Title of film : Winter Light
Director Name : Ingmar Bergman
Cast & crew :
Producer : Allan Ekelund
Editor : Ulla Ryghe
Cast :
Synopsis : Ingmar Bergman's "Winter Light," also known by the more appropriate British title "The Communicants," is the second installment in a film trilogy, preceded by "Through a Glass Darkly" and followed by "The Silence." This association was not intentional when Bergman made "Winter Light." Instead, the coda of "Through a Glass Darkly," "God is Love and Love is God," forms the nucleus from which he developed the central theme of "Winter Light. " The films of the trilogy are laid out like pieces of chamber music. First Movement. The film opens on a gray November Sunday, at noon. Pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Bjornstrand) is celebrating the liturgy of the Eucharist in a little church at Mittsunda. In the almost empty church, only seven parishioners are in attendance. Four of them are the usual attendees, and the other three are present with ulterior motives: the village school teacher and Eriskson's mistress, Marta Lundberg (Ingrid Thulin); the fisherman, Jonas Persson (Max von Sydow) and his pregnant wife Karin (Gunnel Lindblom). All three will communicate, together with the hunchback sexton of Frostnas, Algot Frovik (Allan Edwall), and an old woman from Hol (Elsa Ebbesen). Following the end of the service, flu-ridden Tomas returns to the vestry, where Mittsunda's sexton, Knut Aronsson (Kolbjorn Knudsen), is counting the meager collection. He advises the sickly Tomas to forgo the afternoon vespers service at the nearby village of. Frostnas. Tomas contemptuously refuses: he must dutifully keep his service to the parish. Frovik comes in to talk to Tomas about a personal problem, but Tomas dismisses him somewhat summarily, advising him to come to him later in the afternoon, before the vespers. Enter Mrs. Persson with her husband in tow, wanting to discuss a very urgent and private matter with the pastor. Jonas is silent and Karin must herself explain that her husband has been extremely depressed by a recent news article he read. According to the article, the Chinese, who are raised to hate, will soon possess the atomic bomb, thus intent in destroying everybody. Tomas is unable to connect with his parishioner's anguish and can only utter few platitudes: his "we must trust in God," provokes Jonas' angry look, which Tomas cannot sustain, and forces him to lowers his eyes. The situation is so awkward that Mrs. Persson suggests that her husband drives her home, and returns immediately for a more private conversation with the pastor. As the Perssons leave, Marta enters the vestry, bringing Tomas a basket of food and coffee. He tells her he already has his own coffee. This is a typical "Tomas" reaction to Marta's attention: everything Marta does to near herself to Tomas seems to be wrong. They bicker briefly over her persistent harassment that Tomas should marry her. Before leaving, Marta asks him if he has read the letter she sent him the previous day, in which she explains herself, but to her chagrin, he has not. Second Movement. After Marta's departure, and with some hesitation, Tomas reads the letter in the interval before Persson's return to the vestry. Persson returns as promised does he?] At first, too afraid to address Jonas's philosophical issue, Tomas acts more like a social worker, asking Jonas mundane questions about his life. Realizing the superficiality of his approach, Tomas next launches into a long monologue in which he voices his own fears and doubts about God. It is obvious that Tomas's word cannot help Jonas, who leaves the vestry without uttering a word. Tomas rushes out to the chancel where Marta is waiting for him, and collapses in a coughing fit in front of the altar. At that moment, the old woman from Hol enters and says that Jonas has committed suicide with his own gun, by the river. Tomas, returning quickly to the reality of his clerical function, rushes to the site of the suicide, leaving Marta alone. The police are already present, and Tomas must simply stand by uselessly, as the body is taken away. Meanwhile, Marta has walked to the scene by the river. Together, they drive back to her schoolhouse, where Tomas accepts her help in the form of some aspirins and cough medicine. Marta climbs to the upstairs apartment to fetch the medicine, while Tomas waits downstairs in the classroom. A young student enters to retrieve some comic books from his desk. Tomas engages the boy in a light conversation. Marta returns, and she continues to discuss with Tomas their relationship. This is the climax of the film. The scene is without doubt the cruelest verbal assault in all of Bergman's films. Triggered by Marta's "Sometime you sound as if you hated me," Tomas lets her have it, with both barrels blazing. Tomas's attack is so cruel that, as a spectator, one cannot feel but embarrassment at being somehow a reluctant witness to such an awful scene. The vicious arguments between Taylor and Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, or more relevant to Bergman, those between Ullmann and Josephson in Scenes from a Marriage, pale by comparison. Tomas nonetheless asks Marta if she would care to accompany him to the vespers at Frostnas. On the way, they are stopped at a train crossing. Tomas tells Marta of a terrifying childhood experience he had when he woke up frightened and could not find his father. They stop on their way at Mrs. Persson's house, so Tomas can bring her the news of her husband Jonas's death. Tomas and Marta continue on to Frostnas church. Third Movement. In the vestry, Frovik finally has the chance to explain his thoughts to Tomas about Christ's abandonment on the cross. At the same time, the organist, Fredrik Blom (Olof Thunberg), suggests to Marta she should leave Mittsunda and Tomas because the town is falling into despair, and because Tomas is still hopelessly in love with his dead wife. Blom says that people used to attend the church, but that Tomas's wife was Tomas's undoing. As there are no parishioners present for the service, Frovik comes in inquiring if the vesper should begin. Tomas tells him to go ahead regardless. As a result, the bells announcing the beginning of the ceremony are rung. Tomas emerges from the vestry, approaches the altar, and kneels. Frovik sits down in one of the rows. Marta stares toward Tomas as he rises and turns around to an empty congregation. He pronounces the final words of the film: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." He ostensibly continues to officiate.
Director Bio : Swedish film and theatrical director, scriptwriter, playwright, author. Born in Uppsala. Died at Fårö. Married to choreographer and dancer Else Fisher 1943-1945, to choreographer and director Ellen Lundström 1945-1950, to journalist Gun Grut 1951-1959, to concert pianist Käbi Laretei and to Ingrid von Rosen from 1971 until her death in 1995. Father of actress Lena Bergman, director Eva Bergman, film director Jan Bergman, actress and director Anna Bergman, actor and director Mats Bergman, director Daniel Bergman and author Maria von Rosen. - Not only is Ingmar Bergman by far the best-known film director from Sweden; he also remains one of the most influential cinematographic artists in the world. He was born in 1918 to the nurse Karin Bergman, née Åkerblom, and the clergyman Erik Bergman in Uppsala. The family soon moved to Stockholm where Erik Bergman later became vicar in the parish of Hedvig Eleonora. After graduating from gymnasium and enrolling in the University of Stockholm, he spent a few years directing in small Stockholm theatres. In 1944 he was invited to the Helsingborg Stadsteater as its artistic director. 1944 was also the year of his film debut as writer of Torment (Hets, entitled Frenzy in the US), directed by Alf Sjöberg. Throughout his sixty-year career, Bergman combined directing for stage with film direction, interspersed with the occasional literary production. In 1946 Bergman made his debut as director for the cinema with Crisis (Kris), a film version of the stage play "Moderhjertet" ('A Mother's Heart' by Leck Fischer). Like most of his subsequent works, he both wrote and directed the 1949 film The Devil's Wanton (Fängelse). Some years later he achieved international acclaim when his 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) won an award in Cannes. It is probably not just a coincidence that his work first came to the attention of international audiences in France. The influential film journal Cahiers du Cinéma was started in 1951 with the express ambition to feature directors with what the editors regarded as a unique and characteristic style. Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, critics at Cahiers du Cinéma later to become famous film directors themselves, considered Bergman the ideal representative of the new values they strove to proliferate, i.e. the writer-director who uses the camera just as an author uses his pen. Godard, for one, called Bergman's Summer Interlude (1951, US title: Illicit Interlude) "the world's most beautiful film". Two of Ingmar Bergman's most famous films, The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) and Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället), both premiered in 1957. His tremendous capacity for hard work is evidenced by the fact that, all in that same year, Bergman staged "Peer Gynt" and "The Misanthropist" at the Malmö Stadsteater, was in the process of shooting So Close to Life (Nära livet, 1958, US title: Brink of Life) and directed his first television production, Herr Sleeman kommer ('Mr. Sleeman Arrives'), also that two films anonymously scripted by Bergman premiered - Lars-Eric Kjellgren's Nattens ljus ('Lights of the Night') and Kenne Fant's Prästen i Uddarbo ('The Pastor of Uddarbo'). Depending a little on which films are counted as his; Bergman made some sixty films, more than one hundred seventy stage productions and wrote approximately one hundred books and articles. In the 1960s came the three films that comprise "The Trilogy on the Silence of God": Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel, 1961), Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna, 1963) and The Silence (Tystnaden), 1963. In 1964 came a film regarded as a total flop by audiences and critics alike, All these Women (För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor). Yet, two years later followed Persona, the film Bergman himself as well as many others saw as his greatest. In the 1970s and 1980s Bergman emancipated himself by starting his own production company, Cinematograph AB. This meant he could be his own producer for Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop, 1973) and Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap), a 1973 television series of unprecedented popularity in Sweden. When arraigned on charges of tax evasion (later to prove unfounded), Bergman went into voluntary exile in Munich, West Germany, where, among other things, he worked as a director at the Residenztheater, as well as shooting films, such as From the Life of the Marionettes (Aus dem Leben der Marionetten,1980). The premiere in 1982 of Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) perhaps the only one of his films truly loved by his compatriots, marked Bergman's glorious return to Sweden. Although he declared it "my last movie", Fanny and Alexander was followed by several works for television, for instance After the Rehearsal (Efter repetitionen, 1984) and In the Presence of a Clown (Larmar och gör sig till, 1997). In his later years, Bergman mainly established his reputation as a respected author. Film versions of several of his books were directed by other people, for example The Best Intentions (Den goda viljan, Bille August, 1991), Sunday's Children (Söndagsbarn, Daniel Bergman, 1992) and Faithless (Trolösa, Liv Ullmann, 2000). Bergman's real last film was to be the television production, Saraband ('Sarabande'), written and directed by him at the age of 85 in the year 2003. Basically the same theme with variations permeates all of Bergman's works: a universe peopled by dysfunctional families, humiliated but vampiric artists and an absent God symbolized by the characters' overall inability to communicate. His style is austere and unobtrusive, except for his uncompromising close-ups, denuding the human face as at once enticing and mysterious. Bergman's importance to the art of film cannot be overestimated. His insistence on doing most of his works in his native Swedish, so minor a language, and their nonetheless resounding around the world is unprecedented. He is without a doubt Sweden's foremost twentieth century artist; perhaps the foremost ever.
Filmography :
