example of the difficulty of defining comedy. If the "mechanical encrusted on the living" is not always funny, there must be other stipulations concerning what human qualities are capable of evoking laughter or which situations can allow this potential to be realized. Otherwise, Bergson's formula falls

among

the other terms futilely struggling to be recog-

nized as the "essence" of the ridiculous (absurdity, gruity, surprise, If

we

whatever happens

look closely,

we

incon-

in the servant's quarters).

discover that Bergson indeed attempts

and in passing. Thus he notes that our sympathy for the other person must not be strong if we are to laugh at him. Laughter, he adds, is a matter of pure intelligence and not emotion disassociation that he terms a momentary "anaesthesia of the heart." This is nicely put, but not altogether new. Alexander Bain and others have already noted that laughter can occur only in the absence of "counteracting emotions" such as pity, 30 Nor does Bergson pursue the implications of fear, and disgust. this stipulation; rather than dwell upon them he complicates the schema by quickly adding another point. Repeating another common conception, he notes that laughter arises when the consequences for the fallen party are not truly harmful. This idea may be retraced to Aristotle, who writes that "the ludicrous is one (kind of) error (and/or) ugliness, (namely 31 the kind which is) painless and not destructive."

to provide these stipulations, but does so very briefly

—

132

The Comic Device Bergson's two stipulations

— and

their logical relation

—

are

not as clear and comprehensive as they may seem, yet the philosopher does not further elaborate these points and hastens instead to discuss his concept of mechanism.

however, notes that laughter person

me, thy.

who

is

a rival for 32

its

object

whom

I

experienced

Thomas Hobbes, when the other

someone who "contendeth" with little or no sympa-

is

have, in advance,

In such a s-ituation,

I

that person's truly

harmful

support

33

this point.

is

may

fall.

when

also laugh

There

is

no

Thus, an absence of sympathy can be

witnessing

lack of evidence to

a

precondition of

On the other hand, the crucial lack of emotion can be determined by the actual consequences of the person's slip. Seeing that the fall is not really harmful, I feel no need to sympathize and hence find myself in the proper disposition to

laughter. itself

But my perception of the "actual consequences" may have already been conditioned by a preexisting attitude. We must recognize that the two conditions of laughter condition each other in a circular manner. In each instance it is necessary the to inquire about two different types of "consequence" consequences as perceived by both the person laughed at and the person who laughs. And this double inquiry in fact makes it necessary to discuss the relationship between the parties inlaugh.

—

volved.

Nor

is

it

clear

that laughter

is

the intelligent and disin-

Bergson claims it "sudden glory" and points

terested state that

emotion

a

often ignored, that the truly wise peculiar exaltation

won

at

someone

to be.

Hobbes

out, in a

man

calls

remark

that

its is

has no need of the

else's

expense. Poinsinet

de Sivri, author of an eighteenth-century treatise on laughter, calls

this

grounded

emotion amour propre and in vanity.

34

When we

feels that all

laughter

is

bring these complications to

bear on Bergson's ideas about the social role of laughter, his

theory proves to be even

less satisfactory. If

laughter

is

a

cor-

he claims, its conditions and motivation must still be specified. Bergson's position would require that he recognize the absolute relativity of the ridiculous, for what one group singles out as comic may not be a rective practiced

by the group,

as

133

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

laughing matter for another group. Even

when

dards coincide, an individual's right to laugh

the

two

stan-

something can depend on his status in the group. Bergson, however, tends to obscure this relativity by insisting that the object of laughter is always "the mechanical." He should have said, perhaps, that the object of laughter is what a given group perceives to be mechanical or rigid. Having lived in Paris, he surely had the occasion to observe that fashion is a wholly mechanical affair, but argues that only those who fail to conform to fashion's dictates make themselves laughable. Why is the act of rigidly conforming to the terrorism of la mode not also laughable? Moliere is more subtle less rigid than Bergson here, for he delights both in an Arnolphe's refusal of fashion and in the mechanical adherence to it practiced by the precieuses. The two main threads of Bergson's argumentation are not wholly compatible and vie for the upper hand. He holds that

—

"the mechanical" also

is

views laughter

chanically

behavior.

at

—

an essential quality causing laughter, but as a social corrective arising

— when someone

— rather me-

of proper Neither of these points adequately addresses the violates the group's rules

question concerning the source of laughter or the difference of

comic mode, and Bergson's hastily added stipulations do We must still explain why the mechanism should evoke laughter and what sorts of mechanism in fact do so. And why does the group sometimes correct deviance from its norms through laughter when on other occasions wholly different means are employed? Bergman's "kindness of the gods" assumes, in this context, an unexpected significance. Comic situations or works establish, as if from above, a special framework for the interaction. This notion escapes from the limitations of the approach that begins with individual qualities and attempts to build its way with the to Comedy like some theoretical tower of Babel familiar results. But does not the idea of a comic frame err in the opposite direction by pretending to be already at one with the divinity? Its answers seem rather tautological. Comedy occurs when a comic frame is provided? The comic, then, is what is not serious? Something more must be said about the specific nature of this frame. the

not help.

—

134

The Comic Device Another of Bergman's emblems addresses

Comedy, he

suggests,

is

a

problem.

this

revolver loaded with blanks.

Bergman

picting similar actions in several of his films,

De-

enables

us to contrast comic and serious attitudes. At the end of Saw-

he places Albert, the humiliated circus director, him with a revolver, and gives him a moment to contemplate suicide. There is nothing humorous about this scene, and the viewer should wince when Albert finally raises the pistol to his forehead and dust and Tinsel,

before his dressing-room mirror, arms

The gun when he aims it

pulls the trigger.

does not

spared, but

at

image. This gesture

is

fire,

and Albert's

repeated

when

Albert rushes out to

the circus bear, and the death of the pathetic beast

of

much

wailing

among

the

members of the

a

is

troupe.

kill

source

The gro-

from laughable. At Summer Night, Bergman again arms his

tesque killing of Albert's surrogate the end of Smiles of a

life is

the mirror the shot destroys his

is

far

a revolver, this time for a game of Russian rouMalcolm and Fredrik test each other's courage, surviving through a number of turns, allowing the suspense to build. When the gun finally fires, Bergman cuts outside to show us the women's reactions of alarm. We share this alarm and may wonder what has gone wrong with Bergman's sense of humor

people with lette.

as

we imagine

the death of Fredrik. Yet he quickly emerges

from the

pavillion, covered with soot: the with blanks, and comedy is resurrected.

pistol

was loaded

Sometimes the bullets are real but the pistol is aimed away from the characters or displaced at the last moment. In Smiles of a Summer Night, Charlotte and Malcolm practice at a firing range and he infuriates her by openly flaunting his infidelity. Her aim improves as her anger increases. When Malcolm leaves, she shoots the mirror above the door through which he has just passed.

We

recall Baudelaire's

prose

poem "Le

Galant

Tireur," in which another angry lover thanks his partner for

having improved his marksmanship by providing an imaginary target worth striking: "Ah! Mon cher ange, combien je vous remercie de mon adresse!" 35 By extension, this sort of

comedy

finds

its

climax in what Baudelaire

calls "le rire

ab-

solu," the hilarity peculiar to a fearsome grand guignol that

combines the greatest possible violence with

a stylized

135

form of

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

pure simulacrum. Baudelaire's example is the English pantomime in which the clowns stage a mock execution, decapitating

one of

severed head.

their fellows,

Two

who

chases about after his

own

corollaries are necessary for this type

of

must be violence and victim but also a visible displacement from real to feigned violence. The endings of Hedda Gabler and The Seagull, where the revolvers are loaded, cannot be comic; Bergman's blank cartridges and the painless coups de baton received by clowns can. Likewise, we can conlaughter: there

trast the laughter directed at

Jof in the Inn of Humiliation,

where the flames mount but do not burn, to the complete gravity of the scene depicting the young girl's immolation. Similar contrasts can be discovered in Bergman's different treatments of the violence of desire. In Dreams, an old man's hopeless passion for a

young

through an amusement park exhaustion, causing

him

girl is a painful

results

matter.

A

trip

not in pleasure but in an

to collapse dreadfully at her feet.

The

of an exhausted Fredrik in Smiles of a Summer Night may be poignant, but are not dreadful in this manner and may even evoke a wry laugh. Desiree is there to take care of him, and one senses that he has gotten what he deserved. In a very literal sense, the scene from Dreams is less violent than certain scenes in Smiles of a Summer Night, for example, the scene in which Malcolm threatens Fredrik by throwing a dagger into the eye of a portrait. But this literal sense does not govern the viewer's sense of the consequences of the actions: we never suspect for an instant that Malcolm is capable of causing any real harm. It may seem that these remarks only repeat the old dictum that comedy imitates errors that are painless and not destructive. This may be true, but I hope to have brought forth the final shots

comedy does this while depicting actions would be extremely painful and destructive. The work's frame alters the viewer's conception of what the con-

paradoxical fact that that in reality

sequences of these actions will be. This guiding frame conditions the circular relation between the spectator's emotional responses and the qualities and consequences that he perceives in the characters

136

and

actions.

Anyone who

has seen violent

The Comic Device animated cartoons or an episode of "The Three Stooges" that the most fearful acts of destruction can be made to appear wholly inconsequential. On the other hand, sometimes in Bergman's films a single callous remark can carry the weight of all the violence and cruelty of the world. Hence the viewer's emotions would appear to be part of the mechanism, as if the invisible wires governing the characters were also linked to the heart strings of the audience. The circularity of this arrangement ceases to be a mystery if we move our gaze upwards along the wires to observe the movements of the hidden director's hands. Two examples from the domain of ritual can extend the province of Bergman's vision of comedy by demonstrating that he contacts a widespread and fundamental aspect of culture. Victor Turner describes a ritual of laughter that directly recalls the mock death with which Bergman concludes his own ritual in Smiles of a Summer Night. The members of the Ndembu tribe in Zambia believe the great white spirit, Kavula, to be the source of all power. Approaching his altar, the initiates of his cult are instructed to strike his effigy under a white cloth with their rattles and are told that they have killed the god. Moments later, they are informed that Kavula is not really dead that their blows have damaged only some everyday objects hidden beneath the sheet and the initiates laugh joyfully on learning that they are innocent. 36 Similarly, in The Golden Ass Apuleius recounts a festival said to celebrate the origin of laughter. Here the comic difference is achieved in the

knows

—

—

passage from the tribunal to the theater: what serious accusation of

playful simulacrum.

murder

is

against an outsider

The accused

party

is

staged as a is

in fact a

led like a sacrificial

victim through the streets of the city and believes that he will

be subjected to an earnest and deadly punishment for his crime. But the condemned man's sentence is executed not with a blade but with the crowd's cutting laughter. The "bodies" of his victims turn out to be mere bladders filled with air, and the only violence inflicted on the "criminal" is the violent expulsion of air in the mob's collective mockery of him. 37 The comic frame includes both the objects of laughter and

137

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

the laughers, determining their relation that

condition of laughter.

Once

is

the principal

the spectator has given himself

over to the gods, he can be made to laugh at actions that, if presented in a different manner, would by horrifying. As Bergman's blank revolver implies, comedy permits us to witness a

violence deprived of its pain, a victimage in which the victim

—

emerges unscathed a bit unsettled perhaps, but never really wounded. Words and blows are exchanged by the antagonists of comedy at an accelerating rate, but the violence is nonetheless attenuated or negated. We are reminded of Hobbes's famous scenario for a laughter that arises in a situation of rivalry where the conflict is suddenly forestalled by one party's fall; in this instant, one rival becomes a spectator to a violence that no longer poses a threat to him. Bergman literally builds a comic episode on such a fall in Secrets of Women, where a marriage ceremony is disrupted when the obese groom's chair collapses beneath him. The bride's laughter infuriates him and their union is canceled by the wild quarrel that ensues. Many of Bergman's most comic dialogues are composed entirely of an exchange of barbs and insults in which the "sudden glory" passes back and forth. The laughter in The Magician is almost uniquely of this sort, and begins with the cutting repartee between the travelers in the conjuror's carriage.

Bergman one.

suggests that laughter

This person

may

be

real

is

always directed

or imaginary, but

is

at

some-

present

even when reflected only in a word or in the all too human antics of one's pets. Bergman's comedy would appear to draw consistently on Hobbes's scenario, given that so many of his episodes involve the spectacle of someone's disgrace, a Schadenfreude, semi- or integral: the laughter of humiliation if not the humor of the gallows. Risus is never far removed from

When Bergman brings on the clowns in Sawdust and Tinsel, their lazzi consist solely of mock blows and falls; the audience continues to laugh when these same gestures of violence are repeated in earnest during Albert and Frans's fight. Yet whatever happens, and no matter how violent these exchanges become, the voice of the gods whispers to the audi-

derisu, as

Quintilian remarks. 38

138

The Comic Device it

does not really matter, that the blows do not

sting.

Either the conflict quite visibly causes no real

ence that really

harm safety

to the antagonists, or the viewer's sense of distance is

and

so great that the action nonetheless seems inconse-

quential to him. Skat's feigned suicide in The Seventh Seal

comic, and

when Death comes

for

lowing scene, the comic attitude action continues to appear wholly

him

is

in earnest in the fol-

maintained because the and without consequences. Thus the essential condition of the comic frame is is

theatrical

that the clown's actions be imitated in a

to appear harmless.

The comic

manner causing them

39

— almost always

—

happy one merely completes the reassuring frame by corroborating what was announced at the beginning. If the viewer is not to be disquieted by the fact that human desires and interactions are governed by a mechanism, he must be told that the mechanism ultimately works in people's favor, especially at the end, when it really matters. That the conclusion of The Magician is not wholly convincing is perhaps what makes this work seem less comic than Smiles of a Summer Night, where the sudden appearance of the smiling god from the machine makes the world of puppets seem a benevolent domain.

Comedy wires of

resolution

seems to

tell

a

us that people are puppets, that the

some unknown and omnipotent

control everyone, that

all is

device connect and

apparatus. But "the gods" also

us not to be concerned about this state of affairs.

Comedy

tell

will

punish only those who "are truly" antisocial,, ridiculous, and rigid but even then, the punishment is not very severe. And those who "are truly" good will always be rewarded. The

—

mechanical bed always grants the young lovers the perfect union that they deserve. Thus if comedy seems to display the moments when the social mechanism runs amok, it does so entirely in the manner of ritual, so as to sort things out and demonstrate the smooth operation of the corrective machinery. Having failed to start, the engine then turns over, doing

what it should have done rewarded as a result.

We

all

along but expecting us to

feel

return to the crucial point about the "revelation" of the

139

Ingmar Bergman and

mechanism

in the

of Art

the Rituals

comic mode, which

is

also the question

about the social role of comedy and Bergman's eventual rejection of the comic mode. Although some theorists find laughter a liberating

include

or subversive

affair,

is

it

Bergman among them. 40 He

by mentioning the

surely

must be the

fact

own

ends his

bitterness that the philosopher tastes

laughter's pleasant mousse.

in

cannot

Bergson's

carries

premises to their logical conclusion. Bergson in essay

we

evident that

The source of

fact that "laughter has the

timidating through humiliation." 41

this

bitterness

function of in-

And how many

on

treatises

laughter are in fact manuals of etiquette that instruct the reader

about what conduct should be avoided in order to escape from 42 ridicule? Laughter identifies and expels social rigidity, but does so in the name of a rigid and rather immoral morality. Any "release" that

it

offers

is

only temporary.

Perhaps Bergman understands the operation of the comic mechanism too well to embrace it. Where it prescribes gaiety and indifference, he is concerned; where it suggests concern, he may enjoy a certain laughter. He knows the ruses of desire too well not to see that spectator.

It

comedy

incites interest

same game with the

plays this

with

a gentle

coquetry, feigning

withdrawing from reach, but always glancing back to make certain that we have followed. Its power is won by deceit, never by compulsion. Fleeing our approach, it returns to offer a brief favor or pleasant surprise, but withdraws still further until it finally rushes into our arms to grant the longed-for embrace. It secures our friendship and love by allowing us to share in its castigation of "the others," poor indifference,

puppets the

who

succumb

so foolishly

amusing spectacle of

care to protect our

own

a

to the machine.

It

rolls

out

world of mechanisms, but takes

precious illusions as

it

systematically

destroys those of the characters.

We,

and will not be engulfed. But

in the instant that

it

whispers, are different,

we nod

in

and roaring, we have become belief we laughter's puppets as well. Who can choose to laugh, or refuse great defender of all to obey laughter's call? Thus, the laugh 43 grace and freedom is the epitome of rigidity and unfreedom. are trapped. Jiggling

—

It

signals that the spectator's place

140

—

was

inside the ridiculous

The Comic Device frame all along. We too must harmless and inconsequential.

Comedy's its

greatest ruse,

fall,

but

however,

is

at least this collapse is

the illusion of ludicity,

revelation in darkness. Wonderfully instructive about man's

imitative nature, son:

is

it

comedy adds

only imitation,

all

a

reassuring proviso to the les-

a

bit

of

theater.

Thus

a

very

prevalent reading of the self-reflexive quality of Smiles of a Summer Night is that the film's characters are theatrical, that

have become roles. Frequently pointing to its own manner, comedy appears to be liberating because revealing the devices of the theatrical or cinematic illusion it

their lives

masks in

in this

ceases to deceive the audience. In

its

overt stylization, reflex-

and movements of distanciation, comedy would seem to imply a veritable attack on the myth of presence and representational illusion. Yet by presenting itself as a mere representation, the comic work perpetrates the real deception. Such a comedy makes manifest the imitative nature of behavior and desire which is something of a revelation but its ruse is to frame all of this as "representation," thereby obscuring the very aspect of imitation that it so brilliantly illuminates. The mechanism is revealed so that it may vanish from our sight: the mimetic process controlling the viewer's response is masked, just as the masks and mimickry of the protagonists are displayed at a distance as harmless and inconsequential affairs of the theater. The rivalries and conflicts engendered by imitation are brought to light only to be laughed off, for the

ivity,

—

—

—

—

marked as a space of play, an inconsequential domain not worthy of the viewer's real concern. If within this frame the advance of the mechanism is vividly depicted, the members of the audience are space in which they are presented

is

visibly

nonetheless reassured that they are outside of

need not

feel

threatened by the truth that

vealed and concealed. In this sense laughter "In a

comedy," one of Goethe's

is

is

its

reach and

so brilliantly retruly blinding.

characters remarks,

"we

see

which has been

a marriage as the final fulfilment of a desire thwarted by the obstacles of several acts. The moment this desire is fulfilled the curtain falls, and this momentary satisfaction goes on echoing in our minds. Things are different in the

141

Ingmar Bergman and real

the Rituals

of Art

world. In the real world the play continues after the curfallen. ..." This remark is central to Bergman's

tain has

manner of dealing with

imitation, and

its

conclusion indicates

the path that the director will follow once he has abandoned

comedy: "When

[the curtain]

raised again there

is

pleasure to be gained by seeing or hearing what

Bergman

will strive to

make

a

is

is

not

much

going on." 44

point inimical to the comic

procedure, for he attempts to use the imitations of theater and

which we are governed by imitation in life, where the machine does not always work to a happy end and where its means of seeking these resolutions are not always so benign. "Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?" viewers sometimes ask after a screening of Smiles of a Summer Night. The false choice offered by the cliche conceals the answer that men and women imitate in both and forestalls the question whether we might become more free to choose our imitations and their consequences. Perhaps a final emblem can illuminate Bergman's rejection of the comic device. In High Tension (1950), he depicts the gleeful audience of a comic film. Yet Bergman refuses to remain among the laughers. Instead, he moves his camera behind the wings .of the theater where, silenced by the roar of the crowd and masked by the frivolities on the screen, a vicious beating takes place. Although the film containing this scene is itself a frivolity, a dubious thriller made on commission, its juxtaposition of laughter and violence is wholly characteristic of its director. Bergman perceives the blows concealed by the clown's mimicry of strife, the blows of mimicry itself. In this he rejoins Henrik and takes his distance from Desiree, whose most triumphant role is her marriage to Fredrik Egerman and his society. film to

show

Henrik:

us the extent to

You who the

lies,

are a great artist; don't

ment you? Desiree:

Why

Henrik:

It

142

you

the compromises? Doesn't your

don't you try to laugh

hurts too

much

at us?

to be funny.

suffer

own

from

life

tor-

4

The Ritual

In

hatred of

its

art,

the

work of art approaches knowledge. Adorno

—

Modern tality."

art,

Bergman

movement

a

"nervous vi-

a proliferation of forms, art resemof ants." Developing his conception of

the situation of art in this

only

"intense, almost feverish"

giving rise to

bles "a snakeskin full

upon

states, possesses

Although animated by an

modern

image: "The snake

within, deprived of

its

is

culture,

Bergman

elaborates

long since dead, eaten out from

poison, but the skin moves,

filled

with

meddlesome life." The image of the snakeskin captures the fundamental ambivalence of modernity. The snake on which the ants thrive is dead and has already been consumed, and it w ould seem that 1

r

nothing remains to sustain even ity.

Yet the

antlike

artists are

pursuits

a

"nervous" and

futile activ-

oblivious to the meaninglessness of their

and the movement continues: "Literature,

painting, music, the cinema, and the theater beget and give

New

birth to themselves.

mutations and combinations emerge

and are destroyed." 2

Bergman explicitly identifies the nature of this ambivalent condition. The lost poison is equated with the artist's potential have an impact on the public, for in the same context Bergnotes that if art and not only cinematic art is meaningless, it is because art "no longer has the power and possibility to influence the development of our lives." 3 Created in isola-

to

man

—

—

145

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

individualists who deny each other's existence, art's forms have "no message or danger." Bergman is even more explicit concerning the source of art's decline and directly relates it to the status of religious belief and practice in modern culture: "Art lost its lifegiving meaning in the instant that it was separated from the cult. Art has cut its umbilical cord and lives a singular and sterile secondhand life, generating and degenerating itself" 4 The same notion is implicit in the image of the snakeskin: the connotations, although faded and partially forgotten, derive from myth and ritual. Trapped in a decaying body, art remains parasitically dependent on a moribund tradition. Paradoxically, this symbol of art's decline the serpent is in various mythologies a symbol of renewal and represents the cyclical patterns of natural process as well as the ritual regenerations of cultural order. In West Africa, for example, the serpent figures at the center of a ritual tradition: once a year a serpent's skin is suspended from a tree situated in the middle of the community, and the children born during the year are assembled about the tree so that they might touch the skin and receive its magical power. At once feared and revered in a variety of cultures, the serpent is burned in the bonfires of midsummer sacrifices and embodies the virulent ambivalence of all sacred beings. The snakeskin of modernity, however, in "generating and degenerating itself," only mimics the external form of this ritual pattern: the vitality and the poison are ab-

tion

by

rarefied

—

—

5

sent.

Persisting tenuously in a state of ambivalence, art

is

caught

between two irreconcilable imperatives. Insofar as the artist must draw upon the model of ritual in order to continue, he is bound to a lost tradition. Yet the very vitality of his work its impact on the public, its meaning, the interest it arouses depends on that tradition and is determined by the degree to which the artist manages to lend credence to the model. If the modern artist, laboring within the outline left by the dead serpent's remains, is to regain the poison for his work, he can do so only by somehow recapturing the efficacity of ritual. Yet the ritual model has been made untenable by the very

—

144

The Ritual

movement of modernity,

that

tion of traditional forms.

An

is,

by the

historical desacraliza-

on origand the headlong movement of the avant-garde distances itself rapidly from the model, literally devouring it from within. It would seem that if art is to be truly modern it must obey this double imperative: to spring from the sacred, yet always to betray the sacred. Thus the link to the cult is severed, but without being fully severed. Although the relation to the sacred has been radically transformed, this very relation continues to determine art negatively. Such is Bergman's formulation of the "unsolvable" dilemma facing the artist, and each of his major films attempts to respond to this single problem. For Bergman, a sustained and complete recognition of the nature of the modern situation is essential, and must precede and orient any effort to discover alternatives. The contradiction, once it has become known to the artist, cannot be resolved at a higher level, or by passing, in the Hegelian manner, into another mode of expression aesthetic renewal based

inality

—

wounds Nor can Bergman

where the lectic.

artist's

are healed

by the philosopher's

dia-

accept those "resolutions" achieved

—

through ignorance or forgetting conveniences widely adopted today in commercial films, granting them a false and repugnant vitality. More generally, Bergman rejects any solution achieved by canceling one term of the contradiction. He cannot join the modernists in acclaiming the advent of a secular culture freed from the shadow of its origins, for no such culture presently exists. The systems of the "rational" society still bear within them and thrive upon a profane yet singularly destructive ritual pattern repeatedly identified by Bergman as the cycles of humiliation that permeate a wide range of institutions. A sec-

—

ond, equally unacceptable alternative

arises.

This

is

the goal

animating an artist such as Artaud, whose projects for a barbaric and "poisonous" cinema and for a theater of cruelty are designed to destroy aesthetics by giving performance the effective presence of ritual violence. Artaud imagines that a plague disrupting all order would somehow bring a beneficial renewal 6 to a culture that, in his words, is "bon a detruire." It is imper-

145

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

between such an orientation and Bergman's objectives. The author of The Ritual (1969) does not direct a nostalgic glance toward the moment when bloody sacrifice enjoyed the vitality granted by a full social consensus, nor does he suggest to us that the modern dilemma could be properly resolved by making art's representations more fully approximate the ritual logic. To approach the ritual model in art is only to pass from one order of humiliation to another to move from the more subtle and refined forms toward the "effective" humiliation of physical violence. This movement, as I will demonstrate, guides the actions of The Ritual, but in this film it is calculated to evoke only disgust. The hatching of the serpent's egg is not for Bergman an appealing prospect, nor is the sacred "freedom" gained when one ative to recognize the difference

—

marionette destroys another.

Although Bergman's films respond responses vary. In each

work

to a single

dilemma, the

the contradiction

is

posed, a

strategy attempted, and possible alternatives explored.

What

Bergman's effort to avoid a facile solution by maintaining the most acute perception of the situation. This concern is evidenced in one fashion when he remains constant, however,

critiques his

own

is

tentative solutions, for example,

when he

upon the resolution of Through a Glass Darkly in the following two films, so that "certainty achieved" becomes "certainty unmasked" and then "the negative impression." The same concern underlies Bergman's various depictions of artists who turn their backs on the problem, seeking refuge through flight. The circus acrobat Rosenberg, who in The Serpent's Egg (1977) tries to escape from Nazism in the oblivion of alcoholism, becomes a fascist himself. Driven by forces beyond his awareness, he oscillates between being a victim and a victimizer in spontaneous movements of humiliation and turns

7

violence. In Shame, another

—wishes tuary

is

invaded he

distinguishable

way

out

Rosenberg

—

to ignore a senseless war, but

is

is

transformed into

from the

silence

—

others.

a refusal to

The

this

when

time

a

musician

his island sanc-

a ruthless

warrior in-

actress in Persona

perform

—

whose

finds herself cast in

another inescapable drama of violence. The painter in The

146

The Ritual

17.

man

Bergman's performers of The

Ritual,

Les Riens, are Thea Winkel-

(Ingrid Thulin), Sebastian Fischer (Anders Ek), and

Hans Winkelman

(Gunnar Bjornstrand).

Hour of the

Wolf,

"the others"

who

by

once again would escape the violence of

retreating to an island,

bears the violence

within himself. In the internal drama of his psychosis, the

mind becomes

its

own

plague and the

artist,

torn apart by the

147

Ingmar Bergman and birdlike

the Rituals

demons of his imagination,

of Art

inflicts his

own

sparagmos.

These extended demonstrations of one type of failure will be more closely in the proper place. At this point, The

studied

Ritual requires a

more

detailed examination, for

as

Bergman's most schematic and

of

his central problematic.

The

it

stands forth

clearly focused illustration

bleakness of the film and

its

lack of reassuring aesthetic qualities should not deter us: a

sustained confrontation with the difficulty first

manner of responding

to

is

for

Bergman

the

it.

The Ritual begins with a shot of a man seated at a desk. He a magnifying glass and suddenly raises it to focus on the viewer. The scene is an office, and the man, a judge, greets the three members of a troupe of nightclub performers "Les

holds

—

An

Riens."

interrogation begins.

The bureaucrat

queries the

about their income, which suggests that they have been 8 in regard to possible tax evasion. There is also a question of the troupe's lawless conduct. They have been arrested for speeding, and it appears that on this occasion Thea artists

summoned

staged quite a scene, tearing off her clothes and making ob-

scene gestures

ments. The

at

real

the policemen. "Bagatelles," the judge

com-

charges that are being leveled against the

its numbers, "The Ritopening scene the central question of the film is posed: what is the nature of this ritual, and are the artists in fact to be punished for its performance? The ensuing trial of ritual itself adopts a ritual form. Here Bergman performs an immanent critique of aesthetic ritual by following its logic without embracing it or attempting to assure its functioning. His rejection of the sacrificial model in

troupe involve ^the obscenity of one of ual." Thus, in the

this film

does not entail

a

turning

away from

it

radically different alternative; here he evokes the

an alternative by giving the

quences

may

in search for a

need for such

ritual full play so that its

conse-

be observed. Like The Magician, this film sugworks from a recipe, but again with the

gests that the artist

stipulation

same

The terns

added that the

artist

works

against the recipe at the

time.

reader

may

recall that ritual, as

it

of interaction consistently depicted

148

emerged in the patThe Seventh Seal,

in

The Ritual Sawdust and Tinsel and The Magician, determines for the artist a social and an aesthetic role. Positioned at the border of

both the

community

is

as

the transgressors of

its

laws,

stigmatized as creatures of difference

artists are

to permit a negative definition

their expulsion.

Admired and

of

Bergman's

whose function

order founded on expelled and recalled,

a social

vilified,

these marginal individuals alternately occupy the

two opposite

of humiliation. Their performances, as ritual repetitions of violent social crisis and its resolution, have the function of providing, through representations of collective victimage, a cathartic effect that restores the communal order by channeling its violence. This conception of a ritual model of drama can be further clarified by referring to one of Strindberg's manuscript pages, where we find a precise formula for the "effective" play: positions

in

repeated

cycles

An ought

to operate

contain

a secret

drama

revealed to the spectator either

or toward the end the players

effective

with suggestion

do

—

not, he enjoys this

[blindbockslek]; if the spectator

his curiosity

is

at

the beginning

knows the secret, but game of blindman's buff

If the spectator

does not

stimulated and he

is

know

the secret,

kept interested.

an outburst, of feeling, wrath, indignation, a surprise, well prepared, a discovery, a

punishment (nemesis),

a careful

A

a humiliation,

conclusion, with or without expiation,

qui pro quo,

a parallelism; a reversal (revirement), a return, a

The

well-prepared surprise. 9

moments of a theatrical experience following formula will correspond precisely to those dictated by the ritual model: crisis is followed by a resolution obtained through punishment, which as a catharsis or purification, in turn provides the audience with the unifying, transcendent meaning (guilt is known, atonement made, the lesson drawn). It is remarkable that Strindberg seems to equate nemesis with such

principal

a

149

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

humiliation, and that he relates the "secret" to the final des-

ignation of the person

When

who is to suffer this punishment. not know from the beginning which

the spectator does of the characters will play

this role, there is

an indecision or

on the conbecomes a game of blindman's buff: a group formed by both audience and players surrounds the one person who is singled out and made the object of mockery, or perhaps, as the etymology of "buff" suggests, the object of blows. The Swedish term for the game oscillation that stimulates the viewer's interest. trary, the audience

is

knows

If,

the secret, the play

even more suggestive: the object of blindbockslek

is

the bock

or goat surrounded by the group; in other words, the scapegoat. In either case, the violent eruption of emotions

is

vio-

sudden reversal produced by humiliation. The three elements of the tragic plot defined by Aristotle reappear here in a much harsher light. He links "reversal" and "discovery," suggesting that the tragic emotions are best aroused when a decisive reversal brings a movement from ignorance to knowledge, the knowledge in question being the "discovery" of guilt distinguishing between good and evil, love and hate. Strindberg makes another connection that is only implicit in Aristotle's text, where the relation between suffering is the first two elements of the plot and the third not indicated. For Strindberg, it is clearly the discovery that leads to Aristotle's actions "of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage, tortures, woundings and the

lently resolved in the

—

like."

—

10

If we have heeded even one of Bergman's countless statements on humiliation, we can anticipate his reaction to this formula for the cathartic play. We will see that if The Ritual adopts such a model, it will also subvert its effect. The film's "secret" and "question" are those of the ritual itself: who is to be found guilty and punished? The trial of ritual hinges on a central opposition. The disorderly and extremely neurotic artists who seem to make a living on transgression are confronted by a rather reserved bureaucrat who represents a "rational" social democracy where these three morsels of chaos appear to be out of place. Yet as the action develops, the

150

The Ritual

18.

Interrogating Hans, the judge (Erik Hell) stands threateningly behind

him.

difference established artists

and judge

by

this

interact,

opposition slowly dissolves. As

they

become more and more

like

each other. Fascinated by the actors, the judge betrays his reserved demeanor, revealing the fear, confusion, and desire hidden beneath it. The trial of the artists is slowly transformed into an inquisition unveiling the judge's guilt, and the film's initial opposition is reestablished in inverted form. This reversal is wholly in keeping with the ritual model; if carried out with conviction, it would provide the audience with a reversal, discovery, and effective humiliation all pivoting on the

—

151

Bergman and

Ingrnar

the Rituals

of Art

a movement is in fact followed until when Bergman's rejection of the device reaches its own conclusion. But before we explore this conclusion, we must first observe how Bergman designates the ritual action

judge's blindness. Such the final scene,

that the film

is

designed to subvert. is presented at first

The judge, who the

artists,

is

slowly revealed to be

a

as

being different from

much more

suspicious

Bergman's words, we are led to "see him through the artist's eyes." Thus, as Hans and Sebastian each visit the office to be interrogated, the judge's questions move away from the business at hand. He queries both men extensively about their family lives, requesting detailed information on their divorces and on their neglect of their children. Infuriated by the judge's questions and insinuations, Sebastian delivers a tirade, accusing the official of "smacking bottoms" and of being thrilled by the privilege of "hobnobbing with famous artists." When the judge answers his vicious insults calmly, figure. In

11

refusing to be

drawn

into the violent exchange, Sebastian re-

sponds with more violence: "You're a bad actor, you have no right to live." The judge's answer only restates the difference between himself and the disorderly artists: "I have no aggression in me." At this point in the film one has little basis for siding with Sebastian in the argument, but the subsequent interrogations compile what appears to be a more compelling case against the judge.

The

official

keeps Hans waiting for two hours before his

interview, a tactic designed to unsettle the gests that the obscenity charge settled quickly,

and with

this in

anticipated fine in an account.

and

belittles the issue:

is

a

artist.

Hans sug-

small matter that could be

view has already deposited the The judge pretends to agree,

"Our laws may be

antiquated, but they

must be enforced." Yet once more it appears that his interest in the case surpasses what is officially necessary, and the spectator is again given reason to side with the artists. The judge turns the interrogation toward the artists' personal relations and displays an excessive curiosity about

Hans begs him not added impetus 152

their

menage

a trois.

to interrogate Thea, but this only gives an

to the bureaucrat's "curiosity."

As

a test,

the

The Ritual judge asks for

a bribe,

but tears up the check that Hans

is all

too eager to write. "There's something dangerous behind your number," the judge concludes, having twice used unscrupulous devices to humiliate his victims.

The

reversal

is

completed

of Thea's interrogaanimating the representative

in the scene

tion, for at this point the violence

of justice is fully released (see Plate 19). The judge is infuriated and aroused by what he terms Thea's "duplicity," her "hysterics and cheap acting." Insisting that he is going to "get to the point," he slaps her, calls her a "circus whore," and rapes her. A police car is called and Thea is carried away. With this reversal, the guilty party is named and a ritual punishment is prepared. In his seemingly unbounded desire to harass and exploit the artists, the magistrate violates every law that he pretends to defend. His guilt might seem to be even more striking in that he veils his motives in hypocrisy, posing as an agent of justice. The artists, on the other hand, seem to be honest in the expression of their most violent desires.

The

significance of the opposition and reversal underlying

by relating them to The Magician. In the earlier work, Vergerus, the official representative of rational medicine, is confronted by Vogler, who stands for irrational beliefs and outmoded methods of healing. Similarly, The Ritual brings the representative of official justice into conflict with another group of marginal performers. In both films the initial opposition is transformed by a discovery: when the hypocrisy of the rationalists is revealed, the flaws in their system are unveiled. Vergerus shows his hatred of Vogler and attempts to seduce his wife; the judge mistreats the actors and rapes Hans's wife. Yet the parallel between the two films is even more fundamental. Just as Vogler and Vergerus represent two rival but not fully differentiated forms of medicine, the judge and actors of The Ritual represent two types of justice and two forms of

the plot of The Ritual can be brought out similar

movements

in

social order that are not as

radically different as they first

appear to be. Vogler,

we

recall,

draws the

of his cures from the them, and thus bases his

efficacity

patient's willingness to believe in

153

Ingmar Bergman and

19.

Reserve gives

way

the Rituals

to violence

when

the

of Art

judge attacks Thea during her

interrogation.

on

dynamics of intersubjective relations. Veiling himof a fascinating appearance, Vogler elicits hope and desire and seeks to manipulate these emotions to his advantage. Vergerus, on the other hand, pretends to employ only objective methods: the success of his treatments depends on the physical disposition of the patient and not on the conditions of persuasion. Yet in the course of the film this distinccraft

the

self in the prestige

tion collapses. Vergerus' supposedly objective stance

minded by the web of relations linking him The scientist defines himself in opposition

under-

to his rival

reveals himself finally to be a creature of anger,

154

is

to the magician.

fear,

and and

The Ritual

Even

desire.

ods

his initial "objective" rejection

of Vogler's meth-

reinterpreted in this light.

is

The

opposition of The Ritual

is based on a similar of the law pretends to practice an objective form of inquiry in which the guilt or innocence of a given party is determined by referring to the facts alone. Such a form of justice should not be contaminated by personal relations: a rational system of mediation intervenes between the

initial

distinction.

The

officer

parties in conflict. Ideally,

and

guilt

more

is

determined

all

persons are equal before the law,

in a fair

and impersonal manner. Even

ideally, the eventual sentence

revenge, and

is

conceived

is

to be distinguished

as rehabilitation rather

from

than punish-

ment.

The judge

in The Ritual clearly violates these principles. His with the artists are tainted by his preconceptions about artists and by his personal reaction to their puzzling nature. A legal procedure that could have been handled as easily as a parking violation becomes a prolonged inquisition, solely because the magistrate has a powerful curiosity concern-

dealings

ing the the

artists'

norms of

"difference." Perceiving that they live outside society,

the judge

is

led

away from

his

order in pursuit of them. That Thea cannot or will not

tell

own him

schema of judge and sets off the assault. At this point, the entire system of legal mediation designed precisely to prevent this sort of interaction collapses, leaving us to wonder whether it was ever in place. In its absence the old law prevails. The actors undertake the only kind of justice they know violent retribution just as Vogler, in the climactic attic sequence of The Magician, vindicates himself by terrifying the scientist. The person harmed, guided solely by his own animosity, simply imitates the offense, returning the harm in equal if not greater measure. Such a logic is designated in The Ritual from the very beginning, for when Sebastian is piqued by the magistrate's questions he im-

her age, and thus does not

fit

into even the simplest

legal classification, enrages the

—

—

mediately threatens to murder him. Like Pentheus in The Bacchae, the magistrate vestigate a lawless

mystery but

is

drawn

sets

out to in-

into the ritual

155

and

Ingmar Bergman and

20.

In a reversal that indicates the

menaces the judge

made

the Rituals

its

as the

victim.

cycle of revenge

symmetry of

their positions,

Thea

performers prepare to revenge their humiliation.

Once is

of Art

the legal system has been vitiated, the

given

full

play and advances toward

its

conclusion. Les Riens unveil the mystery behind their perfor-

mance: their obscene number, "The Ritual," is quite precisely their punishment of the judge, a violent act of retribution thinly veiled by the raiments of the sacred. Arriving in the office where they are to perform this number in private for the judge, they transform the room into another sort of space, just as Vogler's conjurings transform the scene of an autopsy into a fearful and mysterious domain. The artists remove their hooded cloaks to reveal primitive costumes studded with bits

156

The Ritual of metal. The men wear huge phalli and don grotesque birdlike masks; Thea, with bared breasts, appears now as a sacred prostitute.

"Why

this

number?"

something we childhood memory," Sebastian replies, knife and pointing it at the judge, who is visibly

read in a book.

brandishing a frightened. tion."

Hans

intercession.

Or

"We

the judge asks.

"It's

a

thought

interrupts:

it

"It's

would fire the public's imaginamore than that. We call it an

Actors are superstitious."

Sebastian

adds:

"A

sudden urge to perform a ritual. The need to kneel down and clasp our hands." Hans concludes: "A ritual game. An incantation. A formula. You yourself must have known this weakness, a sensual longing for humiliation." The judge turns about and finds that Sebastian still holds the knife toward him: "What's the knife for?" Piercing a bladder, the actor fills a bowl with wine. "I understand," the judge says, and the "celebrants" laugh threateningly. Fearing for his life, the judge collapses and begs for mercy. He points out that the assignment fell to him by lot and that he was only carrying out This excuse is ignored. In ritual the victim can be chosen by lot because the arbitrariness of his designation is obscured by the logic of accusation: the party blamed for violating order is the party whose sacrifice will repay that order. The judge's plea is answered when Sebastian advances and gives him a brutal slapping. "Has the performance begun, or was that the orchestra warming up? If so, very effective," the judge remarks. He begins to confess, admitting to the cruelty of his own profession. He acknowledges that he was driven by the same "sensual longing" to "rebuke, humiliate, judge, make enquiries." This confession only provides the artists with a orders.

their action. The ritual is comThea drinks the contents of the bowl, now named as

supplementary justification for pleted: as

"blood," the judge collapses with a heart attack, having been frightened to death. In the film's concluding shot,

literally

Thea lowers her hands slowly and turns her head toward the a sinister smile beneath her mask. one sense, then the action of the film fully carries out a progression that begins with verbal conflict, advances to more

camera, revealing In

157

Ingmar Bergman and

21.

the Rituals

The judge begs mercy from

literal

a

masked

of Art

Sebastian.

representations of violence, and concludes with murder.

The wine

spurting forth from

blood with the

sacrifice

a

bladder

of the judge. The

for their humiliation in a ritual

movement

is

transformed into

artists find

that

revenge

would seem

to

even the wildest dreams of an artist such as Artaud (and 12 Yet in fact everyat least one critic has drawn this parallel). thing in the film contributes to a complete undermining of this ritual movement. The vengeful smile of the conclusion is onerous and frightening, and the real effect on the viewer is antisatisfy

thetical to

the purifying catharsis that an effective ritual

is

designed to provide: the artists' hands are sullied rather than cleansed

by the 158

sacrificial

blood.

The Ritual This undercutting of the

ritual logic can be plotted at every of the work. The manner in which the ritual action is performed renders it a mere shell, having no more vitality or

level

credibility than the nervous, antlike

We

might begin,

movements of a dead

ser-

for example, with the

camera work and decors: here the Kammerspielfilm or chamber cinema moves into suffocating, exitless confines. Within the cramped space of barren rooms, the antagonists collide, separate, and collide again until the possible permutations of their meetings have been exhausted. As the camera presses in, dwelling over the action in seemingly relentless series of close-ups, the viewer is contaminated by an impression of claustrophobic imprisonment. "Dear God, let me out of this prison," exclaims Hans in the dressing room following a show, the prison in question being precisely his condition as an artist. "I no longer believe in what we're doing. We're meaningless, disgusting, absurd. We're not relevant anymore." His drunken wife, still costumed in a grotesque clown outfit, answers that she does not know what relevant means, and he responds: "People don't need us anymore." She suggests that he is in fact only tired of her, and he admits that he is indeed. But that feeling is simply a part of his general disgust. He is revolted by the nomadic and chaotic existence that they lead together as artists, he is tired of living in a perpetual triangle with these two "monsters" and deems their life "humiliating and unworthy." He concludes: "When the contract ends you can go to hell." Hans hopes to leave the "maniacs" so as to find some orderly existence for himself, but this hope is contradicted the moment he voices it. A shift of the camera frames him against the wall; behind him hangs a circus poster displaying an image of a large chained bear, a symbol of the artist's humiliation from Sawdust and Tinsel and The Seventh Seal (see Plate 23). That Hans will succeed in escaping his marginal status seems doubtful: repeated expressions of the desire to escape from the artist's condition have pent's remains.

been established films,

as part

of

where the gestures of

this

very condition in the

flight

only prepare the

earlier

artists for

another repetition of the cycle of humiliation.

159

Ingmar Bergman and

22.

Costumed

in a

the Rituals

grotesque clown

outfit, a

of Art

drunken Thea expands upon

her woes.

Les Riens are imprisoned, most fundamentally, by their relation to a sacred order in its

which they have no

gestures, expressing themselves always in

ceaselessly act out a profane ritual, spiritual

exercises of disbelievers:

pray."

When

affirms

his

demons and imply

its

Repeating

terms, they

wearily performing the

"Even nonbelievers often

interrogated about his religion, Sebastian proudly

freedom,

declaring

that

he supplies his

"own

angels." Such an assertion, however, does not

that there are

freedom, nor does

160

faith.

it

no demons and angels

to

menace

his

suggest that those he pretends to supply

The Ritual do not resemble those he pretends to renounce. In an enigmatic scene that should perhaps be taken to represent Sebastian's phantasm, he plays with matches and sets fire to his for himself

bed, sitting calmly as the flames rise around him. That Sebas-

chooses for himself a wholly ineffectual

sacrificial immolawonder about the quality of his freedom. In another sequence, he asks Thea to recite a poem about him. She is bored by this idea and for a moment feigns ignorance of the poem, but in fact knows it all too well. Her delivery is tired, a matter of routine: "The bird poem. Half bird, half man. Bird's heart, man's lungs, bird's head, man's eyes. The membrane bursts of never-satisfied longing. Heavy limbs bind the body as it turns toward the sky. And so on. Sebastian. Bird." The poem, Bergman's pastiche of Strindberg, fully

tian

tion causes us to

captures the ambivalence of a failed transcendence: the impossible aspiration

of

a soul

bound

to the inferno of the body, the

longing of the flesh to escape

itself,

longing

flesh.

itself

belongs to the

hopeless because this very

The poem

succinctly ex-

between mind and body that pervades The Silence (1963). In The Ritual, this division is studied as it applies to the artist who, working with profane presses the conflictual division

—

means, strives unsuccessfully to attain some higher reality or who tries, equally unsuccessfully, to renounce the attempt. A few moments later, Sebastian offers an even more loathsome image of the artist's grotesque caricature of transcendence: with actors, he notes, "it's always lilies springing forth from the arsehole of a corpse."

Again the delivery

is

tainted

by

fatigue.

Throughout

the

performances are marked by repetition, disgust, and tiredness, and present only faded simulations of real emotion. To read Bergman's script first and then see the film is a shock. The text has all of the indications of a lifelike and highly emotional drama, but in the film only the indications remain. The pace is hurried and the actors' intonations betray a lack of conviction even during their most violent emotional outbursts. The artists barely pause between rejoinders, as if pushing themselves on through the roll book at the end of a long and exhausting rehearsal. The overwhelming sense of wearifilm, the

161

Ingmar Bergman and

23.

Hans framed

recalling the

The Seventh

ness and

the Rituals

of Art

against a circus poster depicting a chained bear, thereby

motif of

artist as sacrificial

victim from Sawdust and Tinsel and

Seal.

boredom only promises words

to give

way when

the vio-

sudden physical violence. Languishing in their hotel room, Sebastian and Thea attempt to find some means of enlivening their conversation, but their routine is oppressive and stale. Taunts and insults have no effect, but a few slaps quicken the senses, as if brutality could offer a release from the stifling sense of repetition. It does not. Here, as in From the Life of the Marionettes Bergman evokes the attempt to escape from a world of dessicated conlence expressed in

is

transformed into

a

,

162

The Ritual ventions into the "nearness" of violence

synonymous with

ity

—

a

possession of real-

destruction. In both works, a "sacred

violence" imagined to promise a presence outside representais revealed to be a gruesome failure.

tion

The its

artists'

fullest

unsettling mixture of rehearsal and prayer finds

expression in one of Thea's scenes.

she performs in accordance. "I play .

I

.

.

my

can

sit

at

being

A

text

a saint

is

read and

or martyr.

for hours at the big table in the hall looking at

a redness appeared in my left hand." She one hand slowly and gazes blankly at the palm. "But no blood came." Her next lines are filmed in extreme close-up, and the actress mouths the words as they are read: "I play at talking in ecstasy to the Virgin Mary. Belief and unbelief, defiance and doubt. It's all make-believe. Inside the game I'm always myself. Sometimes extremely tragic, sometimes incredibly hilarious." These lines recall another of Bergman's artists, Jof, who in The Seventh Seal is truly possessed by his ecstatic visions of the Virgin. Jof's innocence and love are antithetical to Thea's condition. She takes a religious pose in a performance that cannot vary or attain its goal; the mood of the performance, comic or tragic, has neither value nor significance, and makes no difference. Make-believe produces no

hands.

Once

stretches forth

The drama

belief.

them

together,

in

which Les Riens

and creates no

real

participate fails to bring participation.

"We

can

never speak to each other," Thea complains to Hans. "We don't understand each other. The words don't tally. It's absolute incomprehension." This complete crisis in their interactions will not be resolved

Bound

by

their ritual, for the ritual

is

itself

by rituals evoking only weariness and disgust, these artists must be counted among the "vast armies of victims and hangmen" to which Bergman repeatedly refers. Their chorus belongs to the violent and fragmented world condemned by another of Bergman's artists, the painter who, in The Hour of the Wolf, prays for another sort of part of the crisis.

to a life ruled

prayer:

To

human being, to understand him, to know thousands and thousands of changing moods,

reach another

him with

all his

163

Ingmar Bergman and

24.

As

if

the Rituals

simultaneously rehearsing and questioning a

the reading of a text while staring at her

not acting parts in reality.

of Art

Not words

a tragic farce

own

role,

Thea mimes

to

reflection.

but living together in

a

shared

like "captive," "prison," "torture," "jailer,"

"walls," "shut in," "distance," "void," "dread," and "ghost."

Not

words

like

"sentence,"

"punishment,"

"forgiveness,"

"guilty," "erring," "blame," "disgrace," and "sin." sions," "nightmares," and "revenge."

What gave

No

"confes-

birth to the

and vindictive god, prayer's shout of anguish, Out of what horror of decay rose this monster called the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead, and life everlasting? 13

thought of

a just

faith's terrified vigilance or blind fury?

"Acting out parts in ritual

a tragic farce," the

will constantly voice

164

performers in the

words belonging

to a sacrificial

The Ritual

empty repetition mirrors the very decay that it seeks to resolve. They will voice these words, never finding the transcendent meaning that they are intended to create. The order that in

its

reason for this failure of

ritual, as well as the basis of Bergman's critique, can be specified. The sacrificial murder of the judge wins no sacred significance precisely because it is revealed to be a murder, a violent act of vengeance having no larger justification. Such a justification is lacking because the judge's "guilt" is placed in doubt. The judge may indeed be guilty, in some sense, for having humiliated the artists and for assaulting Thea, but he is no more guilty than the others. His punishment can in no way resolve the violence because he cannot be deemed wholly responsible for it. The violence practiced by the judge is only mirrored by the violence that the artists in turn inflict on him. Everything leading up to the ritual conclusion has suggested this symmetry. The camera positions and actors' movements during the interrogations in the judge's office are reduplicated in the final scene, with the actors assuming the place of the inquisitor and the judge positioned as victim (see Plates 18 & 20). The camera that had consistently peered over the judge's shoulder at the actors now bears down upon the judge, who is surrounded by the three costumed figures. One position is perfectly doubled: the judge, who had loomed behind his seated victims during the interrogations is now seated in turn, and behind him stands Hans, who menaces him with both hands, exactly imitating the judge's earlier gestures. Thea sets the pace of the ritual by beating steadily on a drum, reproducing the sound heard during the rape a parallel underlining the basic reciprocity between "hangman and victim." This reciprocity is made even more

—

explicit

by

which reveal the symmetry hand over Sebastian's heart,

the judge's final pleas,

falsifying the ritual. Placing his

he speaks: name. I was born, raised, and educated. I have lived a number of days and slept a number of nights. I have felt joy, laughed, felt sorrow, and have wept. Disappointment, tenderness, love. All of that is together in me. When you hit me in the head, Mr. Fischer, you strike all of that. I admire your physical daring. Your hand hits my head, which I'm

a

person with

a first

and

last

165

Ingmar Bergman and burns. But

at

the

same time you

You have

dignity.

the Rituals

hit

me

strike

of Art

my memory, my human

and humiliated yourself.

The script includes another line: "Take that as a lesson or as what you will. Take it as a last cry, a last cry of warning against your confirmation of hatred and selfishness." Sebastian responds by slapping the judge again, and the victim poses one last question to the leering god of vengeance: "How could it all be otherwise? I ask you, the artists. You must know. You know." These artists do not know, and even fail to recognize 14

the importance of a question that asks how their revenge could be justified. Instead, the unbelievers go on with their ritual, once again praying to the "just and vindictive god" of sacrifice.

The ritual concludes with the expiation of the judge's "guilt," and the film in which it is framed might appear to conclude with a condemnation of artists who can find no alternative to this ritual. This, however, is not the ultimate conclusion of the film. The discovery of the judge's guilt and the ensuing nemesis is negated by a second discovery that reverses this conclusion, bringing the futility of the chain of retributions to the surface. This second discovery and reversal is not only a negative movement, a negation of a negation. The symmetry depicted in the film's style, plot, and characterization extends to both sides of the opposition. The blindness that is discovered not assigned to either side in the conflict, but is revealed to be the source of an imprisonment touching both parties. The is

judge's statement

is

indeed the lesson of the film.

To

conclude by returning the accusation against the artists is to give the ritual logic another turn, and only reinserts Bergman's conclusion within the ritual. The judge's final state-

ment

is

could

it

not another accusation, but a real question: "How be otherwise?" The artists have no monopoly on

all

the moral bankruptcy displayed here: even to expect that the artists

who must

find the solution to the patterns of humil-

iation implies that they fact,

it is

still

possess the sacred difference. In

the artists are the source neither of social crisis nor of

resolution.

166

The community can no longer pretend

its

to delegate

The Ritual problem of violence and victimage, expel these troublesome matters along with the

to artists the "antiquated"

nor can

it

The founding mechanism of violence will continue to community until it has been faced and

artists.

function within the

recognized, and in the absence of this discovery the grotesque struggle between

"demons and angels"

will be ceaselessly re-

peated.

Bergman's manner of situating the problem of art can be by referring to A Passion (1969), a film that complements The Ritual by tracing the limits of art's potential and responsibility. A Passion portrays no artists, focusing instead on hapless individuals who act out the same crippling rituals in their everyday lives. Both films are marked by the same overwhelming sense of repetition and imprisonment, the same desperate search for an alternative, which would suggest further clarified

that the "artist's condition"

is

related to a larger difficulty.

Andreas Winkelman, the protagonist of A Passion, resembles the Winkelman character in The Ritual and represents the possible conclusion of Hans's attempt to escape from his condition by abandoning his art. Both men define their situation in the same fashion, for both find themselves caught in cycles of humiliation from which they hopelessly strive to free themselves. Like Hans, Andreas has in his past a failed marriage and trouble with the law; he has been imprisoned for writing bad checks and for striking an officer. He describes his life as an endless series of mortifications depriving him of even the most basic self-esteem. He hides now in solitude on an island where he lives like a "beaten dog," wishing to efface himself, to "live as a simple formality." The problem of humiliation seems so widespread to him that he denies himself the right to complain, for the countless victims around him suffer in silence:

I

am

so frightened of being humiliated.

It's

an everlasting mis-

have allowed myself to be humiliated ever since I was a child. And I have accepted the humiliations and let them sink into me and there they have stayed. ... I know it sounds absurd and pretentious, since nearly everyone is forced to live without ery.

I

167

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

any sense of their own value, humiliated to the core, half stifled and spat on. They live and know nothing else. They know no alternative, and even if they did they would never reach out to grasp it. Is it possible to be ill from humiliation? Is it a disease which we are all infected by and have to live with? ... I share my doom with millions and millions of people and I know that they are silent and humble. ... In the end they are completely silent living creatures with nerves and hands and eyes. Immense armies of victims and hangmen and the light that rises and falls, heavily, and the cold that comes and the darkness and the heat and the smell. But they are all quiet. 15

This passage from the script of

A

Passion

is

man's works. An verifies Andreas' remarks and plots

his

out to grasp the alternative. In the

first

own

most

the single

theme of humiliation extended drama of humiliation,

elaborate verbalization of the

in

Berg-

this

film

failure to reach

part of the film,

we

observe with him the action of victims and hangmen, and

measure his attempt to escape from these patterns by fleeing from the world. His solitude is first interrupted when he is visited by Anna, a woman staying with Elis and Eva Vergerus, a couple living nearby.

Anna

leaves her purse at

An-

and he discovers in it a letter written by her former husband, who was also named Andreas. The letter demands that Anna face the painful facts about their marriage and suggests that they must separate if they are to avoid "physical and mental violence." Anna later tells Andreas quite a different story about her marriage, describing it as a perfect harmony that was tragically interrupted by an automobile accident causing her husband's death. Although he has read the letter and is aware of the deception, Andreas becomes involved with Anna and the two begin to live together. It seems, however, that the letter's truth, its promise of violence, cannot be kept hidden. Nor can its prediction be avoided: in spite of all his efforts, Andreas will be cast in the same role as his namesake and will be compelled to take part in the same bitter conflict that both he and Anna had hoped to forget. The "physical and mental violence" is ineluctable. Its first

dreas' cottage

168

The Ritual

symptoms appear

in the

of sheep. The

killings

an old hermit,

is

form of mysterious mutilations and

island's inhabitants suspect that Johan,

responsible for these crimes and throw a rock

carrying a threatening letter through the

Reporting

this

incident

to

Andreas,

window of his

the only

cabin.

who

person

shows him any kindness, Johan expresses his fear of being murdered by the angry neighbors. Yet he cannot heed Andreas' advice to flee. There is nowhere to go, he suggests, and nothing can be done to prevent the unfounded accusations and hatred from leading to an ugly and wholly predictable conclusion. What is written in the menacing letter has all of the force of necessity, just as the letter written by the first Andreas will become the script guiding his namesake's life. Thus,

when Anna

Andreas should leave the

later suggests that

"We

can

up, wherever

we

island with her, he repeats Johan's fatalistic response:

never get away from here. Wherever go,

we

will always be

Infuriated in

kind,

when

treating

cabin, they accuse

on

we end

this island."

the slayings continue, the islanders respond

violence with

him of

violence.

Invading Johan's him until they

the killings and beat

extract a confession. Humiliated,

Johan hangs himself, send-

ing Andreas a suicide note that proclaims his innocence.

With simply

this a

episode

Bergman demonstrates

matter of aesthetic conventions.

indicates the real basis of art's ritual

mechanism of

On

that ritual

is

not

the contrary, he

model by showing how

a

collective behavior governs the islanders' re-

crisis of violence. These individuals act not as performing a ritual but as earnest participants in a real movement of victimage. Johan is singled out because he is a loner who was once in a mental hospital and because he keeps no sheep himself for the crowd, conclusive proof that he is guilty of the ovicide. Troubled by the inexplicable "plague" of violence, these modern individuals immediately revert to the oldest pattern of mob behavior, taking their places alongside the soldiers of The Seventh Seal. But as modern individuals, the islanders are wholly incapable of making their "ritual" work: the sacrificial action is as grotesque and ineffectual as it

sponse to the artists

—

169

Ingmar Bergman and is is

the Rituals

of Art

The killings continue after Johan's death, which simply another instance in a series of slayings and not the

automatic.

decisive action bringing a resolution.

Maria Bergom-Larsson usefully points out that the "outer" and "inner" violences depicted in A Passion are imbricated, but judges the relation between the two levels of violence to be overly symbolic. In her view,

A

Passion repeats the error of

Shame by reflecting social issues in the distorted mirror of Bergman's concern with private conflicts. As a result, violence never linked to the class struggle and is presented as an and metaphysical fate. These are fundamental objections that call into question Bergman's most basic assumptions

is

abstract

about social interaction. In keeping with her rather orthodox form of Marxism, Bergom-Larsson assumes that all violence is caused by political and economic

realities,

human

be the determinant instances governing ing to share this premise,

Bergman

within "bourgeois ideology" and

is

which

is

are taken to

behavior. Fail-

said to be entrapped

castigated for presenting

an erroneous and needlessly pessimistic conception of violence.

16

Bergman indeed eral

rejects the

Marxist schema and has on sev-

occasions decried the violence to which

"Thus

— the

frightening aspect of the

New

it

Left,

gives for

rise:

me,

is

intolerance, the absence of spiritual experience, the absence at

times of humanity

immense

.

.

.

The absence of warmth

in

all

of that

love of man." Declaring himself to be a "sincere

advocate of nonviolent principles," Bergman rejects the possibility of a justification for violence because "every form of aggression engenders a

new

act

of aggression." 17

Although Bergman's reactions

to violence are often said to

be purely symptomatic, they in fact constitute a coherent understanding of conflictual relations and are motivated by an acute awareness of the destructive potential of these relations. The charge of pessimism is unfounded in this regard. If the representation of the problem o{ violence in A Passion appears to be fatalistic because the principal characters do not find a viable solution, this does not imply that Bergman renounces the possibility of discovering such a solution.

170

The Ritual

The

communicate an inchoate hor-

director does not merely

ror of violence or a vague and irrational fear of social existence, as

some of his

critics

On

have claimed.

the contrary, his

form a cogent lesson in rivalry and address the various forms of social organization working to channel and control violence. Bergman's remark that violence

depictions of violence

leads to violence

is

the point of departure for his conception of

As

form of imitaengenders a runaway cycle of individuals or groups exchange reprisals. Such a

conflictual interaction.

a particularly volatile

tive behavior, violence quickly

retribution as

mimetic pattern is the source of the generalized social crises that Bergman examines in a number of works. He also observes how the mimetic pattern directs the group's effort to resolve the crisis of violence. We have seen in various films how a single accusation is quickly imitated by a collection of disparate individuals. In the ensuing movements of victimage and humiliation, the group's unity

is

restored as violence

is

directed

against the one person designated to serve as the source both

of disorder and of its resolution. In these processes, the basic reciprocity and symmetry underlying violent exchange is obscured: a group is formed on the basis of the difference between guilty and innocent parties, between "good" and "bad" acts of violence. Such are the justifications of violence rejected acts

by Bergman,

who

in refusing to distinguish

of aggression characterizes them

as

being

"all

between morally

destructive." Similarly, in

Bergman's films the

ner" and "outer" violence in

A

Passion

rupting

a

is

is

not simply

distinction

challenged. a

The

reflection

between "in-

external violence

of the violence dis-

couple's relationship. Rather, the destructive inter-

both the personal and social levels are instances of an underlying pattern that is itself the source of the violence. Bergman does not present large-scale social conflicts and warfare as mere epiphenomena of a private conflict, nor actions

viewed

at

being necessarily the product of some global social structure. He indeed portrays the political and economic forms of violence, but does

does he see violence between individuals

not reduce

all

as

conflict to this level. In Shame, a disastrous civil

111

Ingmar Bergman and

war continues because

the Rituals

individuals

of Art

seem

to perceive

it

as

an

irremediable condition existing beyond the scope of their personal actions. Failing to acknowledge their involvement, they fail

to

gauge or control

their

ing cycle of violence. In violence

is

situation

and actions

A

own

contributions to the

mount-

Passion, Andreas' failure to avoid

directly linked to his inability to relate his

The

to the external violence.

own

violence

is

always attributed to the "others," but this decision to expel all responsibility and blame, itself a violent gesture, assures that the violence returns to possess those

who

turn their backs

on the problem. This

is

the essential demonstration of both

Shame. The individual

who

A

Passion and

and condemns the world of humiliations is himself drawn into the destructive pattern, becoming both victim and agent of the very violence that he had hoped to escape. Andreas' recognition of the futility of the acts of violence that occur outside his cottage is not matched by an equal self-awareness. Although he sees that the others are caught in a grotesque pattern of ritual humiliations, the film's final sequence shows him to be incapable of extricating himself from cruelties

of the others and

easily discerns

flees

from

a

it.

One

day, Andreas hears a cry in the

and finds

a

puppy hanging from

woods near

a tree:

his cottage

the half-dead animal

swinging by a cord in some strange repetition of sacrifice by oscillation. Andreas frees him and takes him home. When his relations with Anna sour, the letter's prediction becomes reality and mental violence leads to physical violence. Anna blames him for making her miserable and contrasts her earlier "happy" marriage to their life together. Andreas attempts to restrain his mounting anger, but fails. Giving way to his desire for revenge, he attempts to hit her with an axe, knocks her to the ground, and beats her cruelly. Moments later they hear police sirens, and Andreas follows them to a nearby stable that has been set on fire. The ground is strewn with the charred bodies of horses. Anna joins him and their bitter argument continues. As they drive away, he is incited to use the "ultimate weapon" that he has until twitches and jerks,

172

left

The Ritual

now

held in reserve: telling her that he has read the letter and was never duped by her lies about a happy marriage,

that he

he returns her

problem

lies

own

accusations against her, insisting that the

entirely with her

and that she

is

to

blame

for their

Anna attempts to steer the perhaps hoping to kill him just as she killed

inability to live together in peace.

car off the road,

her former husband. Andreas manages to stop the car and asks her

why

she followed

him

forgiveness," she answers.

to the scene

A

fire. "To beg dog swings from

of the

tiny effigy of a

the rear-view mirror of the car, indicating that in their unre-

on each other the two have merely repeated

strained attacks

the

same

ritual violence that earlier surfaced outside their pri-

vate retreat. In their desire for blame and revenge they have

destroyed the possibility of

a reconciliation.

Realizing his mis-

Andreas steps out of the car and is left alone on the desolate road. He paces back and forth for a moment and falls to the ground. The image freezes and dissolves as the narrator concludes: "This time his name was Andreas." Failing to act upon his awareness of the destructive pattern of humiliation, Andreas remains part of the nameless armies of hangmen and victims; failing to grasp the alternative, the individual becomes a mere instance of a cycle that endlessly repeats itself through take,

him.

The problem of

a violence that

every level of human interaction

is

senselessly repeated at

Bergman's vision of art, as The Ritual and other films demonstrate. In A Passion, and earlier, in The Virgin Spring (1960), this problematic is extended beyond the confines of art, which enables us to situate Bergman's aesthetic questions in a larger framework.

Although a

bleak

of

art

is

scarcely

commentary

in

is

central to

mentioned in A Passion, it does receive this film, most notably in the character

Elis Vergerus. Elis tells

Andreas

that he has

been commissioned to design

cultural center in Italy, but derisively refers to

leum"

human

to be erected in

honor of the

it

as a

a

"mauso-

"total meaninglessness

of

concerned, the project has only two virtues: it will occupy him and help provide his wife the luxuries she requires. Elis is not only an architect, but a pholife."

As

far as

he

is

173

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

as well, and has compiled a vast collection of shots of people. Although every conceivable expression figures in his elaborate catalogue of emotions, he entertains no illusions about the value or meaning of these photographs: image and reality are forever disjoined. As proof he shows Andreas a portrait of Eva, explaining that the smiling image is contradicted by the facts: at the time when the picture was taken she was suffering from an extremely painful migraine. Elis feigns total indifference to such enigmas and claims that he has long since ceased to feel curiosity about or concern for the puzzling behavior of people. His goal is to live without belief, to be

tographer

purely functional. Several of the critics discussing

A

Passion find in Elis Ver-

gerus another of Bergman's portraits of the

Larsson sees here

a

artist.

Bergom-

continuation of Bergman's "criticism of the

and exploiter." 18 Bernard Cohn extends this even further, proclaiming that Elis' mistrust of the image is an expression of Bergman's own doubts about the film medium. 19 These remarks are stimulating, but demand certain clarifications. First of all, it is not clear that Elis represents "the artist," and second, it is even more doubtful that he represents a definitive statement of Bergman's aesthetics. The character's name artist as a parasite

provides

a clue.

As another Vergerus, he belongs

to a lineage

The Magician and forward to The Touch films in which the Vergerus characters represent a "rational" detachment and objectivity that consistently proves to be a form of self-deception. The Vergerus figures are doctors who attempt to remove all feelings from themselves, as if emotions were troublesome organs that could be extracted in a surgical operation. As scientists more interested in dissecting and controlling human nature

stretching back to (1970)

and The

Serpent's Egg,

than in understanding

it,

these characters represent a destruc-

form of functionalism. The objectivity of their science is based on the death of its "objects," the living persons whose reality vanishes when they are placed on the dissection table or tive

enclosed inside the laboratories of behavioral research. A Vergerus is indeed an exploiter, but is never an artist: the artists

number among 174

those in his pool of victims and guinea pigs.

The Ritual Even of

its

if

we

art, or for some aspect read this characterization in relation

grant that Elis stands for

condition,

we must

Bergman's conception of the dilemma facing modern art. Elis would thus serve to designate only one of art's possible failures, more precisely, its death and entombment. His cataloguing of photographs indeed has the futile, antlike quality to

that

Bergman

discerns in

much of art

today, for

it is

an elabo-

rate,

busy, and wholly meaningless activity. Insofar as Berg-

man

considers the task of art to be an interrogation of man, he

would judge

Elis'

appropriate to the

practice irrelevant and worthless,

mausoleum of

wholly

culture that this architect

Yet as Bergman demonThe Ritual, art also knows a second type of failure, the failure of repeating the violence of ritual. Bergman's twofold critique of art is consistently misrecognized by critics whose assumptions make it impossible for them cynically undertakes to construct.

strates in

to appreciate the filmmaker's premises. If

"art" or the cinema,

it is

Bergman

mistrusts

not due to some fundamental lack of

image" or in representation. For Bergman, the between works of art reside in the manner in which the medium is employed, not in the medium itself. Cameras are used to exploit and to falsify in A Passion, Shame, and The Serpent's Egg, but this does not mean that the error is inherent in the machines themselves or that the image faith in "the

significant differences

necessarily misrepresents reality. For example, the proto-Nazi

Vergerus of The Serpent's Egg employs cinematography in his gruesome experiments, but his use of it should hardly be taken as a general criticism of the cinematic medium. Rather, it is Bergman's critique of the victimage animating a certain form of social science. Vergerus conducts his experiments in human behavior to make possible a society of total domination in

which the

tools of rationality

would be harnessed

to the

most

primitive sacrificial impulse. His desire to manipulate his vic-

tims precedes and overdetermines his desire to "represent"

them. The same desire animates the Vergerus of The Magician: he states his wish to do an autopsy on Vogler, and indeed

performs such an operation on the actor, Spegel. The scienscalpel fulfills, in a grotesque and wholly negative fash-

tist's

175

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

ion, the dissolute actor's longing for the sacrificial blade that

would "purify" his body. The possible falsehood of art does not ultimately spring from cinematic or dramatic conventions themselves, but from which these forms belong. Humiliation, and deception are patterns of social organization anterior to their various continuations in the domain of art. Bergman demonstrates at great length that certain of art's most fundamental conventions are modeled on such destructive processes, but this does not imply that the problem of violence and ritual ends or begins with aesthetics. Rather, Bergman's films suggest that art's representations are but a fragment of the collective representations supporting a sacrificial order. The humiliation of the artist, the artist's humiliation of others, are merely glaring examples of a generalized phethe cultural order to exploitation,

nomenon. Bergman subordinates every aesthetic question to his exploration of these phenomena and attempts to discover the underlying mechanisms governing social interactions. This point is fundamental, for the failure to grasp

it

falsifies in

advance any

consideration of "representation" in Bergman's works. specifically, the representations practiced in art or in

domain

More

any other

be subjected to Bergman's critique if and only if they are determined by the mechanism of victimage and thus serve to sustain or obscure its operation. The islanders' misrepresentation of Johan, their unfounded but unquestioned accusation, is one example. The victimage of the magistrate by willl

is another. In the final analysis, Bergman defies one of the basic tenets of modernism by defending the possibility of realism: a fictional representation can attain the goal of truth 20 This if it faithfully depicts the processes of social interaction. goal of realism does not carry with it the stylistic norms traditionally associated with the realistic genre, and Bergman approaches it through a variety of formal strategies. Narrative and dramatic structure, dialogue, acting, and the "cinematic codes" are all capable of communicating the patterns and log-

Les Riens

of interaction. In general, Bergman discards the trappings of factual or historical realism and thus infuriates his socialist

ics

176

The Ritual critics,

who

accuse

him of mythologizing. He

prefers to pre-

sent a schematic but convincing depiction of behavior that

heavily on dialogue, characterization, and plot. He has developed a remarkable mastery of the devices specific to film, but has never detached these formal means from his more fundamental goal: to explore the reality of human life. 21 Consequently, he has been criticized by those who hold dear the supposed "specificity of the cinematic medium." 22 Bergman's response to such a charge is clear: relies

There

are

some

directors

who

forget that the

human

face

is

the

of our work. Certainly we can consecrate ourselves to the aesthetics of editing, we can imprint admirable rhythms on an object or still life, we can make nature studies of starting point

an astounding beauty, but the proximity of the human face is without a doubt the mark of film's worth and singularity. It follows from this that the actor is our most valuable instrument and that the camera is only the mediator of this instrument's

many

reactions. In

positions and

its

we

find the opposite case: the

camera

movements seem more important than

the ac-

cases

and the image becomes an end in itself, which can only destroy the illusion and ruin the artistic effect. 23 tors,

Bergman's

its basis the goal of accuand emotion. This position entails a rejection of certain forms of representation but does not necessitate a generalized critique of "the image." On the contrary, Bergman praises here a possibility that must be included among the resources of the cinematic: the film's capacity to reveal human emotion by representing the actor's face with an unprecedented attention and precision. The cinematic need not be limited to the virtuosity of editing and camera movement, but also entails, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty noted, the potential of a faithful representation of appearances that reveals rather than conceals inner life. 24 That Elis' photograph of his wife's

aesthetics thus takes as

rately depicting behavior

expression

fails

to capture her true state does not

cinematic representation of her

same

error. In fact,

would

necessarily

mean that a commit the

Bergman's depiction of Eva and her

rela-

tion to Elis says a great deal about the type of interaction that

177

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

would lead someone to mask from others even the most extreme form of physical pain. Elis' cynicism and dissimulation of feeling establish a relationship in which the wife's duplicity becomes a daily necessity, a matter of survival. She can never let down her guard in his presence; so much so that she can only sleep when away from him. Thus Andreas finds her one day napping in her car in broad daylight, far from home. What must be contrasted, then, is Elis' fragmentary and useless photography and Bergman's penetrating depiction of a woman involved in a particular type of interaction. Elis captures a surface that when detached from its context is wholly deceptive. Bergman uses the cinema camera as an instrument in his exploration of people; the surfaces that he captures are grounded in a context that permits them to reveal a certain truth.

Ultimately,

Bergman condemns only

The misrepresentations

certain

that he rejects include,

the various mythologies surrounding

artists,

forms of

most notably,

who

as

marginal

figures are falsely identified as society's bane as well as saviors.

When

interviewed

at the

art.

its

time of the Swedish televi-

sion premiere of The Ritual, the director voiced his criticism of

myths about artists, complaining that the public fails to see do not belong to some extraordinary caste. "People should learn that working in the theater is as banal and laborious as any other job," he comments, adding that "if anyone is

the

that artists

conscious of gates

the

this,

artists

it is

the artist himself."

who

through

exhibitionist gestures attempt to

Bergman

"egocentric

also casti-

demeanor and

make themselves

interesting

and mystifying," deeming such a posture "inexcusable." 25 Thus, if Bergman criticizes art and attempts to describe its modern dilemma, these notions find their full significance within his larger interrogation of social life. The filmmaker is no cataloguer of disparate images and meaningless surfaces; nor does he champion a return to the barbarism of ritual. Elis' failure to find meaning in his fragmentary reproductions of people's faces does not imply that Bergman rejects the goal of truth, that "modest hope" voiced by Andreas in the script of A Passion: "A longing for affinity, a secret dream of understand178

The Ritual ing."

26

critics

Seeking in Bergman another modern iconoclast, certain confuse him with Vergerus and valorize a supposed

"shattering of the mirror of representation" in films such as

The Hour of the Wolf. 27 Yet Bergman does not employ a stylistics of fragmentation in order to enthrone it as a value; rather, he explores its reasons and meaning. Driven by the "dream of understanding," he attempts to make the discovery that would resolve the modernist's dilemma. In his hands the fragment becomes "a message, an appeal." 28

Persona and

179

—

Z)

The Masks of

Violence

We

have got beyond venerating works of worshiping them.

art as divine

and

—Hegel

Awakened suddenly to the falsehood of her art, Elisabet Vogler hesitates during a performance of Electra and turns away from the audience. The actress is visibly troubled by her silence. She raises a fist and turns as if to continue with the role, but cannot complete this gesture. Her expression of discomfort is replaced by an ironic smile: it is not her hesitation that is at fault, she decides, but the role itself. Vogler resolves that this performance will be her last. Henceforth she will elevate her hesitation and doubt to the status of faith, replacing the lie of language with the truth of silence. In an effort to tear away the mask, she retires to a hospital where she will do and say nothing. An uncompromising modernist, the heroine of Persona challenges with her voluntary silence the very possibility of art's

—

continuation.

Bergman

participate in Vogler's

is

often said to enthrone this silence, to

mute

protest

tion of the performance with his

by matching her interrup-

own

radical disruptions

cinematic and dramatic convention. Both

artists,

then,

of

would

refuse the complicity inherent in language, discovered to be

and hypocrisy." In the words of Marcel Martin, the self-reflexive form of Persona betrays art to be a "transposition, indeed, a trucage of reality"; the filmmaker's stylistics of "mask,

1

lie,

180

The Masks of fragmentation implies

Violence

rejection of the cinema,

a

pearance," and "supreme

lie."

"art

of ap-

2

That the modernist's doubt is at stake in Vogler's pose is undeniable, but it is erroneous to posit an unmediated identity between Bergman's film and the character. Strictly speaking, the director's position is not and could not be that of Vogler: to make a film about her rejection of art is already to betray this rejection, for such a film necessarily constitutes an artistic interpretation of Vogler's silence. As the actress turns away from her audience in the theater, she faces Bergman's camera and the audience that it implies. Her refusal of the role is framed within a work where her silence figures as another role.

3

If

Vogler's silence queries

art,

art returns the question,

measuring the value and consequences of an actress's refusal to continue. Vogler, then, is not the voice of Persona; rather, the

vow, she

film gives voice to her silence. Faithful to her

nothing until the end of the film at last

translating with a

word

when

says

she says "nothing,"

the negation already spoken

throughout the work by her gestures and by her very presence

among

others.

Although Vogler can hardly be taken parole, the

connection

may

still

as

Bergman's

porte-

be valid in some sense. Perhaps

her attempt to maintain the purity of silence

is

taken up by

Bergman in an effort to succeed where the actress fails. Faithfully embodying this same silence and refusal in its form, Persona would discover, in the failure and rejection of art, the only authentic possibility of

art's

continuation. Such an inter-

pretation of the film has been advanced frequently,

and

is

indeed suggested by significant aspects of the work. The possibility of Bergman's participation in Vogler's "project" deserves careful consideration, for in this possibility resides the

key to Bergman's relation to the dominant trends of modern art.

Robin Wood's remarks on Persona offer a first formulation of the assumptions that might be common to Vogler and Bergman. Wood prefaces his discussion of the film by referring to the

generalized "meaninglessness and chaos'" of

twentieth century.

It is

against this

background

life

in

the

that the artist

181

Ingmar Bergman and

25. Interrupting her

must perform of the

human

world where

of Art

performance of Electra, Elisabet Volger (Liv Ullmann) in Persona and questions the value of her art

away from her audience (Museum of Modern Art/Film

turns

the Rituals

— or refuse

Stills

Archive).

to perform.

And

as the

"conscience

race," the artist cannot ignore the suffering of a

and outrage "are not merely possible but everyday, the horror of a humanity in which the tendencies that make such outrage possible are inherent and ineradicable." 4

182

atrocity

The Masks of Vogler, recoiling in horror

at

Violence

the spectacle of suffering .pre-

sented on the television screen, bears this acute awareness and resolves never to betray it. Consequently, she cannot sustain

work the pretense of a fictional harmony belied by the extreme disorder of real existence. Refusing, then, to give experience a false wholeness by ordering it in the work of art, the artist renounces the aesthetic conventions creating an organized and meaningful perspective. These conventions are in her

replaced

by an

artistic

"breakdown" more

defying coherent representation.

The

faithful to a reality

thematembodied formally in

refusal expressed

person of Elisabet Vogler is Bergman's stylistics most notably in the discontinuities of the opening montage sequence and in the disruption of filmic continuity which occurs at the work's midpoint when the celluloid literally splits in two and disintegrates. Bergman ex-

ically in the

—

plodes the representational illusion

and meaning Vogler's

Other

— silencing

mute

— the

illusion

of wholeness

the film sense in order to preserve

protest.

critics cite further

evidence of Persona

s

modern

icon-

oclasm. Focusing on the disruption of the traditional narrative structure in this film, Susan Sontag discovers in Persona the

of modernist filmmaking and places Bergman alongside Alain Robbe-Grillet, Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godard. The displacements of mode and temporality in Persona are said to subvert the continuity of the "story" and to make it impossible for the viewer or critic to extract an "anecdote" from the film. The work's opacities particularly defy a "psychological" interpretation of the action, but thwart, more generally, the viewer's fundamental "desire to know." The film is meant to remain "partially encoded." 5 Critics almost unanimously accept that Persona is fundamentally ambiguous and enigmatic. Consequently, Sontag and salient features

others rule out the possibility of a comprehensive interpretation of the

work and

claim that any attempt

at a

systematic

explication will necessarily betray certain aspects of the film.

Having thus defined what "cannot be done" with

Persona,

Sontag proceeds to define the film's operation as a process of "theme and variation" freed from the constraints of the tradi-

183

Ingmar Bergman and

Although

tional plot.

of Art

the Rituals

in Persona silence

and speech are

"divided" and "intertwined," Sontag finds tify the director's values:

ment of fraud and

"Language

cruelty.

.

.

.

is

What

it

at

once

possible to iden-

presented as an instruPersona demonstrates

is

the lack of an appropriate language, a language that's genuinely

All that

full.

is

left is a

language of lacunae

.

.

.

more

potent than words." 6 It

would be

difficult to

exaggerate the prevalence in

modern

art of the doubt concerning the veracity of language. Described rather simply by Bergman's reviewers, the assault on art's

representational function

retical

tion

and aesthetic

on

phrase,

projects.

its

own

"a

mask pointing

is

developed

Modern

in a host

art, in its

of theo-

anxious reflec-

substances, has become, in Roland Barthes's

seems to lead necessarily

to

itself.

""

And

to self-hatred: the

this self-reflection

mask

to

which the

indicated in the same gesture to be the mark of and hypocrisy. The modernist chorus demanding art's self-negation and silence speaks with a single voice: in the confidence and coherence of representation and sense is falsehood; the truth, which is the falsehood of art's language, can be evoked only by fragmentation or by the silences interrupting the illusion of wholeness. Thus, beneath the incredible diversity of modernist perspectives lies a paradoxical unity: the proponents of fragmentation are brought together in their artist

points

is

art's illusion

common

quest for disunity. "The whole

is

the untrue," writes 8

Theodor Adorno, inverting Hegel's formula. Art

is

modern

when it renounces its own false promise of transcendence and meaning, that is, when it renounces itself. "In its hatred of 9 The "knowlart, the work of art approaches knowledge." edge" Adorno recommends here would indeed appear to be the kind of knowledge motivating Elisabet Vogler's silence, but it remains to be seen whether Bergman joins, with Per-

only

sona, the

modern

chorus.

Although the "logic of disintegration" traced by Adorno own writings, making it difficult to extract from them a single, unified system of thought, he offers quite cogent indications of the modernist position against which

haunts his

184

The Masks of

Violence

must be measured. His various remarks concerning modern work, for example, offer

Persona

the "critical function" of the

compelling statements of the ambitions readily attributed, rigorous form, to Bergman by his interpreters. For

less

in a this

reason a discussion of Adorno's aesthetics can contribute to the analysis of Persona; not that Adorno's notions can simply

—

be brought to the film and applied rather, as the comparison develops, the specificity of Bergman's "modernity" will be revealed.

Adorno

Citing Karl Kraus,

claims that in a world where

based on falsehood and violence the task of art is 10 Only a fragmentary work that to "bring chaos into order."

social order

is

renounces the claim to beauty and harmony can approximate truth, a truth emerging as a "pure representation of false consciousness irresistibly leads to an authentic consciousness." A 11

positive

image of this

truth,

however,

is

prohibited to

art. "Its

pretension to truth and affinity to untruth are one and the

same." 12 The artist is like Orpheus, for whenever he turns his back on falsehood in search of truth, the positive image instantly vanishes and the work is compromised. Rather, art must work negatively, withdrawing from the truth so as to reveal In it

it

in

its

absence.

Adorno's view,

refuses to voice

the

dominant

sion

is

its

art serves its critical

social order.

dictated

function only

when

opposition in the forms offered to

by the

The

real crisis

diation; because falsehood

and complicity are inherent

systems, art must avoid them.

only by refusing to "play the

it

by

of art's modes of exprestouching the systems of me-

crisis

It

can maintain

its

in these

integrity

game of communication."

13

In-

it communicates the unresolved antagonism of social existence in another manner, delivering its blows to the reified channels of "communication" through a technique of shock. Such an art carries in its own formal disruptions "the antinomies, the guilt, the contradictions and calamities of the social 14 condition, calling for change in its cipher-script of suffering." In this manner, Arnold Schonberg's unresolved dissonances

stead,

Adorno finds that Paul Celan's poetry is shame of human suffering and "expresses

are critical; similarly,

animated by the

185

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

When

horror through silence." 15 negative, silence

Choosing of

art.

of Art

the truth of art can only be

becomes the only

possible

form of eloquence.

silence or disappearance, art refuses art in the

name

16

These

prescriptions

given by the

critics

strongly

who

resemble

laud the disruptive

the justifications

moments of Per-

But although Adorno at times recommends the same aesthetic strategy that Robin Wood and others find in Bergman's film, the philosopher's perspective is more complex,

sona.

more

capable of bringing forth the ambivalence of the

To

modern

advocating Schonberg's dissonances must be added those noting their failure. If Adorno negativity.

the

passages

a critical moment achieved in a stylistics of fragmentation and silence, he also attempts to explain the limitations and shortcomings of this moment, understanding it precisely as a historical moment in which the tensions and contradictions of art are crystallized, but not definitively resolved. Adorno resembles Bergman because he never values fragmentation for its own sake, but for the truth content (Wahrheitsgehalt) that such a form might contain. And this truth is conceived as a dismal but necessary recognition of the reality of. fragmentation in social interaction. It is never acclaimed as the free and radical movement of an artistic ac-

champions

tivity

liberated

Adorno always

from

the past or

from

its

social

condition.

seeks the interconnection between social and

formal dimensions of

art;

moreover,

his

conceptions of

mo-

dernity are defined in relation to the traditional concepts to is bound. The negation is "determined." The traditional categories of art, its relation to religion and magic, for example, cannot be ignored if the real antinomies of the present are to be grasped. Negated, the traces of art's past are maintained and preserved. Each of Adorno's central concepts is ambivalent because bound to its antithesis. Modernity is juxtaposed with the archaic patterns that it both alters and repeats. Historical transformation is measured against cultural invariants; social order and disorder, rationality and irrationality, myth and enlightenment, are studied in their imbrication. In this sense, Adorno's

which the modern negativity

186

The Masks of aesthetics

Violence

can contribute to our understanding of

a

film-

maker whose modernity is achieved in a direct confrontation with the most archaic pattern of art its ritual model. Adorno takes up Walter Benjamin's notion of the "aura" or

—

cult value

of

art in

order to explore the role of ritual and He contends that the very concept

transcendence in aesthetics.

of a unified artistic form implies the positing of a metaphysical meaning, and that art therefore is necessarily religious. 17 The persistence of art's aura and unifying function is examined at

both the formal and social levels. Socially, the work of art provides an illusion of transcendence that is bound to the maintenance of cultural order. The impression of plenitude and wholeness created by the work sustains the corresponding illusion of unity in social life. And according to Adorno, this social role of art is carried out less at the level of the work's "content" (as in specific conformist ideologies) than as a formal operation. In this regard, he finds a common basis in the apparently antithetical positions of Plato and Aristotle on artistic imitation. Plato literally expels, in the name of social order, the "disorderly" mimesis embodied by the poet; Aristotle does not recommend this literal casting out of the poet, but values a similar expulsion and in the name of the same ideal of com-

—

munal

order.

The

difference

that Aristotle focuses

is

on an-

other level: in the theory of tragedy expounded in The Poetics, the expulsion of the tragic hero within the theatrical representation

produces

a

cathartic experience in

which the

disorderly passions are purged and sublimated

spectator's

— or

in other

words, expelled. The gesture of exclusion which constitutes social order defines a political, religious, or poetic operation,

depending on the

Adorno

level

of

analysis.

further claims that the

18

harmonious

follow the same logic of exclusion and role,

but transpose this process

of classicism

arts

fulfill

the

more completely

same

social

into the reg-

of aesthetics. The progression from Plato to Aristotle is carried one step further, for the catharsis or expulsion of disorder is achieved formally in the work's internal organization.

ister

It

is

in this

manner

function of art to

its

Adorno equates the aura or ritual unifying intention. In the harmonious

that

187

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

works of the

classical

parts to the

whole organizes them

of Art

model, the uninterrupted adhesion of the into a false totality. This unity of the art work is false because the individual differences of each part are effaced, reducing them precisely to the status of parts of a whole founded by the violent exclusion of all heterogeneity. Adorno does not hesitate, then, to draw a strict analogy between the logic of exclusion in artistic form and social practice. The process of exclusion by which a social order defines itself in relation to its "other" is repeated in the foundation of aesthetic form and this repetition is anything but innocent at the political and social level because it involves a ritual affirmation of the status quo. Adorno's basic critique of the concept of the unified form of art is that the fundamental logic of exclusion effaces the relationship that is in fact at the origin of the whole a relationship of violence: "In works of art, and due to their very constitution, everything that is heterogeneous to their form should disappear, although they are forms only in relation to what they would cause to disappear." 19 Unity, in society and in art, is created by an exclusion of otherness that draws the boundary between inside and outside, causing the otherness "to disappear." Yet without this disappearance- or rather, this semblance of disappearance the unity would not exist. For in the absence of the exclusion, the identity in question, whether social or artistic, would

—

—

—

falter.

Thus, Adorno defines a "critical" work of art as one in which disorder and violence would be shown to be inherent in the "rational" order that is created, in a wholly violent manner, through their expulsion. Such an art would reveal rather than obscure the reality of social antagonism. Hence the call, in Adorno's aesthetics, for an art of fragmentation, an art whose fractured unity would bear the traces of violence and suffering. Yet although Adorno joins Benjamin in condemning the ritual, ordering function of art, he doubts that the modern dispersion of the aura is as automatic as Benjamin sometimes suggested. 20 It is not necessarily realized in the shocks of a montage technique, for these disruptions can themselves be recuperated

188

by

a

unifying intention.

Nor

is

the crit-

— The Masks of ical

Violence

transformation of

hoped,

art's function achieved, as Benjamin through the cinema's supposed "exhibition value"

(Ausstellungswert) because

its

"political" thrust

is

easily

made

to serve the repressive cultural orders of both capitalist and authoritarian systems. At this point in his dialectic, Adorno

seems to cancel the analogy between formal and social levels beyond which the analogy no longer holds. The modernist work may in fact transgress in its form the classical norms of unity, but this is no guarantee that its role within the social system (as commodity, for example) will not contribute to the maintenance of an unjust order. The fragments can, in Adorno's words, remain "blind and unconor at least he draws a line

scious" in relation to social reality. 21 In his view, surrealism

an example of such

a failure.

And even

at

is

the formal level, the

fragmentary modernist work can retain the status of cult object if the unifying frame continues to enclose the critical operation. Disorder and negation may merely be represented in

works

that

movement outside concept of the unified work of

by no means achieve

the confines of the traditional

a radical

art.

For this reason, Adorno surveys the landscape of modern art and finds it to be strewn with so many failures. Attempts to shatter art's meaningful forms or to pose a total absence of sense do not resolve the problem. Functionalism and its equivalents (recall Elis of A Passion) are simply abstract and frustrated negations of art's cult values because they are bound to the very forms that they would oppose. 22 The trends of anti-art and its that culminate in Beckett only make this negation failure

—

— more concrete.

Adorno's vision of the modern condition of

art is crystal-

modern dissolution of the 23 of the aura float like so many phantoms." If these modern fragments still exhibit shreds of the aura, they fail to achieve the complete desacralization of art that they were designed to produce. Yet as fragments, they nonetheless partially disrupt and betray the aura by subverting aspects of its unity. Neither movement is completed. For Adorno, this

lized in a single sentence: "In the

aura, the shreds

ambivalent condition

is

dictated

by an antinomy present 189

in the

Ingmar Bergman and very notion of tion, is

but

once transcendence and its dissoluform of transcendence. "Art antithesis in a mythical manner." 24 It owes its

art: art is at

this dissolution

chained to

the Rituals of Art

its

is

itself a

existence and nature to the sacred order yet attempts to extract

own

meaning and purpose. In classicism, this difsought in the ideal of formal harmony and beauty; in romanticism and its modern variations, it is sought in an exasperated negation of this ideal. Thus, Adorno characterizes art

its

ference

different

is

"magic delivered from the

of being truth." 25 Since art no longer fully satisfies its original, religious role, its magic offers enigmas but no mystery. Art simply persists in its ambivalence and presents only the images of a "broken tranas

lie

scendence."

Yet given

that art's condition

necessary to choose from

modernity

is

failure,

Adorno

thinks

it

the varieties of failure.

If

refused in a nostalgic return to the forms of the

past, art futilely seeks to reverse

Any

is

among

an irrevocable historical ten-

which the values of the cult are granted even appearance of vitality is necessarily compromised and will an dency.

art in

serve to foster the false transcendence supporting a society of violent domination. In this regard,

Adorno

contempt forthe culture industry's attempts

expresses his utter to reanimate art's

cult value, describing this as a "regression to the archaic fetish-

ism of art's origin." 26 Similarly, the commercial media's

efforts

—

to revive the classical ideal result in "kitsch" or Entkunstung

minus

its These of "an enchantment offered as consolation for disenchantment" (Entzauberung, Max Weber's term for the "prog27 ress" of rationalization). For this reason, Adorno states the necessity of the modernist negation even though he perceives its limitations. His conclusion appears bleak: given its social and formal conditions, modern art can only choose between two evils, for it can neither fulfill the traditional concept of art nor free itself entirely from this lost ideal. Following his "negative dialectic," Adorno moves back and forth between the two poles of this failure: his critiques of the culture industry propel him toward its negation, leading him to affirm, with Benjamin, Baude-

art

tions

190

artistic quality.

are only the sorry reflec-

The Masks of hire's dictum: "It

is

Violence

necessary to be absolutely modern." But of various modernist strategies, Adorno

in his specific analyses

nonetheless perceives their shortcomings and limitations. Yet the dialectic points toward "positive" moments, if only as a horizon: the notion of to the false choice

art's potential

truth returns as an answer

between two types of

failure. Thus, in an enigmatic and paradoxical phrase, Adorno suggests that if the fragments of a modern work carry the traces of their origin in

social reality they can

withhold the possibility of

posing "the unsolvable enigma and

Adorno

truth, pro-

solution." 28

its

questions, then, the value and potential truth of an

of fragmentation. This is precisely the question that Bergman's modernity in Persona. Yet we might ask at this point if Bergman's films have not already taken up that question. Indeed, the artist in The Hour of the Wolf asks: "The limit has been reached. The mirror is shattered, but what do the splinters reflect?" Thus, the quesaesthetics

must be

tion

is

raised in regard to

returned to

Adorno by

films interrogating his position,

asking, in turn, if the "enigma" of the

modern fragmentation

must remain unsolved.

A

darkened image of the arc lamp of a projector suddenly explodes into brilliance, and isolated images flash forth to violate the darkness. A rapid montage oscillates between obscurity and instants of illuminaPersona begins as an interruption.

Slowly the images start to linger, their onward movement developing until the credits and the "beginning" of the film are reached. The spectator is introduced to Vogler and witnesses her interruption of Electra; the mute actress is introduced to her opposite, the talkative nurse assigned to guide her back to health. The drama of their interaction begins, and continues quite realistically until the midpoint of the film when the image shatters and dissolves. This disruption is momentary, however, and the plot reforms. Yet the return to the continuity of narrative is incomplete: now the spectator is plunged into the world of the characters' dreams and phantasms. Not an unreal or meaningless world of unfathomable tion.

mysteries (and hence inexplicable, as

some

critics claim),

191

but

Ingmar Bergman and one that necessarily

the Rituals

of Art

exists in relation to the realistic interac-

tions depicted in the first half of the film. Persona also ends as

an interruption.

comes

to a halt

Alma and Vogler separate; the drama when the arc lamp burns out and the

abruptly screen

is

returned to darkness.

These interruptions and sudden movements from continuity one of the images of the opening montage sequence: a shot of a tiny cartoon figure, first mobile, next immobile, and then brought to life again by the magical process of "animation" a process openly demonstrated in Persona and secretly active in every other film. Yet it is a mistake to perceive the disruptions of Persona only as a to discontinuity are represented in

—

self-reflexive gesture (as a "lesson" in film process), or as an

apology for discontinuity. Persona captures both continuity and discontinuity, bringing them together to study their necessary relation. If the continuity is shown to be generated from discontinuity, the discontinuity

of

Disorder

continuity.

this

includes disorder.

To

preemptory manner this

is

is

is

also presented as being part

enclosed within order; order

assign priority to either of the to falsify their relation,

and

two

it is

in a

only in

paradoxical relation that the truth of the film can be dis-

covered.

It

has

become customary

Persona, a discussion of the

to include, in each title.

new

analysis

of

This custom should be hon-

seems particularly worthwhile given that Vogler wants to discard the mask and everything that it represents; given also that in their violent interaction Vogler and Alma grapple with their masks, perhaps exchanging them. Thus, when it is time to ask what is at stake in this puzzling drama the critic justifiably adverts to the title and explores its meaning. "Persona": mask, dramatic role, but also the person con29 cealed beneath the mask. These are the antithetical meanings singled out by the critics who, in raising the question of the mask's significance, indicate the proper direction: it only needs to be followed. The critics' suggestions concerning the double meaning of "persona" find more extended developments in the writings of ored.

It

192

The Masks of

Violence

Bataille, who propose two opposcomplementary analyses of the mask. Mauss emphathe role played by the mask in social differentiation and

Marcel Mauss and Georges ing yet sizes

order,

its

place in the continuity of everyday

Bataille,

life.

always driven by his nostalgia for transgression, turns to the masks of carnival, the "antimasques" representing the disruption of social continuity.

Mauss

discusses the significance carried

by the word "per-

sona" in societies where the concept of individuality does not have its modern connotations. Here the individual exists only insofar as he or she occupies a position within the rigorous and

elaborate classificatory system of the

community. To

this posi-

tion corresponds an equally rigorous and fixed social role.

The "persona"

or

mask

is

the sign of a specific identity defined

only within the network of relations organizing the culture.

The person

inherits the

mask from

the social status and duties that

the

emblem of the

it

and with

it

The "persona"

is

his ancestors,

represents.

individual's existence as a necessarily social

name." synonymous with the true nature of the

being and designates

a "civil,

religious,

and

familial

Here the term is individual, and thus runs contrary to our modern apprehension of the deceptive and artificial quality of the mask. 30 Mauss notes that the Greek and Latin moralists add an ethical sense to the word: to wear one's mask is to perform one's duties well, to develop an individuality perfectly integrated within social relations.

reader.

"Carve your mask," Marcus Aurelius exhorts

his

31

Mauss acknowledges

the existence of another sort of mask,

but this predecessor of structural anthropology

is

too con-

cerned with analyzing the systems maintaining social equilib-

rium

to allow himself to be distracted

from the masks

that

serve as signs of stability and identity. Yet he notes in passing that if the mask is the emblem of personal integrity, it can also be foreign to the self. There are also, he remarks, the masks of deception worn in comedy, the nonpermanent and unsettling masks of ritual. As "an obscure incarnation of chaos," the mask is for Bataille the very antithesis of social order. When the mask is

193

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

donned, "chaos becomes flesh," and the forces of darkness and irrationality invade the world of social equilibrium. The mask's "irruption liberates what was enchained in order to maintain stability and order." 32 Nothing, he asserts, could be more contrary to science than the mask, mortal enemy of homo sapiens. The nature of this chaos that defies all norms, laws, and rules of social life is identified quite precisely by

The mask interrupts communication in a "brutal deciThe "open face" of human exchange is replaced by the

Bataille.

sion."

closed and disquieting guise of terror. Peering through the

mask

is man's hostility and decomposition.

How

to

man, the

sinister

promise of death

could such antithetical conceptions of the mask be

complementary? Neither Mauss nor Bataille discusses the relation between their opposing interpretations, yet this very opposition subtends both of their analyses. The masks of stable identity can be defined only in relation to what they oppose: instability, deception, the disorder that the network of social relations is designed to prevent. The masks of chaos championed by Bataille are also defined wholly in relation to their opposite, and are conceived only as a thrilling transgression of

More

an order deemed factitious.

and

its

sites,

tion

generally, social structure

differentiations are identified in function

"anti-structure" and nondifferentiation.

between the

antithetical

interaction that they represent cussions; yet as this relation

is

of

Thus

their

masks and the types of is

oppo-

the opposisocial

implicit in both authors' dis-

only implicit,

its

nature remains

unexplored. Each of the two writers correctly grasps one half

of the mask's significance, but a complete vision could be formed only by bringing them together. In Persona the opposing masks are joined. This fusion is achieved graphically when the halves of the two central characters' faces are brought together in a single image; the same movement is followed at every level of the film: in its cinematic form, Persona both contrasts and unites discontinuity and continuity, gauging their interaction; in the two halves of the narrative, a realistic drama is juxtaposed with its opposite, a dream play similar to Strindberg's chaotic mixing of "memo194

The Masks of ries,

experience,

free

fancies,

incongruities

33

At the center of the film there structured narrative and its dissolution. tions."

The

is

a

Violence

and improvisahinge joining

a

film establishes a hierarchy of radical oppositions and

brings these contrasting terms into a relation where their play

of difference and similitude opposites

is realized. Such an interaction of most obviously, in the exchange between two protagonists. It is no exaggeration to say that

is

the film's

depicted,

Alma and Elisabet represent the two types of mask singled out by Mauss and Bataille, but it is crucial to note, before setting up this opposition, that Bergman surpasses the conceptions of these authors by observing the interaction and interdependency of the two masks, questioning their apparent differences and resemblances.

Alma

is

initially

presented as an individual possessing

well-defined social role and an equally definite sense of

a

self;

throughout the film the nurse reiterates her desire to maintain this secure identity. She speaks of her admiration for those whose lives are built upon the solid foundation of a single-

minded dedication

to a particular role.

The "personable" nurse

defines her identity in terms of her uniform

much

like a

(a

social

sign

who

have something, to

mask), and praises the retired nurses

work." "To believe in accomplish something, to signify something for others," she

lived "only for their

says, declaring her ideal.

Vogler,

it

appears, could not be

more opposed

to such an

stated so and exhibits a smile of irony when frankly by the nurse. As an actress, it is her role to embody different roles, to imitate and in a sense to deceive as she participates in the theatrical ceremonies in which masks and identities are shuffled. Her role authorizes a diversity of changing parts, and has taught her that to believe in the veracity of any single role is naive. Like her namesake in The Magician, Elisabet dons different guises and never allows herself to be fixed with a single identity. The magician's mask, as Bataille 34 Thus in The Magician indicates, is inimical to homo sapiens.

she hears

ideal

the conjuror stands in opposition to the doctor,

mask of rationality

is

it

whose

secure

antithetical to the performer's dissimula-

193

Bergman and

Ingrnar

and

the Rituals

of Art

irrationality. Like Elisabet, the conjuror

opposes his of reason and interrupts the continuity of communication. Refusing to perform, the actress also refuses to wear the masks provided by society and attempts to withdraw entirely from the "game" of social existence. Her obmutescence is a literal interruption of communication that marks an attempt to break completely with others: withdrawing from the theater, Elisabet also withdraws from her friends and family. When her retreat is invaded by a letter from her husband, she tears a photograph of her son in two, wishing to obliterate the image that painfully reminds her of her maternal role, a role that she vehemently attempts to

tions

deceitful silence to the speech

discard.

Thus

at

the beginning of the film, Vogler and

Alma appear

Alma's gregarious and talkative nature contrasts with the actress's silent artifice; the nurse's honesty and openness, her desire to help others, conflict with Vogler's headlong flight from personal relations. Alma's praise of selfassurance is negated by Vogler's irony toward the limitations and deceptions of self. The personification of health, conviction, and social responsibility struggles with the actress's impersonal coldness, her secrecy and indifference, which amount to a passive form of hostility. The distinction between the two could not be more sharply drawn. to be total opposites.

It

also appears that this distinction could not be

As Alma tween their identities

more decep-

and Elisabet interact, the initial opposition be-

tive.

is

undermined, perhaps inverted.

To

an-

alyze their contrasting psychologies and philosophies in terms

of

this

opposition

is

to observe that the differences dissolve in

the instant that the analysis begins. Signs of the dissolution are

present from the beginning. Early in the film,

Alma

begins to

own

doubts and insecurities. Leaving Elisabet and retiring to her room, Alma goes to bed, but is kept awake by her nervous deliberations. She enumerates her certainties, but

betray her

once spoken they no longer seem certain. As John Simon comments, this lack of decision in Alma's self-examination is displayed as she nervously flashes the lights in her room on and off, "oscillating between bright, rather forced cheerfulness

196

The Masks of

Violence

35 and dark engulfment." Later, Alma fully divulges her instability. After a long and emotional confession of a past erotic

how

adventure, she asks

a single

personality could embrace

such contradictory types of behavior: "Can you be one and the same person? Can you be quite different people, all next to each other, at the same time? And then what happens to everything

you

Vogler

believe in?" also reveals the flaws beneath her

semblance of conand Vogler shows herself to have much in common with the nurse. Early in the film, the doctor offers an interpretation of Vogler's actions, emphasizing the actress's desire to escape from the necessity of "signifying something for others" her rejection of the mask as a sign of identity's social determinations:

Alma

sistency.

resembles Vogler,

increasingly

—

do understand, you know. The hopeless dream of being. Not Aware and watchful every second. And at the same time the abyss between what you are for others and what you are for yourself. The feeling of dizziness and the continual burning need to be unmasked. At last to be seen through, reduced, perhaps extinguished. Every tone of voice a lie, an act of treason. Every gesture false. Kill yourself? No too vulgar. But you could be immobile. You can keep quiet. Then at least I

appearing, but being.

—

you're not lying.

Then you gestures.

You

can cut yourself

Or

you

so

think.

But

reality

place isn't watertight. Life trickles in

forced to react. interest in as

it.

.

.

When

.

Keep playing

you've played

you drop your other

This speech it

is

The

frequented silence to

close yourself in.

it

is

diabolical.

make false Your hiding

from the

outside. You're

this part until

to the end,

you've

lost

you can drop

it

parts.

important, but has too often been cited as if definitive statement on Vogler's

Bergman's

represented

actions.

off,

don't have to play a part, put on a face,

doctor*

the

who

gives

existentialist

the impression of having

school,

elevates

the

actress's

the status of an abstract philosophical "project";

Vogler embarks on

Although

this

a quest for authenticity and pure Being. reading of her silence obscures certain signifi-

cant aspects of her situation,

it is

worthy of investigation. One 191

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

of the doctor's remarks, for example, does coincide precisely with Bergman's stated intentions, for both director and doctor point out that Vogler's silence is only a role among roles. Self-enclosure Kierkegaard would say indeslutedhed cannot be perfectly hermetic because reality leaks in and one is forced to react. The necessity of appearing pursues Vogler into her hiding place, most notably in the person of Alma, who is intent upon communicating with her patient. As Elisabet's every gesture and facial expression becomes an involuntary message to the nurse, her silence acquires a communicative force beyond that of a mere verbal eloquence and is thus betrayed. Promised by the doctor, the unavoidable failure and inauthenticity of Vogler's attempt at authenticity are fully demonstrated in the course of the film. To speak of Vogler's silence and withdrawal as a search for authenticity is to invite another inversion of the initial opposition between Elisabet and Alma. Although the notion of authenticity is unsatisfactory, it can be employed to make a first sketch of the extreme ambivalence produced in the womens' interaction. To claim that Elisabet seeks to be "authentic" implies that she is not so very different from Alma, whose devotion to her role also serves the ideal of an authentic and consistent identity. The difference between the two women resides in the fact that Vogler finds it necessary to abandon her role discovered to be a vain masquerade in order to as an artist be faithful to herself. She would find authenticity in a relentless negation and refusal of false roles; but Alma also refuses roles and denies herself various possibilities in order to affirm the one part that she has chosen as genuine. The "authentic" role chosen by Vogler is silence, or no role at all, but silence simply maintains the role's form while depriving it of a positive content. Yet the "pure" self is an empty abstraction. Seizing upon this emptiness, Vogler imagines that the purity could be won along with it. Vogler's negativity may appear antithetical to Alma's "naive" affirmations of belief and duty, but as their inverted image, the actress's negations also affirm the ideal. If Alma has an ideal, Elisabet has an Ideal, and sacrifices the world to the

—

—

—

—

198

—

"

The Masks of vacuous Ideal of Nothingness.

albeit

greater,

would

find her silence "demonic," and describe

Violence

Kierkegaard

as the unfreedom and "bad infinity" of an inwardness determined by its 36 Vogler's silent negations do not escape flight from the good. from the imperative of affirmation, but only serve it with the ruse of irony. The "being in flight" states its presence in absence; the negativity of this "infinite" subjectivity seeking purity and consistency attempts to cast off the constricting baggage of self and world, yet only asserts these same concepts via negationis. Thus her absence and silence become the emblems of presence and speech, and the positive moment moves secretly behind the scene of negations. Nothing is more idealistic, finally, than Vogler's rejection of the nonbeing of artistic imitation, several levels removed, in the Platonic hierarchy, from the Idea. Vogler's negation is affirmation, her authenticity a form of inauthenticity. But if we are to observe the inversion as it touches the notion of authenticity, we must also see that it alters both sides of the opposition, drawing Alma into its movement. In her eyes, Vogler's apparent consistency and .

.

.

awareness becomes question herself trospection in

it

a true authenticity that causes the

more

stringently.

Alma

begins an anxious in-

which she confronts her own

Her newly gained

nurse to

inconsistencies.

lucidity destroys her confidence

and robs

her of the naive genuineness with which she earlier fulfilled the

companion, she joins in the vigil of doubt; ceasing to be a nurse, she loses herself in searching for herself and becomes more "authentic" and thus more nurse's role. Imitating her

"inauthentic.

Inverted in this fashion, the concept of authenticity only

produces

a

paradox.

The

doctor's speech

is

reading of Vogler's silence, and by following

observed only one level of the sions at

work

many

in the film. Indeed,

Persona everything

is

reversed.

it is

More

a its

very limited lead

we have

oppositions and inveroften suggested that in

specifically,

many

critics

remark that in the course of their interaction the two women engage in an exchange of roles. 37 Each becomes increasingly like the other in a process culminating in the image of the physical 199

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

fusion of their faces. The women's contrasting identities are exchanged as each personage incorporates the characteristics of her opposite. Alma's chatter is invaded by Elisabet's silence as the nurse learns to mistrust words and ironically refers to her own expressions as "bad theater." Vogler's silence becomes eloquent in Alma's presence as the actress reveals her secrets and finally speaks. Vogler's madness is seen as a form of lucidity; Alma's health becomes hypocrisy and hysterics. Yet even this inversion is reversed and rendered ambivalent; the very opposition between sickness and health is subverted. The nurse becomes the patient, and the patient becomes the nurse. Vogler's silence forms a screen against which Alma projects what one discipline would term her phantasms and another her confessions. Finally, the actress becomes a spectator and the nurse a performer. All these reversals are designated in the film.

recognize

that if

the

women

"exchange

It is

crucial to

identities" these iden-

do not remain intact. The logic of this exchange is more paradoxical, and brings a complete collapse of the concept of identity (insofar as this concept implies the law of noncontradiction). Here identity, defined negatively in relation to its opposite, is shown to incorporate this opposite: becoming its opposite yet remaining itself, identity is made paradoxical and oscillates between contraries. This back and forth movement between identity and difference generates the paradox. The ensuing quandary is what leads certain critics to conclude that Persona is essentially ambiguous and undecidable. tities

When

the stable differences subtending our systems of thought

gives up the possibility

might seem necessary to renounce is the step Sontag takes when she of interpreting the film. 38 True to the

paradox

she then proceeds to offer an interpre-

are rendered unstable

it

systematic analysis. This

tation.

(or false to

The work,

it),

she surmises, must be seen as simply adopt-

ing the "theme of doubling" in order to perform a series of

on that theme. Bergman, like Robbe-Grillet, intends his theme to be taken as a purely formal device, an "operator." The psychological or philosophical significance of this doubling must not be sought: its choice and variations are variations

200

The Masks of

Violence

Bergman the dumodernist filmmaker. Sontag is probably right in claiming that the usual concepts of psychology and philosophy cannot explain the doubling or to be taken as an artistic exercise granting

bious distinction of becoming

the film's paradoxical

a

movement from

stable oppositions to

nondifferentiation, but this hardly proves that such an explication is

is

impossible or undesirable. Indeed,

latent in her

and not

own

a variation

remarks, for

among

if

this

"doubling"

variations, there

very possibility is

to be a

must be

a

theme reason

work and the critic's comunavoidably implies that the theme has if not psychological, then anthropologa larger significance ical or social, or perhaps all of these at once. An explanation of doubling requires a logic capable of folfor

its

privileged status in both the

mentary. Such

a status

—

lowing the passage from the system of stable oppositions and identities to the dissolution of the system and its identities in paradox. This logic must also be reversible, that is, able to follow the return to differentiation after demonstrating how paradox and nondifferentiation are generated. Modern critical thought has generally failed to achieve this demonstration by allowing itself to be drawn exclusively to one of the poles represented by either Mauss or Bataille. Structuralism and its various continuations concentrate on the stable oppositions of system and thereby repeat the system's own exclusion of its "other"; many of the opponents of this tendency, in their desire to see the system subverted, embrace the paradox blindly without observing its relation to the oscillation of difference and identity within the system. 39 What remains to be studied are the moments in which system and identity are both constituted and dissolved. These

two moments nates both the

bound together in the "persona" that mask of self-identity and the mask of the are

desigother,

masks of stable collective representations as well as those of chaos and violence. The logic of identity and paradox inherent in Persona is traced clearly in the exchange between Alma and Elisabet. To attempt to explicate this logic by focusing on the level of their dramatic interaction is not reductive, the

nor does

it

necessitate a recourse to the false categories of

201

Ingmar Bergman and

of Art

the Rituals

psychology as Sontag claims. It is possible to describe this interaction without detaching an anecdote from its narrative or the theme from its variations. The remarkable insight of the film resides in its imbrication of different levels, but imbrication does not imply an inscrutable ambiguity that defies anal-

To

ysis.

assert that this

is

the case

gling of levels gratuitous. Rather, lead

by moving back and

forth

is

to

deem Bergman's

we must

tan-

follow the film's

between coherence and inco-

herence, resolution and irresolution, ignoring neither the

mo-

ments of enigma and paradox nor those of continuity.

A

to attempt this double

failure

much of what castigate

movement

characterizes

has been written on this film. Popular reviewers

Bergman's disruptions, deeming them meaningless

puzzles or modernist gestures dictated by fashion. 40 Absolutely

modern

same disruptions and imagine

critics praise these

they constitute everything in the film

of

interest.

One camp

asks

Bergman

— or

at least

that

everything

for the seamless conti-

nuity of the classical narrative film, yet the other wishes or

imagines that he aims

Bergman

at

the stylistic violence of the avant-

examines this false choice, questioning modernity and hidden at the foundation of every cultural order: the division between identity and the "other" that is expelled so that the identity might be formed. garde.

in fact

a division central to

To

begin to understand the women's relations

consider what Vogler represents to the

inexperienced nurse. First of

all,

we must

young and

the assignment

is

ble challenge. After her first meeting with Elisabet,

a

first

relatively

formida-

Alma

ex-

presses to her supervisor a fear of not being able to succeed.

She wonders

if a

more experienced nurse should not be chosen

in her place because she feels that Vogler's decision to maintain a strength of mind superior to her own. with trepidation that Alma confronts her patient. Second, in Vogler the nurse faces a celebrity, a "star" who has always moved in glamorous circles beyond, or more exactly,

her silence indicates

Thus

it

is

above, her

own

limited experience.

A

radical difference in

social status thus accentuates the differences

and personal

202

fortitude.

The

of age, experience,

actress's prestige

makes her

fasci-

The Masks of nating to Alma, and the fascination

is

Violence

heightened by the mys-

These factors conAlma's sense of inadequacy and excite her curiosity. Hovering about the passive actress, Alma attempts to discover the meaning of her silence. Elisabet's passivity gives rise to a first and wholly comforting answer to the enigma: Alma takes this silence to be a sign of Elisabet's sympathetic and unreserved attention to her, and is flattered and carried away by having such a devoted yet prestigious listener. No one, she remarks, has ever listened to her so "kindly," and being able to speak freely of herself in this manner brings her a previously unknown sense of well-being. Even her fiance has never made her feel this way, nor has she ever had such a gratifying experience with any of her other patients. No longer the self-effacing nurse obliged to comply with a patient's vocal demands, Alma moves to center-stage and revels in the role. Her confidences gush forth and she is led to confront the internal contradictions that she has never before had terious silence the celebrity has adopted.

tribute to

the occasion to face.

Most important, Alma cannot avoid comparing

herself to

She contrasts the inconsistencies of her own selfawareness to the strength and solidity seemingly latent in her companion's silence. When Elisabet takes her hand and places it next to hers, Alma comments that to compare hands "brings bad luck," but later she initiates the comparison herself, viewElisabet.

own

ing her life

led

by

"petty" experiences in relation to the

the

she exclaims, as

if

momentous

were only like you," voicing the private wish of a devoted fan:

famous

actress.

"Oh,

if

I

would like to be like you. The night when I went to the cinema and saw you in a film I looked in a mirror and told myself that we resembled each other. Oh! Don't get me wrong. I

You

are

think inside.

I

much more

beautiful, but in

some way we

could turn myself into you. If

Don't you think so?

I

are alike.

really tried.

I

I

mean

And for you it would be no great You could do it just like that. Of

thing to turn yourself into me.

course your soul would stick out to be inside

a bit

everywhere,

it's

me.

203

too big

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

Sent to the mirror by her vision of the actress's cinematic persona,

Alma

gives

way

to a self-examination entirely

gov-

erned by her relation to Elisabet. Comparing the two images, she finds the promise of their resemblance, but also the signs

of their difference. The comparison

once exciting and disastrous. Exciting because the actress's superiority seems attainable: Alma could become like her with effort; disastrous because this superiority is a greatness of the soul that could never be imitated or resembled. Alma may desire to be the actress, but her desire is not reciprocated: Elisabet could descend to her level all too easily. Although the nurse implicitly indicates the self-defeating nature of her relationship to Elisabet, in her excitement she will forget this aspect of her desire. The tantalizing illusion of Elisabet's sympathy and love, the promise of an impending approach in which Alma will be permitted to participate in her "higher" being, lead her on. Thus, in her drunkenness and fatigue she imagines that her desire has already been accomplished. She hears Elisabet tell her to go to bed, although the next day Elisabet denies having spoken. And that night Alma's desire is fulfilled in what could be interpreted as a dream: Elisabet comes silently to her room and caresses her. Yet this nocturnal visitation may be something more than a dream as Alma's belief that it truly occurred suggests. Nonetheless, Elisabet's denial and the fantastic atmosphere of the scene indicate that the encounter might more accurately be understood as an almost hallucinatory realization of desire resembling the vivid, telepathic "joinings" experienced by Strindberg in his delirious longing for Harriet is

at

—

Bosse. 41

The

illusion

is

abruptly shattered

actress's attitude to the nurse

which

is

when the secret of the Alma reads a letter in

revealed.

Elisabet describes to the doctor her

amusement

at

the

enjoyed nurse's confidences and infatuation. "studying" Alma as one might enjoy observing the antics of some charming yet comical creature. The condescending tone Elisabet

of the

letter

informs

Alma

has

that she has figured as a

mere diver-

sion in the actress's mind.

Reading the

204

letter,

Alma

is

forced to compare her imagined

The Masks of

26.

Alma

her patient

Violence

(Bibi Andersson) confronts the silence and passive aggression of

(Museum of Modern Art/Film

proximity to Elisabet with the

Stills

Archive).

actress's

real

thoughts, and

between her self-image and her image in the other She has been violently returned to her place in a hierarchy of prestige, intelligence, and worth, and is deeply humiliated as a result. This does not put an end to Alma's desire, however, for this desire was already posited on the distance that she perceived between herself and the actress. Rather, the reading of the letter confirms the distance and thus reaffirms the basis of Alma's desire, which is consequently faces the

woman's

rift

eyes.

205

— Ingmar Bergman and

The

redoubled.

of Art

divinity has withdrawn,

atingly close. Yet the

mood

As Raymond Lefevre Alma's desire

the Rituals

of

but

is

still

this intensified desire

infuri-

changes.

points out in his discussion of Persona,

once imitative and appropriative: she wants woman's superior identity, and in failing to do so becomes furious. 42 She attempts to convince herself that Elisabet is not really so superior. "I know how rotten you is at

to possess the other

are!" she exclaims, restating in a negative

with the

actress.

In her anger,

form her

fascination

Alma becomes determined

penetrate beneath Elisabet's facade, to deprive her of the lence and attain

to si-

hidden secret. Alma in turn adopts the tactic of silence. Sunning outside their beach cottage, she drops a glass. After sweeping up its splinters, she sees that one fragment remains and anticipates its

that Elisabet will step

ing this information,

other

woman.

it when she comes outside. WithholdAlma enjoys a passive attack on the

on

Elisabet passes back and forth, each time barely

bit of glass. Alma goes inside and hears of pain. Peering out through the window, Alma sees Elisabet holding her bleeding foot and their eyes, filled with anger and reproach, meet. In this instant the instant

missing the sharp Elisabet's cry

—

when

the

women's

relation

becomes

a bitter

confrontation

image shatters, splintering like the jagged edges of the broken glass. A shot of the fragmented celluloid is followed by a chaotic rush of images ending with a shot of a hand being pierced by a nail and a close-up of an eye. The splintering of the glass is mirrored in the fragmentation the

of the image, the violent cutting of Elisabet's flesh having led to a violent disruption of the film. "The film has ripped and burned from the weight and heat of emotion it was unable to bear," writes John Simon in an effort to express this sudden juxtaposition of dramatic and formal violence. 43 His remark is appropriate insofar as it points to the sudden convergence of two levels, but it does not fully explore the implications. Why should violence affect the artist's language and disrupt his representation in this manner? That the film is unable to bear the emotion would suggest that the violence cannot be fully represented. Yet it has been represented in a scene that convincingly

206

The Masks of depicts guish.

its It is

Violence

occurrence and communicates its horror and anagain represented in an image of the celluloid's dis-

integration. The relation

between these two images of violence must be more complex, more deeply motivated than the notion of "expression" would suggest.

The juxtaposition of shots

somehow

the characters

representation. Yet

cannot.

The

how

implies that the violence between

causes the violent disintegration

could

this

be true? In

of the

a literal sense

it

decision to depict violence does not cause the

filmmaker to direct this same violence against his own form. He has on numerous occasions portrayed acts of extreme violence without feeling a need to shatter the transparency and continuity of the images. Nor can the actions of fictional characters literally alter the work in which they are represented. Thus, the causal relation presents only a figurative truth mediated by the fictional context in which it appears. In this figure, the distinction between two logically distinct levels collapses, for the story immediately transforms the narrative in a paradoxical manner. Yet "paradoxical" does not mean impossible or unreal the paradox is what grants this figure its veracity and permits Bergman to represent accurately the cause of

—

fragmentation. In order to explore this paradox,

it

is

guish carefully the levels that converge in the

filmic

representation which

is

necessary to distinit.

The

image seems

to shatter, splintering like a piece of

Second,

image of fragmentation disrupts the

this

first level is

maintained even

as

broken

the

glass.

film's story:

the fictional space of the characters' interaction disintegrates

with the apparent burning of the celluloid and destruction of transparency. Yet the fragmentation has already been repre-

its

sented at this second, diegetic level before the the film

image

itself is

moment when

represented as being splintered.

Thus

the violent disruption of the celluloid should not be isolated

from the disruption and fragmentation occurring in the story and leading up to the moment of cinematic "collapse." The splintering first appears with the breaking of the glass and

cutting of Elisabet's foot;

violence that disrupts the

it is

prefigured and prepared by the

women's

relationship.

When Alma 207

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

reads the letter, her image of Elisabet

of Art

is shattered, and with it, had formed in her contact with the actress. Unaware that this disruption of their peaceful relation has occurred, Elisabet unsuspectingly falls prey to Alma's attack and steps on the bit of broken glass; her image of Alma is destroyed when she realizes that the nurse could have prevented this accident. When their eyes meet, the two women no longer perceive in each other the roles that had been established in their time together, but menacing opponents. The crisis of "representation" begins long before the final fragmentation of the film image, which when reinterpreted in terms of this progression toward violence is only the extreme yet logical conclusion of an interpersonal dynamic. The splintering of the image is inscribed within the splintering of the glass and is motivated by the role that this splintering plays in the conflict. The sudden convergence of diegesis and form reveals their interrelation and brings together levels generally held to be distinct. The juxtaposition is grounded within the dramatic context where it acquires its significance. That this grounding is achieved is what makes Personals moments of formal disruption more than a gratuitous gesture of self-reflection or a strained effort to "express the inexpressible." It is also what distinguishes the film from the stylistics of fragmentation that has become a modern mannerism. Bergman equates two types of fragmentation, two wholly different levels of violence: a violent splintering of artistic form and an interpersonal conflict in which the roles are disfigured by antagonism. The connection is not as arbitrary as it might seem. The underlying link between the two types of violence can be explained more fully by referring to the concept of the mask which, because it embraces the different types of imitation at work in the film, leads toward an understanding of the paradoxical fusion of levels. As Mauss indicates, an individual's faithful imitation of a social model or persona can provide the basis of a stable identity within a system of social differentiations. Alma's fulfillment of the nurse's role and Elisabet's career as an actress are examples of such imitations. The second aspect of the mask,

the

image of

208

self that she

The Masks of

Violence

described by Bataille,

is synonymous with conflict: here imitaengenders rivalry and violence. In both instances, behavior is governed by imitation: on the one hand,

tion

somehow

an imitation that contributes to social order, and on the other hand, an imitation that disturbs order by generating deception, emulation, and violence.

The problem here and also the manner ferentiated,

is

to grasp the unity of these imitations

in which forms of imitation become difassuming such radically different roles in social

Bergman demonstrates that the differences between types of imitation, although well defined and wholly real in certain contexts, are far from absolute, and have a common social basis. With the drama between Elisabet and Alma, he depicts the passage from one sort of imitation to another, thereby linking the perspectives offered by Mauss and Bataille. In order to understand this movement, we must recall that at the beginning of the film Elisabet and Alma possess different characters corresponding to very different social positions. life.

As

a famous actress, Elisabet plays roles in which the "fragments of the aura" are displayed. To grasp what her film role represents to Alma, we should remember everything that the word "star" implies. Everything that Alma says about Elisabet indicates that she over-prizes the actress and believes in her

transcendent qualities.

The

actress's imitations in her films es-

and artist have radically different and are separated by the frame set by the film's fictional form. This difference of status is inherent in the phenomenon of the star's prestige and is the basis of the spectator's admiration and desire. Yet the desire is usually maintained within certain bounds by the frame separating art's prestige from everyday life. An uncrossable formal barrier between star and admirers sets a limit to the spectator's desire by guaranteeing the impossibility of its accomplishment. This distance, and the desire that it constitutes, are designated in Persona in the images of the young boy who reaches out toward a giant cinematic image of a woman's face. The image first depicts Elisabet and then changes almost imperceptibly into an image of Alma. The face seems very close to the boy's outtablish a hierarchy: spectator

statuses

209

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals of Art

removed from it. That this between film and spectator is indicated by the preceding shot in which the boy stretches his hand toward the camera (and implicitly, toward the audience). Then Bergman cuts to the shot taken from the opposite position and the boy is placed before the cinema screen. It has been suggested that the boy is the actress's son, which is plausible and does not contradict the above remarks. The barrier of form is also present in the boy's separation from his mother: motherhood is for Elisabet only another role, and a role that she plays quite poorly. The rift between the boy and the image defines the space of his frustrated desire for his mother's love. Later in the film, Alma assumes the same pose in relation to Elisabet, stretching out her hand as if to touch a face that is removed from reach by the actress's mask. In Alma's relation to Elisabet, the distance that at once constitutes and thwarts desire seems to diminish. The star has entered Alma's sphere of existence and draws tantalizingly close. Only the actress's silence seems to maintain the formal barrier. Alma confuses the actress and the role; seeing that she resembles Elisabet in physical appearances, Alma is tempted to become more and more like her. She emulates Elisabet, seeking to become her equal through imitation. Alma takes up her habit of smoking, dresses like her, and follows her lead by indulging in the luxury of introspection. If she is to reach her goal, she must eradicate the distance separating her from Vogler. Yet if Elisabet is to maintain her own identity she must maintain the distance separating her from Alma; expressed first through silence and detachment, that distance is restated as fact in the letter, which becomes a direct rejection when read by Alma. stretched hand, but

is

infinitely

face designates the formal barrier

Alma discovers that her imitations of Elisabet's appearance and manner cannot succeed in giving her the actress's "superior" being. Vogler thus becomes for Alma an obstacle as well as a model, for the model is unattainable. Elisabet's presence and seeming proximity incite her to imitate, while her silence and distance set a limit to imitation, rendering its success impossible.

210

The Masks of

Violence

Such are the conditions leading to the rivalry and violence between the two. Elisabet's manner of maintaining her difference and superiority are perceived as violence by Alma, who in her fury strikes out to shatter the image of her fascination. If she cannot herself

become

from

the icon she will destroy

even

attraction;

its

the effort to destroy the

image

this

must

it

fail,

so as to free

however, for

of the attraction. haughtiness as an attack on her self-esteem, Alma responds aggressively, but only imitates a violence that she imagines to have been initiated by the actress. Alma can neither imitate successfully nor cease to imitate. 44 What is destroyed very briefly when the women's relation Perceiving Elisabet's

progresses to the

is

itself part

silent

first act

of violence

is

the

image of

Elisabet's

The hierarchy supported by the artist's the difference between the women's posi-

tantalizing difference.

prestige tions

is

is

disturbed;

rendered unstable. Yet the image of the actress's differ-

ence, her mask,

is

quickly restored, just as the continuity of

Alma continues to be fascinated by her companion, and in the following scenes, the same progression toward violence is repeated. Alma becomes determined to make Elisabet speak, to deprive her of the silence that is the sign of her distance and superiority. She begs the actress to the film

is

regained.

make this "sacrifice." When Elisbecome accusations and Alma's verbal

talk to her, pleading that she

abet refuses, the pleas assault

is

transformed into

a physical attack.

Alma

shakes Elis-

abet violently, and the actress answers by slapping her.

Alma more

and is repelled by a second slapping, Threatening to douse Elisabet with boiling water, Alma at last extracts two words: "No! Stop!"— but this "victory" is instantly negated by the return of Elisabet's ironic mask: she cannot be touched. attacks once more,

brutal than the

The

first.

actress cannot be touched, but remains within reach.

Imitation, the basis of personal identity and of social order,

source of the most extreme disorder, and brings not only physical violence but also the nurse's psychological disintegration. Once the rivalry has been unleashed a second time,

becomes

a

the realistic narrative of the altered,

giving

way

first

to a series

half of the film

of encounters

is

in

drastically

which the

211

a

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

confrontation

is

what

occurs in the

of Art

It is not wholly clear of the drama, and it has been suggested that these events occur in Alma's "dream"

literally

carried to

its

conclusion.

latter part

—

dream

similar,

perhaps, to the vivid hallucination in which

came to visit Alma during the night. Yet if "dream" implies a complete lack of reality, this interpretation

Elisabet earlier

should be rejected. In the second half of the film, Bergman presents the reality of Alma's mental crisis, a crisis that cannot

be detached from the interactions that have lead up to is

this crisis

it.

Nor

resolved as decisively as the awakening from

dream or the reassuring conclusion of a

play: the film's

a

ending

an abrupt interruption. In the second half of the film, Alma's imitations of Elisabet advance, becoming more and more elaborate, more and more

is

real.

She takes Elisabet's place when Mr. Vogler

arrives,

mak-

ing love with him, experiencing Elisabet's coldness and es-

Alma

trangement.

discovers the actress's secret, and in a long

monologue twice relates Elisabet's past. Becoming a mother at someone else's suggestion, Elisabet adopted the part because it was missing in her repertory. Yet the child was repulsive to her and she resented its incessant demands for love and attention. It is suggested that this was the experience that led to Vogler's self-negation, to her hatred of her

own

hypocrisy

(acting), for she feels guilty for rejecting the infant yet

horrified

by

a responsibility that

remains

she cannot bear to assume.

Although this revelation of Elisabet's past is perhaps framed as part of Alma's imaginings, other elements in the film corrobits truth. We have already observed Elisabet as she tears a photograph of her son in two, and the reappearance of this image is what initiates Alma's narrative. The nurse's discovery of Elisabet's experience reveals a striking similarity to her own past. Alma once had an abortion and thus shares Vogler's sense of guilt for failing to be a mother. With this discovery, the fusion of the two characters is realized and their faces merge. This moment of doubling, then, is not merely a formal

orate

operation:

the

dramatic context suggests that beneath the

seeming differences between Alma and Elisabet lies a fundamental similarity, an identity involving the same kind of rela-

212

The Masks of

Violence

tion to others. In both cases, the individual sacrifices another in

an effort to maintain

former identity that has been threat-

a

ened. Bergman's repetition of Alma's long

symmetry of a situation addresses both women.

stresses the

tion

In the final sequences

of the

her separate identity, but

film,

at first

in

monologue which a single

Alma

further revela-

attempts to regain

speaks nonsense

—the verbal

equivalent of the nondifferentiation that has engulfed both personalities. She then reappears in her nurse's uniform and asserts that she is not like the actress who, vampirelike, sucks the blood from her arm. Alma appears to "cure" the actress, forcing her to say "nothing," and the women separate: Elisabet returning to take her place before the cinema cameras, and Alma to the hospital. Before leaving, however, Alma pauses before a mirror, and a dissolve recalls her encounter with Elisabet, suggesting that Alma's return to identity will be informed by her experience with Vogler. As the women separate, this re-creation of different identities is still marked by a symbol of doubling. As a bus arrives to carry Alma away from the beach house, the sound track is dominated by the sound of a horn. The horn is, in one sense, only the signal of the bus's arrival. Yet the scene is interrupted by a shot of a film set where Elisabet poses, and here the horn has a different reality as the signal used on the set to announce the beginning of a take. The different identities share a common basis. In the women's interactions, the complex system of mediations serving to prohibit conflictual imitation and to create social order unravels. The imitations practiced by both Alma and Elisabet dissolve their former, more stable roles and identities. Taking Elisabet as her model, Alma must successfully imitate her if she is to "become herself" but in doing this she loses her identity and the two are momentarily doubled in perfect

—

symmetry. Given this

analysis of the role of imitation in the

conflictual interaction,

it

is

women's

possible to appreciate the larger

of Bergman's doubling of formal and interpersonal violence in Persona. At the level of the film's story, doubling is a crisis in which the difference between personal

implications

213

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

is lost; at the formal level, the crisis touches the conand transparency of the filmic narration. The juxtaposition of these two levels raises the question of the relationship between the two types of imitation that are normally held to be distinct. Traditionally, imitation or mimesis has been understood as the "representation of reality" as in a novelist's, painter's, or filmmaker's depiction or copying of the world. The masks of theater, as part of a dramatic reenactment of an action, belong to this type of imitation. Although of great value, this traditional understanding has the shortcoming of deemphasizing or ignoring other aspects of imitation. To define imitation only as representation is to focus on the relation between a knowing subject (a narrator, for example) and the objects of his knowledge. Not all imitation, however, belongs entirely to this category. Mauss's discussion of persona suggests, for example, that an individual's imitation of a mask or model can establish a stable social identity. This sort of imitation is part of an interpersonal process central to the transmission of tradition and to the maintenance of social institutions. People imitate, then, not simply "the world," but each other, and these forms of mimicry fulfill an important role in play and learning and in social exchanges that are anything but fictive. We may contrast, then, the imitative practices of everyday social life and the imitations or representations of art. These different types of imitation are clearly designated in

identities

tinuity

—

Identifying

Persona.

whose behavior and

herself as

nurse,

a

Alma

ideals she takes as her

those

copies

model or persona.

—but in

Playing the part of the nurse, she "represents" herself the context of the hospital the place. In her

word

uniform the nurse

may

to others, but this sign-function

frame where

it is

"representation"

is

is

out of

indeed signify something created in an institutional

intended and taken

as the

most serious

real-

on the other hand, is an actress who in her film and stage roles practices a form of imitation identified as fic-

ity.

Elisabet,

tional

— or

marks

a

purely representational. difference

Though during 214

a

Social

convention,

then,

between these two forms of imitation.

film or play the actress's goal

is

to attain the

The Masks of

Violence

greatest possible fusion with her role or to convince the audi-

ence that such

fusion has occurred, the identification is genwith the conclusion of the performance. In the star system, the artist's imitations of a part surpass the limits set by the fictional context because the spectators continue to associate the artist and the role. In this manner, an artistic performance approaches the type of imitation practiced in ritual and ceremony where the masks of difference are intended to produce belief Yet even these imitations in ritual, although enacted in wholly real settings (not simply in a film, for example), are separated from the everyday world by a frame that distinguishes between the actions and identities of the profane reality and the domain of the sacred. In both art and ritual a conventional frame marks certain types of imitation as being different, thereby causing them to assume a socially determined role. Here forms of imitation considered to be unstable and dangerous are both released and contained in the mode of representation. Within this conventional mode, the crisis of imitation can be displayed at a safe distance. A "monster" of mimesis, the actor is traditionally cast in the role of the dissimulating transgressor of social order first of all, as someone who has no single and stable identity. The threat of imitative crisis is expelled from the community along with this individual. In the rituals of classical theater, for example, the performer rehearses the dangers of imitation by displaying the various masks of conflict: selfishness, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, violent passion, and at times, even a feigned muteness or refusal to communicate. The mimetic crisis is depicted by twins who set in motion a drama of mistaken identity, or by the doubles who are a graphic figure for the collapse of the differences in personality and position that underly social stability. Here the crisis brought by nefarious types of imitation finds its climax: rivalry dissolves all differences and generates a complete symmetry between the antagonists, symbolized by the doubling of their appearances. Yet such ritualizations of crisis serve rather than threaten social order. First of all, the mimicry of crisis is removed from the community because it occurs only within the frame of art or a

erally dissolved

—

215

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

ritual and is hence only "represented." Second, the conclusions of these crises, their positive resolutions, always restate the difference between "good" and "bad" models, between the forms of imitation that cause social ills and those that bring

their cure.

What

collapses in Persona

that channels

is

precisely this system of control

and represents mimetic

Here an

crisis,

causing

it

to serve

which would normally be part of an established institution, set in motion a process that results in a violent crisis. The differences between personal identities are lost, just as there is no longer a clear distinction between the fictional, controlled imitations of art and the imitaorder.

actress's actions,

tions practiced in other social contexts. Elisabet's interaction

with the nurse is no longer governed by the framework of performance; the dynamics of conflictual imitation have left the stage and film

When

where they were displayed

at a safe distance.

no longer embraces her imitations. Indeed, her behavior seems to escape

from

Elisabet enters the hospital, the frame of art

social

all

— or

norms

her underlying inten-

at least this is

But she cannot avoid representing to Alma her former glamorous role, and in a manner that is anything but fictional

tion.

for the nurse.

Nor

Elisabet's presence interpreted as ritual,

is

no such frame or marker is available to Alma. Unlike the townspeople of The Magician, she cannot label her Vogler a "magician" whose role it is to represent the occult in the world of men. Even if the ritual frame of The Magician is itself somefor

what

unstable,

it

is

far

more

certain than the uncontrolled

is an actress who is no longer no longer removed at a comfortable distance on the cinema screen; in fact, she is no longer an actress at all, having

interactions of Persona. Elisabet

on

stage,

"rejected" that role. Yet she continues to act, using her craft to

perform the role of

silence.

The

definitions provided

clinical institution also fail to recuperate

seems,

a patient

that cross

Alma

all

who

is

not really

by the

her behavior: she

sick.

is,

it

In facing imitations

boundaries and defy conventional definitions,

confronts the force and ambivalence of the sacred: in her

eyes, Elisabet represents a divinity

who

is

purely human.

The

uncontrolled nature of the women's imitative interaction

what gives

rise to

216

emulation, rivalry, and

finally, violence.

is

The Masks of

Violence

Here Bergman retraces a movement that we have seen him follow before, most notably in The Seventh Seal: the actor's role begins on stage but crosses its boundary to be replayed outside the fictional context. Bergman's intuition

by

and by other

that the

is

forms are never wholly stable, and that the same imitative practices are pursued on both sides of their boundaries. And these boundaries and frames are themselves fixed and dissolved by imitation. Refusing to consider "representation" as a wholly separate category, Bergman focuses on the sources of art's imitations and on their continued role in the imitative domain of human affairs. His original title for Persona "Cinematography" is surpassed by the final choice. The one captures only the representational aspect of the masks of art, but the other bristles with the plurality of roles that masks and imitations assume in frames

set

art

cultural

—

—

—

social

—

life.

Paradoxically, in leaving the institutional context of her

art,

from the domain where mimetic crises are merely rehearsed and represented to a sphere where they become frighteningly real. Her decision to leave the stage and

Elisabet passes

maintain her silence has consequences that she does not foresee.

Our

sided in that

mained

it

interactions has been one-

has focused primarily on what Vogler repre-

Alma: veiled

sents to

women's

analysis of the

in silence, Elisabet's perspective has re-

relatively unexplored.

It is

clear that in

many

instances

she actively contributes to the illusory image that the nurse perceives.

strength

is

The actress is also represented as a parasite whose drawn from her superiority to Alma. She "grabs all

that she can get," profiting

be wholly detached from her

letter. In a sense, this

a logic

from

—

it

a relation

while pretending to

as she confesses to the

stance

is

sacrificial

because

doctor in

it

involves

of exclusion: Elisabet maintains her private identity by

pretending not to relate to

Alma

as a

person, but this very

relation in fact helps Elisabet sustain the

superiority.

What

is

expelled

is

myth of

her isolated

Alma's humanity, the

fact that

her experiences and problems are not really so fundamentally different

from

Elisabet's

own

concerns.

Yet the film includes scenes indicating other aspects of the actress's character, aspects that return us to our initial question

217

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

concerning Vogler's relation to her tion to Vogler.

The

of Art

art

— and

Bergman's

rela-

scenes in question portray Elisabet's reac-

and victimage. Early in the at a televised image of a buddhist monk's self-immolation; later she mournfully contemplates a photograph of the Nazi persecution of women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. Here Bergman's camera appears to identify with Elisabet's perspective, for once the actress has posed the image on a bedside table for her contemplation, the camera closes in until the photograph fills the cine-

tions to the violence of sacrifice film,

we

observe

matic frame,

she recoils in horror

as

exploring the scene just

wholly absorbed

in

The

it.

as

becomes from the world

Elisabet

actress's retreat

thus appears to be initiated by her hatred of violence

— the

violence practiced by others, but also by herself. She too has injured a child find herself

by

among

failing to care for

the soldiers

him and would seem

who menace

also significant that Vogler's discovery

the children.

to

It is

of art's "falsehood" and

her refusal to continue with her role occurs during a perfor-

mance of Electra,

a

play in which the violences of revenge and

sacred purification converge (this the sacrificial blade with

is

up by Orestes to murder him). The symbols of sacrifice emblems of

—

violence that

Bergman

example,

when

kills a bull is

taken

explicit, for

which Aegisthus

the social and artistic

incessantly interrogates

— surface

at

the

beginning of the film in the opening montage sequence. John Simon brings forth the significance of these images: "The hand in the entrails of the sheep, followed by a knife heading for the sheep's eye, followed, in turn, by a hand with a nail driven

through

it

seem

to stand for the film's (and

life's)

alternating

becoming victimized." 45 This is precisely the pattern dictated to art by a ritual function in which violence and victimage are masked as "purifying sacrifice." Such, then, are the masks "rejected" by Elisabet, pattern of victimization and

who

perceives behind art's ritual representations of violence a

continuation of real violence.

meaning, ent

Deprived of

sacrificial violence, in art

or

life, is

its

transcendent

no longer

from other violence and can no longer be perceived

promise of the

218

crisis's resolution.

differas the

The Masks of

Violence

Vogler laughs at a radio play in Alma's presence and responds with equal irony when she hears the nurse express her "enormous admiration for artists." The nurse adds that she thinks "art has an enormous importance in life, especially for those who have problems." John Simon makes the necessary point about the actress's reaction to this statement: "She has her faith in the moral-therapeutic value of her work." 46

lost

Vogler has

form of

lost faith in a certain

reject all art in her flight

from

art

and attempts to

sacrifice; refusing to sacrifice

herself to others, she retreats in fear of being the victimizer as well. In this sense

partially accurate to speak

with Vogler,

identification

masks of

it is

for

like

of Bergman's

he condemns the

her,

But it is essential to observe that the embrace the actress's manner of reviolence; on the contrary, Persona witnesses the

ritual violence.

director does not fully

sponding to total failure

of her strategy.

Refusing to participate in a ritualized or aesthetic form of sacrifice, the actress merely incites, in her interaction with the nurse, a real repetition of the same patterns of victimage. Her silence, intended to deny or negate the false transcendence of

becomes

of a broken yet virulent frame that might have controlled the mimetic interaction between artist and spectator is absent, and thus a mere representation of the crisis is no longer possible. What was said about Vogler's failed "authenticity" applies to her relation to both art and violence. Elisabet substitutes the false artifice of her silence for the falsehood of her art. As another role, her silence sets the stage for the interaction with art,

in the nurse's eyes a sign

transcendence.

Alma and

The

aesthetic

perpetuates the violence

at

another,

more

sinister

is made as the image of a emerges from the images of the women's conflict. Vogler's silent refusal of the ritual creates no real alternative, and her manner of rejecting an unacceptable model of art is

This point

level.

by

hand being pierced

a nail

betrayed as an error.

The

now

relation

be

work

between Adorno's

clarified.

The two

aesthetics

and Bergman can

positions are similar, but Bergman's

and could be said "lucid fragmentation." For Ador-

carries the investigation a step further

to fulfill

Adorno's

ideal

of

a

219

— Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

no, the ambivalence of the

modern

of Art situation resides in art's

dependence on and betrayal of its mythopoeic similarly,

bound

Bergman

envisions

an

art

that

Quite often double-

tradition.

is

The differtwo understandings of ritual. Adorno refers very briefly to the cathartic model of art and to the social role that the model determines, but he depends more consistently on Benjamin's notion of the aura. Consequently, Adorno tends to equate the ritual function of art with its formal coherence and harmony. In describing the logic of exclusion at a purely formal level, he focuses his attention on the representational pole of mimesis. The example of classicism ence,

to ritual

and to

however, resides

a ritual

negation of

ritual.

in the

—

and not the patterns of archaic ritual informs his theory of modernity. As a result, he fails to achieve a more detailed understanding of ritual as an imitative pattern of social behavior that subtends and generates collective representations. In the absence of an insight into the pragmatic aspects of imitation, it remains impossible to judge the modernist's efforts to negate art's traditional model. In general, Adorno can only conclude that this negation is necessary but impossible. Bergman, on the other hand, focuses consistently on interpersonal and social dynamics and understands both ritual and

—

artistic

representations entirely in these terms. If Persona

modern works,

all

a

mask pointing

to itself,

this

is,

mask

like

also

it plays in the social dynamics of order and disorder. The fragments mirror the truth of their hidden design. The discovery of imitative practice undercuts the category of "representation" by inserting its discussion in a larger context. In this film, the representations practiced by individuals within and outside the contexts of art are linked to their

points to the role that

common

basis in social imitation.

Persona carries in failure

its

of the modern

form and depicts artist's

silent

in

its

narrative the

withdrawal.

The

film

common basis of aesthetic and psychologifragmentation in the mimetic patterns of social organization. The masks of art, social identity, and violence converge makes manifest the

cal

in the

nor

as

paradox of their crisis. Presented neither as a "theme" a formal device, doubling is revealed to be the dissolu-

220

The Masks of

Violence

tion of social differentiation and personal identity engendered

by the movement of mimesis; it is the collapse of "persona" in its various senses. Becoming aware of art's role in the violent control of imitation, wanting to refuse to repeat the sacrificial gesture deciding between

"good" and "bad" mimesis, the

upon her role but discovers, in her inwardness, only another scene where the same violence is repeated. It is artist

turns

no longer necessary mentation; Adorno's and ist

to pose relentlessly the Bilderverbot

is,

enigma of

like Vogler's

silence, a sacrificial gesture blind to its origin.

frag-

iconoclasm

The modern-

disruptions of the formal conventions of art are transgres-

sions

mimicking the gestures of and nature.

ritual

without understanding

their context

To

answers to the difficult questions posed by Persona may appear excessive to those for whom the film's enigma is inviolable. Perhaps these claims will be more conset forth these

is demonmovements are followed at a more evidently "social" level: moving away from the fragmentation of subjectivity and aesthetic form, Bergman focuses here on the fragmentation of an entire society in a modern civil war. The question of the artist's complicity and withdrawal is again posed, just as the symmetry of doubles locked in conflict is

vincing

if their

strated. In

pertinence to Bergman's next film

Shame

similar

graphically revealed once more.

Finally,

to the charge that

Bergman's enigma cannot be answered so easily, I must respond that the enigma is not, in fact, fully resolved: its nature and conditions may be discovered, but neither Persona nor Shame presents a real alternative to the artist's dilemma. In

Shame the

artists

again take refuge in isolation.

tuary of the concert hall no longer secure, treat to a

remote cottage on

The

sanc-

two musicians rewhere they hide

a desolate island

from the civil war that has rendered their profession obsolete. The withdrawal is both physical and psychological. Jan Rosenberg finds shelter in dreams, memories, and nostalgic returns to Bach through soothing mental rehearsals. Rather than concern himself with the depressing events of the outside world, he bathes in the sentiments of his own depressing sub-

221

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

jectivity: private pains, fears, self, a selfish retreat.

The

and

of Art

regrets.

radio that could

His

the retreat of

is

communicate

to the

Rosenbergs information of the world functions only intermitand Jan thinks it best this way: "It's better to know nothing," he says, "we can only hope for the best." Eva, his wife, wants to hear the news and is angered by her husband's "escapism." She queries others about the war on their trip to town, but even her concern is distracted easily enough by the promise of having fish for dinner and a good bottle of wine. The Rosenbergs still nurture the dream that a private happiness of love would be enough. The quarrels of a hurried morning are smoothed over by Jan's expression of devotion and by his initiatives of reconciliation. Yet Eva suffers from a deeper sense of distress; she wants children and feels that a society of two may not be wholly sufficient. In a landscape of barrenness and destruction she longs for fertility and continuatently,

tion.

In spite

of the prospects of

disaster, there are

still

projects

making music again. Jan proposes that they find time to practice between doing the farm chores and gathering the berries that they sell for subsistence. The telephone bills and the for

telephone

itself

may

nag, but

moments of peace

are

still

possi-

Jan and Eva share warm smiles and a kiss on the way to town, and although the streets of the town are congested by the hideous machines of war, it is still possible to retreat into the dark calm of a secluded antique shop. In this haven from the hectic confusion of the outside, Jan and Eva contemplate the beauty of precious objects: cupids, an ornate clock, a pastoral painting, and a portrait of Oscar II and the royal family. For a moment the Rosenbergs' aesthetic is revived. They are lulled by the delicate tones of a music box, a relic of the harmonies of another century, a fragile, misplaced object representing the loss of the privileged and disinterested status of the music makers. The shopkeeper disturbs the tranquility of this pause. In his soldier's uniform he is no longer at ease in his haven. He wants to speak of his fear of what awaits him in the war, fear, most of all, that no one cares for him and that no one will

ble.

222

The Masks of

Violence

memory. Jan avoids this troublesome matter of and makes superficial remarks that in avoiding communication communicate a real lack of concern. "You'll be back in no time," he says. The Rosenbergs did not come to drink with the shopkeeper, but to buy from him. Once they have purchased their bottle of rare wine a vintage year they want to get away and will have one last peaceful afternoon preserve his feelings

—

—

together in the twilight.

This pause

upon

is

brief,

their privacy.

however, for the war quickly intrudes

The woods near

their cottage are

bom-

barded and the landscape is invaded by commandos. The Rosenbergs attempt to escape from the war, but the flight away from violence leads them back toward the conflict over a landscape of destruction. Machines, objects, and twisted unidentifiable

corpses are confounded in the chaotic sameness of the

debris. Finding their path blocked, the

Rosenbergs are forced

to return to their cottage.

The warring

parties

are indistinguishable.

The opposing

armies wear the same uniforms, and in the frenzy of attack, retreat,

and counterattack

it is

difficult or

impossible to distin-

guish between aggressors and defenders. 47

The

adversaries in

melee even speak the same language. This does not enable them to reach an understanding, however, for the only language that they truly share is the language of violence. The gestures and grimaces of aggression are the same, the weapons are the same; in threats, shouts, and cries of pain, voices have this

no separate

identity.

Many

of the civilians seem to have lost track of the difference between the warring parties and of the loyalties that would be attached to such a difference. A prominent newspaper editor is caught in an opportunistic shifting of sides and is beaten to death for his lack of conviction. Other citizens suspected of disloyalty are arrested, interrogated, and herded out into the glare of spotlights. An execution is prepared for, but not carried out, perhaps because the brutality of such an action would help these frightened and confused people decide between two equally oppressive and senseless parties. No further basis for a decision is provided by the propaganda emitted by

223

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

both sides: the antagonistic radio broadcasts exchanged back and forth have a single content threats of destruction. Shame has been condemned frequently for failing to present because it represents no real war. 48 Instead the reality of war the director evokes only an undefined and imaginary conflict taking place in an unknown time and in some unreal country. This is called the worst kind of bourgeois representation be-

—

—

cause

it

presents

ity to a political

purely mythical. politics

and

war and

as

an essence, giving an empty universal-

historical reality.

The

Bergman's war

is

seen as

film has been lauded for turning toward

social issues (and

away from Bergman's former

"private" concerns), but then attacked for having failed to fulthis promise. The Swedish Left finds in Bergman a "fundamental lack of political acumen and analysis." 49 The real context of the film, it has been said, was the Vietnam War, and by refusing to take sides in this conflict Bergman made himself a mouthpiece for the Pentagon. " Such a critique is unacceptable and fails to grasp the film's larger context: that of a world prepared for absolute warfare. Bergman indeed refuses to take sides: "As I see it there are no honorable or dishonorable wars. Acts of war or violence in any form, in. whatever name, are reprehensible and humanly Bergman's film is one of the few war films devastating." which is not a mythical text, that is, which does not obscure the fundamental reciprocity of violence and the senseless identity of oppositional parties. The film directly confronts the impossibility of distinguishing between good and bad forms of barbarism when barbarism implies the destruction of all. Bergman's vision of war is captured in the shot of a soldier who fires at his own double in the mirror. It is impossible for the spectator to distinguish between the two sides of the conflict. The Rosenbergs clearly perceive the lack of a real difference between the armies and only wish that the war would end and that life could continue. Forced by a commando to state her political convictions, Eva responds that "the war has gone on for so long that it is difficult. ..." The "interviewer" persists: Does she not care, then, which political sysfill

5

51

tem

prevails?

224

Has she not decided? Eva's only response

is

a

The Masks of

mean

"yes," possibly intended to

that she has decided that

war

bad.

itself is

This ple.

Violence

is

an admirable sentiment, but neutrality

Eva's intended statement of pacifism

is

is

not so sim-

given quite an-

other significance by the conflictual context in which

it

is

made. In the interview as it is later broadcast, a dubbed-over voice inflects the images of Eva with a new meaning and the film serves as propaganda. Yet paradoxically, what the voice says does not in

its literal

because the content

still

sense identify

Eva with

either side

retains a certain ambiguity:

suffered too long under oppression.

"We've

We

long for freedom." Presumably, both parties fight for freedom, both promise justice,

and an end to oppression. Only the fact that by the "other" side could label her collaborator, and the otherness of either side is purely

liberation,

Eva appears as

a

relative

in a film issued

— arbitrary when seen from distance" — precisely the problem.

"From

a distance.

this

a

is

derstanding of the identity of the twin parties possibility

is

Eva's un-

posited on the

of viewing the struggle from the outside. The rec-

ognition of the identity o{ the warring camps can be main-

from such drawn into the

Eva and Jan

hope-

tained only

a perspective, yet

lessly

shifting contexts of the conflict. Their

are

understanding and neutrality can exist only in contradiction with their real situation. A heightening of this contradiction is the film's primary movement. The Rosenbergs are propelled forward through shocks and collisions as the film plots the collapse of their

and the impossibility of living at a safe remove from The detachment cannot be maintained. Shame is a steady giving way of security, a relentless movement of exposure delayed only by ever-shortening moments of grace. Jan and Eva cling to the pauses, to the appearances of reconciliation, and to the moments of truce. Since they are essentially

neutrality

the violence.

sympathetic characters, innocent victims subjected to an intrusion of brutality, the spectator tends to identify with them and also grasps at the

of the

moments of respite, resisting the anticipation The spectator wishes to be-

relentless spiraling decline.

lieve along

with Jan and Eva that the nightmare can be avoided,

225

Ingmar Bergman and that

it

is

only

a

the Rituals

of Art

nightmare, and that

outside the senseless and uncontrolled

it

is

possible to stand

wave of barbarism. The

strength of the audience's identification with the Rosenbergs explains the tremendous impact that the ensuing events of the film are capable of exercising

A

first

on

the viewer.

reading of the film, then, and perhaps the most fun-

damental level of response, is founded on this identification with the Rosenbergs. The couple introduces the spectator's point of view into the drama, for they would remain mere observers of a war in which they want no part. The innocence of those who see the futility of the conflict is contrasted to the blindness and guilt of the others who are caught up in the cycle of violence. Yet to share this detached point of view would be insufficient; the film designates the detachment and reveals its truth, but then tears it away, making us feel the price of its loss. This disquieting movement proceeds in a double manner: the shelter and detachment are assaulted from without by bombardments, invasions, coercion, and shock, but also from within. The external war of the "others" becomes the war between husband and wife, and the difference between "innocent" artists and the society of bloodshed is eradicated. This second movement becomes determinant from the time of the couple's arrest. Jan and Eva are increasingly enmeshed in the ambivalent compromise with Jacobi, the island's political leader. Their relationship with him soon entails a direct involvement in the hostilities. Yet the potential of their involvement in the conflict is present from the very beginning, and thus it is not a matter of opposing an external violence to an inner peace. The holocaust is figured already in Eva's impatience and in Jan's silent demands. The possibility of ruthless murder is present in Jan's extreme selfishness, in his lethargic lack of concern, and in his indifference to others; but also in the harshness hidden behind Eva's sunglasses. The final invasion and launching of nuclear weapons is promised by the radio, but is prepared each time that Jan or another character says that it is "useless to talk about it." Of course Jan is not to blame. "As if it were

226

The Masks of

my

fault,"

connection less,

and

he says.

"I

implicit.

is

apolitical

Violence

didn't start the bloody war." Yet a

At one

being

Jan is an innocent, harmnot responsible for the na-

level

who

is

of annihilation. Yet at another level, his every action is engaged in a politics of communication and in an economy of self and other. Shame is a very extreme film, and total warfare, destruction, and murder the extremes are tional politics

—

—

connected to small matters: the

manner

in

which individuals

with each other on a daily basis, the manner in which they succeed or fail to communicate. Of course Eva is not to blame. Yet Jan's cruelty, his eventual decision that the preservation of self necessitates and justifies the destruction of the other may be decided in those moments when Eva refuses to speak to him. During one bombardment, Eva loses her patience with Jan's hysterical fear. "I can't stand it," he moans, and she rises from the table, walks away from him in disgust, and turns back to issue some stern ultimatum an invective that is drowned out by, and coincides with, the shriek of a jet passing overhead. The two levels of violence are not the same; nor are they wholly dissimilar. There is violence each time that the possibility of dialogue is refused. The absence of positive communication results only in other forms of communication. When the peaceful forms of reciprocity are lost, a destructive reciprocity is engaged. Dialogue is replaced by avoidance, lying, or superficiality. Discussion is closed with threats and commands; trust gives way to suspicion and fear, harmony is shattered by noise. The failure live

—

to live together escalates to warfare. It is not sufficient to sympathize with Eva and Jan, to lament the cruel fate of artists derided by a frightening society in which art no longer has the place it deserves. Nor is it sufficient to identify with Eva against Jan and all others who are

finally driven to violence.

by the film but

Such sympathies

are set in

motion

are dissolved in the current of events that

demonstrates the hypocrisy and failure of the policy of detachment. The film establishes an inescapable logic of reciprocity and implication: there

is

no

real separation,

no positive

227

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals

of Art

no escape. To the extent that the artists' strategy is one of severing relations that can never be completely severed, the film is a critique of their position. Light in this film takes on a particular significance and is imbued with a consistent thematic function. The afternoon isolation,

light illuminating the

Rosenbergs' intimate dinner

is

perhaps

which daylight is not related to danger. This is also the only instance in which Jan and Eva are able to speak to each other in a somewhat open and probing manner, as Eva brings forth some of her most private hopes and concerns and Jan, in his own restricted way, attempts to respond with honesty and feeling. Throughout the rest of the film, external light reflects the threat of violent exposure and is the only instance in

contrasted to the refuge of darkness: the darkened interiors of the couple's physical shelter and the darkened interiority of the

Bright light is always an invasion bringing an end to sleep and nostalgic dreams; it forces a reluctant awakening to the blinding landscape of destruction outside the cottage's walls. Bright light is quite literally an invasion when the blasts of a sudden bombardment flash through the windows to awaken Jan and Eva, penetrating the dark haven of their bedroom. After the attack, the Rosenbergs enjoy a few moments of peace and their intimacy is again sheltered in darkness. When the bombardments recommence, the windows glimmer once more with an unreal sinister glare, the flashes of earsplitting explosions and later, the merciless stare of the commandos' spotlights and camera. In another moment of calm, Jan shows Eva his violin and speaks of the past, telling the story of an artist who survived through war; the lovers' embrace is filmed in an extreme close-up illuminated by a single back-light. Morning comes again and the sun beats once more, the searing light of a merciless sky exposing the futility of the couple's doomed attempt to escape from the island in a small boat. As the boat drifts, their last days are counted out like the cups of water issued from a white plastic jug. The camera repeatedly lifts up toward the glaring sky; a brief fade grants a moment of respite before the same glaring ceiling fills the frame with light. The water surrounding the boat is made silver by an self.

228

The Masks of

Violence

shimmering light, and even Eva's dreams are invaded by menacing illumination. The image of a shadowy park and dark green water is interrupted by the blaze of burning roses. "It wasn't awful because it was so beautiful," Eva says, recounting her dream as if beauty could substitute for feeling

eerie,

a

—

in a final, serene

Shame

is

a

contemplation of

disaster.

destruction of aesthetics

—insofar

as

the "sen-

sations" of this aesthetics are limited to a detached and disinterested

form of contemplation when detachment

impossible. For Jan, music

is

really a type

is

in fact

of anesthetic serving

calm his feelings of distress and to reinforce his false sense of autonomy. This is the aesthetics destroyed in Shame, and its passing cannot be wholly regretted. Jan's private dream of a return to the soothing harmonies of Bach is untenable here, and his attachment to this dream directly contributes to the disastrous collapse of the musician's illusory peace. The couple to

arrested after Eva appears in the propaganda film, but Jan and Eva regain their privileged position by allying themselves with Jacobi. Jan, who never wants to face the troublesome aspects of their situation, somehow represses his knowledge of Jacobi's involvement with Eva. Jan is "not involved," or rather, he is only involved enough to take advantage of the physical conveniences gained through their association with the political leader. Yet staring out into the glare to see Jacobi and Eva leaving the greenhouse together, Jan suddenly becomes aware of what he knew without knowing. Eva refuses to talk to him when she returns inside, an action having serious consequences. Jan does not like to be shut out, and in a few moments he makes "not knowing" a supremely devastating weapon. A band of vigilantes raids the cottage and ransacks it in search of Jacobi's money. Failing to find it, they threaten to shoot Jacobi if the money is not given to them. Although he has the money, Jan says nothing and shoots Jacobi at the vigilantes' order. His violin destroyed, Jan will henceforth waste no time explaining himself a slap or a threat is more expedient. "How can we go on if we don't speak to each other?" Eva asks, and Jan says nothing. "They" do not go on: Jan goes

is

—

229

Ingmar Bergman and on

alone, driven only

desire

enough

by

the Rituals

of Art

his desire to survive.

to plod along behind her brutal

Eva shares this husband across

the cracked earth and stony rubbish. Jan has finished with the

crowd about him, of corpses to strangle him. In the absence of communication there is another form of communication noise. The music of this film about musicians is provided neither by the soothing polyphony of Bach, nor by the dissonances of "modern" music now frequently a cliche employed on television to evoke anguish, suspense, or terror. Rather, what one hears is the true music of violence: uncodified sounds that assault the ears and bomb a numbed sensibility. The sound track is condensed in the music of the title sequence, an aural montage of cries, shouts, electronic static, incomprehensible fragments of political discourse, and the steady beat of tympani. Later the spectator's ears are assaulted by sudden blasts, the wild shrieks of jets, the steady pounding of guns, and the low rumbling of explosions as they the harmonious music out of place in a world die out. Music devoid of real harmony is heard only twice: once in the antique shop when such music issues forth very faintly from the priceless Meissen music box; again very briefly when a bit of Chopin is heard through the radio's static as Jan and Eva sit sullenly at the kitchen table. This music has its price, for the radio is a "gift" from Jacobi, whose gifts are payments or extortions followed by intimidation and brutal denouncements of the "slackness of art." The Rosenbergs' piano gives out one or two final notes as a rifle butt smashes the keyboard. This sequence should stand as a measure for the efforts of the avant-garde, whose destructions (for example, Stan Vanderbeek's Violence Sonata) pale in comparison. It is only suitable that the sounds of a piano being demolished should be accompanied by the cacophonous disruption of an entire house, by the roar of the flames engulfing the artist's last shelter, by the whisper of the wind in the trees heard as an execution is prepared, and by the high report of others, or imagines that he has, but they

returning in

a raft

—

—

—

the small

—

hand weapon Jan uses

to

murder

his rival.

The

violence sonata includes the faint and short blast of the

230

real

ma-

The Masks of chine gun that young boy for

Eva

reports to

that her

Violence

husband has

killed a

concludes with the slapping of water against the lifeboat, the strange creaking of oars, and his boots;

heavy breathing heard

it

doomed men

struggle to push their of corpses. Bergman's violence sonata begins with the sound of an alarm clock, and signals the time for an awakening. Shame is not, however, the film that the engaged critics

away from

boat

as

a sea

wished to see: a vehement accusation against "apolitical" artists and an exhortation to choose sides in the struggle. The initial identification with the Rosenbergs is as important as the collapse of the identification that occurs when their shameful complicity in the violence

is

revealed.

The

artists' initial

vision

of the horrible symmetry of the warring parties is correct and is only untenable because the violence has already progressed too far for their pacifism to be maintained. The film underscores the necessity of maintaining this pacifism by projecting us forward into the situation carried to

present,

its

and

The

conclusion. is

when

sketched

where the

do so is however, in the

failure to

failure begins,

the couple gives in

to-

pessimistic film in that

it

is

a

confronts the enormous difficulty of

discovering an alternative to the false choice of

engagement and an

the vio-

Shame

lence in their "private" and everyday relations.

a disastrous

illusory neutrality. This very

pessimism

serves to emphasize the necessity of discovering a real alternative,

and

flight

but

thus not a pessimism

from violence

a reciprocity

pathy

and

is

The

alternative

is

not a

into insensibility or the sanctuary of art,

and communication founded upon

— the warmth

artistic

at all.

that

Bergman

a real

sym-

finds lacking in the political

"love" for humanity.

231

Conclusion

Taking as my point of departure a certain prevalent image of Ingmar Bergman, I have argued throughout this book that the issue of the director's supposed pessimism or nihilism requires a thorough reexamination. I have suggested that Bergman's desire for alternatives motivates even his darkest moments, and that to detach these moments from this desire is to misunderstand his relation to modernity. Guided by his goal of understanding, Bergman depicts persons whose inability to comprehend their involvement in certain destructive forms of interaction causes them to perpetuate these same patterns. Such characterizations underline the need for a heightening of awareness and thus belong within Bergman's negative method of stating his values. That view of Bergman's ambitions, however, is less than satisfactory. Does Bergman, the relentless poser of questions, truly provide his audience with the possibility of discovering real

answers?

has also

He may

shown

help his audience "to understand" but he

us too

many

characters

whose understanding

does not lead to positive actions or to a realization of alternaVergerus, as we have seen, is a highly problematic figure in The Magician and the "rational" knowledge that he and tives.

similar characters represent has an uncertain status. Similarly,

hidden somewhere is

a

in Elisabet Vogler's

seemingly vast lucidity

darkness that binds her to the very roles that she wishes to

The

From

of the Marionettes should, in Bergman's words, be nearest to understanding, but

escape.

232

psychiatrist in

the

Life

Conclusion

away" from it. Jan, of A Passion, is making eloquent speeches about humiliation and the armies of victims and hangmen, but fails at the crucial moment to distinguish his own actions from those he decries. The knowledge these characters hold does not, in fact, address is

in fact "the farthest

capable of

their difficulties.

A

similar failure has been said to characterize

works

Bergman's well. His supposed critiques of violence and humiliadeemed incomplete because the filmmaker installs

as

tion are

himself

in,

the very ritual pattern that he pretends to reject.

Attempting to signal and condemn the conditions and consequences of art's ritual tradition, Bergman never wins any real distance from it, and his negative strokes are never matched by a positive moment. Such a conclusion would seem to be supported by films such as Shame, in which the director depicts the most extreme cultural regression. Indeed, his nihilism is always most virulent when he turns to consider the possibilities for art in modern culture. Here is an artist who builds an aesthetics virtually devoid of beauty, harmony, and the sublime precisely the qualities associated with great art.

—

Instead, he focuses

on

the impossibility of

moments when

the artist ceases to be an

senting

disinterested

grace,

Bergman's

whose misery

unanimity. Art yet

irrelevant artist's

battle."

bound

cry 1

contemplation,

depicting the

Far from repre-

or

knowledge,

"artists" are either leering, exploitative seducers or

hapless victims sient

art,

artist.

is

At

is

at

relatively

is

the price of a culture's tran-

best meaningless, and persists as an

harmless vestige of the past. The of a bird during a

"just as audible as the chirp its

worst,

art

is

morally reprehensible because and humiliation central to an

to the practice of violence

Thus, Bergman's "truth" is his vehement denial of cultural progress; telling us that an "insect world" awaits, he would "illuminate" his audiences by showing them a musician who, when his violin is destroyed, becomes a ruthless murderer. Such bleak portraits of the artist culminate in Johan Borg of The Hour of the Wolf. This "creator" lives among the private phantoms who are his only critics and admirers. Like Kafka, essentially barbaric culture.

233

Conclusion

he sketches these monsters in his diary as if to exorcise them, but in the course of the film they take flesh and plague him. Borg encounters one day a man who voices his appreciation of his paintings, and the artist answers by brutally striking him. In one of the most eerie and frightening sequences ever filmed, a young boy hovers menacingly about Johan while he is fishing; the two engage in a vicious struggle that ends with the murder of the child. There is no apparent reason for this violence, yet its occurrence is automatic and seemingly necessary. Visiting the decrepit castle inhabited

by

his

demons, the

artist

delivers his credo: artist for want of a better name. In my creative nothing self-evident except compulsion. I have through no fault of my own been pointed out as something I

call

work

myself an there

is

with five legs, a monster. I have never fought for and I shall not fight to keep it. Oh yes, I have felt megalomania waft about my brow, but I think that I am immune. I have only to think for a moment about the complete insignificance of art in the world of men to cool off. But the compulsion is still there. Perhaps it is a sickness or a mania. special, a calf

that position

Acknowledging

compulsion and sickness are his only motives for working, Borg fully embraces the role of the "demonic artist" that is often attributed to Bergman. The painter's sole achievement in the film corresponds precisely to the only achievement that some critics would allow Bergman the dubious distinction of passing his mania along to others. Borg lives on a remote island with his wife, who in his own words was "made in one piece." Contact with the contaminated artist, however, destroys this wholeness and plunges her into a world of fragments. After his death, she is fully infected and becomes an artist of sorts, narrating the gruesome tale of her husband's decline of which she has only a partial understanding. She knows only that living with Johan has caused her to resemble him and that his private demons have somethat

—

—

how become

real to her.

Just as Johan's unique artistic "offering"

Hour of the Wolf appears 234

to be a

work

is

his disease,

The

capable of transmitting

Conclusion to the spectator

nothing but

a chaotic sense

the viewer

never once given from the spectacle of horror and phantasm.

spectives,

we

of terror and dis-

Held within the bleak confines of the

tress.

is

a

characters' percritical

distance

Nowhere here do perceive even a glimmer of Bergman's positive values,

we somehow discern them in the contours left by their conspicuous absence. If The Hour of the Wolf were Bergman's only film, it would probably be appropriate to conclude that the director is, like Johan, merely a creator of sickness. But this is not the case: this film, like all of Bergman's negative moments, must be perceived in a larger context. unless

In

one

formula, Johan remains "enslaved by the

critic's

Queen of Night." Oddly, this is the title of a review comparing The Hour of the Wolf to the tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann, a 2

comparison contributing

comprehension of the film. The pertinent reference suggested by this formula is to Mozart: The Hour of the Wolf is a negative image whose positive face emerges years later, as if freed from darkness, when Bergman finally realizes one of his oldest ambitions, a cinematic production of The Magic Flute (1975). The Hour of the Wolf and The Magic Flute form a diptych; in the contrasts and similarities displayed by its two panels, Bergman's central concerns and guiding values can be read. The link between the two films is suggested in The Hour of the Wolf in the scene in which Johan states that only compulsion and sickness motivate his art. Borg's host in the castle presents a magic puppet show, a scene from The Magic Flute, and offers his commentary:

The Magic Flute Speaker has just

is

little

to the

the great example.

left

Tamino

in the

I

shall

prove

it

to you.

dark grove outside the

The

Tem-

of Wisdom, and the youth cries out in the depths of despair: ewige Nacht! Wann wirst du schwinden? Wann wird das Licht mein Auge finden?" Mozart, suffering from a fatal illness, feels these words with secret intensity. The chorus and orchestra answer with: "Bald, bald, Jiingling, oder nie!" The loveliest, most disturbing music ever written! Tamino asks: "Lebt denn

ple

"O

Pamina noch?" He dreams of love as something perfect. The invisible chorus answers: "Pamina, Pamina lebet noch." Listen to

235

— Conclusion

It is

an incantation. Then the ascent out of "Sie lebt? Ich danke euch dafur!"

Mozart,

—

"Pami no longer the name of a young woman, it

the strange, illogical but brilliant division:

na."

With

fear.

na,

is

Tamino

Pami

a

formula,

is

hopeful:

these phrases as a basis,

in fifty bars, has written his credo.

So utterly naked, so

deeply, impenetrably personal, and yet so clear and unforced.

simple fairy

tale

—Herr Mozart's

new machine comedy,

A

as the

critics called the piece. A naive text, in short, a commissioned work, and yet the highest manifestation of art! Don't you agree, Mr. artist?

Johan cannot agree, and explains that his art has only a and wholly pathological motivation. Tamino and his magic flute represent everything that he is not. In his nocturnal vigils, Johan waits for the gloom to vanish, but waits in vain. He enters not the Temple of Wisdom in search for his beloved, but a ruined castle where he finds Veronica Vogler, for whom he holds a sordid and destructive passion. Veronica joins the fiends in duping Johan, whose meeting with her is staged by the castle's grotesque denizens and ends with the artist's humiliation. She lies naked on a slab as John approaches this artist is a lover of death. The demons to caress her secretly watch, and emerge to mock the "lovers" with a hideous laughter begun by Veronica herself. Borg's visit to the castle only plunges him further into darkness and leads to the climax in which the demons literally tear him to pieces. The most vicious of his assailants, as he earlier states while leafing through his diary, is the "bird-man." "He is incredibly quick, and is supposed to be related to Papageno of The Magic Flute/' Johan explains to his puzzled wife. Again, the contrast could not be more striking. Johan's murderous bird-man is related to Papageno only by antithesis. The nature of the contrast between The Hour of the H^o//and The Magic Flute is revealed in their opposing treatments of a single scene from the opera. In The Hour of the Wolf this scene is enacted in a puppet show that mysteriously comes to life. The ideal art described by Johan's host is quite literally an impossibility; it is wholly out of place in this castle, and infinitely removed from Johan's reality. The same scene, however, selfish

—

236

Conclusion is

Bergman's

of the opera, and proBergman's Tamino describes the Temple of Wisdom as a place

central to

later realization

vides the key to his interpretation of the work. In film,

where

"art

is

protected";

it is

not, as in Schikaneder's libretto,

Masonry with its Egyptian symbols and landscape. Tamino crosses the threshold of the third door and meets the Speaker, who asks him to explain his motives. Tamino claims to seek love and virtue, and the Speaker answers him with a phrase that is fundamental to Bergman's conception of the opera: "Love and virtue do not lead you here, for you burn with death and vengeance." Bergman alters Tamino's ensuing conversation with the Speaker by eliminating the lines in which the latter castigates the site of

Twice

the

repelled,

treachery

who

of "Woman,"

"speaks

much

text as

Tamino

sung to

a

but does

little."

3

in

Bergman

Schikaneder's libretto returns to the original

asks his desperate question.

The response

phrase that will be repeated three times,

a

begins in the same

manner

but that resolves

dissonances. Thus, the response to

its

is

phrase that

as the Speaker's earlier

warning,

Tam-

Tamino's eyes will "find the light" when he frees himself from the burning passion for death and revenge. Bergman's Speaker holds a lamp as he responds to Tamino, and blows out its tiny flame as he

ino's

question

is

implicit in the music:

The gloom

is

slowly illuminated during the "ascent out of fear" that

is

departs,

thus leaving

him

in

darkness.

total

with "Soon, soon, youth, or never," and then with "Pamina, Pamina, still lives." Tamino takes up his flute and plays: as a backdrop descends, the scene changes from the cold gloom of Sarastro's temple to achieved as the phrase

a pleasant natural

is

repeated,

first

landscape.

Bergman's entire adaptation of The Magic Flute pivots upon scene, and upon its illuminating answer to Tamino's query. The filmmaker perfects the original libretto by eliminating the inconsistencies and contradictions that have given 4 rise to much controversy among Mozart's commentators. Certain of Bergman's changes aim simply at making the work's dramatic exposition more economical. He removes the this

trio

(No. 19) that renders Pamina's

later

desperation implausi-

237

Conclusion

27. The union of Tamino (Josef Kostlinger) and Pamina (Irma Urrila) in The Magic Flute represents an ideal moment in Bergman's works a goal and orientation, if not a permanent reality (Museum of Modern Art/Film

—

Stills

Archive).

238

Conclusion

He

changes the order of other sections, juxtaposing the two attempts at suicide and grouping the scenes leading to the finale. More fundamentally, Bergman's systematic alterations

ble.

address the central contradiction that has led certain critics to conjecture that the libretto was radically changed halfway to its

According

completion.

made

to

this

view, the alteration was

in reaction to the production,

by

a rival

company, of

another opera based on the same source: in attempting to differentiate their

work from

Marinelli's "similar" production at

Mozart and Schikaneder created a contradicsomething of a hodgepodge. Thus, the Queen

the last minute,

tory story,

5

of Night begins

wronged by work as the creates

as

a

sympathetic character

who

has been

Sarastro, but reappears in the second half of the

representative of pure

complications

in

the

evil.

other

This abrupt reversal

characterizations.

The

Queen's agents, the Three Ladies and Three Boys, inexplicably reappear in the service of Sarastro.

Jacques Chailley denies that such an alteration of the libretto occurred and claims that the text's supposed inconsistencies can be explained by referring to the work's Masonic underpinnings. 6 His explications, however, do not in fact resolve the

seems more plausible that the libretto's very those of its sources Masonic and other and result from a failure to come to terms with their fundamental Manicheanism. Sarastro's cult is meant to represent the Good, but in its dualism the cult includes the evil principle and hence the very contradiction that it is supposed to surmount. The struggle between the Queen's Ladies and the serpent, with which the opera begins, is reinscribed within Sarastro's domain of light, where the Queen and Monostatos figure as the evil serpents that Sarastro, in turn, must subdue. No bloody call of triumph will efface this opposition. Bergman resolves the problem in a double manner. He establishes clearly the terms of the text's Manicheanism, but also contradictions.

It

—

real inconsistencies are

—

points to the

way beyond

its

oppositions.

He

renders the

opening struggle with the serpent purely comic by making the beast an amusing stuffed dragon. The real conflicts interesting Bergman concern people, and the libretto's "metaphysical" op-

239

Conclusion positions are fully humanized. Significantly, there are

no calls Bergman's version. From her first appearance, the Queen of Night is presented as a woman whose error consists in her obsessive desire for revenge. Thus her first aria becomes an obvious attempt to deceive Tamino into hating Sarastro. Drawing on the possibilities specific to filmed and Osiris

to Isis

in

Bergman assures that his spectator cannot be deceived concerning the nature of the Queen's motives: close-ups of Birgit Nordin's marvelously expressive face reveal the cunning sideglances with which she measures whether her song is hav-

opera,

ing the desired effect on Tamino. 7 Indeed convinced by her

Tamino asks the Three Ladies how he will find his way to the kingdom of the dastardly Sarastro. In the original libretto, they introduce him to the Three Boys who will lamentations,

Bergman, a black veil suddenly descends and silence the Ladies. As they vanish into the earth, the Boys descend in their balloon. Having thus introduced themselves to Tamino, they bear no relation to the Queen and serve as his guides; in to cover

her plan for revenge.

Queen is purely evil and wisdom and light. Bergman adopts

In Schikaneder's conception, the

Sarastro

the source of

is

this opposition,

all

but only to surpass

it.

Ultimately, the repre-

Bergman's work is not Sarastro, but the couple, Pamina and Tamino, whose perfect love resolves the division of the world. In the original libretto Pamina is the daughter of the Queen and the deceased Priest of the Sun; the

wisdom

sentative of

in

reason for Sarastro's abduction of her

Pamina

casts

pawn

as Sarastro's

in the bitter quarrel

The

lovers

ple,

who

who

have

own

is

never

daughter

clear.

who

has

between Sarastro and

failed are contrasted to the

represent the possibility of a

Bergman become a

his

Queen.

young cou-

new and harmonious

union.

Presenting a dagger to her daughter and exhorting her to

Queen demands that Pamina make herself the instrument of her revenge. The Queen, who in Ernest Newkill

Sarastro, the

man's apt phrase is a vulture with the voice of a nightingale, sings an aria (No. 14) that is perhaps too beautiful for its subject. As if in answer to this incongruity, Bergman casts her

240

Conclusion in a lurid, deathly blue light that fully expresses the

hideous nature of the song's intent. With the Queen's departure, Sarastro arrives and pleads that Pamina set aside all thought of death and revenge.

"He who does not

forgive his foe con-

demns himself to grief," he sings. He continues to speak for wisdom and truth, a truth made even more precise by Bergman's added line: "In true love between two people you shall find the source of wisdom." Sarastro may understand this source of wisdom, but like so many of Bergman's characters, he cannot realize vided from his

him from

ing

this

simple truth in his

own knowledge by the

own

life.

He

is

di-

the very opposition separat-

Queen and by his inability to achieve a Bergman casts him as a some-

reconciliation with her. Thus,

what melancholy

He

figure,

has not forgiven, and

still is

haunted by traces of animosity.

overly vehement in his condemna-

of his wife. He shocks his own priests when he becomes exuberant in singing his denunciations of her. He gazes at Tamino with sympathy and admiration, but also with a certions

tain regret at being

who

unable to attain the same success. Tamino,

is guided by the clear knowledge. Bergman has Sarastro proclaim that he will pass his power to Tamino and Pamina once they have completed their trials, a radical alteration of the libretto demonstrating the director's desire to sur-

begins without understanding,

image of

pass

its

his love

and thus

attains

dualism.

Bergman's treatment of these trials rids them of their Masonic and mystical connotations. Pamina's lovely, suicidal aria (No. 17) acquires new meaning because Bergman has Tamino remain present, his back toward her, as she sings. The "fire" through which the lovers must pass is peopled by figures who writhe and struggle, separated by their animosity yet bound together in mere repugnance. When the couple has passed through this inferno, the men in armor remove their warlike masks to greet them with ruddy, smiling faces; an antithetical movement characterizes The Hour of the Wolf, where faces are masks torn away to reveal other masks, and finally, the putrid flesh

hidden beneath them.

The

finale signals the departure

of Sarastro, ruler of one half

241

/

Conclusion

of

a

divided world, as well as the vanishing of the

Queen of

Night and her warriors. The chorus is no longer a paean to the King and his victory, but a wedding dance set in flowering nature. The only opposition retained by Bergman, then, is the one dividing those who live in strife and those who find harmony. Here Bergman's long-awaited statement of his positive values is made with a playful didacticism. The simple truths are inscribed on placards held up with amusement by the performers. Love "soothes all pains" and "gives form to all life." It "engenders heaven on earth" and makes man divine. Art finds its ideal in a wisdom sung in golden sunlight against a pastel sky. The flute's magic leads Tamino and Pamina through their trials, just as the glockenspiel causes Monostatos momentarily to forget his lecherous designs and to join in a happy dance with his enemies. The virtues of both instruments are announced in lyrics displayed on more placards. Such a flute "inspires man to live in peace on earth"; everyone should have a glockenspiel like this, because then "all countries would live in harmony" and "all would live together in sympathy, as friends." Thus, Bergman presents his credo in The Magic

Flute:

music,

a certain

music,

is

proclaimed to be the

works of art should be measured. Deemed naive or ridiculous by certain critics, the optimism of this film would appear to represent a complete departure from Bergman's habitual stringency, and might seem to be the result of a desperate wish to turn his back on the difficulties

ideal against .which

all

that he has always before believed

it

necessary to confront. 8 In

does not suddenly appear with The Magic Flute: evoked by positive indications scattered throughout the director's films, essays, and interviews. The ideal of love is stated by David at the end of Through a Glass Darkly, and is also announced in Smiles of a Summer Night, a film that Bergman terms "a bit of Mozart." 9 In Cries and Whispers, love is the grace offering the sole answer to life's misery and transience, a grace attained by Anna and Agnes and experienced momentarily by Maria and Karin in the reconciliation accompanied by the Bach cello suite. Such moments of perfection in Bergman films are frequent-

fact, this ideal it

is

242

— Conclusion ly related to music.

many

arts that film

In an early essay he claims that of the

resembles

musical notes

later describes

suggests that "film itself his belief that the

is

is

closest to music.

it is

as

"

Bergman

"the most perfect signs" and

music."

music

1

11

Underlying these remarks

in question appeals directly to the

it is the Kunst der Innerlichkeit described by Schumann, perhaps the divine and magical language of the spirit praised by Hoffman in Schumann's Kreisleriana. The essential, for Bergman, is that such a music is an immediate and forceful means of communication. This accounts for his granting of a privileged status to music and to any art resembling it for contact with the audience has always been Bergman's cen-

emotions;

12

—

aim.

tral

It

a

is

desire tirelessly reiterated in his published

interviews:

Every second It's

a

in

pictures

want

I

way of getting

is

me

conversation between

contact.

I

my

made

move

to

the audience.

and the audience. It's a sort of with other people and my

to get into contact

into contact with other people

have an enormous need

is

with them. Movies, of course, are a which to touch other human beings, annoy them or to make them happy, to think.

To

get

them

ably the truest, deepest reason

A

film

is

made

pictures.

fantastic

them, either to

make them

sad or get

started, emotionally. That's

why

I

touch

communicate media [sic] with

to

to reach to

to

14

continue to

prob-

make movies.

15

to create reaction. If the audience does not react

one way or another,

it is

an indifferent

These statements of intention they answer.

my

to influence other people,

other people both physically and mentally,

them

13

What

is

work and

raise as

worthless.

many

16

questions as

to be the content of these "conversa-

what manner will the director ensure that his audience is "moved"? Do not the dramatic conventions that Bergman condemns similarly aim at arousing the spectator's

tions,"

and

in

emotions, evoking not only the tragic "pity and fear" but also the full scale of violent sensations required for the greatest

243

Conclusion

what way does the emotional from that offered by artistic ritual? We must ask whether the music that Bergman idealizes is significantly different from the artistic models that he cripossible cathartic release? In

Bergman

response

seeks differ

tiques. If

we

accept the hypothesis of Jacques Attali, music has a

and serves, in its classical forms, to make the fundamental violence of culture. 17 The supposed "deritualization" of music is achieved through a sublimation of ritual process; the resolution of dissonance and the creation of harmony are based on the expulsion of disorder or "noise." A substitute for religion, this music establishes an abstract time of harmony supporting the image of an ideal humanity offered to itself by a bourgeois and less than husacrificial origin

listener forget the

mane

—

—

culture.

advocating

a

Adorno makes

essentially the

same point

in

noncathartic music in which the expelled disso-

nances return to disrupt the

false

—

order of harmony. 18 Bergman's

—

Mozart, Bach, and Chopin thus seems an anachronistic and rather uncharacteristic gesture, a turn toreturn to the classics

ward

a solace that is no longer tenable. But is this in fact the music to which Bergman refers? Stating that Bergman "has always attributed a fundamental, cathartic function to the art of sound," Ermanno Comuzio answers this question, but too 19 hastily. The possibility that music could find a different role in Bergman's work is foreclosed, yet it is precisely this possibility that the director asks us to hold in reserve. Bergman's attitude is more complex than Comuzio's statement allows, and challenges the rigid categories erected by Attali and Adorno. Bergman emphasizes the plurality of functions assumed by music in varying situations, and thus makes it

impossible to establish

a single theoretical decision

the role of music. Bergman's

an index of his positions on living together that

Bergman knows

is

many art

—

his

concerning

different musics serve as

own

art,

and the

art

of

his central concern.

the music of strife as well as the music of

and of the denizens of his prison in The Devil's Wanton (1949), the director asks his composer, Erland von

harmony.

In search for the musical equivalent of the erotic

spiritual confusions

244

Conclusion

Koch, to write "a piece that would be a cross between a psalm and a tango." 20 Similarly, there is the music of Sawdust and Tinsel, in which the military cadences of a brass band promise an amusement mingled with menacing tones. The painful psychological fragmentation experienced by the characters of Persona and The Hour of the Wolf is underscored by the uncodified electronic noise provided by the avant-garde composer Lars-Johan Werle. The acts of The Ritual are punctuated by random notes (one should say "blows") struck on a "prepared" (untuned) piano. The ritual itself takes its pace from the steady pulse of a drumbeat, the same flat slapping sound heard earlier in the film as the judge assaults and rapes his victim. Finally, Bergman uses disco music to evoke the technicized barbarism of pornography in From the Life of the Marionettes.

The pertinent differences are not purely formal: it is not a matter of choosing between modern compositions or decompositions and a

harmonious

classical

music. Both can assume

In Shame, Jan's attachment to the

a

harmonies of the past amounts to a debilitating inability to face the reality of his situation. This violinist's nostalgic rehearsals of Bach are indeed a cathartic and wholly factitious release from the threat of violence that he must confront. Bergman's ideal music cannot be a substitute for real experience. The danger that art's consolation is purely cathartic is explored throughout Shame and receives another examination in Autumn Sonata. Charlotte, a renowned concern pianist, has devoted herself wholly to her career and to the ideal harmonies of her music. Neglecting her daughters, she causes them immeasurable harm, a harm finding its most literal form in the physical deformity of her youngest child. Charlotte's "guilt" is precisely that her art has always served as a substitute for real feelings toward others. She describes herself as being emotionally dead, as being capable of feeling only those sentiments expressed through her music: "Actually I was completely ignorant of everything to do with love: tenderness, contact, intimacy, warmth. Only through music did I have a chance to show my feelings." Yet the artistic expression is a substitute that in fact deprives the emotions of their importance and sinister role.

245

Conclusion Charlotte has not seen her daughter for seven years,

reality.

but even then has difficulty in justifying the room, she discovers a "reason":

It

hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Let

way

me

see

Alone

visit.

now. Does

it

in her

hurt the same

Bartok sonata, second movement? (Hums to herself). Yes, it does. I've been taking those bars too fast, of course I have. It should go like this: the upbeat pampam and then comes a little snake of pain. Slowly but with no tears, because there aren't any more tears or there never have been any. That's it. If this is right, my visit to the parsonage has been of some value after

in the

all.

Here Bergman returns

to an accusation frequently leveled

against artists. Charlotte resembles

whose daughter. The Darkly,

David of Through

a Glass

novelistic ambitions vitiate his relation to his

difficulty central to Autumn Sonata is that of judging the status of the virulent accusations voiced by Eva. Does Bergman ask us to believe that Charlotte, and more precisely, her artistic career, are responsible for the two daughters' every difficulty? At the end of the film, Eva writes a letter expressing her regret for the violence of her accusations and calling for a reconciliation based on forgiveness. Yet the accusations of guilt have resounded throughout the film, assuming a force and momentum that cannot be broken so suddenly. There are, however, other indications suggesting that Eva's exaggerated and relentless accusations are motivated by a

needless hostility. In

what

is

perhaps the film's central scene,

Charlotte asks her daughter to play for her. After tion,

Eva performs

Charlotte exclaims

a

Chopin

when

prelude.

the piece

is

"Eva,

some

my

hesita-

dearest,"

finished. "Is that

all

you

have to say?" the daughter retorts bitterly, unsatisfied because she hopes for a more glowing praise. "No, no, I was just so moved," Charlotte answers. Eva's hopes rise, for she imagines that she has at last succeeded in making her mother proud of

"Did you like it?", she asks. "I liked you," Charlotte answers warmly, but this is not sufficient for Eva, who wants

her.

to be extolled for the musical virtuosity that she lacks.

246

She

Conclusion

wants an "objective" evaluation of her performance, one that cannot possibly be favorable. Pressed by her daughter's demands, Charlotte reluctantly responds, first explaining her own studied interpretation of the piece, then performing it brilliantly to demonstrate her point. As Eva listens, scowling, it

is

as

if

each exquisite note strikes

a

blow

to her fragile

self-esteem.

Eva

mother in a situation in which she cannot possibly please her. Eva demands praise, and is not content with her mother's modest yet very warm and personal approval. Yet if Charlotte were to betray her knowledge and offer the desired praise, Eva would doubtlessly launch into one places her

of her tirades about her mother's dishonesty and accuse her of superficiality. In either case, the prelude can only serve as a weapon in the tense rivalry existing between the two women.

The music's more positive potential is lost. Later in the film, Eva suggests the possibility of another sort of music in a long, impassioned speech belied by her unforgiving attitude toward her mother:

When you

play the slow

movement of Beethoven's Hammer-

feel you're moving in a world without limitations, inside an immense motion that you can never see through or explore. It's the same with Jesus. He burst asunder the laws and the limitations with an entirely new feeling that no one had heard of before love. No wonder people were afraid and angry, just as they nearly always try to sneak off in alarm when some big emotion overwhelms them, though they eat their hearts out pining for their withered and dead feelings.

klavier Sonata,

you must surely

—

Music

also figures as a lost possibility in Face

Jenny, the film's protagonist,

is

a psychiatrist

to

Face (1976).

incapable of cur-

ing others and equally incapable of dealing with her

own

sud-

den mental breakdown. She notes, in describing the stages of her emotional dessication, the moment when she was no longer able to listen to music. Later, attending

a concert,

she

observes an audience "wrapped in intimate harmony, content with each other, with themselves, and the constant flow of

247

Conclusion music.

" 21

But she observes

cluded from

it,

this

land of health from

afar;

ex-

she cannot listen to the music and accept

its

offering of peace. Similarly, in From the Life of the Marionettes Peter Egerman refers to a fleeting and distant music in his

dream, "four simple notes

in a

major key, soothing and heal-

ing."

Bergman always judges

his

music

in

terms of the role

it

plays in an interaction or exchange between people. In each case

it is

a

question of contact, but of

a

contact having varying

Music brings injury or comfort, a communication or refusal of communication, and is motivated by either cruelty, indifference, or a real warmth. Music is the "touch" in all of qualities.

forms: the touch desired, promised, or withdrawn, the touch that is temporary or lasting, superficial or real. With such a perspective, Bergman leaves behind the rather sterile deliberations of the film theorists who have devoted so many lines to the role of the sound track and its relation to the image. Yet at this formal level Bergman fully realizes the ideals prescribed by the theorists. Film music, it is generally complained, is often subjected to the status of being a mere "filler" designed to support a filmic narrative and supplement its inadequacies. Meant to pass unnoticed, yet also designed to manipulate the viewer's response to the scene, music in film is granted a hypnotic role. 22 A great deal has been written on this topic, but Bergman is able to summarize the theorists' central conclusion with a single comment: "I love music too much to use it as a subordinate factor." 23 His achievement in his use of music is double. At the formal level, he frees music from its subordinate position by using it sparingly; when music is employed, it thus figures prominently and acquires a greater significance. This procedure also has the benefit of freeing the other sound elements from the domination of the conventional hackneyed film music. In Bergman's films, other sounds assume a more significant role, serving as the sort of "aural close-ups" advo24 cated by the theorist Bela Balazs. More fundamentally, music

its

and other sounds find a larger significance in Bergman's films because they are grounded in the dramatic situations where they play a part.

248

Conclusion

Queried about figures in a

of the Bach

his choice

number of

admires the piece for

his films,

suite for cello that

Bergman responds

that

"ethical motivation." In the

its

he

same

interview, he further explains his understanding of Bach: "As far as religion is concerned, we live in a time of reconsideration.

Bach speaks

today in

many

directly to the religious feelings homeless

people; he gives us the profound consolation

and quiet that previous generations gained through ritual. Bach supplies a lucid reflection of otherworldliness, a sense of eternity no church can offer today." 25 As a "lucid reflection," Bach's music offers a consolation different from the type of release offered by ritual and thus represents, to Bergman, a new and acceptable form of mediation. This notion finds its concrete realization in The Silence when a few bars of the Goldberg Variations heard on a radio offer a momentary link between persons with no other common language. Ester, in her loneliness and sickness, suddenly finds relief in sharing this music with the old waiter who appears at her bedside, nodding happily in recognition of the music. In this

moment,

pose and repeats

it

the piece returns to

anew: the Variations were

original pur-

its

from Bach

a gift

to Goldberg, offered in turn as a gift to console the afflicted

who was

Goldberg's protector. 26 Bergman's notion of a musical ideal and

count

on

art fall into place

when

his central positions

considered in the context of his

—

—

concern with the role positive or negative that the work of art plays in an interpersonal relation. In one of his first published essays, a short manifesto entitled

Bergman advances motivate his

artistic activity.

munication: the

work of

means of entering

"We Are

the Circus!",

several of the principles and ambitions that 27

The guiding

art is

value

conceived solely

into relation with others.

is

always com-

as the artist's

The cinema,

de-

scribed as a singularly vital and popular form, wins a privileged

position as the artist's

medium

best suited to

contact with the public

justification for existing." 28

is,

The

fulfill

Bergman

this

role.

The

writes, "his only

director goes

on

to criticize

forms of art that ignore this imperative and draw upon an obscure language largely incomprehensible to the public.

elitist

He

describes authors

who

write not for the public, but for

249

Conclusion

—

themselves and for their critics which amounts to the same, he adds, since these authors write each other's reviews. Bergman's specific target here was the literary circle of Stockholm in the early 1950's, but the validity of his remarks is hardly limited to this context. In Sweden and elsewhere, the problem has become more aggravated as the rift between popular and elite forms widens.

Bergman

consistently opposes his values of communication,

contact, and unification to the tendency

mentation.

become

He

toward

cultural frag-

writes, in a later essay, that individuality has

the "bane" of

art:

deny each

"The

individualists stare into each

and cry out into the darkness without ever receiving the healing force of communal happiness." 29 This statement is followed by Bergman's often quoted remark about anonymous artisans working toother's eyes yet

other's existence,

gether to reconstruct the cathedral

at

Chartres; the director's

desire to participate in such a creative activity restates the

am-

Other statements indicate the same orientation; the director acknowledges his many debts and stresses the collective nature of filmmaking. 30 Bergman's desire to challenge the existing rift between popular and elite, forms of art places him in a precarious position, but it is perhaps the only position where a real hope for a synthesis exists. The director cannot adhere to any of the es-

bitions declared in the earlier manifesto.

tablished parties which, in their opposition to each other, sim-

ply contribute to the fragmentation. Like the majority of ics,

Bergman

deems

its

crit-

has no respect for the commercial cinema and

forms

debilitating.

He

considers, for example, the

popular film's treatment of serious issues such as violence and warfare to be "swinish," and reacts strongly to the industry's commercial imperatives. It would be interesting to measure,

he suggests, "how much talent, initiative, genius and creative ability have been destroyed by the film industry in its ruth31 lessly efficient sausage machine." Bergman nonetheless defends the idea of a commercial and popular form of art, in spite of the conditions that presently make its proper realization difficult. Although critical of many commercial productions, he refuses to be drawn into any of

250

Conclusion the

camps defining themselves purely

elitist

the mass media.

He

traditional critics

with

in opposition to does not really belong to the circle of

"aesthetic experience." cals

who

autonomous worth of cannot align himself with the radi-

their faith in the

He

cinema taking its material from specific politnor with the formalist avant-garde that places its the value of stylistic experimentation. Bergman wonstress a

ical struggles,

faith in

ders if art

is

truly important, but refuses to

war cry that he finds to be fanaticism. At the same time, he asks political

a

answer the

new form of

call

of a

religious

if the emphasis placed on formal innovation and unbridled iconoclasm has not led art into an impasse by producing forms that are as irrelevant as

they are unintelligible.

What, then,

is

Bergman's

alternative? In several interviews,

he has been asked to comment on the contemporary cinema, and although his responses refer specifically to the French nouvelle vague, they bring forth an essential facet of his perspective.

32

He

complains that the formal cleverness of certain

films barely conceals a thematic emptiness that he finds "repulsive."

The

artist's

fundamental questions should

interest in

new

forms, and not the reverse.

The

current "genuflections" before formal devices must give

way

animate his search for to another sort finds

its

of concern. Does Bergman agree, then,

justification only

when

it

that art

addresses political questions?

Yes, but only to the extent that this interest in political questions opens

up

a

genuine interrogation of ethical problems. In

order to explain this position,

Bergman

cites

Eugene O'Neill's

statement that "drama that doesn't deal with man's relation to

God

is worthless," and comments: "I've often quoted him, and been thoroughly misunderstood. Today we say all art is political. But I'd say that all art has to do with ethics. Which after all really comes to the same thing. ... All this talk about me standing aside, cutting myself off and so forth, has always

amazed me." 33 In Bergman's reading of the O'Neill dictum, man's relation to God passes through man's relation to man, and is understood

as

being primarily an ethical problem. This certainly Bergman abandons religious issues, but

does not imply that

251

Conclusion does indicate something essential about his manner of dealing with them. He anchors his study of religion in the social

framed within a conby their role in Art, for Bergman, is not a "theme" but

sphere, just as his investigation of art

where formal

text

interpersonal relations.

and

a process

is

differences are illuminated

a relation.

Religion

is

considered in

similar

a

Bergman The pastor's

fashion in Winter Light (1962), the film in which deals

most

directly with the

deliberations

on God's

problem of

faith.

silence are enclosed within a dramatic

exploration of other types of silence: the silence between people, the silence

blocking the communication between the par-

son, his companions, and his congregation.

lence of

many

God" theme

in

The famous

Bergman, which has given

"si-

rise to so

theological and existential readings of his works,

is

thus

grounded in a perspective on human interaction. Bergman's the content of his desired communication essential "theme" with the audience is communication itself; his primary concern is interpersonal and social relations, and it is this concern that requires that he constantly examine his own relation to

— —

the public.

Bergman takes up this problem in a letter written to his cast and crew before the filming of Face to Face, asking what are his goals in conceiving the film. Listing his themes "Love, Life, and Death" he suggests that "nothing in fact is more important. To occupy oneself with. To think of. To worry over. To be happy about. And so on." 34 He notes, however, a desire to investigate his "anxiety" in a more methodical manner. Ob-

—

—

him

serving another person's difficulties has aided

and provides the

in

this,

of the film's central character. Jenny, he notes, is a person whose "stifling, static combination of mapped-out qualities and patterns of behavior" lead to her breakdown; he will attempt in the film to show "the causes of basis

the disaster as well as the possibilities available to this in the future."

her

own

others. cess,

35

Jenny must undergo her

"mental

illiteracy"

The making of

crisis if

is

woman to cure

and gain the potential for helping

the film

is

conceived

one from which the director himself

torment, formerly diffuse, has acquired

252

she

as a similar

will benefit:

name and

pro-

"The

address, and

— Conclusion

nimbus and alarm." 36 Yet Bergman's greatest hope is that his film might be of like benefit to others: "If this opus can be of similar use to someone else, the effort is

so has been deprived of its

not in vain." 37 In an earlier interview, single,

most cogent statement of his

Bergman

presents the

values:

We're not saved by God, but by love. That's the most we can Each film, you see, has its moment of contact, of hope for. human communication: the line "Father spoke to me," at the end of Through a Glass Darkly; the pastor conducting the service in the empty church for Marta at the end of Winter Light; the little boy reading Ester's letter on the train at the end of The .

Silence.

A

.

.

tiny

moment

matters most of

all

in

in life

is

each film

—but the

being able to

make

that contact

another human. Otherwise you are dead, like so

today are dead. But

if

you can take

What

crucial one.

that first step

many

with

people

toward com-

munication, toward understanding, toward love, then no matter

how

difficult the future

with

all

may

be

—and

have no

illusions,

even

the love in the world, living can be hellishly difficult

then you are saved. 38

We

can

now

grasp the importance of the montage of faces

with which Bergman accompanies the overture of The Magic Presenting the diverse individuals of an audience brought

Flute.

together to share in Mozart's work,

Bergman

at last creates his

and grace are discovered, finally, in the angelic face of a little girl, Bergman's daughter, as she is touched by the music and drama. Here is Bergman's longedfor contact, not an artificial or illusory harmony, but a real, even if momentary, communication. This is the ascent from cathedral. Art's innocence

light. The artist offers his work as a gift to the members of an audience, where, taking his place to be present among the other faces, is Ingmar Bergman.

darkness into

253

Notes

Introduction

1.

For examples of critiques of Bergman's "nordic gloom" and

"nihilistic

"The Mystique of Ingmar Berg54—57; Vernon Young, Cinema Borealis

introversion," see Caroline Blackwood,

man," Encounter, 16 (April 1961), (New York: David Lewis, 1971); Bo Widerberg, Visionen svenskfilm (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1962); and Per Olov Enquist, "Vargtimmen," Chaplin, 10 (1968), 108-109. The limitations of the attacks by Young and others are usefully discussed by Birgitta Steene in "About Bergman: Some Critical Responses to his Films," Cinema Journal, 13 (Spring 1974), 1-10. A wide range of reactions to Bergman is documented by Gert H. Theunissen in his extremely useful book, Das Schweigen und sein Publikum (Cologne: M. du i

Mont 2.

Schauberg, 1964).

Charles

Thomas

Bergman: Essays

in

Samuels, "Ingmar Bergman:

Criticism,

University Press, 1975), 3.

Stuart

Andre Bejin and Edgar Morin, "Introduction

The 1.

Artist's

(Oxford: Oxford

a la

notion de crise,"

p.

1.

Masks

Jorn Donner, The Films of Ingmar Bergman,

(New York: Dover, the side of

Interview," in Ingmar ed.

p. 125.

Communications, No. 25 (1976),

1.

An

M. Kaminsky,

1972), pp. 86-89.

trans.

Donner claims

Monika and freedom against the snug, safe Ado Kyrou in his "Le Bruit,

an erotic monster for

No. 27 (1958), pp. 38-41. The traditional opposition between

Holger Lundbergh Bergman "is on

that

existence." la

Monika

is

fureur et Harriet,"

Positif, 2.

a realist

tendency beginning with

tendency beginning with Melies is set forward, for example, by Siegfried Kracauer in his Theory of Film (London: Oxford University Press, 1960). In questioning this notion I do not

Lumiere and

a spectacular or fantastic

255

Notes wish to rule out the to note that

himself has

its

of a

realist

or documentary cinema, but only

made two documentaries about

form of realism

seeks a

Edmund

3.

possibility

Bergman

lineage and definition are not wholly evident. the islanders living

on Faro, and

in his narrative, fictional films.

Carpenter, "The Tribal Terror of Self-Awareness," in Princi-

ples of Visual Anthropology

,

ed. Paul

Hockings (The Hague: Mouton,

1975), p.

454. 4. Virginia Woolf, "The Movies and Reality," in Authors on Film, ed. Harry M. Geduld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), pp. 86-91. 5. Ibid., p. 87.

6.

Louis Delluc, Photogenie

7.

This tendency of film theory

(Paris: is

De

Brunhoff, 1920).

described by Edgar

Morin

in

Le Cinema

ou I'homme imaginaire (Paris: Minuit, 1956), pp. 21-31. For an excellent doc-

umentation of diverse writings animated by the "magic" of the image, see Gianni Rondolino, ed., L'occhio tagliato (Turin: Martano, 1972). 8.

Jean Epstein, Cinema, bonjour

9.

Edgar Morin, Les For

10.

(Paris:

La Sirene, 1921).

Stars (Paris: Seuil, 1957), p. 137.

a discussion

of

this

paradoxical logic, see Eric L. Gans, Essais

d'esthetique paradoxale (Paris: Gallimard, 1977).

Morin, Les Stars, pp. 69-105. Bergman's production of Dom Juan opened at the Malmostadsteater on January 4, 1953, and is described by Henrik Sjogren in his Ingmar Bergman pa teatern (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968), p. 151. 13. Vilgot Sjoman, LI 36: dagbok med Ingmar Bergman (Stockholm: Nor11.

12.

stedt

&

14.

Soners, 1963),

Meyer (New York: 15.

p.

158.

August Strindberg, The Plays of Vintage, 1976),

August Strindberg,

Klostret

Strindberg,

trans,

and

ed.

Michael

428.

n,

(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1966), pp. 130-131.

Tornqvist, Bergman och Strindberg (Stockholm: Prisma, 1973), pp. 103, 129. This work is a meticulous documentation of Bergman's produc16. Egil

Stockholm Dramaten in 1973, including stage direcand the speltext. 17. Bergman's production of The Seagull opened on January 6, 1961 at Stockholm Dramaten. Bergman's stage productions are listed in Sjogren, Ingmar Bergman pa teatern; Marianne Hook, Ingmar Bergman (Stockholm: Wahlstrom & Widstrand, 1962); and Lise-Lone and Frederick J. Marker, "Ingmar Bergman as Theater Director, Theater, 11 (Fall 1979), 58-63. 18. A possible source for Vogler's gesture: the Finnish psychologist Eino Kaila comments that modern subjects might tear a photograph when angry at the person it represents, thus acting in accordance with a primitive or

tion of Spbksonaten at tions

"magical" logic, in Personlighetens psykologi,

Natur

&

Kultur, 1946), pp. 172-173;

book was

a

trans.

Jan Gastrin (Stockholm:

Bergman remarks

"tremendous experience"

that reading Kaila's

for him, in Fritiof Billquist, Ingmar

Bergman: teatermannen och filmskaparen (Stockholm: Natur p. 276.

256

&

Kultur, 1960),

Notes August Strindberg, Sleepwalking

19.

Law

York:

Ingmar Bergman,

20.

Nights, trans.

Arvid Paulson

(New

Arts, 1978), p. 81. "Fisken: Fars for film," Biografbladet

,

31 (1950-51),

220-225; 32 (1951), 18-21, 85-87, 110-115. 21. Ibid., p. 20. 22. Ibid. 23. Eric Partridge, Origins: glish

(New York: Macmillan,

Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern En-

"Clown." Bjorkman, Torsten Manns, and Jonas Sima, eds., Bergman om

Stig

24.

A

1966), entry under

Bergman (Stockholm: Norstedt & Soners, 1970), p. 96; trans. Paul Britten Austin (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), p. 86. Henceforth in referring to this work I shall cite Austin's translation, with occasional modifications. 25. Jorn Donner, for example, makes this assumption in his Ingmar Bergman,

p. 98.

An

Samuels, "Ingmar Bergman:

26.

Kaminsky,

p.

27. Birgitta Steene, 28. "Entretien avec

Ingmar Bergman (New York: Twayne, 1968), p. 81. Ingmar Bergman," L'Express, 8-14 Oct. 1973, p. 81.

Bergman on Bergman,

29.

Interview," in Ingmar Bergman, ed.

130.

p. 81.

30. Ibid.

Kurt

31. p.

Riezler,

Man: Mutable and Immutable (New York: Regnery,

1951),

202.

Immanuel Kant,

32.

Meiner, 1922,

p.

Anthropologie

188; cited

by Enno

in

pragmatischer Hinsicht (Leipzig: Felix

Patalas,

"Die Schande," Filmkritik, 13

(1969), 242. 33.

Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Etre

et le

neant (Paris: Gallimard, 1943), pp.

265-

266. 34.

Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions Appleton, 1898), pp. 322-323.

in

Man

and Animals

(New York: 35.

Henri Bergson, Le Rire

(Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France, 1940),

pp. 1-50.

Bergman on Bergman, p. 240. Bjorkman, Torsten Manns, and Jonas Sima, "Ingmar Bergman: 'Man kan ju gora vad som heist med film!'", Chaplin, 10 (1968), 45. 38. Bergman on Bergman, p. 227. 39. James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1 vol. (New York: Macmillan, 36.

37. Stig

1963), pp. 585-600; Laura Levi Makarius, (Paris:

40.

Payot, 1974),

Robin

Wood

Le Sacre

et la

violation des interdits

p. 221.

correctly notes in passing that the bear

is

a

"scapegoat"

and its killing "an act of catharsis," yet this remains a passing remark in his Ingmar Bergman (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 57;*similarly, Steene finds sacrificial victims in many of Bergman's plays and films, but imagines that feminine and consistently assigned to women, in Ingmar Bergman, pp. 28, 118. 41. Ingmar Bergman, Trdmdlning: En moralitet (Stockholm: Bonniers, this role is essentially

251

Notes trans.

1956),

Randolph Goodman and Leif Sjoberg, "Wood

Painting:

A

Morality Play," in Focus on "The Seventh Seal," ed. Birgitta Steene (Engle-

wood

Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp.

159-173.

Ingmar Bergman, program note for The Seventh Seal, cited by Steene "The Seventh Seal: Film as a Doomsday Metaphor," in Focus on "The

42. in

Seventh Seal,"

p. 5.

Bergman's representations of ritual find a theoretical analogue in the writings of Rene Girard, who posits the fundamental unity of rituals by identifying their common origin in a sacrificial mechanism. See Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); and Des Choses cachees depuis la fondation du monde (Paris: Grasset, 1978). In another context, Girard relates Bergman's films to other contemporary works that both "disguise and suggest" the sacrificial logic in "vary43.

ing degrees."

I

shall

argue here that

disguises and that the differences

such

as

Artaud

are far

more

ture,

his

significant than the similarities.

For Girard's

is

see

Litera-

The Johns Hopkins University theory of violence has been employed intelli-

Mimesis, and Anthropology (Baltimore:

Press, 1978), p. 150. Girard's

gently by the Swedish film

filmen

— begrepp

och

66-95, and "Valdet

i

and archivist Nils-Hugo Geber, in "Valdet Nos. 24—26 (March 1980), pp. begrepp och teorier 2," Filmhafiet, Nos. 31-32

critic

i

teorier 1," Filmhafiet,

filmen

(March 1981), pp. 6-52. 44. Bergman on Bergman, 45. Bergman, From the .

—

p. 40.

Life of the Marionettes

York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 76-77. 46. Bernard Weinraub, "Ingmar Bergman Oct. 1976,

2.

suggests far more than he works and those of an author

— which more suggestive than many of the tomes "To Double Business Bound": Essays on the filmmaker—

paragraph on Bergman

devoted to

Bergman

between

,

trans.

in Exile,"

Alan Blair (New

New

York Times, 17

sec. 2, p. 3.

The Magic Lantern 1.

Jean Beranger, La Grande Aventure du cinema suedois

Vague, 1960), p. 19. 2. Marian Hannah Winter, "Le Spectacle forain," (Paris:

Terrain

in Histoire des spectacles

Gallimard, 1965), pp. 1458-1459.

3. Ibid., p. 4.

(Paris:

1459.

Beranger, La Grande Aventure,

p. 21.

For examples of these condemnations, see Edouard Poulain, "Le Cinema, ecole du vice," in Intelligence du cinematographe, ed. Marcel l'Herbier (Paris: Correa, 1946), pp. 82-87; Erik Skoglund, Filmcensuren (Stockholm: 5.

Pan/Norstedts, 1971), pp. 38-45; Christian Zimmer, Proces du Presses Universitaires de France, 1977). 6.

Bergman

explicitly insists

258

on the importance of

spectacle (Paris:

tradition:

"Everything

Notes must grow up from something. Always in art there before. There is some sort of tradition. If we believe we are in art

something from tradition we are being silly. I am absolutely convinced that nothing in art has grown up from its own roots. It has had its roots in something other than itself": John Reilly, "Interview with Ingmar Bergman," in The Image Maker, ed. Ron Henderson (Richmond: Knox Press, 1971), p. 42. On the prevalence of the clown motif in modern art, see Jean Starobinski, Portrait de V artiste en saltimbanque (Geneva: Skira, 1970). Kafka's acrobats and hunger laire's

is

cut off

artist,

Baude-

"vieux saltimbanque," and Beckett's abject clowns are the figures

most closely related to Bergman's artists. 7. James Baldwin, "The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman," April 1960,

p.

Esquire,

132.

8.

Bergman, "Dett

9.

The openness of cinema

Emilio Garroni

att

gora film," Filmnyheter,

9,

Nos. 19-20 (1954),

to cultural tradition

is

3.

usefully stressed

in his Progetto di semiotica (Bari: Laterza, 1972).

He

by

suggests

its lack of specificity, or more precisely, and cultural "codes." Consequently, any method (semiological or other) taking the "cinematic language" as its sole object of study is incapable of dealing with the "pluricodicity" that informs any given film and the cinema as a whole. Although in his early writings

that the specificity of film resides in

combination of diverse

in its

artistic

Metz placed great emphasis on isolating the specificity of film, he acknowledged the limits of film semiology as an autonomous discipline: "the essential paradigms, the great figures creating meaning and humanity will remain contained in culture, and a very general and profound semantics Christian also

will

be needed to illuminate them": Metz, Essais sur

la signification

au cinema

My

working hypothesis is that an adequate explanation of semiosis or mimesis in cinema cannot be based on a (Paris: Klincksieck,

1968),

I,

142.

description of the syntactical codes specific to film; the semantic and pragmatic if we wish to account comprehension of cinematic narration. Narrative in film is not significant by virtue of codes specific to cinema, for these are overdetermined by more fundamental patterns, beginning with the "functions of the characters" rightly emphasized by Propp. My goal, then, is to explore the "essential paradigms" and "great figures" that are alone capable of granting meaning to the formal devices "specific" to the cinematic language. 10. Walter Benjamin, "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit," in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. R. Tiedemann and H. Schwepppenhauser (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972), i:2, 431-469. One of Benjamin's analogies is particularly relevant to The Magician: he distinguishes between the objective techniques of a surgeon and the methods of a magician, likening the cinema cameraman to the former and the painter to the latter a distinction put in question in Bergman's characterizations. 11. Georges Sadoul, Le Cinema francais (Paris: Flammarion, 1962), pp.

dimensions of filmic representation must be addressed for the viewer's

—

205-207. 12.

Bergman, "Vi

ar cirkus!", Filmjournalen,

No. 4

(1953), p. 7.

259

Notes 13.

Bergman, "Dett

att

gora film,"

p. 2.

14. Ibid. 15.

To my knowledge

lantern:

only two critics even mention the presence of the Ermanno Comuzio, "Musica, suoni e silenzi nei film di Ingmar

Bergman," Cineforum, 4 (Feb. 1964), 170; andjorn Donner, Ingmar Bergman, 176. Donner gets his facts wrong and imagines that the lantern stops

p.

Comuzio thinks it a flourish a la Offenbach. The ending is deemed "consciously dishonest" by Marianne Hook,

swinging; 16.

Ingmar Bergman,

"Deus ex machina" and "dubious"

136.

p.

of Maria Bergom-Larsson, Ingmar Bergman and

(London: Tantivy, 1978), 68. 17. Paul Valery draws upon

when he

"Mon ame

writes:

graphe," in l'Herbier, ed., 18.

Martin

Lamm,

this

etymology

Society,

in

are the epithets

Barrie Selman

tr.

speaking of the cinema

est divisee par ces prestiges"; in

"Cinemato-

Intelligence, p. 35.

August Strindberg,

(New York: Blom,

H. Carlson

tr.

1971).

Aristotle attributes this

19.

etymology

Dorians" but does not challenge 20.

Bergman, "Vi

21.

Metz, Essais sur

to "certain of the Peloponnesian

Poetics, 1448a.

it:

ar cirkus!", p. 7. la signification

au cinema; for an example of the type of

"demystification" in question, see Jean-Louis Baudry, "Cinema: effets ideologiques produits par l'appareil de base," Cinethique, Nos. 22.

n.d., pp. 1-8.

29 (1948), 241. The passage delivered by the conjuror in Chesterton's

Bergman, "Kinematograf,"

cited strongly resembles a line

Magic, a play staged by

7- -8,

Bergman

Biograjbladet,

in 1946; see

G. K. Chesterton, Magic:

A

Comedy (New York: Putnam, 1913), pp. 45-46. Bergman, "Dialogue on Film," American Film, Jan. 1976, p. 39. Sjogren, "Dialog med Ingmar Bergman," in Ingmar Bergman pa teatern,

Fantastic

23. 24.

p. 292.

25.

Henri Bergson, Essai sur

les

donnees immediates de

la

conscience (Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France, 1884), p. 11.

"Hjarnornas kamp,"

26. Strindberg, niers,

1914),

22,

p.

123.

A

in

Samlade

Skrijier

(Stockholm: Bon-

wealth of information concerning nineteenth-

century ideas of suggestion (and Strindberg's use of them)

Hans Lindstrom

in his Hjarnornas

hergs attiotalsdiktning (Uppsala:

kamp: psykologiska

is

presented by

ideer och motiv

i

Strind-

Appelbergs, 1952).

Mesmer is drawn from Robert Darnwork, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (New York: Schocken, 1970). 28. On mesmerism in Sweden, see Hans Lindstrom, Hjarnornas kamp and "Kommentar till Ansiktet," Uppsala Nya Tidning, 15 Jan. 1959. Bergman's film may have provided inspiration for a Swedish novel plotting the oscillat27.

This general information about

ton's excellent

ing career of a mesmerist; Per

holm: Norstedt 29.

&

Olov Enquist,

Franz Anton Mesmer, Memoire sur

260

Magnetisorens femte vinter (Stock-

Soners, 1964). la

decouverte du magnetisme animal

Notes Joseph Philippe Franqois Deleuze,

(Paris: 1779);

animal (Paris: 1819); A.

M.

J.

Histoire critique du magnetisme de Chastenet, Marquis de Puysegur, Du Mag-

netisme animal (Paris: 1807).

Puysegur,

30.

Catharsis dans

E.P.I. 31.

le

Du

Magnetisme animal; see also Dominique Barrucand, La

theatre,

la

psychanalyse,

et

la

psychotherapie de groupe (Paris:

1970).

,

Marcel Mauss,

Sociologie

et

anthropologic (Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France, 1950), pp. 101-137. 32. 33.

Mircea Eliade, Le Chamanisme (Paris: Payot, 1968). Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologic p. 54. ,

34. Jacques Soustelle,

"L'Homme

et le surnaturel,"

L' Encyclopedic francaise,

1936 ed. 35. Jean

Cazeneuve,

Sociologie du

(Paris:

rite

Presses Universitaires de

France, 1971), p. 177. 36.

Makarius, Le Sacre

37. Victor Turner,

et la violation, p.

The Ritual

Process

216.

(London: Routledge

&

Kegan

Paul,

1969), pp. 94-203. 38. Eliade

documents many

cases

of ritual transvestitism

in

Le Chamanisme,

pp. 278-279. 39.

Claude Levi-Strauss, L 'Anthropologic

structurale (Paris: Plon,

1958), p.

198. 40.

Emile Durkheim, Les Formes

elementaires de

vie

la

religieuse

(Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), passim.

Le Sacre et la violation, passim. Verne F. Ray, "The Contrary Behavior Pattern Ceremonialism," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 41. Makarius, 42.

in ,

American Indian

Spring

1945,

pp.

75-113. 43. E. T. Kirby, "The Shamanistic Origins of Popular Entertainments," The Drama Review, 18 (March 1974), 5-15. 44. Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Les Carnets (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,

1949), passim. 45. Girard, 46.

Violence and the Sacred, passim.

Durkheim, "La Prohibition de

logique,

1

l'inceste et ses origines,"

L'Annee

socio-

(1896-97), 49-50.

47. R. A.

LeVine, "Witchcraft and Sorcery in

Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa, ed. J.

a

Gusii

Community,"

in

Middleton and E. H. Winter (New

York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 27-55. 48. Cazeneuve, Sociologie du rite, p. 165; Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologic, p. 45; Katherine Luomala, cited by Makarius, Le Sacre et la violation, p. 45; Makarius, pp. 217, 247. Makarius also notes (p. 252] that the expiation of the trickster

is

often achieved through collective laughter, a

phenomenon

illuminating the action of Bergman's clown sequences. 49.

Bergman on Bergman,

50. Girard,

p. 83.

Violence and the Sacred, pp. 290-295.

51. Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), p. 1295.

261

Notes 52.

Hook, Ingmar Bergman,

53.

W.

Ehlers,

p.

137.

"Oscilla," Paulys Realencyclopadie,

1942

ed.;

G. Lafaye,

"Oscillatio" and "Oscillum," Dictionnaire des antiquites, 1875 ed.

Apollodorus, The Library,

54.

Astronomica

,

in, 191;

Hyginus, Fabulae, cxxx; and

Poetica

n, 4.

55. Virgil, Georgics, n, 389.

Joachim Marquardt and Theodor Mommsen, Handbuch

56.

der Rbmischen

Alterthumer (Leipzig: 1885), Vi, 191-193; Carl Botticher, Der Baumkultus der

Hellenen (Berlin: 1856), pp. 48-49, 80-92.

Wall from the exedra of a villa near Boscoreale, marked L on the plan, 40-30 b.c. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 03.14.4.

57. circa

58. Servius, ad. Aen.,

xm,

603.

"Oscillum."

59. Lafaye,

Wood, Ingmar Bergman,

60.

pp. 92-95.

The Magician accurately deunsatisfying. Robert Hatch, for example, complains that "things are blurred" by the work's many reversals, in "The Magician," The Nation, 26 Sept. 1959, p. 180. 61. Several popular reviewers writing about

scribe

its

movements but

find

them disquieting and

The Comic Device

3.

1.

Bergman, "Dett

gora film,"

att

p. 3.

2. Ibid. 3.

Bergman on Bergman,

4. Ibid. p.

p. 81.

103.

6.

Bergman, "Vi ar cirkus!", p. 7. Bergman, "Dett att gora film,"

7.

Time, 7 Sept. 1959,

8.

Bergman, "Fisken," p. 221. Immanuel Kant, Critique of

5.

p. 2.

p. 78.

Aesthetic Judgment, trans. J. C. Meredith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), pp. 196-203. 10. Claude Levi-Strauss, L'Homme nu (Paris: Plon, 1971), p. 586. 11. Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic as a Science of Expression and General Linguis9.

tic,

trans.

D. Ainslie (London: Macmillan, 1909), pp. 148-151.

12.

Bergson, Le

13.

Bergman on Bergman, p. 99. John Simon, Ingmar Bergman

14.

Rire, p. 29.

Directs

(New York: Harcourt

Brace,

1972), p. 111. 15. Ibid.

16.

Bergson, Le Rire,

p. 83.

Simon, Ingmar Bergman, p. 118. 18. Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957). 17.

262

trans.

M. Belgion

Notes Rene Girard,

19.

Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, trans. Y. Freccero (Balti-

more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965).

August Strindberg, Married,

20.

trans.

E.

Schleussner (Boston: Luce,

1913), p. 238. 21. "Bergman Discusses Film-making," in Four man (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 19.

22. Strindberg, Plays,

I,

Screenplays of Ingmar Berg-

263.

23. Ibid., p. 271.

24. Ibid., p. 267. 25. Ibid., p. 257.

Wood

compares Henrik's mock suicide to Papageno's comic The Magic Flute, but I would add that here the "German Opera" is not so very German. See Wood, Ingmar Bergman, p. 69. 27. Marivaux, LTsle de la raison, ou les petits hommes, in Theatre (Paris:

Robin

26.

suicide attempt in

Gallimard, 1966), 28.

"Dialog

i,

261-262.

med Ingmar Bergman,"

in Sjogren,

Ingmar Bergman pa

teatern,

p. 292.

Mary Douglas,

29.

Implicit

Meanings (London: Routledge

&

Kegan

Paul,

1975), pp. 90-112. 30.

Alexander Bain, The Emotions and

(London, 1888).

the Will

31. Aristotle, Poetics, 1449a 32; trans. Gerald F. Else in Aristotle's Poetics:

The Argument (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 187. 32. Thomas Hobbes, Human Nature (London, 1652), iv, ix. 33. A. Allin and G. S. Hall, "The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, and the Comic," American Journal of Psychology, Oct. 1897, pp. 1-41. 34. Poinsinet de Sivri, Traite des causes physiques et morales du rire (Amsterdam, 1768). 35. Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, pp. 297-298.

by Douglas, Implicit Meanings, p. 110. The Golden Ass, trans. W. Adlington (New York: Modern

36. Victor Turner, cited 37. Apuleius,

Library, 1928), pp. 49-59. 38. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, vi,

39.

lished apolis:

lii.

Gerald Mast similarly stresses the importance of the "climate" estab-

by comic works,

in

The Comic Mind: Comedy and

Bobbs-Merrill, 1973). His description of

the

Movies (Indian-

this climate

or frame draws

upon Elder Olson's notions of "worthlessness" and katastasis; see Olson, The Theory of Comedy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968). 40. ritual"

Mary Douglas, form of

for example, describes joking as a liberating, "anti-

social interaction that

(momentarily) subverts hierarchy and

reveals contradictions in the patterns of

community. See Douglas,

Implicit

Meanings, pp. 90-114. 41.

Bergson, Le

42.

For example,

moyens de

Rire, p. 151.

Abbe

I'eviter (Paris,

de Bellegarde, Reflexions sur

le

ridicule et sur les

1696).

263

Notes 43. Girard, "Perilous Balance:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

44.

dale

4.

A Comic

Hypothesis," in "To Double Busi-

Bound," pp. 121-135.

ness

(New York:

Penguin, 1978),

Elective Affinities, trans. R. J.

Holling-

p. 92.

The Ritual

Ingmar Bergman, "The Snakeskin," speech written on the occasion of of the Erasmus Prize in 1965 and delivered in his absence by Kenne Fant, president of the Swedish Film Industry. The original Swedish version appeared in Expressen, 1 Aug. 1965; a translation figures as the introduction to Persona and Shame (New York: Grossman, 1972), pp. 11-15. I will cite this version, altering it slightly when it strays from the original. 1.

his reception

2. Ibid.,

pp. 12-13.

phrase omitted from page 12 of translation. Bergman, "Dett att gora film," p. 9. Frazer, The Golden Bough, pp. 258-259, 581, 760, 763. Antonin Artaud, Oeuvres completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1961 and

3. Ibid., 4. 5. 6. III,

1964),

IV. 7.

Bergman's preface

to

En fdmtrilogi (Stockholm: Pan/Norstedts,

1973).

The Ritual was strangely prophetic: Les Riens are suspected of avoiding taxation by channeling funds into a Swiss firm; nine years later, Bergman was rudely arrested and accused of tax evasion, his Swiss "Persona" film company being the object of suspicion. No- .formal charges were made, and when the case was dropped, an official apology was issued to him. Nonetheless, Bergman's "guilt" in the affair is frequently taken for granted. See Variety, 22 Dec. 1976, p. 2; and Monthly Film Bulletin, 8.

Written in 1967,

45 (July 1978), 148. 9. Strindberg, Samlade otryckta

skrifier

(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1918),

n,

172.

1452a-1552b. Bergman on Bergman, p. 238.

10. Aristotle, Poetics,

11. 12. 13.

1973), 14. 15. 16. 17.

Urs Jenny, "Riten," Filmkritik, 14 (1970), 35-36. Bergman, Vargtimmen, in Filmberdttelser (Stockholm: Pan/Norstedts, ii,

63.

Speech not included

in the film.

Bergman, Riten, in Filmberdttelser, in, 53. Bergman, En passion, in Filmberdttelser, n, 177-178. Bergom-Larsson, Ingmar Bergman, pp. 77-111. Jan Aghed, "Conversation avec Ingmar Bergman,"

Positif,

No. 121

(Nov. 1970), pp. 44-45. 18. Bergom-Larsson, Ingmar Bergman, p. 39. Similarly, Stig Bjorkman compares Elis to the exploitative artist in Through a Glass Darkly, but adds that Elis is not ultimately to be taken as representing the artist, in "En passion," Chaplin, 11 (1969), 321.

264

Notes 19.

Bernard Cohn, "Connaissance de

la

voie,"

Positif,

No.

121

(Nov.

1970), pp. 34-40.

Although the concept of realism is often anathema to modernists, it is Bergman's films in a restricted sense the definition of which is the task of this book. Bergman's realism must in any case be distinguished from two extreme positions that tend to deprive the concept of its value. First, it is not to be confused with the dream of "total cinema" that occasionally animated the pen of Andre Bazin, nor with the "redemption of physical reality" championed by Siegfried Kracauer. A filmic representation does not attain a complete ontological identification with what it represents. A face filmed is not the face itself, and no "pure Being" shimmers in the photographic reproduction of reality by virtue of the medium's automatic and thus "immaculate" representation. The similitude or resemblance of a filmic representation is also marked by difference, and the faithfulness of the images their potential realism is constituted by a system that imposes constraints and limitations on the sign-function. The second extreme position, an inverted and negative image of the first, directs its critique against the myth of pure presence or total re-presentation. This form of radical skepticism seizes upon the difference and systemic constraints constitutive of representation in order to deny the possibility of a valid resemblance, construed as complete identification. Its chorus is: "The signifier is not the referent but part of a diacritical and unmotivated system; the sign is not what it stands for." 20.

—

applicable to

—

—

Indeed, but such an objection hardly necessitates the conclusion that realism is

impossible or that language

forever disjoined

is

from being.

In a

more

limited and useful conception of realism, a specific principle of pertinence

by establishing

assures the possibility of adequation

morphism

—

in an informational sense

—

criteria

for the iso-

—between representation and the cinematic images — do not capture referent.

That the sign systems in this case, the complete "essence" or "being" of the referent in no way falsifies this kind of potential realism. To reject the possibility of an adequate representation is to conclude that all acts of cognition are necessarily phantasmatic. Yet the possibility of an adequate representation is implicit even in the representation practiced by the skeptic, whose victorious proclamation of the defeat of representation is merely a banal form of paradox: "All language lies, said language." Given their principle of pertinence, Bergman's fictions are wholly capable of achieving a form of realism, defined as the representation of the logic 21.

and patterns of

Bergman,

1959), p. 22.

film (Stockholm: Svensk Filmindustri,

lacks cinematic virtue"

For one of

tecnica del

sista

5.

"Bergman

refrain.

social interaction.

Varje film ar min

its

is

an old and particularly misleading

most extreme formulations,

see Luigi Chiarini, Arte e

cinema (Bari: Laterza, 1962). Here, as so frequently in film theory,

a limited definition

of the "essence of the medium" becomes

a

crippling

evaluative criterion. 23.

Bergman,

Varje film ar min

sista,

p.

5.

Bergman

also

remarks

265

in

an

Notes interview that his "dream would be to

make

having only hour and a half or for two hours" (Bjorkman, Manns, and Sima, "Ingmar Bergman: 'Man kan ju gora,'" p. 49). This emphasis on the human face leads Diane Borden to speak of Bergman's sacralization of the face, in "Bergman's Style and the Facial Icon," Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 2 (1977), 42-55. 24. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "The Film and the New Psychology," in Sense and Nonsense, trans. Hubert L. and Patricia A. Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964). 25. Matts Rving, "Ingmar Bergmans forsta tv-film," Radio-TV, No. 13 (March 1969), p. 28. This short commentary and interview is perhaps the single most valuable publication on The Ritual, a film largely neglected by

one shot;

a full-length film

to be able to maintain interest in a single face for an

Bergman's interpreters. 26. Bergman, En Passion, p. 163. 27. Frieda Grafe, "Der Spiegel

ist

zerschlagen," Filmkritik,

12 (1968),

No. 119 (Sepc-Oct.

1967), pp.

760-772.

Bergman, En

28.

The Masks of

5.

passion, p. 163.

Violence

Marcel Martin, "Persona," Cinema

1.

67,

74-81. 2. Ibid., p. 80.

Bergman comments

3.

too

is

that "It

a role'" (Charles T.

is

as the

doctor in the film says, 'Silence

Samuels, "Ingmar Bergman:

Ingmar Bergman, ed. Kaminsky,

An

Interview," in

p. 111).

Robin Wood, Ingmar Bergman, pp. 146-147. " Susan Sontag, Persona: The Film in Depth," Kaminsky, pp. 253-269. 4.

5.

6. Ibid., p. 7. 8.

in

Ingmar Bergman, ed.

268.

Roland Barthes, Essais critiques (Paris: Seuil, 1964), p. 107. Theodore W. Adorno, Minima Moralia (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1951),

p.

57.

Adorno, Philosophic der neuen Musik (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1958), p. 118. Adorno, Asthetische Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 144; hereafter cited as AT; also Minima Moralia, p. 298. 11. Adorno, AT, p. 422. 9.

10.

12. Ibid., p. 403. 13. Ibid., p. 476. 14.

Adorno,

Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie (Frankfurt:

p. 80.

15.

Adorno, AT,

p. 477.

16. Ibid., pp. 39, 85,

309-310.

17. Ibid., pp. 393, 403, 506.

266

Suhrkamp,

1962),

Notes 353-354.

18. Ibid., pp.

19. Ibid., p. 166.

26.

Adorno, Adorno, Adorno, Adorno, Adorno, Adorno, Adorno,

27.

Ibid.,

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

Ohne

Leitbild (Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp,

1967), pp. 84-85.

Philosophic der neuen Musik, p. 120, n. 40.

AT,

p. 40.

Phiiosophie der neuen Musik, p. 120, n. 40.

AT,

pp. 86-87, 131.

Minima Moralia,

AT,

p.

298.

p.

p. 33.

Minima Moralia, pp. 303-304: "Art's paradoxical

443; and

of civilization brings it into conflict with its own and popular music prepare synthetically for the abject contemplation of the late industrial phase do not merely liquidate

involvement

The archetypes

idea.

art,

in the process

that film

but bring forth in their blatant stupidity the delusion that was always

immured works

works of art and that still gives the most mature power. Luridly the horror of the ending illuminates the decep-

in the oldest

their

tion of the origin." 28.

Adorno, AT,

p.

191.

Kauffmann begins his review with this topic, "Persona," in Great Film Directors, ed. Leo Braudy and Morris Dickstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 69; Steene turns to the title after a plot summary in her Ingmar Bergman, p. 115; Marcel Martin repeats the same idea 29.

Stanley

in "Persona," p. 77; other

Simon, Ingmar Bergman Jungian twist

examples are Sontag, "Persona," pp. 265-266; and 224. Torsten Manns gives the notion a

Directs, p.

in his review,

tarco also elaborates

"Persona," Chaplin, 8 (1966), 301.

on the archetypes

in his discussion

Guido Aris-

of Persona,

"Mono-

logo e nulla, tragedia della persona bergmaniana," Cinema nuovo, 16 (1967), 33-45. Interestingly, with the exception of these Jungian additions, the crit-

remarks about the word "persona" have been limited almost entirely to Bergman's own brief statement about masks in a presentation of the film, "A propos de Persona,'' Les Cahiers du cinema, No. 188 (March

ics'

repetitions of

1

1967), p. 18. 30.

Mauss,

Sociologie

et

anthropologie, pp. 331-362.

31. Ibid., pp. 354-356. 32.

1970),

Georges ii,

Bataille,

33. Strindberg, 34. Bataille, 35. 36.

"Le Masque,"

in Oeuvres completes (Paris: Gallimard,

403-406.

"Author's Note to

"Le Masque,"

A

Dream Play,"

in Plays, n, 553.

p. 405.

Simon, Ingmar Bergman Directs, p. 256. Soren A. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread,

trans.

Walter Lowrie

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), pp. 105-137. 37. See, for

example,

No. 226 (March

Raymond

Lefevre, "Ingmar Bergman," Image

et

son,

1969), pp. 60-63.

38. Sontag, "Persona," p. 255. 39.

Vincent Descombes uses

this

opposition as the focal point of his brief

267

Notes War II, Le Mime V autre (Paris: Minuit, 1979). 40. Richard Corliss, "Persona," Film Quarterly, 20 (Summer 1967), 54. Corliss describes the "visual obstacles which fashion has placed in our path." It seems that criticism has "troubled Bergman, and so Persona includes parentheses to show us that it's only a movie, that we should keep our

but penetrating overview of French philosophy since World et

—

—

by those actors those liars up on the screen." August Strindberg, From an Occult Diary, tr. Mary Sandbach (London: Martin Seeker & Warburg, 1965). 42. Lefevre, "Ingmar Bergman," pp. 62-63. 43. Simon, Ingmar Bergman Directs, p. 292. 44. Alma's situation is quite generally that of the double-bind as it is described by Gregory Bateson in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballentine, 1972), pp. 159-338. I am also employing the concept of "obstaclemodel" developed by Rene Girard in his Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. 45. Simon, Ingmar Bergman Directs, p. 309. distance and not be fooled 41.

46. Ibid., p. 253.

Confronted with the

47.

civil

wars of his time, Montaigne noted

collapse of difference: "and the worst thing about these wars

is

this

same

that the cards

your enemy not being distinguished from yourself by any apparent mark of language or bearing, and being brought up under the same laws and customs and in the same atmosphere, it is hard to avoid confusion and disorder," Essais (Paris: Gamier: 1962), I, 401. are so shuffled that,

Bergom-Larsson, Ingmar Bergman, pp. 92-100.

48.

49. Ibid., p. 100.

Lidman's violent critique of Shame appeared in Afionbladet, 6 Oct. cited by Bergom-Larsson, Ingmar Bergman, p. 100. 51. Bergman's statement, made in response to Lidman's attack, is cited by Bergom-Larsson, p. 100. 50. Sara

1968, and

is

Conclusion 1.

Bergman, "Interview" under

the

pseudonym Ernest

Riffe,

Take One,

Jan. 1969, p. 11. 2.

Robert Rosen, "Enslaved by the Queen of the Night," Film Comment, 6

(Spring 1970), 26-31. 3.

W.

A. Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder, Die Zauberflote (Stuttgart:

Reclam, 1962). See

4.

Press,

Edward

1947);

(London: Oxford University J. Dent, Mozart's Operas and William Mann, The Operas of Mozart (London: Oxford

University Press, 1977).

(New York: Dover,

5.

Spike Hughes, Famous Mozart Operas

6.

Jacques Chailley, La Flute enchantee, opera maconnique

1972).

(Paris:

Robert

Laffont, 1968). 7.

For

a

valuable discussion of the aesthetics of filmed opera, see Zofia

268

Notes Filmmusik (Berlin: Henschel, 1965), pp. 327-338. Although Lissa enumerates the various innovations possible in this form, she feels that

Lissa, Asthetik der

they are outweighed by certain disadvantages. She fears, for example, that the shifts of perspective brought about by editing and camera movement will be distracting or gratuitous. More fundamentally, she works with a definition of film realism inimical to the conventions of opera and thus resists the possibility that a director

such

as

Bergman could put

the cinema in

the service of an operatic work.

"The Magic Flute," Film Quarterly, 30 (Fall 1976), Bergman naive and thinks his simple humanity a matter of "tacky jokes." Complaining about a loss of "grandeur and mystery," he attacks Bergman's interpretation of the opera on the "authority" of William Moritz,

8.

45-49. Moritz considers

Chailley.

Bengt Janzon, "Bergman on Opera," Opera News, May 1962, p. 14. Bergman, "Vi ar cirkus!", p. 7. 11. Samuels, "Ingmar Bergman: An Interview," in Ingmar Bergman, ed. Kaminsky, p. 112. 12. For an excellent discussion of the beliefs and philosophies surrounding music, see Jules Combarieu, La Musique et la magie (Paris: Picard, 1909). 13. Samuels, "Ingmar Bergman: An Interview," in Ingmar Bergman, ed. Kaminsky, p. 122. 14. Reilly, Interview, in The Image Maker, ed. Henderson, p. 43. 15. Interview in Film in Sweden, No. 2 (1971), p. 7. 16. "Bergman Discusses Filmmaking," in Four Screenplays, p. 19. 9.

10.

17.

Jacques Attali, Bruits

18.

Adorno, Philosophie der neuen Musik, passim. Comuzio, "Musica, suoni e silenzi," p. 167. Lennart Maimer, "Om filmmusik," Chaplin, 9 (1967), 78. Bergman, Face to Face, trans. Alan Blair (New York: Pantheon,

19.

20. 21.

(Paris: Presses Universitaires

de France, 1977).

1976),

p. 53.

22. See Lissa, Asthetik der Filmmusik;

et

Rogner

Adorno and Hans

Eisler, Komposition

&

Bernard, 1969); and Jean Mitry, Esthetique psychologie du cinema (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1965), n, 116-124.

jiir

den Film (Munich:

"Bergman on Opera," p. 14. Theory of the Film (New York: Roy, 1953), pp. 19^220. 25. Janzon, "Bergman on Opera," p. 14. Bergman also discusses Bach in an interview with Oscar Hedlund in Expressen, 20 July 1963, tr. "Ingmar 23. Janzon,

24. Bela Balazs,

Bergman, the

Listener," Saturday Review, 29 Feb. 1964, pp. 47-48.

The anecdote is reported by Peter Cowie, "Television Opera: Ingmar Bergman Shows How It Should Be Done," High Fidelity, June 1975, p. 70. 26.

27.

Bergman, "Vi

ar cirkus!", p. 7.

28. Ibid.

Bergman, "Dett att gora film," p. 9. Bergman, "Tre tusenfotingfotter," Filmjournalen, Nos. 51-52 8-9; and "Lekamed parlor," Filmnyheter, 6, No. 14 (1951), 4-5. pp. 31. Bergman, "Dett att gora film," p. 2. 29.

30.

269

(1947),

Notes 32.

Bengt Forslund, "Vagskvalp i bakvatten," Chaplin, 3 (May 1961), "Damen med hunden ett ruskt masterverk," Chaplin, 3 (March

—

124-125; and

1961), 60-61. 33.

Bergman on Bergman,

34.

Bergman, Face

to

p.

177.

Face, p. v.

35. Ibid., p. vi. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid.

"Playboy Interview: Ingmar Bergman," Playboy, June 1964, p. 68. is cited and discussed by Jerry H. Gill, Ingmar Bergman and the Search for Meaning (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969). 38.

This statement

270

Filmography

This filmography

lists,

in

temporal order,

all

films written, co-

written and/or directed by Ingmar Bergman. Detailed information

concerning the cast and crew

provided only for selected works. manner: original Swedish; American British distribution title, if different; and a literal is

Titles are given in the following

distribution translation

from the

title;

when

either the British or

original.

American

title differs

greatly

Dates refer to the year in which the films were

released, not to the time of production.

Hets (Torment, Frenzy), [Frenzy], 1944. Dir. Alf Sjoberg. Script by Bergman. Kris (Crisis), 1945. Dir.

Bergman.

Script

by Bergman, from Leek

Fisher's

play Moderdyret. (It Rains on Our Love), 1946. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman and Herbert Grevenius, from Oscar Braathen's play Bra

Det regnar pa vdr karlek mennesker.

Kvinna utan Script

ansikte

(Woman

without a Face),

1947. Dir. Gustaf Molander.

by Bergman.

Indialand (The Land of Desire, Ship to India), [Ship to India], 1947. Bergman. Script by Bergman, from Martin Soderhjelm's play of the same title. Musik morker (Music in Darkness, Night is My Future), [Music in Darkness], 1947. Dir. Bergman. Script by Dagmar Edqvist, from her novel of the same title. Hamnstad (Port of Call), 1948. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman, from a story by Olle Lansberg. Eva (Eva), 1948. Dir. Gustaf Molander. Script by Molander and Bergman. Fdngelse (The Devil's Wanton, Prison), [Prison], 1949. Dir. /script by Bergman. Tbrst (Three Strange Loves, Thirst) [Thirst], 1949. Dir. Bergman. Script by Herbert Grevenius, from Birgit Tengroth's short story of the same title. Till gladje (To Joy), 1950. Dir. /script by Bergman. Medan staden sover (While the City Sleeps), 1950. Dir. Lars-Eric Kjellgren.

Skepp

till

Dir.

i

271

Filmography Script by Kjellgren, from by Bergman.

Sdnt hander

Happen

inte

hdr (High

a story

by

Tension,

P.

A. Fogelstrom based on

This Can't

Happen

Here),

a

synopsis

[This Can't

Here], 1950. Dir. Bergman. Script by Grevenius.

(Illicit Interlude, Summer Interlude), [Summer Play], 1951. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman and Grevenius, from a story by Bergman. Camera: Gunnar Fischer. Music: Erik Nordgren. Cast: Maj-Britt Nilsson (Marie), Birger Malmsten (Henrik), Alf Kjellin (David), Annalisa Ericson (Kaj), Georg Funkquist (Uncle Erland), Stig Olin (ballet master). Frdnskild (Divorced), 1951. Dir. Gustaf Molander. Script by Bergman and

Sommarlek

Grevenius. Kvinnors vdntan (Secrets oj Women, Waiting Women), [Women's Waiting], 1952.

by Bergman. Camera: Gunnar

Dir. /script

Fischer. Music: Erik

Nordgren.

Eva Dahlbeck (Karin), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Fredrik Lobelius), Birger Malmsten (Martin Lobelius), Jarl Kulle (Kaj), Karl-Arne Holmsten (Eugen Lobelius), Gerd Andersson (Maj), Bjorn Bjelvenstam (Henrik), Aino Taube (Anita), Hakan Westergren (Paul). Sommaren med Monika (Monika, Summer with Monika), 1953. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman and P. A. Fogelstrom, from a novel by the latter. Camera: Gunnar Fischer. Music: Eric Nordgren. Cast: Harriet Andersson (Monika), Lars Ekborg (Harry), John Harryson (Lelle), Georg Skarstedt Cast:

Maj-Britt Nilsson (Marta),

(Harry's father), aunt),

Naemi

Ake

Fridell

Anita Bjork (Rakel),

(Monika's

father),

Dagmar Ebbessen

(Harry's

Briese (Monika's mother).

Gycklarnas afion (The Naked Night,

Sawdust and

Tinsel),

[Evening of the

by Bergman. Camera: Hilding Bladh, Goran Strindberg, Sven Nykvist. Music: Karl-Birger Blomdahl. Cast: Harriet Andersson (Anne), Ake Gronberg (Albert), Hasse Ekman (Frans), Anders Ek (Frost), Gudrun Brost (Alma), Gunnar Bjornstrand (theater director Sjuberg), Annika Tretow (Albert's wife, Agda). En lektion kdrlek (A Lesson in Love), 1954. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Martin Bodin. Music: Dag Wiren. Cast: Eva Dahlbeck (Marianne Erneman), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Dr. David Erneman), Yvonne Lombard (Susanne), Harriet Andersson (Nix), Ake Gronberg (Carl-Adam), Olof Winnerstrand (Prof. Henrik Erneman), Birgitta Reimer (Lise), Helge Clowns],

1953,.

Dir. /script

i

Hagerman

(stranger in the train).

into Autumn), [Women's Dreams], 1955. Dir./ by Bergman. Camera: Hilding Bladh. Cast: Eva Dahlbeck (Susanne), Harriet Andersson (Doris), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Consul Sonderby), Ulf Palme (Henrik Lobelius), Inga Langre (Mrs. Lobelius), Naima Wifstrand

Kvinnodrom (Dreams, Journey script

(Mrs. Aren), Kerstin

Hedeby (Marianne).

Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of a Summer Night), 1955. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Gunnar Fischer. Music: Erik Nordgren. Cast: Eva Dahlbeck (Desiree Armfeldt), Ulla Jacobsson (Anne Egerman), Harriet Andersson (Petra),

Margit

272

Carlqvist

(Charlotte

Malcolm),

Gunnar Bjornstrand

Filmography (Fredrik Egerman), Jarl Kulle (Count

Carl-Magnus Malcolm), Ake Fridell Bjorn Bjelvenstam (Henrik), Naima Wifstrand (Mrs. Armfeldt), Julian Kindahl (the cook), Gull Natorp (Malla, Desiree's maid), Birgitta Valberg and Bibi Andersson (actresses). (Frid),

Sista paret ut

man and

(The Last Couple Out), 1956. Dir. Alf Sjoberg. Script by Berg-

Sjoberg.

Det sjunde

inseglet (The Seventh Seal), 1957. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman, from his play Tramalning. Camera: Gunnar Fischer. Music: Erik Nordgren. Cast: Max von Sydow (Antonius Block), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Jons), Nils Poppe (Jof), Bibi Andersson (Mia), Bengt Ekerot (Death), Erik Strandmark (Skat), Maud Hansson (the "witch"), Anders Ek (monk), Inga Gill (Lisa), Gunnel Lindbolm (girl), Ake Fridell (Plog), Gunnar Olsson

(church painter). 1957. Dir/script by Bergman. Camera: Nordgren. Cast: Victor Sjostrom (Professor Isak Borg), Bibi Andersson (Sara), Ingrid Thulin (Marianne), Gunnar

Smultronstallet (Wild Strawberries),

Gunnar

Fischer. Music: Erik

Bjornstrand (Evald), Folke Sundquist (Anders), Bjorn Bjelvenstam (Vik-

Naima Wifstrand

tor),

mother), Julian Kindahl (Agda), Gunnar

(Isak's

Sjoberg (Alman), Gunnel Brostrom (Mrs. Alman), Gertrud Fridh (Isak's wife),

Nara

Ake

livet

Script

Max von Sydow

Fridell (her lover),

(Brink of Life, So Close

to Life),

(Akerman).

[Close to Life], 1958. Dir. Bergman.

by Bergman and Ulla Isaksson, from her short

story,

"Det vanliga

vardiga."

[The Face], 1958. Dir. /script by Bergman. Nordgren. Cast: Max von Sydow (Albert Emanuel Vogler), Ingrid Thulin (Manda/Aman Vogler), Ake Fridell (Tubal), Naima Wifstrand (Granny), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Dr.

Ansiktet (The Magician,

Camera: Gunnar

The

Face),

Fischer. Music: Erik

Anders Vergerus), Bengt Ekerot (Spegel), Bibi Andersson (Sara), Gertrud Fridh (Ottilia Egerman), Erland Josephson (Consul Abraham Egerman), Lars Ekborg (Simson), Toivo Pawlo (Starbeck, police chief), Oscar Ljung (Antonsson), Sif Ruud (Sofia Garp, the cook), Birgitta Pettersson (Sanna),

Axel Diiberg (Rustan). Jungjrukallan (The Virgin Spring), 1960. Dir. Bergman. Script by Ulla Isaksson, from the 14th-century ballad Tores dotter Vange. Camera: Sven Nykvist. i

Music: Eric Nordgren. Cast:

Max von Sydow

berg (Fru Mareta), Gunnel Lindblom Djavulens oga (The Devil's Eye),

Gunnar

Fischer. Music:

1960.

motif from

Bibi Andersson (Britt-Marie),

Gertrud Fridh (Renata),

(Herr Tore), Birgitta Val-

(Ingeri), Birgitta Pettersson (Karin).

Dir. /script

by Bergman. Camera:

Scarlatti. Cast: Jarl

Stig Jarrel

(Satan),

Kulle (Don Juan),

Poppe (Pastor), Gunnar Bjornstrand

Nils

Sture Lagerwall (Pablo),

(narrator).

en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly), 1961. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: J. S. Bach, Suite No. 2, D minor, for solo cello. Cast: Harriet Andersson (Karin), Max von Sydow (Martin).

Sdsom

i

Gunnar Bjornstrand (David), Lars Passgard (Minus).

273

Filmography Lustgdrden (The Pleasure Garden), 1961. Dir. Alf Kjellin. Script by

Bergman

and Erland Josephson. Nattvardsgdstema (Winter Light), [The Communicants], 1962. Dir. /script by

Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Ericsson),

Ingrid

Cast:

Gunnar Bjornstrand (Tomas Max von Sydow (Jonas

Thulin (Marta Lundberg),

Gunnel Lindblom (Karin Persson), Allan Edwall (Algot Frovik). Silence), 1963. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: J. S. Bach, Goldberg Variations. Cast: Ingrid Thulin (Ester), Gunnel Lindblom (Anna), Jorgen Lindstrom (Johan), Hakanjahnberg (waiter), Birger Malmsten (bartender). For att inte tola om alia dessa kvinnor (Now about these Women), [Not to Speak about All these Women], 1964. Dir. Bergman. Script by Bergman and Persson),

Tystnaden

(The

Erland Josephson.

by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: LarsJohan Werle. Cast: Bibi Andersson (Alma), Liv Ullmann (Elisabet Vogler), Margaretha Krook (the doctor), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Mr. Vogler), Jorgen Lindstrom (the boy). "Daniel" episode, in Stimulantia, 1967. Dir. Bergman. Vargtimmen (The Hour of the Wolf), 1968. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera:

Persona, 1966. Dir. /script

Sven Nykvist. Music: Lars-Johan Werle. Cast: Liv Ullmann (Alma Borg), Max von Sydow (Johan Borg), Erland Josephson (Baron von Merkens), Gertrud Fridh (Corinne von Merkens), Bertil Anderberg (Ernst von Merkens), Georg Rydeberg (Lindhorst), Ingrid Thulin (Veronica Vogler), Ulf Johanson (Heerbrand), Naima Wifstrand (old woman), Mikael Rundqvist (boy). Skammen (Shame), 1968. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Cast: Liv Ullmann (Eva Rosenberg), Max von Sydow (Jan Rosenberg), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Jacobi), Sigge Fiirst (Filip), Birgitta Valberg (Mrs. Jacobi), Hans Alfredson (Lobelius), Ulf Johanson (doctor), Vilgot Sjoman (interviewer).

1969. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music and sound: Olle Jacobssen, Lennart Engholm, Bernth Frithiof. Cast: Ingrid Thulin (Thea Winkelman), Anders Ek (Sebastian Fischer), Gunnar Bjornstrand (Hans Winkelman), Erik Hell (Judge Abramsson), Ingmar

Riten (The Ritual),

Bergman (priest). En passion (The Passion of Anna, A Passion), [A Passion], 1969. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Cast: Liv Ullmann (Anna Fromm), Bibi Andersson (Eva Vergerus), Max von Sydow (Andreas Winkelman), Erland Josephson

(Elis

Vergerus), Erik Hell (Johan Andersson).

Fdro-dokument (Faro Document), 1970. Dir. and reporter, Bergman. Camera:

Sven Nykvist. The Lie, 1970. BBC production of Bergman's script, Reservatet. Beroringen (The Touch), 1970. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist.

274

Filmography Music: Jan Johansson. Cast: Bibi Andersson (Karin Vergerus), Gould (David Kovac), Max von Sydow (Dr. Andreas Vergerus).

Elliott

Viskningar och rop (Cries and Whispers), 1972. Dir. /script

by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: Chopin's Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, no. 4, performed by Kabi Laretei; Saraband from Bach's Suite No. 5 in E minor, for solo cello. Cast: Harriet Andersson (Agnes), Ingrid Thulin (Karin), Liv Ullmann (Maria), Kari Sylwan (Anna), Erland Josephson (doctor), Georg Arlin (Fredrik), Henning Moritzen (Joakin), Anders Ek (Isak, the pastor).

ett aktenskap (Scenes from a Marriage), 1973. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Cast: Liv Ullmann (Marianne), Erland Josephson (Johan), Bibi Andersson (Katarina), Jan Malmsjo (Peter), Gunnel Lindblom (Eva), Rosanna Mariano, Lena Bergman (the girls). Trollflbjten (The Magic Flute), 1975. Dir. Bergman. Opera by W. A. Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder. Music: Radiokoren/Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester, conducted by Eric Ericson. Cast: Josef Kostlinger (Tamino), Irma Urrila (Pamina), Hakan Hagegard (Papageno), Elisabeth Erikson (Papagena), Britt-Marie Aruhn, Kirsten Vaupel, Birgitta Smiding (Three Ladies), Ulrik Cold (Sarastro), Birgit Nordin (Queen of Night), Ragnar Ulfung (Monostatos), Erik Saeden (Speaker), Gosta Pruzelius (First Priest), Ulf Johansson (Second Priest), Hans Johansson, Jerker Arvidsson (Men in Armor), Urban Malmborg, Ansgar Krook, Erland von Jeijne (Three

Scener ur

Boys). to Face), 1976. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: Mozart's Fantasia in E minor. Cast. Liv Ullmann (Jenny), Erland Josephson (Tomas), Gunnar Bjornstrand (grandfather), Aino Taube-Henrikson (grandmother), Tore Segelcke (the specter), Sven Lindberg (Erik, Jenny's husband). Kabi Laterei (pianist). Ormens agg (The Serpent's Egg), 1977. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: Rolf Wilheim. Cast: Liv Ullmann (Manuela), David Carradine (Abel Rosenberg), Heinz Bennent (Hans Vergerus), Gert Froebe

Ansikte mot ansikte (Face

(Inspector Bauer),

James Whitmore

(priest).

Hostsonaten (Autumn Sonata), 1978. Dir. /script by Bergman. Camera: Sven

A minor. Cast: Ingrid Nyman (Helena), Halvar

Nykvist. Music: Chopin's Prelude No. 2 in

man

(Charlotte), Liv

Ullmann

(Eva), Lena

BergBjork

(Viktor), Georg Lokkeberg (Leonardo), Linn Ullmann (Eva as a child). Aus dem Leben der Marionetten (From the Life of the Marionettes), 1980. Dir./ script by Bergman. Camera: Sven Nykvist. Music: Rolf Wilheim. Cast: Robert Atzorn (Peter Egerman), Christine Buchegger (Katarina), Martin Benrath (Mogens Jensen), Walter Schmidinger ("Tim," Tomas Isidor Mandelbaum), Lola Muethel (Cordelia), Rita Russek ("Ka").

215

Bibliography

This bibliography initial

the editions used, not always indicating the

lists

data and place of publication.

Plays, Scripts, and Stories by Ingmar

"En kortare nen."

berattelse

No. 3

40-tal,

om

ett

Bergman

av Jack Uppskararens tidigaste barndomsmin-

(1944), pp. 5-9.

Jack hos skddespelarna. Stockholm: Bonniers, 1946. Tre pjaser: Rakel och biografvaktmdstaren, Dagen slutar

Moraliteter. till

skrdck.

tidigt,

Mig

Stockholm: Bonniers, 1948.

"Fisken: Fars for film." Biograjbladet 31 (1950-51), 220-225; 32 (1951), 18-21, ,

85-87, 110-115. "Staden. Horspek" In Svenska Radiopjaser 1951. Ed. Claes Hoogland. Stock-

holm: Sveriges Radio, 1951, pp. 49-97.

om

"Historien Trdmdlning.

Eiffeltornet." Bonniers Litterdra Magasin, 22 (1953), 498-500.

En

moralitet.

Goodman and on

Stockholm:

Leif Sjoberg.

"The Seventh

Seal."

"Wood

Ed.

Bonniers, Painting:

Birgitta

Steene.

1956.

A

Trans.

Randolph

Morality Play." In Focus

Englewood

Cliffs,

N.J.:

Prentice-Hall, 1972, pp. 159-173.

Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman. Trans. Lars Malmstrom and David Kushner. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Oeuvres. Trans. C. G. Bjurstrom and Maurice Pons. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1962.

En

filmtrilogi.

Sdsom

i

en spegel,

Nattvardsgdsterna,

Tystnaden.

Stockholm:

Norstedts, 1963. Trans. Paul Britten Austin. Three Films by Ingmar Berg-

man: Through

a Glass

Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence.

New

York: Grove,

1967.

Robnard. L'Avant-Scene, No. 85 (Oct. 1968). Robnard. L'Avant-Scene, No. 109 (Dec. 1970). Persona and Shame. Trans. Keith Bradfield. New York: Grossman, 1972. Filmberdttelser 2: Persona, Vargtimmen, Skammen, En Passion. Stockholm: Pan/

Persona. Trans. Jacques

Une

Passion. Trans. Jacques

Norstedts, 1973.

216

Bibliography Filmberattelser 3: Riten, Reservatet, Berbringen,

Viskningar och rop. Stockholm:

Pan/Norstedts, 1973. Cris

et

chuchotements

Trans. Jacques Robnard. L'Av ant- Scene, No. 142 (Dec.

.

1973).

& Soner, 1973. Trans. Alan Blair. York: Pantheon, 1974. Ansikte mot ansikte. Stockholm: Norstedt & Soner, 1976. Trans. Alan Blair. Face to Face. New York: Pantheon, 1976. Four Stories by Ingmar Bergman: The Touch, Cries and Whispers, The Hour Scener ur

ett

aktenskap Stockholm: Norstedt .

New

Scenes from a Marriage.

of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna. Trans. Alan Blair, Garden City, N.Y.:

Anchor-Doubleday, 1976. The Serpent's Egg. Trans. Alan Blair. New York: Pantheon, 1977. Hostsonaten. Stockholm: Norstedt & Soner, 1978. Trans. Alan Blair. Autumn Sonata. New York: Pantheon, 1978. Ur Marionetternas liv. Stockholm: Norstedt & Soner, 1979. Trans. Alan Blair. From the Life of the Marionettes. New York: Pantheon, 1980.

Essays and Statements by Ingmar Bergman

"Om

att filmatisera en pjas ..." Filmnyheter, 1, No. 4 (1946), 6-7. "Det fortrollade marknadsnqjet." Biografbladet 28 (1947), 149. "Tre tusenfotingfotter." Filmjournalen, Nos. 51-52 (1947), pp. 8-9. "Kinematograf " Biografbladet, 29 (1948), 240-241. "Leka med parlor." Filmnyheter, 6, No. 14 (1951), pp. 4-5. "Vi ar cirkus!" Filmjournalen, No. 4 (1953), pp. 7, 31. "Dett att gora film." Filmnyheter, 9, Nos. 19-20 (1954), 1-9. "Aforistiskt av Ingmar Bergman." Vi pa SF, April 1957, p. 53. skrivet av honom sjalv." Se, No. 9 (1957), p. 33. "Ingmars sjalvportratt Varje film ar min sista film. Stockholm: Svensk Filmindustri, 1959. Trans. P. E. Burke and Lennart Swahn. "Each Film Is My Last." The Drama ,

.

Review, 11

"Delar av

tal

.

(Fall 1966), till

.

94-101.

minne av Victor Sjostrom."

Sight and Sound, 29 (Spring

1960), p. 98. Self-critique written

under the pseudonym Ernest

Riffe. Chaplin, 2 (1960),

189-191. "Jag tvivlar pa filmhogskolan. " Chaplin, 5 (Dec. 1963),

30^305.

"A propos

de Persona" Les Cahiers du cinema, No. 179 (June 1966), p. 10. "Interview" written under the pseudonym Ernest Riffe. Take One, Jan. 1969, p. 11.

"The Snakeskin." Film Comment, 6 (Summer 1970), 9-21; Persona and Shame. New York: Grossman, 1972, pp. 11-15. "Der wahre Kiinstler spricht mit seinem Herzen." Filmkunst, No. 74 (1976), pp. 1-3.

"Wie

ich Die Zauberflbte entdeckte." Film and Ton, 22 Dec.

1976, p. 64.

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Beranger, Jean. "Rencontre avec Ingmar Bergman." Les Cahiers du cinema,

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1958), pp. 12-20.

Interview. Newsweek, 23

Nov.

1959, p. 116.

Baldwin, James. "The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman." Esquire, April 1960, pp. 128-132.

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ett

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dessa skadespelare." Chaplin, 5 (Sept. 1963),

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Hedlund, Oscar. "Ingmar Bergman, the Listener." Saturday Review, 29 Feb. 1964, pp. 47-48. "Lettre de Stockholm." Les Cahiers du cinema, No. 153 (March 1964), pp. 42-44. "Playboy Interview: Ingmar Bergman." Playboy, June 1964, p. 61. Kalmar, Sylvi. "Nar varklighetsen granser viker undan." Fant, 1, Nos. 4-5

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Bjorkman, Stig, Torsten Manns, and Jonas Sima. "Ingmar Bergman: 'Man kan ju gora vad som heist med film!'" Chaplin, 10 (1968), 44-51. Sjogren, Henrik. "Dialog med Ingmar Bergman." In Ingmar Bergman pa teatern. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968, pp. 291-316. Lothwall, Lars-Olaf. "Moment of Agony." Films and Filming, 15 (Feb. 1969), 4-6.

Rving, Matts. "Ingmar Bergmans forsta tv-film." Radio-TV, No. 13 (March 1969), pp. 22-23.

Lothwall, Lars-Olaf. "Ingmar Bergman: entretien." Les Cahiers du cinema,

No. 215 (Sept. 1969), pp. 49-59. Buchwald, Gunnar. "Intervju med Ingmar Bergman."

Berlingske

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Positif,

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Ron Henderson. Richmond: Knox

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Sweden. No. 2 (1971), pp. 7-8. Simon, John. "Conversation with Bergman." In Ingmar Bergman New York: Harcourt, 1972, pp. 11-40.

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Samuels, Charles Thomas. "Ingmar Bergman:

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York: Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 98-132. Donner, Jorn, dir. Tre scener med Ingmar Bergman. Cinematograph, 1975. "Dialogue on Film." American Film, Jan. 1976, pp. 33-48. Weinraub, Bernard. "Ingmar Bergman in Exile." New York Times, 17 Oct. 1976, sec.

2.

Sundgren, Nils-Peter. "Rencontre avec Ingmar Bergman."

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Nordgren, Erik. "En filmkompositor berattar." Chaplin, 2 (May 1960), 109. Gow, Gordon. Interview with Max von Sydow. Films and Filming, 6 (Aug. 1960),

7.

Nykvist, Sven. "Att fanga en vision." Chaplin, 5 (Feb. 1963), 52-54. Lehrman, Boris, and Paul de Meulemeester. "Entretien avec Gunnar Bjornstrand." Entr'acte, Dec. 1963, pp. 14-15.

Maimer, Lennart.

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Erik Nordgren). Chaplin, 9 (1967), 77-79.

McBride, Joseph, and Michael Wilmington. "A Long Way from Home" (interview with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann). Sight and Sound, 39 (Winter 1969-70), 39-43. Eder, R. "'To Bergman, Light

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Le Terrain Vague, 1959.

Beranger, Jean, and Francis D. Guyon. Ingmar Bergman. Lyons:

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Bergom-Larsson, Maria. Ingmar Bergman och den borgerliga ideologin. Stockholm: Pan/Norstedts, 1977. Trans. Barrie Selman. Ingmar Bergman and Society. London: Tantivy, 1978. Billquist, Fritiof.

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Donner, Jorn. Djavulens ansikte: Ingmar Bergmans filmer. Stockholm: Bonniers, 1962. Trans. Holger Lundbergh. The Films of Ingmar Bergman. New York: Dover, 1972. Esteve, Michel, ed. Ingmar Bergman:

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Gibson, Arthur. Gill,

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Hopkins, Steve. The Celluloid Cell of Ingmar Bergman. Stockholm: Industria International, 1958.

Johns, Marilyn E. "Strindberg's Influence on Bergman's Det sjunde Smultronstallet

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inseglet,

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Kaminsky, Stuart M. Ingmar Bergman: Essays in Criticism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Maisetti, Massimo. La crisi spirituale dell'uomo moderno nei film di Ingmar Bergman. Varese: Busto Arisizio, 1964. Marion, Denis. Ingmar Bergman. Paris: Gallimard, 1979. Michalczyk, John J. Ingmar Bergman: ou la passion d'etre homme aujourd'hui. Paris: Beauchesne, 1977. Oldrini, Guido. La solitudine di Ingmar Bergman. Parma: Guanda, 1965. Ranieri, Tino. Ingmar Bergman. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1974. Siclier, Jacques. Ingmar Bergman. Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1960.

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Sjoman, Vilgot. LI 36: dagbok med Ingmar Bergman. Stockholm: Norstedt & Soners, 1963. Trans. Alan Blair. L136: Diary with Ingmar Bergman. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma, 1978. Steene, Birgitta. Ingmar Bergman.

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New

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Teghrarian, Salwa Eva Fuleihan. "The Cracked Lens:

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Bergman's Films of the Sixties." Diss. SUNY Buffalo, 1976. Theunissen, Gert H. Das Schweigen und sein Publikum. Cologne: M. du Mont in

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Thi

Nhu Quynh Ho.

La Femme dans Vunivers bergmanien. Fribourg: Editions

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Wood, Robin, Ingmar Bergman.

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Young, Vernon. Cinema Borealis: Ingmar Bergman and New York: David Lewis, 1971.

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the

Swedish Ethos.

Reviews, and Passages on Ingmar Bergman

Agel, Henri. Metaphysique du cinema. Paris: Payot, 1976, pp. 153-169. Alexander, William. "Devils in the Cathedral: Bergman's Trilogy." Cinema Journal, 13 (Spring 1974), 23-33.

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Archer, Eugene. "The Rack of Life." Film Quarterly, 12 3-16.

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Bibliography Blackwood, Caroline. "The Mystique of Ingmar Bergman." Encounter, 16 (April 1961), 5^57. Boland, Bernard, and Serge Daney. "Sonate d'automne." Les Cahiers du cinema, No. 295 (Dec. 1978), pp. 48-49. Borden, Diane M. "Bergman's Style and the Facial Icon." Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 2 (1977), 42-55. Boyers, Robert. "Bergman's Persona: (Fall 1968),

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Braucourt, Guy. "Le Rite." Ecran, No. 8 (Sept.-Oct. 1972), pp. 48-49. Campbell, Paul Newell. "The Reflexive Function of Bergman's Persona.'"

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287

Index

Adorno, Theodor, 184-191, 219-221, 244 Aesthetics, 25, 100;

Bergman

on, 177;

Dance of Death, 37 Darwin, Charles, 53

critiqued in Shame, 221-231; of film,

Delluc, Louis, 30

30; modernist, 184-191

Demystification, 75-78, 82 Desire, 32-35, 119-125

Apuleius, 137 Aristotle, 74, 78, 100, 132, 150, 187

Artaud, Antonin, 145, 158 Attali, Jacques, 244

Autumn

Sonata, 245-247

Deus ex machina, 107, 125-126 Disorder/order: and humiliation, 53-55; in mesmerism, 88; in Persona, 191-192; as social dynamic, 96-100 Dolce Vita, La, 35

249 Balazs, Bela, 248 Barthes, Roland, 184 Bataille, Georges, 193-195, 201, 209 Baudelaire, Charles, 135-136 Benjamin, Walter, 68-69, 187, 188-189 Bergom-Larsson, Maria, 170, 174 Bergson, Henri, 56-57, 85, 117-119, 126128, 132-134, 140 Bureaucracy, 49, 55 Bach,

J.

S.,

Dom Juan,

36 Doubling, 165, 199-201, 212-213, 220221

Drama, 23-24, 36-38, 125, 149-150,

100, 106-107, 122-

215-216

Dreams, 130, 136 Durkheim, Emile, 93-94, 96 L'Ecole des maris, 122 Electra,

218

Eliade, Mircea, 89-91, 99

Carpenter,

Edmund, 29

Catharsis, 100, 187-188, 244-245

Cazeneuve, Jean, 91, 98 Chailley, Jacques, 239 Chekhov, Anton, 38 Christianity, 50, 251-253 Circus, 43-47, 57, 66-69 Clowns, 41-44, 94 Cohn, Bernard, 174 Comedy, 41-42, 115-142 Commercial cinema, 111-113, 250 Communication: Adorno's critique of, 185; as Bergman's concern, 243-244, 249-250; inescapability of, 227-230 Comuzio, Ermanno, 244 Cries and Whispers, 52, 242 Crisis, 18, 94-98, 215-216. See also

Disorder/order

Epstein, Jean, 30 Ethics, 63-65,

251-253

The 252

Face, The. See Magician,

Face

to

Fellini,

Face, 247-248,

Federico, 35

Fish, The, 40-43,

From

the Life

116-117

of the Marionettes, 63, 130,

162-163, 232 Garroni, Emilio, 259 n. 9 Ghost Sonata, The, 38 Girard, Rene, 45, 95-100, 121

Golden Ass, The, 137

High Tension, 142 Hobbes, Thomas, 133, 138

Hoffmann,

E. T. A., 235,

243

289

Index Hour of the

Wolf, The, 146-148, 163-164,

233-236

Naked Night, The. See Sawdust and

Tinsel

Nordin, Birgit, 240 Not to Speak about All These Women, 115

Humiliation, 49-57, 167-168 Hypnosis, 84—88. See also Mesmer

O'Neill, Eugene, 251 Identity, 50-52, 188, Illicit

Interlude,

200

Oscillation: in antiquity, 104—106; in

51-52

Imitation, 27, 121-125, 141-142, 208-

into

A

in

217, 220-221

Journey

The

Magician, 73-75; and paradox, 200; Passion, 172-173; in Smiles of a

Summer

Autumn. See Dreams

Night, 119

Pacifism, 224-225, 231 Painting on Wood, 61

Kant, Immanuel, 53, 117 Kierkegaard, S. A., 78, 198-199 Lefevre,

Raymond, 206

Lektion

karlek, En. See Lesson in Love,

Lesson

i

in

Paradox, 33-34, 93, 200-201, 207 A, 167-178 Persona, 38, 52-53, 180-184, 191-221 Pessimism, 15-20, 64, 231-235 Playing with Fire, 123-125

Passion,

A

Love, A, 121, 130-131

LeVine, R. A., 97 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 93, 117 Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 35, 94-95 Lighting, in Shame, 228 Liminality, 44, 92-100 Lumiere, Auguste and Louis, 29

Magic, 17-18, 91-92; of cinema,

Realism, 176-178, 265 n. 20 Repetition, 43-44, 159 Representation: in comedy, 141; crisis of, 183-184, 207-208; as illusion, 82-83; status in Bergman's films, 176-177; as type of mimesis, 214-217, 220221; and violence, 57-60. See also 30, 69.

See also Shamanism; Stars Flute, The, 235-242 Magician, The, 17-18, 70-84, 92-93, 100-

Magic

109, 112-113, 153-155, 195-196

Makarius, Laura, 92, 96, 98-99 Marivaux, 122-123, 129 Married, 123

Martin, Marcel, 180-181

Masks, 192-195 Mauss, Marcel, 201, 208

Realism; Ritual Riezler, Kurt, 53

Ritual, 58-62; in cinema, 68-70; as dra-

matic model, 149-150; and laughter, 137; loss of efficacity, 143-146; and mimetic crisis, 215-216; role in society, 96-100. See also The Ritual; Sacrifice; Victimage; Violence Ritual, The, 146-167 Runaway cycles, 95, 127-128, 171

89, 91, 98, 193-194,

Mechanism, 56-57, 117-119, 126-130 Melies, Georges, 31, 69

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 177 Mesmer, Franz Anton, 86-89 Metz, Christian, 259 n. 9 Mimesis. See Imitation; Representation Modernity, 143-146, 180-191 Moliere, 36, 122, 134 Monika, 27

Morin, Edgar, 31, 35 Mozart, W. A., 235-242 Music, 230-231, 242-249 Myth: about artists, 28, 32; of ritual oscillation, 106; of snakeskin, 144. See also Demystification; Magic; Ritual; Stars

290

of

Sacrifice: as basis

substitution of,

in,

ritual, 59, 98-99; 106-107; symbols

218

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 53

Sawdust and

Tinsel, 17-19, 36,

42-47

Scenes from a Marriage, 19

Schikaneder, Emanuel, 237-241

Schumann, Robert, 243 Seagull, The, 38 Secrets

of Women, 126-127, 138

Self-reflexivity, 20, 25, 81, 141, 180-184,

206-208, 220 Serpent's Egg, The, 46,

174-175

Seventh Seal, The, 23, 47-48, 60-62, 139

Shamanism, 89-91 Shame, 221-231 Silence, The, 161,

249

Index Simon, John, 118-119, 218-219

128, 196, 206,

Smiles of a Summer Night, 118-142 Sontag, Susan, 183-184, 200-201

31-35

149-150; hallucinations, 204; influence on Bergman, 123-125; oscillations of his career, 77-78; on suggestion, 86; vampire motif in, 37-38 Stronger, The,

38

Interlude. See

Theater. See

Berg-

175-176; social 96-99. See also Girard, of,

Rene; Ritual; Sacrifice; Violence Violence: Bergman on, 170-172; in comedy, 135-139; degrees of, 56-60; and imitation, 95-96, 171; social role of, 62-63, 96-99. See also Pacifism; Representation; Sacrifice

Illicit

Interlude

with Monika. See Monika Swedish Film Industry, 111-112

This Can't

artist's role, 65;

function of,

Strindberg, August: formula for drama,

Summer Summer

Victimage: and

man's critique

Soustelle, Jacques, 91 Stars,

Through a Glass Darkly, 37, 146 Turner, Victor, 92, 94

Drama

Happen Here. See High Ten-

Virgil, 106

Waiting Women. See Secrets of Warfare, 221-231 Wild Strawberries, 52 Winter Light, 252 Wood, Robin, 108, 181-182

Woolf, Virginia, 29-30

291

Women

Ingmar Bergman and

the Rituals of Art

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Livingston, Paisley, 1951-

Ingmar Bergman and the Filmography:

p.

Bibliography:

p.

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rituals

art.

Includes index. 1.

Bergman, Ingmar, 1918-

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