f A. I. thless or spielbergmania

[cerebur...@hotmail.com]

what do spielberg and bergman have in common? precious little.
however, by the way of kubrick as bridge, we may discern certain
underlying parallels.

for the most part, it would be senseless to seek parallels between
spielberg and bergman if it hadn't been for the release of 'faithless'
and 'AI' around the same time. in a way, both films deal with similar
subjects and reveal much about the interior lives of their creators.
dig deep into any two people and you find similar psychic dna. the
connective link here is kubrick, possibly an artist greater than the
two combined; maybe not. i dunno. who cares?

what do AI and faithless have in common? for one thing, both are the
creations of a partnership of two conflicting sensibilities--hard and
soft, masculin and feminine, intellectual and emotional, such and such.

both films are compromised yet enriched by the cooperative endeavor.
both were conceived of by two 'clinical', 'cold', 'intellectual', and
'ruthless' minds. both were executed by emotional, child-like,
forgiving, and warm sensibilities.
both films would certainly have been more austere and harsher if
directed by the original authors. one could even say that spielberg and

ullmann were absurd choices for overseeing the realization. yet, it's
because of this contrasting and contradictory nature that these films
profoundly reveal the tension and dynamism at the very core of art. how

much is art intellectual? how much is it emotional? how much
demanding? how much reassuring? how much rebellious, or dictatorial?
how much submissive, subversive? ironically, in both cases, it's as
though the softer, more mainstream sensibilities of spielberg and
ullmann served a subversive function upon the original scenarios laid
out by their 'superiors'. even as they respectfully carried out the
wishes of the masters, they transformed the masters' vision into their
own, despite or cuz of their outward show of admiration and submission.

indeed, it's often the most loyal follower who most undoes the
original intent of the great one.

i dunno much about kubrick or bergman but i do know they were superbly
manipulative and assholish. there's no doubt that both saw themselves
as superb important artists despite their protestations otherwise.
both chose to live in a state of exile, sort of. kubrick bought
himself a big mansion in UK. he even made full metal jacket and eyes
wide shut in britain. in a way, he was the biggest artist in
(self)exile in history. certainly the most privleged. how comical when

he imported palm trees to britain for full metal jacket as though the
world should follow him in exile. bergman's self-exile was more
appropriate because, unlike kubrick, bergman's vision was small-scale.
fanny and alexander was prolly his only big production, but it too is
rather limited in production values compared to barry lyndon, shining,
2001, etc. like blob dylan, they were artists who felt a need to
withdraw from the world and connect only thru the elevated form of art.

it was as though they were afraid of coming across as mere mortals
amongst ordinary people. they hid in their meditative caves and only
periodically exhorted to mankind with their elaborately prepared works
of great art... like yahweh never showing his mug and appearing only on

occasion to bless(or curse) us with great commandments and miracles.
they wanted the world to see them--or their elaborate masks--only at
their best.
granted, they were all too aware of this and often dealt with themes of

deception and self-deception, the power of illusion, etc.
by the standards of most celebrities who always want to be seen, they
were reclusives. in public life, they only wanted to exist as great
artists; otherwise, they didn't exist except thru hyped rumors of
masterpieces being prepared for future release. needless to say, there

has grown a certain cult and fanatical devotion around kubrick, dylan,
and bergman though bergman's star seriously began dipping in the 70s
thanks to change in film culture sensibility that favored popular
auteurs; bergman's close association with much reviled john simon
prolly didn't help much either. the bergman/simon axis was the enemy
of godard/radical/populist alliance.

now, i know even less about ullmann. maybe, she's a manipulative person

too. but, she's a ho. and, she never struck me as intellectual though
she';s prolly smart enough. like most actors and actresses, i think
she wanted fame and recognition, even for superficial qualities like
being good-looking. consider her role in stuff like 'lost horizon'. she

was not an artist as purist.
as for spielberg, we know he aint no dummy. he's a savvy, cunning, and
opportunistic businessman. BUT, there is no denying that he never lost
his childhood infatuation with the magic of cinema. formative
influences on him during his teens or earlier proved definitive and
fixed. sure, he's capable of churning out a fine intelligent mooie
like schindler's list or catch me if you can, but there is a certain
innocence at the core of all his movies. we can argue he's going for
the common denominator, just giving us what we want--populist
assurance. but, i can't help feeling that spielberg sincerely clings to

an hopeful, forgiving, and optimistic humanism. he's like desica
crossed with disney's pinocchio. by his very nature, spielberg is an
amiable fellow. he 'compromises' not out of opportunism but,
ironically, of conviction. he respects the wishes of other people, even

the audience. if he gives us an happy ending, it's not only for
box-office but because the audience is owed such. they are hardworking

tired masses. why not give them some sweetness in life? like the
character in sullivan's travels, spielberg sees genuine value in
entertainment making people happy and giving them hope.
there is something of the statue of liberty about all of his movies.
america may be a tough place for immigrants; but, what's wrong with
spreading and encouraging hope amongst the huddled masses, that it's a
blessing to live in the land of the free?
bergman is like a strict lutheran minister who's convinced that the
world is fallen and god has turned his back on us--or worse, there is
no god and therefore no meaning--, and there is no sense pretending
otherwise. spielberg is like a populist preacher who says god is in
each of us if we believe in Him, that we don't have to look upward but
just reach in our hearts. look at ET. the bugger done died but his
heart starts glowing and it's alive again. it's like that neil diamond
song, 'turn on your heartlights'. funny but didn't diamond also sing
'coming to america'?

between kubrick and bergman, the former was more theoretical and
philosophical--even dry--while the latter, for all his intellect, was
haunted by deep emotional scars. but, bergman never surrendered to his
emotions. bergman was like someone who couldn't shi* relaxedly which is

why he was neurotic. he had to ponder the nature of the doogie that was

squishing out of his butt. so, instead of letting it all burst out and
go 'ahhhh', bergman sha* in bits and pieces. his mental anus never felt

relieved. was it sinful to shi*? should one fart? should shi* be
looser or firmer? was it stinky? was it okay for shi* to be stinky? or,

should he change his diet? should he do it more regularly? in the
morning or at night? once or twice a day?
or, we can use the analogy of food, my favorite. bergman was never a
pig-outer. fellini was a pig-outer and some of his films are joyous and

funsterish. but, bergman ate mouthful at a time, trying to taste every
morsel. but, this was less for enjoyment than out of guilt... or fear
that it might be poison. he was brought up under a strict lutheran pa,

the sort that was very distrustful of pleasure, deemed sinful. though
bergman rebelled against his pa and went his own ways, there lingered
the inhibitions instilled by his pa. so, bergman couldn't really enjoy

the pleasures of life. he felt a need to justify pleasures by
intellectualizing them. but, if religious folks kill joy by repressive
guilt-ism, intellectual types kill fun by over-analysis. this is what
also happened to godard who turned radical and began deconstructing
women, movies, politics, etc, etc as though it was wrong to accept the
world as-is and just have fun like beer guzzling american hillbilly or
even a chanson loving frog.
in a strange way, peckinpah had this problem too. he was brought up
tough under his hardass pa and grandpa. though peckinpah eventually
became wild and crazy, one wonders if his extremism was a kind of
overreaction to his younger days. rebels even take on the
characteristics of their past masters. both bergman and peckinpah were
also dictatorial meanies.

i don't know much about kubrick but he doesn't seemed to have suffered
this kind of torment. his family was pretty open-minded, and kubrick
did as he pleased from an early age. so, he developed fewer personal
complexes. most often, he knew and got what he wanted. he had a sense
of balance, something missing in most men. so, kubester considered
himself as being in a rare position to 'objectively' study and examine
mankind. besides, he was a supersmart jew to boot. if kubrick
experienced frustration in life, it was film was an expensive art, and
he had to rely on hollywood boogerheads. kubrick's challenge was
figuring out a way to persuade an insane asylum run by lunatics to
welcome him as in-house psychologist. he would stay in the background,
patiently taking notes, not getting in anyone's way, and then producing

one helluva of medical report.
because kubrick had self-confidence and considered himself saner than
most folks, he didn't feel an urge to examine his innermost self; a
sane person doensn't need a diagnosis.
it's neurotics who feel misunderstood and a need to express or justify
themselves to the world. bergman was messed up inside. though he often
posed as a doctor of sorts, his movies were all self-therapy. his back
was on the couch.
but, kubrick's films were rarely about individuals, least himself.
rather, kubrick made movies about mankind. granted, there is no single
animal called mankind yet beneath the cosmetic exterior, kubrick saw
the core of mankind as being more or less the same--stupid and
ape-like. even if there was diversity amongst humanity, most people
fell into several broad categories. whether it's dr. strangelove or
full metal jacket, we see archetypes than individuals. we see the
jokers, the cowboys, the gomer pyles, etc. people are predictable like

chess pieces and governed by a set of preordained rules, though, to be
sure, there are countless permutations. if joker is more
individualistic than most, it's because humor allows a certain
subversion of categories that define us.
ironically, it's by letting go of one's own individuality that one
attains a kind of higher or aloof individuality. consider quilty in
lolita. he's everything and nothing, a real joker. for precisely this

reason, he has a certain freedom and control over himself--cuz he
doesn't obey any rules. in contrast, humperdinck is trapped inside his

private emotions and personal biography. he's so obvious, a dufus in
love. but, he was the free-thinking joker in relation to shelly
winters the bimbo twad.
it's doubtful that kubrick even believed in free will, at least
regarding most folks. his version of clockwork orange is disturbing
because, while sharing burgess's skepticism over social engineering,
kubrick also seems to reject burgess's humanistic sentiments on the
primacy of free will. if kubrick saw any redeeming quality in alex,
it's alex's sense of humor, his aloofness over mankind. he's a joker
like matthew modine in jacket and peter sellers in lolita. and, dr.
strangelove was, in a perverted sort of way, the only wiseman in the
entire movie. he understood the farcical nature of it all.

of course, being everything and nothing also can cause serious
neurosis. look at dylan and woody allen. their role-playing got so
wild that they kinda went bonkers for awhile. kubrick, for the most
part, avoided this by understanding what he really wanted to do in life

and secluding himself from forces that might undermine his chosen
mission. in relation to hollywood folks, he was like hal computer
facing the human crew. he wasn't gonna let them inside his creative
ship to endanger his all-too-important mission.
one more thing. perhaps, military subjects appealed to kubrick because
nothing in the world is more serious/deadly and absurd/funny than war.
it's about survival and fighting for the highest values. yet, in the
name of these highest values, humans act like crazy apes. military
demands that boys be shaped into men. yet, the whole training is like
hormone crazed boy scout camp, determined to keep male psychology on
the level of grammar school gym class. war brings out the greatest
contradictions, the greatest hypocrisies, and greatest absurdities.
yet, it also highlights the greatest truths about man; that
contradiction and tension are the mainstay of human existence.
contradictions may be absurd but it's more absurd trying to rid the
world of them. marxists tried and failed. the only way out of this
contradiction may be transcendental as in 2001 but that would require
extraterrestial superduper transformation, something we can only
fantasize.
still, contradictions sure are painful. it's damned if you, damned if
you don't. consider a clockwork orange. neither free will nor social
engineering solves the problems of human condition.
but life goes on so we must 'fuc*', which is the last thing we done
heard in 'eyes wide shut', kubrick's final movie. it's so simple yet
so fitting. all of kubrick's films seem to indicate that at the root
of all endeavor is the sexual drive. it fuels our creative and
destrutive energies. conflicts of class, nationhood, ideology,
religion, etc are all permeated if not downright controlled by sexual
energy. our societies are hopelessly complicated and twisted as a
result. so what to do? fuc*. it solves nothing but restores the
elemental truth; it is the most honest expression of humanity, both an
escape from and entry back into reality.
fuc*ing also begats more chillun which adds to the complication. well,
what ya gonna do? it's like eating. the process of digestion is very
complex and twisted, like the maze in the shining. it can lead to all
sorts of diseases and aches and such. but, lifeforms exist to eat(and
fuc*). so, you gotta eat. 'eat', 'fuc*'. and don't forget 'shit'.
funny that in 'fanny and alexander', alexander mutters these expletives

during his father's funeral. on the one hand, it's obscene. yet, it
restores a sense of elemental truth amidst the pomp and bogosity.
some critics said the 'fuc*' at end of 'eyes wide shut' was flippant or

trite. but, it's neither profound nor trite. it's kubrick being candid.

all said and done, there is no way out. even fuc*ing is not a way out.
it is merely to re-enter into the fact of reality, of life. we are here

cuz others fuc*ed. we work hard cuz we want to fuc* better ho's. and,

if it's nicole kidman saying let's go fuc*, who's gonna argue? now,
whoopie goldberg, that's another story...
(returning to the subject of the military and war, all three artists
have tackled the matter. kubrick's approach has been near cosmic, even
comic; even when taking a close-up look as in paths of glory and full
metal jacket, he dealt with the general patterns--both in terms of
physical conditions and psychological dimensions--of war and human
behavior. for kubrick, it was just a human phenomenon, only much more
magnified and complicated by advancing technology. geniuses--from
moonwatcher ape to dr. strangelove--advance human capabilities, but as

savage nature still exists in man more science and technology may only
spell greater doom for man. higher the tower, greater the fall. the
assassin scene in the final moments of full metal jacket is harrowing
but kubrick watches coldly, with a surgical precision. he acknowledges
the pain of the downed soldier but also shares the perspective and
reality of the assassin. carefully, weighing two perspectives--american

and viet cong, male and female(as it turns out), many vs one(as it
turns out), weak against strong(always relative to circumstance), panic

vs. calm--we finally gaze down at the chess board from a neutral point
above.
the movie is not about america, vietnam, war crimes, etc. ultimately,
it's about core human psychology beneath the layers of ideology and
rationalizations.
milius's vision in 'apocalypse now' was, in a way, similar, except
milius rejects ideology in favor of braun while kubrick favors the
brain--which nevertheless, as stated in eyes wide shut, must accept the

naked truth that it all comes back down to fuc*ing.
bergman has also worked on the theme of war, but as a scaredy cat. i
wonder if one of the appeals of nazism to young bergman was its
insularity. nazis didn't want to acknowledge the reality outside that
of the aryan. the untermensch were like orks who didn't deserve to
exist. nazis dreamed of expansion but in terms of more of their own
world--a greater germany--and not for embracing diversity.
while bergman didn't disregard non-'aryans' as subhuman, he was, by
nature, unwilling to grapple with reality outside his own. in a way,
he was like a one-man nazi state who insisted on maintaining a world of

his own. his life and his art were all about hisself. now, kubrick,
despite his jewishness, has also been associated with certain aspects
of nazism or teutonism. his dr. strangelove character is a rather
lovable sort. susan sontag said that 2001 is rife with fascist
aesthetics and sensibility in terms of vision and philosophy. pauline
kael accused kubrick of being like a mad german scientist in making a
clockwork orange. and, a collaborator on eyes wide shut gave an account

of kubrick stating that hitler had it all right. but, if there is a
'fascist' sensibility at work in bergman and kubrick, the former's is
insular, personal, 'tribal'. it's fortress fascism to keep the
'impurities' out. kubrick's is more a kind of cosmic fascism,
associated with jungian concepts of the collective subconsious and
darwinian view of the connectedness of all life. a nazi could
interpret darwinism as the justification for all species and races
struggling to dominate or extinguish others. but, darwinian insights
can also inspire us to appreciate all life forms as being united by a
common ancestry despite the mutual antagonism for survival. one can
embrace darwinism as a diagnosis--as the first step in formulating a
consciousness or even a reality transcending the hitherto hidden
mechanisms. 2001 offers a glimpse of how such may be possible. eyes
wide shut ends with a more down-to-earth freudian conclusion of sex as
the thing.
anyway, bergman was instinctively afraid of the world outside his own.
his primary reality was his inner psyche haunted by demons. demons are
bad but they were HIS. for bergman, war and political upheaval meant
interruption to one's neurotic privelege. consider the scene where the

woman freaks out when she sees the burning monk in persona. it's not
so much that the image itself is horrifying, though it certainly is;
rather, the image trivializes her own problem which obsesses her. how
dare she lie in bed all day, obsessed with her neurotic problems when
there are wars, famines, pestilence, and trekkiedom around the world?
even the photo of the jew child being persecuted by nazis isn't so much

about political reality as anxiety at the fact of far greater horrors
than her own. woody allen also had this dilemma. he liked to crack
jokes but should one be making funny when there is so much suffering in

the world? is it way of coping or a cop-out? a child thinks his not
having ice cream is the greatest injustice in the world and would only
be angrier if told that there are starving people in china. why should

millions starve when he can't have ice cream? why should they matter
when his not having ice cream should be the greatest philosophical
conumdrum facing childkind? at some level, bergman never grew out of
his infantilism.
bergman was a selfish, self-centered, self-obsessed person. he found
great significance in every one of his tics and tacs and dreams and
upset stomach and migraines and toothaches, etc. he was a kind of
psychological hypochondriac, and we know that hypochondriacs, at some
level, are masochistic with their anxieties. depressing hypochondria
may be, but the main focus is turned on the self. one feels justified
in ignoring the rest of the world in worrying about one's own
innumerable illnesses. in a way, the disturbing thing about the
holocaust industry is it has become a collective hypchondria for jews
who refuse to acknowledge any reality other than their own. same with
blacks. since they suffer from a world infested with antisemitismitis
or racismitis, they can obsess only about their well-being at the
expense of all others.
anyway, in movies like persona, shame, serpents' egg, silence, and so
on, war is essentially a intruder disrupting one's privelege of being
comfortably numb. even in summer with monika, the young man can't stand

up to a bully and goes off on a boat trip with a girl; he wants to
escape; there is a certain cowardice and extreme anxiety. this is
where bergman, rogers waters, and hitler's psychology intersect. they
all had bunker mentalities. like selfish alexander couldn't stand the
minister, bergman couldn't stand reality cuz it interfered with his
self-obsession. though bergman hated his pa for the latter's brutality,

i suspect it was also because a minister has to live for matters bigger

than oneself. in winter light, the minister must struggle to live for
his parishoners and suppress his own personal feelings. and, in The
Wall, waters seems angry at WWII cuz it disrupted his cozy family life.

allies may have defeated the nazis and saved the world, but what about
MY pa, what about ME!!!??? very self-centered and self-obsessed. and,
though hitler was a man of the world, it was a case of making the world

in his own image than vice versa. he envisioned the world as a mere
extension of his mind and soul.
shame and serpent's egg are about how war or looming violence threatens

the enclosed world of private individuals. bergman's films don't say i
want to change the world or make it better. they say i wanna be alone
and live only in my reality. though anti-nazi, the psychological
structure of bergman had much in common with hitler; in a way, bergman
was like a pacifist nazi who, while not wanting to conquer the world,
didn't want to be conquered--or encroached or contaminated--by it
either. besides, what with a full war waging inside one's own soul,
who has time to engage in political conflict? nazism was about control

over life in racial terms, and bergman's films grappled with the theme
of life--its worth or worthlessness--in cold clinical terms as well.
nazis decided certain peoples should be exterminated; bergman asked if
life should even be brought into this world. both nazism and bergmanism

obsess on the themes of health, pathology, sickness. bergman was a
genuine modern artist in facing these demons yet it was a struggle and
a confrontation and never an abandonment as with 'degenerate' artists
like william burroughs, robert crumb, todd solondnz, and other booger
folks.
bergman was also nazi-esque in his obsession with power. even if
bergman wasn't powermad, he was deeply anxious about being powerless.
half of nazism was the extreme fear of being dominated by the brits and

russians. german felt surrounded, humiliated, belittled. nazism wasn't

just about world conquest but national survival, and the extreme fear
of being dominated and humiliated by other powers; this was all the
more acute because germans considered themselves a great people.
bergman too had a very high opinion of himself. even if he didn't have
mega worldly ambitions, he couldn't face the possibility of being
belittled or humbled by others--not least because so many who had power

over him were petty and despicable, like his pa and some of his
teachers. it's noteworthy that young hitler too felt humiliated and
trampled on by people of 'inferior' quality--starting with his petty
bureaucratic pa--who didn't deserve the power that they had, especially

over him. it's also funny that fellini, who ridiculed Fascism in
amarcord, had an ego as big as mussolini's. i guess dictatorial
personalities should go into the arts than politics--far less harmful.
but then hitler's first ambition was to be an artist. next time a nut
applies to art school, admit him by all means, talented or not. it
could be an insurance against 6 million people getting exterminated.
spielberg too has dealt with war in movies such as 1941, empire of the
sun, schindler's list, saving private ryan, and war of the worlds.
whatever mode employed, there has been a populist and communal sense
that good people can all band together to save the day. 1941 may be
kooky but it is a celebration of american unity and optimism. saving
private ryan is horrifying but a resounding tribute to courage and the
spirit of sacrifice. war of the worlds says there is a mysterious
bio-spiritual link--a kind of earthly Force--that shall see mankind
thru the darkest moments. munich may be more complex and disturbing but

unlike kubrick, spielberg doesn't afford himself a detached look. he
acknowledges both the israeli and palestinian perspectives. we see the
chess board from opposing angles but never from a neutral point above.
spielberg sees jews and arabs at odds and hopes they can acknowledge
the common bond of humanity. kubrick sees smart apes in different
ideological garbs caught up in yet another cosmic tragi-comedy.
spielberg is also different than bergman because, even while spielberg
has a fixed view of reality and morality it is communal than strictly
personal. roy in close encounters may be a very obsessive man but
finally, he comes to represent all our collective fascination with the
grand unknown. the individual becomes a representative archetype of
all our wishful fantasies.
in a bergman movie, people cannot communicate or connect--a projection
of bergman's own psychology on social reality. and, bergman's view has
been encouraged and sustained by the world in which he operated. after
all, he worked on a rather small scale with his usual repertory
company. there was no need to really connect or communicate with the
World.
spielberg, having grand schemes, needed to develop skills of working
with alot of people in every department--special effects, business,
logistics, etc. and he has succeeded beyond all expectations. so,
spielberg can sincerely believe in something like 'saving private ryan'

because his own biographical example has proven that alot of people of
different temperaments and agendas can all come together and create a
powerful and important work. heck, spielberg even has a pole--the
camera guy--working for him. who would have thought there could be
peace between a hebe and a polack?
anyway, all three artists are sincere in their view of mankind,
history, and war, and their films are informed by their personal lives,

experiences, and situations.)

you know, my mind is getting confused which is normal. where was i?
i dunno. but, how about bringing spielberg into the mix. unlike
kubrick, spielberg had a kind of a troubled childhood. it was happy in
a way, in peaceful suburbia. but, if kubrick grew up in jew dominated
NY with plenty of like-minded folks, spielberg most grew among dimwit
goyim who were stronger than he. and they sometimes whupped his arse.
in this sense, spielberg shares something with bergman. now, i don't
know if bergman got his ass whupped, but his films are heavy with
themes of humiliaton. there is alot of this in kubrick films too but we

don't sense that kubrick really shared or identified with his
characters' humiliation--whether in the killing, paths of glory,
lolita, shining, eyes wide shut, full metal jacket. kubrick was a
neutral observer.
but, bergman's films wrestle painfully with themes of humiliation,
whether it's man-on-kid, man-on-woman, woman-on-man, or woman-on-woman.

consider 'clown's evening' where the fatso gets humiliated real bad by

skinny jerk. consider the scene where the guy gets punched by a
leatherjacket bully in 'summer with monika'. consider the nasty
reverend guy and his mean antics against alexander. and consider the
meanery of 'faithless'. you know that bergman shares the pain. you know

that much of it is really his. bergman's sense of humiliation is as
both victim and perpetrator. especially 'faithless' is an indictment of

his own meanery. i think the issue of humiliation became complicated
with bergman because he himself is a mean person. was his meanness a
product of social factors or genetics? could he lay the blame on his
pa? or, was it in his nature to be an arsehole? one could ask the same

about the likes of peckinpah, godard, kael, and john simon. were they
born mean or did they grow mean?
anyway, bergman wrestled with the theme of humiliation cuz he was on
both sides of the equation. if he was so sensitive to meanness, why
was he himself so mean? if he disdained stern, judgmental, and harsh
folks, why was he himself so judgmental and unforgiving? who was he to

judge when he himself should be judged?
well, at least he was admitting that he had a meanass side. doesn't
that give him some kind of right to make statements about mankind? by
shi**ing on oneself, does one have the right to partially shi* on
others?
is bergman like rodney dangerfield?

spielberg's art is outwardly simple in contrast, but perhaps it's an
expression of sincerity than simplemindedness. spielberg is not a
meanster. he's rather an amiable sort. he even got along well with
gruff bear-boar zen fascist john milius. spielberg has uttered many
kind words for fellow artists. so, spielberg has a clearer
understanding of humiliation; he doesn't like it and doesn't wish it
upon others. so, he can condemn humiliation with sincerity and in good
conscience. he can say nazis suck cuz he doesn't have a nazi-bone in
his body. and, in a movie like munich, where spielberg really feels
conflicted and wants to be fair to both sides, there's genuine goodwill

and a lack of bitterness so pervasive in bergman's films.
bergman had a nazi-bone in his body. apart from his youthful dalliance

with nazism and admiration for hitler, there is something in bergman
that is intolerant, dismissive, haughty, and tight-jawed. consider his

venom against orson welles. i mean he beat up on the fatman as brutally

as hitler beat up on the jews. bergman has real demons. but, he's a
true artist in the sense that he's deeply self-critical and is perhaps
harshest on himself uber alles.
this is perhaps why woody allen will never be considered truly great
cuz for all his self-effacing affectations, he ultimately comes off as
the most lovable, forgivable dufus around.

-------

we should start by pondering the significance of mom/child relationship

according to kubrick, bergman, and spielberg. in ai, the robo-kid is
attached to a woman he considers his ma. the woman is eternally
imprinted in his consciousness as supermom. in a way, the kid's
attachment to this 'ma' is a metaphor for the collective
mommy-attachment consciousness in humankin--and even animal-kind, as
geeselings/ducklings imprint the first object they see as their mother,

even a cat as in a 'tom and jerry' cartoon. it's been said the reason
why a cat or dog clings to its master is the instinctive desire to
always remain with the ma-figure. in nature, the animal is torn from ma

figure and goes on its own and become mean beast. but, naturally, if
given a choice, every animal wants to be with ma forever. so, even an
old cat, if allowed to cuddle up to a human that it sees as a
mother-figure, will act like a kitten.
now, humans grow up and learn to let go of childhood attachments(unless

you're an italian male). but, not david in ai. he is imprinted to want
mommy forever. though this kind of devotion has been artificially
programmed, in a strange way david is the most complete representative
of the universal natural longing. he's like an aspect of nature
distilled and purified; he's a robotized eternal-mama's boy.
in nature, critters are born from the mother--except seahorses. the
mother feels a stronger bio-emotional bond with the kiddler than the
father. and, kids naturally feel closer to ma than pa. there is also
something softer and gentler about the woman appealing to kiddlers...
with the exception of crazy negro bitches who be smacking their kids
upside their heads and shouting 'shut the fuc* up!', or islamic ma's
who raise their kids to put on explosive belts and blow up jewsters.

anyway, things are complicated in the worlds of kubrick/spielberg and
bergman/ullmann cuz civilization is complex. you take animals or even
primitive folks. their possibilities are severly limited. male and
female fuc*, female goes off to have the child. if the child is an
animal, it eventually goes off on its own. if a kid is a she born into
a primitive tribe, she learns from ma. if a kid is a he, at a certain
age he learns to be hunter-warrior under his pa. simple.
but, civilization puts far more pressure on the kiddler. there is a
much greater distance between home-hearth-ma and world-society-pa.
consider alexander in 'f and a'. on the one hand, he likes being in the

warm embrace of ma and grandma. and his natural pa, though resembling
hitler, was rather a weak sappy pushover guy. but, when he enters the
house of reverend, man oh man, is he in for a surprise. in
civilization, there is a much greater distance between biological
parenting and ideological upbringing.
the bio-parent can also the ideo-parent. this is what made bergman shi*

all his life. his father was less a pa in the home-ish sense than an
ideological disciplinarian. i mean we gotta deal with teachers and
bosses but when you come home, you wanna feel at home. but, it was hard

to feel home-ishly at home in the bergman household with bergman's pa
being such a hardass.
we see some of this tension in 'barry lyndon' too where the mama's boy
resents the arrival of ryan o'neal between himself and his ma. and, we
see it also in clockwork orange. alex maybe the child of his parents.
but, he's also the child of social nihilism and pop culture; later,
he's the child of social scientists. if bergman suffered from too much
parental control, alex suffers from too little. his parents are
weaklings, indistinguishable units in a mechanical and soulless modern
welfare state. and, of course we saw it in full metal jacket where the

recruits are treated like newborns to be spanked mercilessly into
hardassed men.
in ai, david thinks of himself as the creation of his 'ma'. yet, he's
really the creation of man, william hurt dude. it might be said that a

child fears being torn away from ma-figure and being toughened up in
the pa-world. but, in ai, the pa-world has usurped the power of
procreation. david's real parent is the 'pa', william hurt. though a
robot created by the pa-figure, david runs off to ma, seeking eternal
unity in womb-space.
we have some of this too in fanny and alexander. the final image is
alexander snuggling up to his grandma, who is more ma-ish than even his

ma as grannies tend to be. just before, he was knocked down by the
apparition of the dead minister. alexander wants to cling to the magic

warmth of the ma-world and escape the harsh, stern clutches of the
pa-figure.
the tragedy of faithless is that the protagonist, who's supposed to be
bergman himself, has also become a pa-figure. here's bergman, an old
man, who's written screenplays about his tormented childhood and all
the bad things done to him, yet in faithless he admits he has become
what he's loathed all his life. in his infantile selfishness and
emotional refusal to grow up, he has ruined the lives of a woman, her
hubby, and prolly the kid as well.
in 'clown's evening''s final scene, the clown describes to the fatso a
dream where he, the clown, turned into a sperm and crawled back into
the pooter. in a way, this summarizes the theme of AI and faithless.
the deep yearning search to re-enter the pooter, to be sucked back into

the warmth and security of the womb. i believe john lennon was into
this shi* too during primal scream therapy but who can blame him when
the only pooter he was getting was yoko's? i'd scream too.

both ai and faithless are big on the ocean motif. the old man in
faithless, like bergman, lives on an island. the gentle tow of oceanic
waves is soft, gentle, forgiving, like caresses of a child's hair by
granny. the ripples on the shoreline look wrinkle-ish but also
regenerative; in short, ageless. in the end, everyone is worn by time
and erode back into their origins. ocean is the womb of us all. it's
prolly fitting that the final image of wild strawberries and summer
with monika also ended seaside. or, it could be cuz sweden has a long
shoreline.
in a way, the ocean has the same womb-like pull for david. for one
thing, the world is being engulfed by the sea as the result of global
warming. it's as though we are all being pulled back into mother
ocean-earth. it's man's science that keeps remnants of humanity on dry

ground. but, ultimately even they fail. everything is covered with vast

ice ocean in the far off future. yet, the frozen terrain seems as
though mankind has killed and buried mother earth. gone is the warmth.
her womb is frozen. and david becomes like a frozen sperm in the
fridge... until he's thawed out by glassy beings. but, his final wish
and fulfilment is to be with his 'ma'. the final image is like
alexander on granny's lap. or, it's like the old man in faithless
alone in his room, with the gentle sound of ocean waves beckoning, with

visions of marianne lending comfort. in one way, she was a fling of
his younger days. in another way, she represents the eternal madonna
spiritual pooter womb to crawl inside and sleep the eternal sleep.

male/female relationship, fertility, continuity, fear of leaving home,
etc are big themes in bergman and spielberg movies. childhood is the
key. even in the absence of children, we sense their presence, not
least because of their very absence. consider persona which has no kid.

but, it's about two women and what are women supposed to do? have kids.

but, these two neurotic women are going bonkers cuz they've lost the
natural link with nature. the nurse woman wants to be recognized as a
modern woman of angst and such; she wants to be taken seriously. and,
actress woman who won't talk wonders if anything is worth taking
seriously. she has a kid but can't face up to motherhood. she stares at

a holocaust picture of some frightened jewkid. what's that supposed to

mean? guilt over swedish collusion with nazism, as if to ask how dare
we 'aryans' live with plenty and have kids when we did nothing to save
jew kids? or, is it an artistic neurosis, asking should one have
something larger than a personal life? could it be like angelica jolie

pretending to be mother africa? is ullmann in persona haunted by the
fact that she's a public figure in art but as art is artifice, her
existence is all bullshi*? if she were just a private person, she
might have been happy being just another ho. but, consider the burden
of being famous and respected. is this fame based on real merit or is
it a matter of trickery which is what art is all about? is art the
greatest lie? what is serious and what is a joke? are the artists in
clown's evening more serious than the circus folks? or, are they more
foolish for risking only their vanity while circus folks courageously
risk their life and limbs? should we take bergman seriously when he
risks nothing but his artistic reputation while buddhist monks risk
their very lives to make a statement?

i think in a way, the problem was compounded by bergman's mixed
feelings about his ma. on the one hand, he shared her sense of
rebelliousness and independence in relating to the oppressive
hubby-father. yet, a woman who may take leave of her hubby may also
take leave of her kid. an independent woman is both a blessing and
curse to a kid. she may side with the kid over the pa-figure. but, she
may also say 'hell with my hubby and kid, i'll go off with another
man'. and you have plenty of shi* like that on jerry springer. kids
suffer the most, no doubt. and, in a way, faithless is an elevated
form of the jerry springer show. the woman takes leaves of her senses
and leaves not only her hubby but also her kid. she tries to win
custody of the kid but the matter has become very complicated and ugly.

childhood--even or especially in its absence--and death are major
themes in bergman films. consider the opening scenes of persona where
we see a dead kid in a morgue among dead old people. he awakens and
finds solace in the creation of female archetypes. it's an indication
that bergman was more comfortable with the female-of-his-creation than
with female in reality. he was more at home with art than in the
world--even in his own home. art is an escape and thru it something
can be born and live separate from the deadness of the world. though
cinema is a public art form, for bergman it was like a self-made womb.
he didn't make movies about social reality with the exception of his
early stuff like torment and summer with monika. he made some
historical stuff like seventh seal and virgin spring. but, overall, he
liked to make movies about his innerself. that was one thing he could
be sure of, even amidst pain and anguish; my head hurts, therefore it
exists. in persona, the ullmann character turns away from the burning
image of the bbq monk. bergman couldn't convincingly turn his camera on

social reality though he did try with shame, serpent's egg, and in the
hug-a-jew segments of fanny and alexander. it felt forced, a bit
contrived and obligatory. bergman felt at home in the recesses of his
wombish soul. even physically, he withdrew to some island called faro
where he could be his own pharaoh.

so, while bergman more obviously attacked the father-figure in his
movies, he was also very anxious about the mother-figure. this may
explain why he was so possessive and demanding in his relationships.
he was like a child jealously clinging to ma and angry with pa. bergman

once said he couldn't work with neurotic women. why? cuz he wanted to
hog all the neuroticism. he couldn't be flexible with the failings of
others. he had to be emperor of neurosis; others were supposed to
suckle his toes and massage his arse. this is prolly why he was such a
great artist. he was nuts. prolly still is. i'll bet his ripping of
welles was really about jealousy--why should the fatso hog all the
spotlight as the greatest filmmaker of all time? worse, there was the
other fatty, hitchcock. two fatties getting all the attention. come to
think of it, fellini and renoir were fatsos too.

anyway, the anxiety in bergman's movies goes both ways. it's often the
kid feeling anxious about pa or ma. but, it's also about ma or pa
feeling anxious about the kid. the pa figure usually is averse to
having kid cuz the world is supposedly such a miserable place and he's
a cold selfish person unfit to be a parent. neurotic individuals
project their own gloomy view onto the whole world. as males in
bergman's films are more reserved and respectable-like, they have a
harder time opening up to kiddlers. they done gone thru must anguish
and pain in burying all the vestiges of childhood for good. they've
become men, as doctors, professors, etc. they've hardened their
hearts, sterilized their minds. a child would force him to reevaluate
everything about his life. funny that a baby can seem such a threat to

the male order, but this is true also in the animal world. whether it's

the dude in eraserhead or a lion, the young ones often freak him out.
women in bergman's films have a different anxiety regarding the child.
on one hand, there is the extreme pain of childbirth. i don't recall
the movie's title but there was a bergman movie where a woman screams
like a mofo while giving birth. one wonders if she has any affection
left for the child after the ordeal.
but, another anxiety is regarding the reluctance of the male. bergman's

women have a hard time appealing to the warm side of man. man is often
cold and clinical and reserved. he may not only wanna put away childish

things but the child itself. in devil's wanton, a girl is pressured by
her man to abort the kid. she goes nuts out of revulsion and guilt.
bergman must have gotten some major dose of sin during his youth. his
characters--mostly male--feel sinful for bringing a child into this
cold cruel world, but they--mostly female--feel sinful for not bringing

a child into this world. life is a miracurse. damned if you do, damned

if you don't. even kinda funny. a circurse? yes, my puns suck eggs.
this theme is present through a glass darkly, wild strawberries,
silence, and such--the fear of life and the tension between procreative

instinct/love and the philosophical absurdity/cruelty of life.
pretty screwy, yes. but, bergman has been a very great artist. at this
point, it should be plain as day that while art must be moral--if not
moralistic--, the artist himself can still be a total jerk. what
redeems the artist is the very struggle thru his art to find some
meaning other than his actual jerkishness. a composer may be petty and
tardish, but if his music strives for the heavenly his endeavor is
worthy of our respect. he may still be a total jerk in real life as
art is just make-believe, but even a lout can struggle for excellence,
perfection, beauty, etc. don't knock the cooking just because you
dislike the chef personally. the issue is not whether one's a dick but

how it is used.

anyway, in contrast to bergman's tormented ambiguities, eyes wide
shut's final line speaks the truth. life is problematic anyway you
look at it. there is no solution. yet, life exists, it goes on, and it
goes on cuz people 'fuc*'. it's not as though kubrick was saying
'don't worry, fuc* and be happy'. worrying is natural to life. so are
anxiety and unhappiness and so on. someone always has more money, more
power. we all feel envious and inferior and powerless and etc. fuc*ing

may be the origin for all these problems as who isn't the product of
fuc*ing, but it's also the basis for the very fact of our existence.
so, it alone is truly independent of all human conceits and pretensions

and hang-ups. it is the most animalistic but also the most profound.
and, unless you're david bowman hallucinating on extraterrestial lsd,
there is no such thing as lonely truth. man is ultimately nothing alone

in his selfness. look at the dude in shining who ignores his family
and falls deep into his artistic world. look at the guys in full metal
jacket who are forced into a wholly male-contained reality bubble.
look at the men of paths of glory who rediscover a sense of humanity
only by listening to a ho' in the final scene. it doesn't matter if the

ho is a german. the essential loyalty in life is not to nation, tribe,
ideology, but dick to poon.
this is perhaps why kubrick found a nice ho and settled down and made
raising his family a big priority in life. as long as he had a nice ho
and family, he was complete. indeed, a man with a woman in a small town

is more complete than a lonely man in a city of millions. this is why
film geeks are such idiots. they are all dorks who need a woman more
than all the dumb mooies they be watching and the shi* they be writing.

but, being geeks, maybe they can't attract no ho'. then go south of
the border and find some cute beaner chick for chrissakes.

both ai and faithless are about faith and loyalty in the personal and
conceptual sense. one can be faithful to another person or to an idea.
in both movies, the issue of faith goes from the personal to the
universal or spiritual. yet, no matter how much the concept expands,
ultimately we return to reality, physical and emotional, on a personal
and human level. so in the end, the kid in ai and the guy in faithless
are both together with humanity yet also alone. perhaps, there is
nothing more lonely than discovering this universality. it's as if to
realize that one's uniqueness and life history are just another drop in

the ocean of life and time--like individual droplets of water splashed
ashore from ocean waves. each droplet obsesses about its droppiness but

must return to the ocean. consciousness separates us from the world but

also makes us aware of our longing for reunion. A. I. is a very strange

story because david is pursuing simultaneously what is most private and

most universal.
along this line of thinking, one's pain isn't really one's own. it's
merely just another duplicated and foolhardy but inevitable and
programmed manifestation of the formula of human life. ai raises the
issue of nature vs. mechanical, but look behind the facade of organic
nature and it's no less mechanical. david is a programmed robot but so

are we all, mass manufactured by the natural hardware running on dna
software.

the issue of faith becomes complicated when more than one artist is
involved; jesus found this out with his disciples; will they be judases

or peters? but didn't judas betray jesus to serve jesus and didn't
peter deny jesus three times? this issue also complicates the nature
of authorship in art. there are many ways of creation. there is the
direct creator of, let's say, a painting. yet, he was surely influenced

and taught by others. so, are his teachers and influences the indirect
authors or creators? and, an artist lives with rest of mankind. his
vision of reality is shaped by people and all aspects of reality around

him. in having shaped the author, are they too the author, or
co-author? well, we go on like this and we'll end up invoking god and
so on. but, what about ai and faithless? who is the author? what does
the issue of faith have to do with either?
for starters, i'd say faithless is the far more faithful work in that
bergman prolly minutely laid out the screenplay, and ullmann carried it

out.
ai, on the other hand, was only an half-finished idea by kubrick, and
spielberg really made it his own. some have even accused spielberg of
having desecrated kubrick's idea.
but, it could also be argued that in some ways, ullmann was the more
daring artist. she knew bergman up close and personal. while she
clearly admires and respects him, she knows bergman the real man--good
guy and sumfabitch. for that reason, she was prepared to work more as
an equal partner than as a devotee.
spielberg, on the other hand, worshipped kubrick as a god. he grew up
all gushy wushy about guys like kubrick, lean, kurosawa, ford, etc.
also, spielberg felt a certain sense of 'i'm so unworthy, i'm so
unworthy'-ness. sure, he's the most successful director ever. and, even

critics have praised many of his serious movies. yet, there have been
nagging doubts among many--not least spielberg himself--that he's never

been and never will be truly great artist. yes, he can make an highly
intelligent, serious movie like 'schindler's list' and 'saving private
ryan'. however, there's something too populist and accessible about
spielberg, or so it's been argued. to take on a kubrick's original
project was a real challenge, since they seem to be polar opposites in
every way. while spielberg certainly felt a need to make ai HIS movie,

he made it under a cloud of awe-struckness. spielberg prolly felt AI
could finally establish him as an 'uncompromised' artist equal to the
great masters or reveal him to be a hopeless and manipulative saphead.
AI has supported both claims.
there was also a certain tension as spielberg and kubrick had
maintained a cordial relationship with one another--very different than

the close one between bergman and ullmann. spielberg felt flattered
that the great prophet kubrick would even talk to him and ask
questions. yet, spielberg surely knew that kubrick was using him. in
his own way, kubrick was as demanding, authoritarian, and selfish as
any big time 'auteur'. kubrick, like dylan, had a notorious reputation

for using people and getting everything his way. kubrick didn't offer
ai to spielberg as some idle favor.
spielberg is smart enough to have suspected kubrick's motives, but such

reservations were overlooked by the sheer honor of even being
considered a colleague by the esteemed master. it was like professor
kingsfield asking timothy bottoms to help him on his article.
anyway, it later turned out that kubrick had some nasty things to say
about spielberg's schindler's list. perhaps, kubrick had felt miffed
that spielberg had edged him out in making the definitive holocaust
movie--'aryan papers'.
i can't help feeling that in a way the relationship between william
hurt and david in AI is like that between kubrick and spielberg.
william hurt manipulates david for his own ends but david runs off with

the dream, false or not. however kubrick manipulated, inspired, or put
a spell on spielberg, spielberg created his own movie. it doesn't
clarify the issue of authorship but it emboldens the notion that the
creative process is one of faith and rebellion, cooperation and
singularity.

we wonder how the movies may have turned out if directed by bergman and

kubrick. surely, the results lost much in the hands of others. yet,
they also gained something that is only possible thru artistic
chemistry. now, one could say this applies to all movies. often, the
writer is not the director. and actors and other people bring their own

creativity. however, with most serious films we have a powerful
authorial presence in the form of a director. the director collaborates

with others who are willing to submit to his authority, to play the
role of sidekicks, secondary figures. oftentimes, a movie set is too
small for more than one creative 'genius'. can you imagine bergman,
welles, kurosawa, fellini, etc working together?
usually, the film director is the main author, the one who gives
essential shape. yet, this isn't always true, and the problem is
obvious with AI and faithless. had spielberg or ullmann adapted the
screenplay or story idea of some unknown or non-movie artist, they and
we would have been more comfortable with the idea of creative
authorship. but, they worked on ideas and visions by other filmmakers,
ones with supreme reputation and signature styles. we know what is
kubrickian or what is bergmanesque. their visions are so integral to
what they are that it seems wrong for their ideas to be realized by
someone else. could ullmann really pull it off? is she intellectual
and deep enough? it would be like dylan asking emmylou harris to record

his latest batch of songs. it sounds even more absurd in the case of
kubrick/spielberg. it'd be like asking peckinpah to direct a screenplay

by antonioni or stevie ray vaugh to perform something by philip glass.
there is a lack of simple hierarchy and compatibility we are accustomed

to with most cases of serious filmmaking. any hack may be hired to
direct some hollywood teen comedy or action movie, but we expect
serious filmmakers to to make their own movies. can you imagine anyone

else other than godard making alphaville? anyone other than chris
marker making 'le jetee'? well, gilliam did and it stank to high
heaven. the opening image of 'citizen kane' says 'no trespassing' and
in some ways, we feel the same way about the property of certain
filmmakers. citizen kane is welles's and we would be offended by the
idea of a remake by another director. it'd be as stupid as remaking
psycho; look at the result.

yet, there are rare occasions when something is gained as well as lost,

and whatever is gained is as or even more valuable than what is lost.
it's like a child of two very different parents who nonetheless managed

to harmonize their differences to create a very interesting kid.

consider faithless. while bergman has always been interested in women
in his movies, all his films were what you call male-centric. even
when the main characters were mostly or all women, they were
marionettes of male hang-ups, fascination, fear, love, etc of
womenfolk. as much as he tried, bergman could never view women except
thru his maleish fascination. and, had bergman directed faithless, it
would have been another male-centric movie. indeed, conceptually the
figure of marianne--marianette?--is very typically a male-created
figure of the wronged woman. there is much sympathy, but no real
identification, no more than with a white man creating a jungle jive
negro character. no matter how sincere the effort, it remains a
white-centric creation. even liberal sympathy frames reality within
the mental structures of white guilt and privelege.
so, how interesting that faithless was directed by a woman. for this
reason, it alone, among all the bergman movies, has a genuine woman's
touch.
there is a softness and gentleness, a sense of surrender and forgiving
calm so lacking in all of bergman's films. there are many moments of
bliss and humor in bergman's films, but the world always made of solid
material--whether rules, hearts, manners, neurosis, etc.
faithless, despite its title, is the most spiritual movie of his
career. it's not spiritual in the sense of returning to god, but in the

sense that the movie calmly surrenders to and accepts, without signs of

desperation and panic, the vast mysteriousness of the outer and inner
cosmos. there is no final resolution nor even a final irresolution, as
in persona. there's no final anything. there is no ending, as if to
suggest the private and the personal are just a continuation of the
human drama. there was some of this is fanny and alexander too, with
deaths and birth of a child and such. but, that movie was a grand
statement, a kind of summation. there is no such conceit in faithless.

faithless is the product of a great artistic union or creative
marriage. it offers another perspective, another touch that was so
lacking in bergman who was obsessively self-centered and private.
bergman often peered into his soul but it was like a man looking into a

mirror, darkly at that. no matter how sincere the effort, it was the
self judging--and indulging--the self. no matter how harsh, there was
always a sense of self-justification. and, who is one to forgive
oneself?
in this sense, the choice of ullmann as director was both courageous
and cowardly. it was courageous for allowing a woman to offer a
diagnosis of bergman's life. but, the woman happens to be ullmann,
after all, a faithful partner in bergman's career. if bergman really
wanted his demons exposed, he should have chosen some gal with an axe
to grind. and, despite her directorial position, ullmann is ultimately

serving bergman's own vision, a script that was prolly laid out
carefully in minute detail.
it's like a white massuh who done treated one of his slaves real bad
and then having his most faithful slave write his biography. sure, how

courageous for a white man to allow a negro to offer a negro
perspective. but, coming from a faithful 'house nigger', how harsh
could it really be?
if anything, it may justify the white man ever more for his sham
broadmindedness.

yet, it's not so simple. ullmann may be a pupil but she's no dummy. she

was young and fresh when first working with bergman. over the yrs,
she's gotten to know the dude pretty well, and she's had a career in
her own right. and time is a great equalizer. both of them are old.
it's no longer a case of a middle aged 'great artist' impressing a
naive young actress. and, their stars in the film art firmament have
long faded. 'cinephilia' has long been dead. they got nothing to
prove. still, ullmann did prove that she's more than a merely competent

director. she is a superb director, and her feminine touch may have
been exactly what bergman needed all these yrs. consider sunday's
children directed by bergman's son and best intentions directed by
billie august. excellent movies but somewhat lifeless executions of
bergman's artistic will. it was male/male.
faithless is special because ullmann takes bergman's recipe and
instructions, and adds a few things known only to women. bergman has
often pondered the secrets of women, but they cannot be pinned down,
understood, or accessed. it's just there, deep inside the ho'. if
bergman's movies presented womanliness as an object within a
male-centric universe, every inch of frame of faithless has a kind of
femininity. ullmann is like imelda marcos to bergman's ferdinand.
thanks to ullmann, woman as object transforms into woman as subject and

subjective. gone is the harsh spartan feel of most of bergman's movies;

present is a feeling of domesticity and home and hearth, something that

always escaped bergman the island boy.
it's a cruel movie but there's a mood of serenity throughout; it has
the appearance of a once craggy rock whose edges had been smoothed by
the innumerable waves of time.
and, in a way, it's this combination of admiration and anger that makes

faithless so rich and mysterious. we used the analogy of the massuh
and the negro, but if an angry negro wrote a biography it may be
morally justified but not too interesting because it would simply
present massuh as monster honkey. no man is all bad--except peter
greenaway. if art demonstrates anything, it's that everyone's has his
reasons, his worldview, his justifications. this is why 'nixon' by
stone is interesting. instead of just presenting tricky dick as a
political crook, 'nixon' allows nixon to also be a man of genuine
american values and grand ambitions. nixon only as monster would be
propaganda or personal vendetta, not art.
also, the artist himself must ask if he or she is so flawless that he
or she's in a position to shi* on others. like jesus said, think
before you lob that stone. and so, in a kind of generational peace
gesture, it's as though stone offered nixon to get stoned--in the 60s
sense--than in the biblical sense. stone, obviously a nut himself,
probably identified with nixon on some level. this isn't to suggest
that we are all equally sinful, but we all belong to the blob of
humanity.

what would a godard film have been like if directed by anna karina or
some other woman. or, an highly male-centric woody allen screenplay
directed by one of his past flings like keaton or farrow. or, a
fellini movie directed by one of his many women. i don't think too many

directors ventured into this territory, and we must respect bergman for

going there. and, the result is one of the most subtlely multi-faceted,

multi-layered, conflicted yet harmonious creations in cinema. it's
truly organic, as though made not of film but of fluid--oceanic or
bodily--that makes up the very stuff of life. most bergman films, no
matter how masterful, feel stillborn or fed on cold milk. this was
prolly their intention. but, his vision was always very limited to the
dark closet of his soul. with faithless, it's as though the door has
been creaked open a bit to let the final glimmers of sunset into that
depressing place.
most artistic partnerships, especially between strongwilled people,
tend to fail. at best, they end up as mixtures with no genuine chemical

bonding. think of hitchcock and dali's partnership with 'spellbound'.
certainly interesting but rather jarring. art is more like alchemy than

chemistry. there is no set formula for what works. it's mostly magical
gimcracky that on rare occasion stumbles into something unexpected and
dazzling. and, faithless is real gold.
though bergman hasn't been too kind to hitchcock, i suspect it's
because hitchcock at his best already figured out what bergman realized

or admitted only much later. in vertigo, stewart tries to mold the
woman to his strict 'artistic' vision. no matter how tantalizing or
pleasing this vision, the only way toward truth is allow the woman to
have her independence and her own identity and accept that she has her
own reality. one may have to abandon one's most cherished vision of
happiness and sadness(which feeds the happiness), and refusing to do so

is really loving the self despite protestations otherwise. stewart
thought he was mourning her death but it's really an obession with
one's own rather twisted concept of what she was which she wasn't.
even in the darkest moments, it was a kind of self-serving and
self-centered masochism. he didn't so much love madeleine as the myth
of madeline; he loved his love for her. this seems to be universal
trait. does angelica jolie really care about african kids? or, is it
really about caring for her caring for the african kids? oprah show
has turned into celebrities showing off their humility and sympathy for

all the miserable people in the world... for millions of tv viewers.
maybe that's what africa should do to build up its economy; set up a
'feed-the-starving-negro-kids-themepark-and-resort-area'. between
safari trips, rich white people can walk around an area strewn with
starving africans, offer food and medicine, and even hire a cameraman
to capture it all on video. back home, they can upload it to their
websites or blogs and take pride as being in league with oprah, bono,
and brad pitt. or, why not give birth there as well? a wonderful
liberal fantasy-- 'my child was born among the colorful noble folks of
africa'.
jolie done that already? a visionary ho, alright.

in both spielberg and ullmann, we see sentimental, emotional, and
sensual artists trying to win approval of austere, intellectual, and
philosophical artists--bergman and kubrick as artistic parental figures

to win affection from. we wonder to what extent kubrick was more like
william hurt or the mother in AI in relation to spielberg. and, was
spielberg, thru AI, searching to be reunited with kubrick from whom he
wanted to earn respect and recognition--even if posthumously thru some
kind of spiritual connection--or was spielberg trying to escape from
kubrick in a long search of his own childhood. kubrick was like william

hurt--a very intellectual 'cold' sort of guy, at least in the public
eye. but, he was also like the mother cuz she didn't really feel for
david. david's love for her was not reciprocated. and this is the way
kubrick really felt about spielberg. he called up steven to discuss
technical matters for his own purposes. he saw spielberg as a useful
tool, a gadget, a device. he didn't recognize spielberg as a real
artist... whereas spielberg thought the world of kubrick. and both AI
and faithless reflect this imbalance, whether between artist and
non-artist, adult and child, human and robot, man and woman, older self

and younger self, selfishness and remorse. if we wanna be farfetched
and ludicrous, we may argue that spielberg was david to kubrick's saul.

david sought recognition and acceptance which saul wouldn't give. in a
way, kubrick was prolly miffed that his standing as a great technical
innovator was usurped by the likes of lucas and spielberg. but, let's
not carried away with such farfetchedness and ludicrosity. it's only a

movie.

in discussing 'bicycle thieves', welles praised desica's ability to
dissolve the barrier between form and subject. it was like peering
into actual reality. we didn't see ricci and his son in a movie; we saw

ricci and his son.
many people think this is easy when it's one of the hardest things to
pull off--rendering the technique invisible(though to be sure, a great
work of art can call attention to its technique which, instead of
serving a conventional reality, creates an heightened one).

but, a far more difficult achievement, me thinks, is dissolving the
barrier between external reality and psychological reality, where we
don't just share the social space but meld together on some strange
subjective level, whether primordial or spiritual or whatever. this can

also be supernatral as in horror movies. best horror movies dissolve
the barrier between the human and the monstrous. watching horror strike

us as an otherworldly force is less frightening than have it stalk us
as part of our own reality. the latter fundamentally alters our view of

reality where's it's most vulnerable. if the horror is outside of us,
we may see it as powerful, but conquerable or at least escapable. but,
what if the horror is within? mental illness is worse than a bruise.
think of the great horror films vampyr, ugetsu, and the shining where
reality, fantasy, dream, and nightmare all coexist in the same mental
landscape.
while i greatly admire kurosawa's kagemusha, the dream sequence is
obviously a dream sequence. as such, it is more easily defined and
recognized. the fantasies of fellini's later films also became too
obvious, theatrical, and garish.
and, as skillful as bergman was, this could also be said of most of his

films. the problem was never the lack of expertise or craftmanship,
but, an inability to make the solid material take on qualities of
liquid and gas(perhaps one can criticize tarkovsky for the opposite,
that it's all mist and water never really coalescing into solid
material, whether on russian plains or on solaris).

compare 'the cell' which has some striking dream sequences with lynch's

'mulholland drive'. the latter is far more unsettling because it
presents an unstable reality which is ever so dependent on the whims of

mood, body chemistry, and various complexes.
perhaps, films most rigidly situated in solid reality are british
kitchen sink drama which are usually not very interesting. and at the
other extreme, you have the latter day fellini and terry gilliam and
many others, also rather hard to take because the fantasy or dreaminess

has become pervasive to the point of meaninglessness.
and as brilliant as the films based on charlie kaufman's screenplays
are, we see the trick as trick. god bless their ingenuity but after the

show is over, there is precious little to mull over.
linklater's waking life had some fascinating moments but it was a bit
too self-consciously experimental and far out for its own good.

the most difficult thing is to find that almost imperceptible area
between what we call shared reality and psychological reality, between
dreamlife and waking life, between conscious reality and subconscious
reality, between art and reality, between art and artist, and maybe
between life and death--if we were to speculate on the afterlife. the
bar scene in 'the shining' is one of the most brilliant and masterful
scenes ever. and frightening because the transformation is all the more

profound for its subtlety. the shining is weakest when kubrick, through

racuous music and shock editing, renders the horror as obviously
ghoulish.
similarly, the zombies marauding about like nightmare figures in the
barely discernible b/w darkness in 'night of the living dead' is far
more unsettling than a mall full of brightly lit zombies in 'dawn of
the dead'. with the original, one can entertain a desperate hope that
it's all just a bad dream. that it's all too ghastly to be real though
it is.
in the second movie where the zombies are all too real, the only horror

is physical than psychological. you just don't wanna get bit.

anyway, both faithless and AI are like ghost stories. the man in
faithless is haunted by his memories. this 'horror'-istic elements is
present in many bergman films, especially the magician and cries and
whispers.
and, the robot boy david is like a ghost child of the perverted union
of nature and technology; in the end, he becomes the only surviving
ghost spirit of man, a robot casper.
and, both movies achieve this most difficult feat in art, to drift into

that zone between different layers of reality. and, this was perhaps
possible only thru the chemistry arising from different artistic
personalties.
spielberg has given us the magical before but rarely that area between
stark reality and magical longing. in AI, it's because spielberg
resists the cold kubrickian concept and vice versa that we end up in a
strange twilight zone. similarly, mulholland dr. is so sublimely
strange because of the tension between the worlds of diane selwyn and
her dream alter ego; they both feed and feed on the other.
take the dream sequence at the end of A.I.
it's less a movie dream than a dream dream. spielberg's mastery
situates us as if we are actually inside a dream, perhaps our own
dream. we are not watching a movie dream but a dream. it's not a
character in dream space but dream space as the authoritative reality.
in a way, david, as the last remnant of human(like) consciousness
represents the deeply rooted longing in all of man, perhaps all of
warm-blooded creatures--to return to mother, to re-enter the womb; the
mother here is both literal and metaphorical. though his dream
couldn't be more personal and private, it is, in a way, a variation or
magnification of the dream or longing of all life. even shi* has this
quality sometimes; ever take a dump and a particular doogie wants to
climb back inside and you gotta give it a little extra push before it
goes plop and can be flushed out to sea? and david is the shi* boy that

is flushed out to sea and longing to be reunited with his as*hole ma.
anyway, most spielberg's movies settle for one reality or another.
usually when spielberg ventures away from one-dimensionality, he's in
trouble. consider the disatrous 1941 which couldn't decide whether it
was slapstick farce or biting satire. or, lost world which turns the
magical premise of the original into self-parody. spielberg has talent

for magic and bigness but lacks lightness so essential to higher comedy

or satire. it just turns into grammar school joke or sappiness. the
weakest scene in close encounters was when roy upturns his entire
backyard to build devil's tower in his living room, and ET's
save-the-frog escapade was tad overdone.
with schindler and saving private ryan, spielberg proved he could make
serious intelligent movies but only by suppressing--though
channeling--his populist/magical sentiments. yes, both movies are
unmistakably spielbergian but at his best behavior.
AI is strangest movie because it's not an either/or affair. it's the
rare achievement accessing the indefinable and real/unreal areas mapped

by greats such as mizoguchi and dreyer. it's not without weak scenes
where spielberg, as usual, surrenders to excess or obviousness. but at
its greatest moments, it approaches that area of bittersweet,
melacholic beauty we associate with sunsets. the final sequence stirs
up feelings of bliss, sadness, resignation, and surrender. it's both a

vision of home and eternity, of the deepest personal attachment and
limitless cosmic dissolution. it's one day and an eternity. it's truth
and lie. it's deeply private and nakedly spied upon. it's apotheosis
and oblivion. it's kansas and Oz. dubya and blair. it's like putting
one's ear close to the heart, the beats growing ever louder yet in
whose dissipation, there is a silence within silence.

david, a defacto special emissary of mankind, revived after eons has
one wish: to be david, the boy who wants to be with his mother.
it has the same kind of power--both absurd and beautiful--as the ending

of le jetee. what is the man's final wish when offered rescue by the
people of the future? he wants to be back in the airport on the eve of
nuclear holocaust to be with the woman. absurd and moving; in other
words, human.
like la jetee, AI creates moments of great power and ambiguity, both in

the physical and psychological sense. given the choice between a power

source to fuel the entire world and the chance to reignite one's
heart's yearning, can we blame man for choosing the latter?

in the end, AI is neither kubrick's nor spielberg's, cold-eyed
intellect nor heart warming magic, sci-fi movie nor Art Film. its
ending is neither Sad or Happy. like the situation of david who's
neither entirely artificial or human, the movie poses unanswerable
questions and offers unfulfillable promises. what it does offer is the
yearning for that promise; yet, what is its worth if it cannot
fulfilled? can we believe in the magic of childhood when we know the
world as it is. yet, it's this ambiguity, this unfufilled quality--as
neither fully kubrickian or spielbergian--which adds a crucial
dimension to AI's disturbing subject matter. for once in his life,
spielberg knew he couldn't offer the usual spielbergian ending. yet, it

would have false for him to suppress his true instincts to serve
kubrick's original vision. the result is as unsettling and beautiful as

the overture of parsifal which harmonizes or rather interweaves the
themes of christian transcendance and pagan grandeur. or, dylan's
'visions of johanna' which takes the basic folk rock formulations and
bends and extends them into modern/classical/philosophical
configurations.

and, faithless also has this quality which would have been missing if
bergman had directed.
both spielberg and bergman have been searching for the lost childhood
when magic was real, when escapism was allowed and rewarding--at least
under the right adult. thru 'fanny and alexander' and 'sunday's
children', bergman revisited his own youth, remembering and rejoicing
in what had been so special. yet, he also dealt with the obstructions
to his happiness, mostly in the form of his pa or some stern father
figure.
faithless is strange because instead of the child/father dichotomy, the

child has become the father figure, even a worse one. it's not bergman

as sensitive child being bullied by mean dada. it's bergman, who had
condemned his father for his brutality, messing up other people's
lives. son rises, son sets.
because of this troubled quality, the movie has a kind of
double-layered reality. it's like deja vu.
and of course, ullmann adds another layer. she overlays bergman's
self-loathing harshness with a caressing maternal affection and
daughterly devotion(when she made the film, she was older than the
'bergman' character in the movie, therefore older than bergman during
the real-life affair. bergman is older than her but 'bergman' is
younger. she is at once the younger and the maturer). and, she had
been the daughter figure in the 60s and now a sort of mother figure;
and of course, reliable partner.
we wonder to what extent ullmann infused her own feelings--regarding
her life with and without bergman--into the character of marianne. and

surely, there are feelings between ullmann and josephson who've had a
long joint career over the years. it's a movie formed by a succession
of waves of different perspectives and feelings. it's as though the
disparate stories in rashomon had all been melded together, with the
contradictions remaining in unison than in opposition.
when you pick up a smoothed stone on a beach, does it matter what kind
of blunt edges it once had? the only verdict belongs to time and all
that remains is the egglike smoothness. the stone or pebble too is
returning to its origins until finally there's nothing left.
bergman no doubt feels his life ebbing away, his memories growing
weaker. the ebbing of time reveals buried memories which are his and
will haunt and soothe him until, finally, there's death and
nothingness. those who had tormented him are long gone. he too will
be gone. and, those he have tormented will be gone.
'we all dream of being a child again', says the old beaner in the wild
bunch. it was certainly true of kurosawa in his last few films. facing

eternal extinction, it's perhaps understandable that old folks ask
where did they come from? is it a circle? a return to the mother of
time? fuc*! like kubrick said.

-------

P.S.

consider william hurt and david of AI and bergman and marianne in
faithless. we have a scientist or artist 'experimenting' with human
emotions, playing god, making himself and his neuroses the center of
life. using life and emotions clinically; or, justifying one's own
personal wounds by laying claim to science or art.

in 'through a glass darkly', the father confesses that while he's
tormented by his daughte'rs condition, he's also coldly fascinated. the

awareness of such cold rationalism troubles him yet further. does the
confession reveal his inhumanity or is this confession--this
awareness--the first step toward true humanity?

bergman confessed that as a young man he was drawn to nazism and was
later disillusioned. though bergman discusses the matter in ideological

terms, it's probably safe to guess that ideology wasn't the only
attraction to nazism for bergman. at the heart of nazism was the
notion of treating humanity as some great scientific lab experiment, to

dissect it like a frog and create the new hygenic man--racially and
healthwise. we see this in the father in glass darkly and also in
scandanavian social engineering.

this tension and anxiety are something evident in all of bergman's
films. sarris correctly commented on the 'undigested clinical
material'. just as nazi doctors coldly experimented on human beings,
as though intellectual inquiry and science superceded or annihilated
all other considerations, there was something ruthlessly clinical and
cold about bergman's works. indeed, he visited this issue most
tellingly in the film serpent's egg, about the messy mass of humanity
being coldly manipulated, watched, and experimented by scientists.
it's a condemnation of nazism but also a confession of bergman's own
control-freak obsessions.
maybe bergman needed to isolate himself not only cuz the world was too
much for him but he was too much for the world.
confronted with the messiness of the world, he might have been drawn to

a nazi-esque fix. who wants to go 'heil ingmar!'. it's no wonder that
bergman is the favorite director of super anal-retentive john simon...
though to be sure, bergman has said he loves earthy slavic stuff, and
simon has retained enough of his slavic origins to admire stuff like
'oak' by lucine pintille and the films of emir kusterica; and he loves
wertmuller... i guess physical mess is okay as long as there is some
kind of neat philosophical formulation or moral perspective in the
background that salvages some humanist ideals.

the difference between bergman and godard is the former really
confronted his own demons both in personal life and political thought.
godard, similarly tormented, repressed his flaws and anxieties and
conveniently chose to point his fingers at everyone and adopt simple
political formulations. bergman denounced the nazism of his youth and
confronted the flaws in his own life. godard, who'd understood irony
in films such as breathless and contempt, settled for sneering
arrogance toward colleagues and maoism; and to this day, unlike
bergman, there has been no apology, no mea culpa, no confession; just
self-satisfied buddha-playing to his cultish devotees who suckle his
toes and kiss his arse. devotion corrupts; absolute devotion corrupts
absolutely.

anyway, 'serpent's egg' perfectly sums up the essential meaning of
bergman's cinema. there is a cold reptilian aspect to
humanity--especially among intellectuals and dogmatists. but, humanity

is also about life, warmth, renewal. we are born from the warm womb but

there's cold blood running in our veins. seeking warmth is a sign of
weakness, a clinging to mother when as men we should grow up and
conquer the female principle and become men. in wild strawberries, the

hubby loves his wife but then resents her for playing on his repressed
soft side. in fanny and alexander, alexander is torn between warmth of
grannie and mommy and the problematic male archetypes. his father,
close to women, is dependent, pathetic, ineffective, and sickly. his
uncle is fun and likable but rootless and screwing everyone in sight
and full of shi*. his father-in-law is a formidable male figure but
he's such an aaaasshole! bergman's fixation on women might suggest
the notion that women aren't as fuc*ed up as men. or, when women are
fuc*ed up, it's okay for them to cry and be emotional and a bit crazy
whereas men are expected to be stiffupperlipped and strong and
steelybackboned. this is probably the main reason why woody allen
relates to bergman so easily. allen the wimp just couldn't find a
proper place among malekind and preferred to dally with keaton, farrow,

and other womenfolk.

why did bergman become so screwy? partly, his father's lutheranness.
on the one hand, there was jesus, loving and warm and forgiving. on the

other hand, there was strict lutheran protestanism that was demanding,
cold, rigid, and unforgiving. there was jesus smiling at you but when
you turned around, there was jesus grabbing you by the cuff and beating

your ass with a rod.
how the hell did the figure of jesus become such a cold, demanding,
dogmatized figure in europe? was it the cold winters of northern
europe, especially in scandanavia? the long dark months? the
forbidding and desolate landscape of craggy rocks, icebergs, and chilly

winds? i dunno, but jesus wasn't much fun for bergman. now, take
the american south. there's alot of christian dogmatism there too but
what with all that southern drawl and singing and fried chicken sundays

and crawfish contests, and all that wily biblethumping sermonizing and
such(check duvall's apostle), christianity was kinda fun. but, check
out the dudes in winter light. jesus h. christ, that's depressing!
maybe not all lutheran ministers were like bergman's father but i'll
bet they were not hip fellars. if bergman hadn't been such a sensitve
kid and if he hadn't known the kind of mother who was such a stark
contrast to his daddy, bergman might have been well-adjusted.
if all you know is darkness, you get used to it. but, if you shuttle
between dense darkness and warm light, you really shi*.
he was pulled by polar opposites and went a little crazy which is okay
since a little craziness is good for art. indeed, if bergman had been
totally well-adjusted, he probably would have been a doctor, lawyer, or

bureaucrat.

AI is more the brainchild of kubrick than spielberg, and there are
similarities between kubrick and bergman. however, the difference is
kubrick was comfortable with his cold inquiry into human nature whereas

bergman was not. kubrick, having grown up in a peaceful and tolerant
middleclass jewish-american family in the richest city in the world
always enjoyed the freedom to do and think as he wished. bergman, a
product of an older generation, greater isolation, traumatic family
situations, much personal bitterness, and such could never wholly
control his emotions, sentiments, guilt-complex in favor of
cerebralism. perhaps, kubrick wasn't so much cold as cool, a more
stable and consistent quality. in contrast, bergman was more extreme
in his cold and hotness. never able to find emotional constancy or
stability, his films wrestle with polarities. yes, bergman lived on
planet polaris.