I'm a huge fan of Bergman, so I was excited to read today that a five-disk DVD of "Fanny & Alexander" has just been released. It includes not only the 3-hour movie, but also the 5-hour original made-for-Swedish-TV version – I've never seen that, so I need to start placing hints around the house and see if this ends up under the Xmas tree.

To those who've never seen a Berman film, this is a good one to start with (despite the length) – it's not the depressing introspective God-is-dead / God-is-a-spider movie that he is infamous for, but rather an almost Dickensian look through a child's eyes at a theatrical family in turn-of-the-20th C. Sweden – with heroes, villians, great secondary characters and plot twists.

My other favorites are "Wild Strawberries" and "Smiles of a Summer Night"; the medieval passion plays, "Seventh Seal" and "Virgin Spring"; and the only two noteworthy ones from the 1970s, "Cries and Whispers" and his wonderful version of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" (he made some truly awful movies that decade including an English-language "The Serpent's Egg" (with Elliott Gould!) and a way too Hollywood melodrama "Autumn Sonata" which brought Ingrid Bergman back to her native tongue and turf for the last time.

I had the fortune of taking a class in college called "Twentieth Century Scandinavian Drama and Film" in which we read post-Strindberg era plays by the likes of Kai Munk, Pär Lagerkvist and Hjalmar Bergman. And every Thursday evening we saw a different Ingmar Bergman film – those focused on the "Through a Glass Darkly" era films – "Persona", "The Silence" ... Luckily after all that angst on a dark and cold Wisconsin evening, Thursdays were 50-cent Old Style night at the Church Key bar and on Friday and Saturdays there was Badger hockey to bring me back to reality!

So next time you have a cold winter night to kill, rent this DVD set, put some gløg on the stove, and enjoy!

DCBucky,

Thanks for this info. I too am a huge Bergman fan and when the Castro Theatre earlier this year showed many of his classics, including "F&A," I got my butt there to watch them again.

Frankly, I was in ecstasy just being able to see his work up on the huge, huge silver screen, not to mention the print was newly restored and a pleasure to watch.

I'll keep an eye out for the five hour Swedish TV version on DVD at my local video store.

I had never seen "Wild Strawberries" so it was beyond satisfying to catch it in a theatre, along with seeing "Autumn Sonata" and "Cries and Whispers" again.

BTW, if you appreciate Bergman, you might also like the films of Bela Tarr of Hungary. None of Tarr's works are on tape or disc yet, except one early work, "Almanac of Fall." His later masterpieces, "Damnation," "Satantango," and "Werckmeister Harmonies," belong on DVD so more cineastes can discover his cinematic genius.

[ December 09, 2004, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: MPetrelis ]

Hey.

I'm relatively new to Outsports and to this board, but a 5-hour version of Fanny and Alexander?! Have I died and gone to heaven?! I can't wait...!

You probably know Tarkovsky too. My favorite. His "The Sacrifice" or "Nostalgia" or "Solaris" are shocking exercises in the art of duration.

Tarkovsky is one of the greatest directors of all time. His films utilize time as a central theme, and often proceed like tableaux vivants; "Nostalghia," "Andrei Rublev," "The Mirror," "Stalker," etc., are among the masterpieces of cinematic art.

"Autumn Sonata" is more than a "Hollywood" melodrama. The controlled violence in Liv Ullmann's performance, and the contempt in Ingrid Bergman's are stunning; rarely has Hollywood presented a film focusing on a mother-daughter relationship in which two actresses, one at the tail end of her career (she received a deserved Oscar nomination for it), are performing at the summit of their art. It's one of the most lacerating film-watching experiences I can think of--so truthful Hollywood could definitely take more than a few pointers.

Bergman is also one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. My favorites in addition to "AS" are "The Passion of Anna,""Scenes from a Marriage,""The Seventh Seal,""Through a Glass Darkly,""Persona,""The Magician,""Cries and Whispers," "The Virgin Spring," and "Brink of Life."

Just wanted to add that the master of shocking "duration" is Aleksandr Sokhurov/Sokurov, whose "Mother and Son," highly homoerotic "Father and Son," and tour-de-force "Russian Ark" (how ON EARTH did he make this in one continuous take? How was/is it humanly possible???) are temporal marvels--though the first two really will try your patience unless you are into the visual poetry of lyrical imagery.

Father & Son (Otets i syn)

[ December 10, 2004, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]