Linking his innovations in film form to an investigation of the processes of social interaction, Bergman is able to conf
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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
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.
277
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Beranger, Jean. "Rencontre avec Ingmar Bergman." Les Cahiers du cinema,
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Interview. Newsweek, 23
Nov.
1959, p. 116.
Baldwin, James. "The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Bergman." Esquire, April 1960, pp. 128-132.
"Damen med hunden
Forslund, Bengt.
—
ett
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.
"Vagskvalp bakvatten." Chaplin, 3 (May 1961), 124-125. "Sdsom en spegel." Chaplin, 3 (Nov. 1961), 212-214. i
i
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"For
att inte tala
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rorelse." Chaplin, 5 (Jan.
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dessa skadespelare." Chaplin, 5 (Sept. 1963),
178-179, 205.
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,
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Berlingske
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Positif,
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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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"Entretien avec Ingmar Bergman." L'Express, 8-14 Oct. 1973, pp. 78-81. "Conversation with Ingmar Bergman." Oui, March 1974, pp. 70-72.
Samuels, Charles Thomas. "Ingmar Bergman:
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New
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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Wolf,
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Interviews with Bergman's Co-workers
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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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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Paris:
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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.
Natur
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Burvenich, Jos. Themes du cinema, 1960. Chiaretti,
Cowie,
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Bergman. Brussels: Club du livre
Tomasso. Ingmar Bergman. Rome: Canesi, 1964. Ingmar Bergman: A Monograph. Loughton, Essex: Motion
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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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Garfinkel, Bernie. Liu Ullmann och Ingmar Bergman. Stockholm: Askild
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Gibson, Arthur. Gill,
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Hook, Marianne. Ingmar Bergman. Stockholm: Wahlstrom
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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,
Seattle,
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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.
"The Seventh
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New
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Teghrarian, Salwa Eva Fuleihan. "The Cracked Lens:
The
Crisis
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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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Tornqvist, Egil. Bergman och Strindberg. Stockholm: Prisma, 1973.
Wood, Robin, Ingmar Bergman.
New
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Young, Vernon. Cinema Borealis: Ingmar Bergman and New York: David Lewis, 1971.
Articles,
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.
"Au
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Archer, Eugene. "The Rack of Life." Film Quarterly, 12 3-16.
Arecco, Sergio. "L'epica della nostalgia." Aristarco, Guido.
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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:
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