Mankind 39;s Search For God Pdf
Marthe Bernskoetter
For over a hundred years man has been on a search for a missing link, a being that could link man back to the animals of earth. In doing so this search does two things.
First- it diminishes mankind; for we are separate from the beasts with our ability to reason, a faculty which ironically enables the concept of the missing link in the first place. Without the God given gift of reason, we would be instinct driven just as the animals are.
Second- this search, were it ever to be successful, would be be an ego boost, establishing man with certainty as the "top animal". Since nothing has evolved higher than man, and we evolved up from an amoeba, we surely would be king of the proverbial hill.
But consider this. Rather than attempting to find a link back to an amoeba, there is a link establishing a line to a higher power. Why look down when we can look up?
2,000 years ago in a small cave in a small village in Israel, heaven came to earth, and the link from man to God was forever established in the birth of Jesus Christ. God desiring that his people should be free of sin, and thus join Him in heaven gave us the link that had been missing since the fall in the Garden.
Now, recognizing this link carries a realization that man is not "king of the hill", that there is something above us. Is it this shock to the ego that prevents so many from seeing the once missing link in Jesus Christ? I'm not sure what causes so many to try to find a link down, when the link up is right before us, and has been for over 2,000 years.
The Yellow House is a Russian colloquialism meaning insane asylum. "As Russia searches to define itself both in terms of political nationality and personal identity, the theme of psychosis becomes increasingly prominent in Russian film," says Vladimir Padunov, Pitt associate professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and associate director of Pitt's Film Studies Program. "The notion of the absurd, or insanity, appears not only as physical location but also as a limitation imposed by social conditions, political institutions, or, simply, state of mind, and the reemergence of Russia's film industry as a social and political force allows the industry to address these ideas with new freedom."
All films to be screened during the symposium have English subtitles, and the cost of admission to each screening is $5. The 7 p.m. screenings at Pittsburgh Filmmakers from May 4 to 7, respectively, are Pavel Chukhrai's historical drama A Driver for Vera (2004), on the personal and political travails of a 1960s Soviet general; Dmitrii Meskhiev's World War II drama Our Own (2004); Kira Muratova's absurdist love story The Tuner (2004), about Russian scam artists; and Valerii Todorovskii's political commentary My Stepbrother Frankenstein (2004), about societal attitudes toward traumatized veterans.
The symposium is supported by the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. For more information and a complete schedule, visit the symposium's Web site at www.rusfilm.pitt.edu or contact Julie Draskoczy at 412-521-1327 or js...@pitt.edu.
It seems particularly fitting that Ingmar Bergman should have been born on July 14, for the Swedish director has always been something of a revolutionary. While Sweden's film industry had made a name for itself during the years of silent movies, producing actors like Greta Garbo and directors like Victor Sjostrom, it became practically unknown after the advent of sound. This was the state of affairs until Bergman single-handedly put Swedish film on the map again in the 1950s. Until his retirement in 1983, Bergman produced a corpus of films which marked him as one of the most important and influential film directors of the twentieth century.
In order to celebrate Bergman's seventy fifth birthday last year, the Swedish Film Institute organized a retrospective of Bergman's work, entitled "Bergman at 75 Women, Dreams and Demons." The retrospective, accompanied by a photo exhibition opens at the Harvard film Archive on March 25, and provides an excellent opportunity to view Bergman's whole oeuvre, presented in chronological sequence.
Bergman's films are highly philosophical and characterized by metaphysical anguish and despair over mankind's search for meaning. Detractors dubbed Bergman the "Master of Angst," seeing him as a purveyor of the stereotypical Nordic anxiety which Norwegian painter Edward Munch punchily captured in "The Scream," recently stolen by angst-ridden environmentalists.
Despite his reputation for melancholy films, Bergman actually began his career by making comedies. One of these, "Smiles of a Summer Night," which was released in December of 1955, became Bergman's breakthrough film. Many critics have seen it as the culmination of Bergman's so-called "rose period," during which he made lighter-hearted films. Ostensibly a comedy of manners, "Smiles of a Summer Night" stars Gunnar Bjornstrand as Fredrik Egerman, a successful middle-aged lawyer whose second wife is the virginal 18-year-old Anne (Ulla Jacobsson). As Anne rebuffs Egerman's physical advances, Egerman turns to the actress Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), an old lover and friend of his, for help. During a visit to Desiree's lodgings, Egerman has a run-in with the jealous Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle), Desiree's current lover.
To further complicate matters, Countess Malcolm (Margit Carlqvist) is jealous of Desiree, and Henrik (Bjorn Bjelvenstam), Egerman's grown son from his first marriage, is in love with Anne. Old Mrs. Armfeldt, prodded by her daughter, invites everyone to spend the weekend at her country estate. During the course of the summer night, and under the influence of a mysterious love potion served at dinner, eight people turn into four couples.
Bergman plays with several different elements in "Smiles of a Summer Night." The film is grounded in the notion of Shakespearean comedy, particularly A Midsummer Night's Dream. The tropes of the husband and wife who are separated and then reunited, the sylvan atmosphere and the magic spells buttress the film. Egerman is very much like Bottom; he plays an ass throughout the movie, but at the end, after Anne has run off with Henrik, he is made human again. The film also contains echoes of Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro and allusions to Jean Renior's classic 1939 film, "The Rules of the Game."
"Smiles of a Summer Night" has many funny moments, and the film feels lighter than many of Bergman's other works. However, in true Bergmanesque fashion, the comedy is laced with tragedy and pathos. The epigrams, though elegant and humorous, are capable of wounding. While the characters comply with the structure of a comedy of manners by affirming love and happy endings, they consistently undercut the same structure with theri realization of the futility of all sentiments, most especialy love. The film ends with all the participants coupled, but this highly conventional resolution, required in all classic boudoir farces, is shattered by the bursts of despair, contempt and naked pity throughout the film. Bergman explodes the structure of the comedy of manners from within.
The performers in "Smiles of a Summer Night" are uniformly fine, with Bjornstrand and Dahlbeck leading the elegiac minuet. Dahlbeck's face, no longer displaying the blush of youth, makes a great subject for the camera. While Bjornstrand's features oftern seem a mask concealing his ture emotions, Dahlbeck's face bears witness to all the joys and travails to which life has subjected her. Naima Wifstrand as old-Mrs. Armfeldt steals every scene she in which she appears; her impossibly wise old dragon is as good as anything Edna May Oliver ever did in Hollywood.
The almost imperceptible line between comedy and pathos in "Smiles of a Summer Night" has helped to make the film an influential classic. Stephen Sondheim based his musical A Little Night Music on it, and Woody Allen, who is one of Bergman's greatest admirers, paid homage to the film in "A Mid-summer Night's Sex Comedy."
Despite the success of his comedy, Bergman didn't dally long in the realms of the humorous. In "The Seventh Seal," which was made after "Smiles of a Summer Night," Bergman turns fuly to the exploration of despair. In this medieval allegory, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), a Knight, returns with his squire Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand) to Sweden after ten years in the Crusades. Death, played inndibly by Bengt Ekerot, comes to take the Knight, but the Knight, Seeking to win a respite, challenges Death to a game of chess. The Knight and Jons travel the contryside, which is ravaged by the plague. Also roaming the land is a band of travelling players--Jof (Nils Poppe), a visionary who sees the Virgin Mary, Jof's wife Mia (Bibi Andersson) and their baby.
The Knight seks answers, knowledge, assurances, but he cannot find them anywhere. He is confronted by the effects of the plague, trains of flagellants and a young girl accused of witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake. The Knight and Jons meet up with Jof's family, and together they cross the forest at night. There, they witness the execution of the of the young witch, played by Mausd Hansson. This is the most powerful scene in the film, and one of the most memorable in the history of the movies. Hansson's performance leaves one awestruck. She truly seems possessed, and the mad look in her eyes lacerating; it burns itself slowly into the viewer's memory, and, etched indelibly in fire, it becomes impossible to forget and is capable of giving one nightmares for days.
The immediacy of the film is impressive; as Pauline Kael wrote in her review, the film almsot seems to play itself out in a medieval present. At first there is a temptation to mock the seriousness of the film and the self-importance of the Knight's quest, which at times appears like a remnant of 1950s existentialist philosophy; but the images in "The Seventh Seal" are so hypnotically charged that one is pulled in and held fast.
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