A Fax from Ingmar Bergman
Robert Keser
published in Swedish (courtesy of Film-Philosophy).
--Bob Keser
__________
A fax from Ingmar
Background: For many years, Ingmar Bergman has been residing on the
remote Swedish island of Far–. The small island only has a few people
living there all-year, and Bergman is one of them. On the island, he
also
has his own movie theatre, where he often has private screenings, since
he's so far off from any major city and wants to keep up with the new
interesting releases. As a token of appreciation for all he's done for
Swedish cinema during the years, all the distributors and theatre chains
in the country occassionally send him reels to watch. Bergman might be
old, but he's still very interested in new films, and apprently he
watches a lot.
The fun part: I have a friend who works for a small, independent-run
movie distributor, responsible for importing and distributing arguably
the best non-mainstream stuff here in Sweden. Anyway, each week they get
faxes from all over Sweden from theatres about orders, screenings,
changes in schedules, etc. And once in a while, a fax from Far– drops
in.
Friday last week, it happened again. The fax simply read: "These are the
movies Ingmar wishes to see this summer." I can now, exclusively for the
Critics Discussion on the RT board present Ingmar Bergman's summer
viewing:
Hus i helvete (Susan Taslimi, Sweden 2002)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, France/Hong Kong 2000)
B”nken/The Bench (Per Fly, Denmark 2000)
Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, USA 2001)
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, USA 2001)
La Stanza del figlio/The Son's Room (Nanni Moretti, Italy 2001)
Just thought I'd share this...
-----------
At the ripe age of 84, Ingmar Bergman is still very active in his
interest of new and old movies, as this thread proves and explains. He's
still very much up to date on new releases, and tries to see as many
films as possible. And he still has a lot of opinions. As an exclusive
for RT's Critics Forum , I can now present some chosen translated
excerpts from my Swedish morning paper Sydsvenska Dagbladet, which today
(Sunday) has a big and exclusive interview with Bergman (done by my
favourite film critic Jan Aghed, no less). In the interview, Bergman
speaks freely about new and old films and filmmakers, and parts of it
were very entertaining and quotable. The interview in its entirety (in
Swedish!) can be found here.
About Orson Welles:
"Bergman: For me he's just a hoax. It's empty. It's not interesting.
It's
dead. Citizen Kane, which I have a copy of - is all the critics'
darling,
always at the top of every poll taken, but I think it's a total bore.
Above all, the performances are worthless. The amount of respect that
movie's got is absolutely unbelievable.
Aghed: How about The Magnificent Ambersons?
Bergman: Nah. Also terribly boring. And I've never liked Welles as an
actor, because he's not really an actor. In Hollywood you have two
categories, you talk about actors and personalities. Welles was an
enormous personality, but when he plays Othello, everything goes down
the
drain, you see, that's when he's croaks. In my eyes he's an infinitely
overrated filmmaker."
About Michelangelo Antonioni:
"Bergman: He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the
rest. One is Blow-Up, which I've seen many times, and the other is La
Notte, also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the
young
Jeanne Moreau. In my collection I have a copy of Il Grido, and damn what
a boring movie it is. So devilishly sad, I mean. You know, Antonioni
never really learned the trade. He concentrated on single images, never
realising that film is a rhythmic flow of images, a movement. Sure,
there
are brilliant moments in his films. But I don't feel anything for
L'Avventura, for example. Only indifference. I never understood why
Antonioni was so incredibly applauded. And I thought his muse Monica
Vitti was a terrible actress."
About Federico Fellini:
"Bergman: We were supposed to collaborate once, and along with Kurosawa
make one love story each for a movie produced by Dino de Laurentiis. I
flew down to Rome with my script and spent a lot of time with Fellini
while we waited for Kurosawa, who finally couldn't leave Japan because
of
his health, so the project went belly-up. Fellini was about to finish
Satyricon. I spent a lot of time in the studio and saw him work. I loved
him both as a director and as a person, and I still watch his movies,
like La Strada and that childhood rememberance - what's that called
again?
The interviewer has also seen the movie several times, but just now the
title slips his mind. Bergman laughs delightedly.
Bergman: Great that you're also a bit senile! That pleases me.
(Later the same day, several hours after the interview, the phone rings.
It's Bergman. 'AMARCORD!' he shouts.)"
About Francois Truffaut:
"Bergman: I liked Truffaut a lot, I've felt a lot of admiration for his
way to address the audience, and his storytelling. La nuit amÈricaine
[Day for Night] is
adorable, and another film I like to see is L'Enfant sauvage, with its
fine humanism."
About Jean-Luc Godard:
"Bergman: I've never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt
constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically
uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He's made
his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin/FÈminin, was shot
here in Sweden. It was mindnumbingly boring."
About Andrei Tarkovsky:
"Late one evening in 1971, Bergman and his friend and director Kjell
Grede by pure coincidence stumbled upon a copy of Andrei Rublev in a
screening room at Svensk Filmindustri. They saw it without any
subtitles.
He ranks it to be one of his most startling and unforgettable movie
experiences ever."
About modern American cinema:
"Bergman: Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven
Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased
making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say,
they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking
process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of
examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and
Magnolia."
Anthony Gaza Man an Ancient Race
> Here's the text of some excerpts from an Ingmar Bergman interview
> published in Swedish (courtesy of Film-Philosophy).
>
> --Bob Keser
thank you most kindly bob but give us the FULL text.
thanks in advance.
Anthony Gaza Man an Ancient Race
> "Bergman: Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven
> Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased
> making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say,
> they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking
> process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of
> examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and
> Magnolia."
according to bergman...
welles sucks but american beauty and magnolia are signs of strength
for the american cinema?
i say...
moviemakers make the worst critics. like sam peckinpah--my numero uno
dude--once said that searchers is john ford's worst... of course, it's
his very best.
well, let moviemakers make movies but tell them to shut the f*** up
about movies. they don't know shit.
larry legallo
<rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Here's the text of some excerpts from an Ingmar Bergman interview
>published in Swedish (courtesy of Film-Philosophy).
>
>--Bob Keser
Is that from the mailing list over there, Bob? I've browsed through
that site a few times, but I forgot to bring my snorkel, so I had to
leave. What is wrong with those people? What part of their ass do
they pull words like 'semioticization' out of? And God forbid if
you're not completely versed in every psychoanalytic element of
Lacanian theory. Can they get through one paragraph without using the
prefix meta- in some annoyingly inventive way? I mean I like an
academic approach to cinema as much as anyone, and the politics are
just my speed, but how many goddamn Gilles Deleuze essays (and by
that, I don't mean essays written by Deleuze himself- I mean essays
about Deleuze's essays) can you process before your head explodes?
Somebody get me to aint-it-cool-news quick, where I can read about the
latest Jennifer Love Hewitt project. Help.
So, how's the mailing list?
Robert Keser
Ha! That's the same group, all right! The mailing list supplies a
*daily* barrage of pedantry. 'Prolix' is one word which springs to
mind, and 'insufferable' and 'indigestible', and... No one despises
Deleuze and Lacan more than me, but every time I decide to
unsubscribe, something provocative pops up, like the Bergman
piece, which doesn't seem available anywhere else. Also, Robert
Koehler, the critic for 'Variety', participates now and then with
some great stuff (about Antonioni, for example) and ridicules them
for having their heads in the clouds (to put it politely). Last month,
Jon Jost (artist and sometime filmmaker: remember 'All the Vermeers
in New York'?) stormed through and blistered their ears with his
contempt for their "turgid academic BS". Just like 'Aint-it-cool-news',
it's a kind of social spectacle, but at least this bunch can spell...
--Bob Keser
Robert Keser
You're welcome, Tony, but that's all I have, every word. I'll keep an
eye out for a full translation, though.
--Bob Keser
Robert Keser
Ha! That's the same group, all right! The mailing list supplies a
larry legallo
<rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>larry legallo wrote:
>
>> So, how's the mailing list?
>
>Ha! That's the same group, all right! The mailing list supplies a
>*daily* barrage of pedantry. 'Prolix' is one word which springs to
>mind, and 'insufferable' and 'indigestible', and... No one despises
>Deleuze and Lacan more than me, but every time I decide to
>unsubscribe, something provocative pops up, like the Bergman
>piece, which doesn't seem available anywhere else. Also, Robert
>Koehler, the critic for 'Variety', participates now and then with
>some great stuff (about Antonioni, for example) and ridicules them
>for having their heads in the clouds (to put it politely). Last month,
>Jon Jost (artist and sometime filmmaker: remember 'All the Vermeers
>in New York'?) stormed through and blistered their ears with his
>contempt for their "turgid academic BS". Just like 'Aint-it-cool-news',
>it's a kind of social spectacle, but at least this bunch can spell...
>
>--Bob Keser
Actually, I like the site (although the essays have a lot of dead
links). I mean where else are you going to find titles like:
Film Aesthetics and Parkinson's Nostalgia for Psychologisms
Film Form: An Argument for a Functional Theory of Style in the
Individual Film
Floating 'In a World of Shit' - Full Metal Jacket's Excremental Vision
(I'm not making these up)
Invaginating Antonioni
Home Alone: American Dream/American Nightmare
The Site of the Body in Torture/The Sight of the Tortured Body:
Contemporary Incarnations of Graphic Violence in the Cinema and the
Vision of Edgar Allen Poe
That last one's a grabber, isn't it? Now why don't we have more of
this high academia on this group? Remember that crazy Ray Carney
zealot awhile back that went to war with Nimrod over the merit of John
Cassavettes as ultimate cinematic messiah? Where did that freak crawl
off to?
So Bob, I'm counting on you to deliver some deep scholarly input, and
raise ramp-f out of the middlebrow muck, into the exalted land of
cognitvism, phenomenology, and Hegelian epistemology. The good people
at google tell me that nobody in the history of this newgroup has ever
used the word "scopophilia". There, I broke the ice. Now pick up the
ball and run with it. I'm gonna go talk to Kate.
larry legallo
Man an Ancient Race) wrote:
>according to bergman...
>welles sucks but american beauty and magnolia are signs of strength
>for the american cinema?
>
>i say...
>
>moviemakers make the worst critics. like sam peckinpah--my numero uno
>dude--once said that searchers is john ford's worst... of course, it's
>his very best.
>
>well, let moviemakers make movies but tell them to shut the f*** up
>about movies. they don't know shit.
I'm not too surprised by Bergman's comments, only disheartened. His
taste obviously runs against the stylized formalists, and towards the
more conventional human themes and stories. Hates Godard, likes
Truffaut, hates Welles, likes Fellini. His Antonioni remarks are kind
of a head-scratcher, but they fit within his limited field of
understanding.
Cultural exploration, political inquiry, and formal experimentation
are outside Bergman's hemisphere. What Godard and Welles were doing
with cinema is elusive to him. So he calls it boring. Repudiating
Brechtian philosophy is one thing, but he doesn't even get it.
American Beauty and Traffic were made for this guy. I thought he was
about to say The Green Mile is the most beautiful film he's seen in
ages.
Doesn't mean he didn't make some incredible films. Diversity is what
art is all about.
Robert Keser
> On 26 Jun 2002 23:35:35 -0700, thegre...@hotmail.com (Anthony Gaza
> Man an Ancient Race) wrote:
>
> >according to bergman...
> >welles sucks but american beauty and magnolia are signs of strength
> >for the american cinema?
> >
> >i say...
> >
> >moviemakers make the worst critics. like sam peckinpah--my numero uno
> >dude--once said that searchers is john ford's worst... of course, it's
> >his very best.
> >
> >well, let moviemakers make movies but tell them to shut the f*** up
> >about movies. they don't know shit.
>
> I'm not too surprised by Bergman's comments, only disheartened. His
> taste obviously runs against the stylized formalists, and towards the
> more conventional human themes and stories. Hates Godard, likes
> Truffaut, hates Welles, likes Fellini. His Antonioni remarks are kind
> of a head-scratcher, but they fit within his limited field of
> understanding.
What he criticizes in Antonioni could equally apply to Bergman himself:
"He concentrated on single images, never realising that film is a rhythmic
flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his
films. But I don't feel anything for [Seventh Seal? Virgin Spring? The
Silence?], for example. Only indifference." Maybe this is a case
of criticizing our own faults when we see them reflected in someone else.
I'd like to know Bergman's take on In the Mood For Love, with its
narrative that never quite makes sense (some articles are claiming that
it's not supposed to make sense, and we're meant to be satisfied with
the textures and the allusiveness and the contradiction of Nat King
Cole singing in Spanish).
>
>
> Cultural exploration, political inquiry, and formal experimentation
> are outside Bergman's hemisphere. What Godard and Welles were doing
> with cinema is elusive to him. So he calls it boring. Repudiating
> Brechtian philosophy is one thing, but he doesn't even get it.
> American Beauty and Traffic were made for this guy. I thought he was
> about to say The Green Mile is the most beautiful film he's seen in
> ages.
If you isolate yourself on a remote island, cut off from human
stimulation, I suppose that the tinsel of American Beauty and Traffic
would outshine the fundamental sawdust. But hasn't there always been
something very middlebrow about Bergman, with his self-absorbed
couples and his easy grotesquerie? (I keep thinking of Cries and
Whispers, where Ingrid Thulin announces to her husband that she put
ground glass in her vagina: that scene has always struck me as both
loony and stupidly obvious, not unlike Kevin Spacey's next-door
neighbor being a murderous marine).
>
>
> Doesn't mean he didn't make some incredible films. Diversity is what
> art is all about.
>
>
Whew! For a minute there, I thought I might have to choose between
Angelopoulos and Raoul Walsh!
--Bob Keser
Robert Keser
Floating in a world of shit somehow seems easier than invaginating
Antonioni, but that could just be me...
My favorite title, though, is 'I Spit On Your Philosophy of Horror'.
>
>
> Now why don't we have more of
> this high academia on this group? Remember that crazy Ray Carney
> zealot awhile back that went to war with Nimrod over the merit of John
> Cassavettes as ultimate cinematic messiah? Where did that freak crawl
> off to?
Shhh! You might wake him up!
>
>
> So Bob, I'm counting on you to deliver some deep scholarly input, and
> raise ramp-f out of the middlebrow muck, into the exalted land of
> cognitvism, phenomenology, and Hegelian epistemology. The good people
> at google tell me that nobody in the history of this newgroup has ever
> used the word "scopophilia". There, I broke the ice. Now pick up the
> ball and run with it. I'm gonna go talk to Kate.
Shame on you, Larry, for linking Kate and scopophilia in our minds!
(By the way, could you find out when she was born? Why won't she
tell us?!)
Anyway, this multiplicity of presuppositions in the integrationist mode
suggests a renegotiation of tactility rather than stasis. But then, as I'm
sure you'll agree, writing is asynchronous (disembodied).
--Bob Keser
John Harkness
<rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Whew! For a minute there, I thought I might have to choose between
>Angelopoulos and Raoul Walsh!
>
>--Bob Keser
>
You say that like it would be a tough decision.
John Harkness
Robert Keser
Well, I could happily spend all day watching that giant head of Lenin
moving up and down the Danube in 'Ulysses' Gaze'
On the other hand, how could we give up 'The Revolt of Mamie
Stover' or 'Esther and the King'? (Hey, anybody can appreciate
'Sadie Thompson' or 'The Roaring Twenties' or 'White Heat', but
it takes a real fan to wring something out of *late* Raoul Walsh.
That's when he used to sit in the director's chair reading the
newspaper during takes, and then yelled 'Cut' when the actors'
voices stopped).
--Bob Keser
larry legallo
<rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>larry legallo wrote:
>
>> I'm not too surprised by Bergman's comments, only disheartened. His
>> taste obviously runs against the stylized formalists, and towards the
>> more conventional human themes and stories. Hates Godard, likes
>> Truffaut, hates Welles, likes Fellini. His Antonioni remarks are kind
>> of a head-scratcher, but they fit within his limited field of
>> understanding.
>
>What he criticizes in Antonioni could equally apply to Bergman himself:
>"He concentrated on single images, never realising that film is a rhythmic
>flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his
>films. But I don't feel anything for [Seventh Seal? Virgin Spring? The
>Silence?], for example. Only indifference." Maybe this is a case
>of criticizing our own faults when we see them reflected in someone else.
Absolutely. Especially to pick Il Grido as his target. Themes of
death and wandering, romantic struggles, forced symbolism, meticulous
imagery, functional editing, a closed-off world, a paucity of action.
Look in the mirror, Ingmar.
Antonioni has often been criticized for having more of a
photographer's imagination than a filmmaker's. Maybe this is true.
But I think his images are so expressive and commentative, I don't
want a whole lot of movement. I'd rather just meditate on each
composition. (that's after I've invaginated him, of course)
Many Bergman films sit flat on the screen for me, however. I don't
like to bash him too harshly, because he is an important figure in my
personal journey (sorry, Marty and Tom) through movies. But whereas
some people regard him as the pinnacle of 'serious' cinema, I prefer
to look at him as a stage to be passed through, on the way to more
vibrant, challenging, deeply satisfying movies.
>I'd like to know Bergman's take on In the Mood For Love, with its
>narrative that never quite makes sense (some articles are claiming that
>it's not supposed to make sense, and we're meant to be satisfied with
>the textures and the allusiveness and the contradiction of Nat King
>Cole singing in Spanish).
I'd like to know his opinion of Last Tango in Paris, or The Mother and
the Whore.
>If you isolate yourself on a remote island, cut off from human
>stimulation, I suppose that the tinsel of American Beauty and Traffic
>would outshine the fundamental sawdust. But hasn't there always been
>something very middlebrow about Bergman, with his self-absorbed
>couples and his easy grotesquerie? (I keep thinking of Cries and
>Whispers, where Ingrid Thulin announces to her husband that she put
>ground glass in her vagina: that scene has always struck me as both
>loony and stupidly obvious, not unlike Kevin Spacey's next-door
>neighbor being a murderous marine).
Or Peter Gallagher's cartoonish real estate agent, the bouncy gay
neighbors, or even Annette Bening's absurdly compulsive wife.
Contrived symbolism, formulaic motives, and emotional manipulation-
all under the disguise of realism.
I have to admit to always having a strange affinity for the glass in
the vagina, though. Maybe it's because I was around 16 when I first
saw it .
>> Doesn't mean he didn't make some incredible films. Diversity is what
>> art is all about.
>>
>
>Whew! For a minute there, I thought I might have to choose between
>Angelopoulos and Raoul Walsh!
That bit of pedantry was meant for Tony. You have to spoonfeed him
sometimes.
Jim
> Antonioni has often been criticized for having more of a
> photographer's imagination than a filmmaker's. Maybe this is true.
> But I think his images are so expressive and commentative, I don't
> want a whole lot of movement. I'd rather just meditate on each
> composition. (that's after I've invaginated him, of course)
Invaginated?! Anyway, I heartily agree on Antonioni's compositions. It's
been more than 20 years since I saw "The Passenger". But there are shots in
it that still haunt my memory. There is one of Maria Schneider standing up
as she rides in a convertible. She is shot from below and you look up into
her face as she spreads her arms out in the breeze. It burned itself into
my memory. And there is another shot where Nicholson is riding in a gondola
in Barcelona. He leans out the window and also spreads his arms in the
breeze. We see a shot of him from above and he is framed from the waist
out. He appears to be flying. I can't remember any one shot from a Bergman
movie that took my breath away like those two. His compositions tended to
be more theatrical than photographic.
Robert Keser
> On Mon, 01 Jul 2002 06:39:41 -0500, Robert Keser
> <rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> >What he criticizes in Antonioni could equally apply to Bergman himself:
> >"He concentrated on single images, never realising that film is a rhythmic
> >flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his
> >films. But I don't feel anything for [Seventh Seal? Virgin Spring? The
> >Silence?], for example. Only indifference." Maybe this is a case
> >of criticizing our own faults when we see them reflected in someone else.
>
> Absolutely. Especially to pick Il Grido as his target. Themes of
> death and wandering, romantic struggles, forced symbolism, meticulous
> imagery, functional editing, a closed-off world, a paucity of action.
> Look in the mirror, Ingmar.
>
> Antonioni has often been criticized for having more of a
> photographer's imagination than a filmmaker's. Maybe this is true.
> But I think his images are so expressive and commentative, I don't
> want a whole lot of movement. I'd rather just meditate on each
> composition. (that's after I've invaginated him, of course)
Be careful, Larry: don't invaginate any of that ground glass! To me,
Bergman seems very theatrical in that he seems chained to his chamber
dramas of clashing egos. What he has to offer visually is the often
luminous closeups of his great actors, but he rarely uses the rest of
the material world as a subject. Now, think of the opening shot of the
mysterious monolithic power of the Pirelli Building in 'La Notte' or the
eerie sounds of the flagpoles creaking in 'L'Eclisse' or the apocalyptic
explosive finale of 'Zabriskie Point'. Scenes like these are unthinkable
in Bergman. This attention to what is around us makes Antonioni's
movies seem filmic, while Bergman ignores this to concentrate on
people in a theatrical way. In the theater, if there are no actors on
stage, nothing is happening, yet the beauty of film is its much wider
range of expressive tools. It's no surprise to me that Bergman would
gravitate to working in TV because his style loses little on the small
screen, but Antonioni loses a lot because he provides a richer
experience in terms of film.
>
>
> Many Bergman films sit flat on the screen for me, however. I don't
> like to bash him too harshly, because he is an important figure in my
> personal journey (sorry, Marty and Tom) through movies. But whereas
> some people regard him as the pinnacle of 'serious' cinema, I prefer
> to look at him as a stage to be passed through, on the way to more
> vibrant, challenging, deeply satisfying movies.
Oh, sure, there's no denying many great passages in Bergman, but
they never seem wholly satisfying to me, partly because of the visual
limitations, partly due to the sometimes obvious ego dramas of the
characters. (Of course, all artists are allowed their embarassing lapses,
like much of 'The Touch' and 'The Serpent's Egg', or in Antonioni's
case, those awful mimes in 'Blow-Up' or the inadequate acting in
'Zabriskie Point').
>
>
> >I'd like to know Bergman's take on In the Mood For Love, with its
> >narrative that never quite makes sense (some articles are claiming that
> >it's not supposed to make sense, and we're meant to be satisfied with
> >the textures and the allusiveness and the contradiction of Nat King
> >Cole singing in Spanish).
>
> I'd like to know his opinion of Last Tango in Paris, or The Mother and
> the Whore.
These sound like exactly his kind of movies!
>
>
> >If you isolate yourself on a remote island, cut off from human
> >stimulation, I suppose that the tinsel of American Beauty and Traffic
> >would outshine the fundamental sawdust. But hasn't there always been
> >something very middlebrow about Bergman, with his self-absorbed
> >couples and his easy grotesquerie? (I keep thinking of Cries and
> >Whispers, where Ingrid Thulin announces to her husband that she put
> >ground glass in her vagina: that scene has always struck me as both
> >loony and stupidly obvious, not unlike Kevin Spacey's next-door
> >neighbor being a murderous marine).
>
> Or Peter Gallagher's cartoonish real estate agent, the bouncy gay
> neighbors, or even Annette Bening's absurdly compulsive wife.
> Contrived symbolism, formulaic motives, and emotional manipulation-
> all under the disguise of realism.
Not to mention the ridiculous plot turn of Spacey's job in a burger
joint--why would they even hire him?--which seems to exist as an
opportunity to sneer at folks who do have to work there.
>
>
> I have to admit to always having a strange affinity for the glass in
> the vagina, though. Maybe it's because I was around 16 when I first
> saw it .
Oh, I understand: 16 year-olds are often interested in glass.
>
>
> >> Doesn't mean he didn't make some incredible films. Diversity is what
> >> art is all about.
> >>
> >
> >Whew! For a minute there, I thought I might have to choose between
> >Angelopoulos and Raoul Walsh!
>
> That bit of pedantry was meant for Tony. You have to spoonfeed him
> sometimes.
Don't worry: Tony is busy assessing the merits of this week's crop
of starlets.
--Bob Keser
Robert Keser
All I can remember from 'Passenger' is the camera moving from
Nicholson's hotel room, out the window, and then continuing into
the desert. It seemed an amazing shot in 1975, not so much for the
technology but as a daring stylistic choice. I sure wish Jack Nicholson
would let us see this movie again (he's apparently the sticking point for
its availabilty as he owns the rights).
--Bob Keser
Kevin FilmNutBoy
>On Mon, 01 Jul 2002 06:39:41 -0500, Robert Keser
><rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>larry legallo wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not too surprised by Bergman's comments, only disheartened. His
>>> taste obviously runs against the stylized formalists, and towards the
>>> more conventional human themes and stories. Hates Godard, likes
>>> Truffaut, hates Welles, likes Fellini. His Antonioni remarks are kind
>>> of a head-scratcher, but they fit within his limited field of
>>> understanding.
>>
>>What he criticizes in Antonioni could equally apply to Bergman himself:
>>"He concentrated on single images, never realising that film is a rhythmic
>>flow of images, a movement. Sure, there are brilliant moments in his
>>films. But I don't feel anything for [Seventh Seal? Virgin Spring? The
>>Silence?], for example. Only indifference." Maybe this is a case
>>of criticizing our own faults when we see them reflected in someone else.
>
>Absolutely. Especially to pick Il Grido as his target. Themes of
>death and wandering, romantic struggles, forced symbolism, meticulous
>imagery, functional editing, a closed-off world, a paucity of action.
>Look in the mirror, Ingmar.
Some of his comments are so bizarre (Antonioni, American Beauty), I have to
wonder if his advanced age (about 83 now) is a factor in this interview.
--Kevin
***
Opinions expressed in the above post are usually irrefutable.
larry legallo
<rfk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>All I can remember from 'Passenger' is the camera moving from
>Nicholson's hotel room, out the window, and then continuing into
>the desert. It seemed an amazing shot in 1975, not so much for the
>technology but as a daring stylistic choice. I sure wish Jack Nicholson
>would let us see this movie again (he's apparently the sticking point for
>its availabilty as he owns the rights).
>
>--Bob Keser
The Passenger is available on VHS (it's actually one of the 14 foreign
films for rent at my local Blockbuster). The one that I've never been
able to find is L'Eclisse.
The WinStar DVD of La Notte is a wretched bowdlerization.