Reader, you have been lied to! Film history is littered with unfairly maligned classics, whether critics were too eager to review the making of rather than the finished product, or they suffered from underwhelming ad campaigns or general disinterest. Let’s revise our takes on some of these films from the wrongheaded to the correct opinion.
The list of sequels to masterpieces that can be considered masterpieces themselves isn’t a very long one; “The Godfather Part II” is an obvious candidate, and arguments can be made for James Cameron‘s “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “The Color of Money” all have their partisans, and Ingmar Bergman scored a late-career triumph with his “Scenes From a Marriage” sequel “Saraband.” One movie that almost never gets mentioned in this company is “The Two Jakes,” the 1990 sequel to “Chinatown” directed by its star,...
The list of sequels to masterpieces that can be considered masterpieces themselves isn’t a very long one; “The Godfather Part II” is an obvious candidate, and arguments can be made for James Cameron‘s “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” “Blade Runner 2049,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “The Color of Money” all have their partisans, and Ingmar Bergman scored a late-career triumph with his “Scenes From a Marriage” sequel “Saraband.” One movie that almost never gets mentioned in this company is “The Two Jakes,” the 1990 sequel to “Chinatown” directed by its star,...
- 3/6/2024
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Ingmar Bergman is the Oscar-winning Swedish auteur who helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot...
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot...
- 7/8/2023
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
To mark the release of Saraband for Dead Lovers on 13th March, we’ve been given Blu-ray copies to give away to 2 winners.
In 1682, the sixteen-year-old Sophie Dorothea (Joan Greenwood) is unhappily married by arrangement to Prince George Louis of Hanover (Peter Bull), an aristocrat destined to inherit the British crown. Despairing of ever experiencing true love, the desolate new Queen finds no solace in her life at court until she falls for a dashing Swedish mercenary, Count Konigsmark (Stewart Granger).
Having hatched a plot to flee England together, the couple’s scheme is discovered by the jealous Countess Platen (Flora Robson), Konigsmark’s previous lover, spelling disaster for the young lovers.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
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The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 16th March 2023 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random from entries...
In 1682, the sixteen-year-old Sophie Dorothea (Joan Greenwood) is unhappily married by arrangement to Prince George Louis of Hanover (Peter Bull), an aristocrat destined to inherit the British crown. Despairing of ever experiencing true love, the desolate new Queen finds no solace in her life at court until she falls for a dashing Swedish mercenary, Count Konigsmark (Stewart Granger).
Having hatched a plot to flee England together, the couple’s scheme is discovered by the jealous Countess Platen (Flora Robson), Konigsmark’s previous lover, spelling disaster for the young lovers.
Please note: This competition is open to UK residents only
a Rafflecopter giveaway
The Small Print
Open to UK residents only The competition will close 16th March 2023 at 23.59 GMT The winner will be picked at random from entries...
- 3/6/2023
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
One of the greatest remaining bastions of Hollywood’s golden age, Musso & Frank has been beloved of everyone from Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe to Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones. The latest star to call herself a regular at the storied restaurant is North America’s premiere whistler, Molly Lewis. It’s a fitting match, as Lewis’s unique, wryly camp confection of tiki-bar blues is quite unlike anything else that’s been released since the heady days of the 1950s exotica boom. Lewis’s high-pitched birdsong is endlessly fascinating, sounding not unlike ear-piercing coloratura soprano Yma Sumac, who was the whistle-toned Ariana Grande of her day. Want a musician who seems like they might soundtrack Quentin Tarantino’s next movie? Molly Lewis is your woman.
I meet Lewis on a sticky summer’s evening at the infamous Los Angeles hideaway, ahead of the release of her second EP,...
I meet Lewis on a sticky summer’s evening at the infamous Los Angeles hideaway, ahead of the release of her second EP,...
- 9/11/2022
- by Leonie Cooper
- The Independent - Music
Every filmmaker keeps a couple of projects simmering on the back burner, the kind that can stay there for years until something heats them up. Mia Hansen-Løve had long wanted to write a script about two married film directors. She had personal insights, after all: she was married for 15 years to older French auteur Olivier Assayas, who first met her as a teenager when she acted in two of his films before going off to college and becoming a filmmaker (they had one child and divorced in 2017).
But her idea wasn’t going anywhere until Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman died: Hansen-Løve just didn’t know that yet.
“I spend so much time with an idea of a film,” she told me backstage at the New York Film Festival, where her seventh feature film “Bergman Island” was warmly embraced, just as it was at Cannes earlier in the year. “It evolves...
But her idea wasn’t going anywhere until Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman died: Hansen-Løve just didn’t know that yet.
“I spend so much time with an idea of a film,” she told me backstage at the New York Film Festival, where her seventh feature film “Bergman Island” was warmly embraced, just as it was at Cannes earlier in the year. “It evolves...
- 10/14/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Every filmmaker keeps a couple of projects simmering on the back burner, the kind that can stay there for years until something heats them up. Mia Hansen-Løve had long wanted to write a script about two married film directors. She had personal insights, after all: she was married for 15 years to older French auteur Olivier Assayas, who first met her as a teenager when she acted in two of his films before going off to college and becoming a filmmaker (they had one child and divorced in 2017).
But her idea wasn’t going anywhere until Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman died: Hansen-Løve just didn’t know that yet.
“I spend so much time with an idea of a film,” she told me backstage at the New York Film Festival, where her seventh feature film “Bergman Island” was warmly embraced, just as it was at Cannes earlier in the year. “It evolves...
But her idea wasn’t going anywhere until Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman died: Hansen-Løve just didn’t know that yet.
“I spend so much time with an idea of a film,” she told me backstage at the New York Film Festival, where her seventh feature film “Bergman Island” was warmly embraced, just as it was at Cannes earlier in the year. “It evolves...
- 10/14/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
The U.S. release of Julia Ducournau’s historic Palme d’Or winner “Titane” is right around the corner, and IndieWire is marking the occasion by exclusively premiering the first track from Jim Williams’ wild original score. “Titane” reunites Ducournau and Williams after their breakthrough work on the filmmaker’s feature directorial debut “Raw.” The first track released from the “Titane” score is the main theme “Sarabande,” an ominous, pulsating piece of music that’s indicative of the darkly foreboding quality of Ducournau’s vision.
“The score for ‘Titane’ grows from a short theme for a scene where the protagonist leaves home in startling circumstances,” Williams said in a statement. “Initially in a contemporary popular music style with a tinge of John Barry, later this was set with metal percussion and male voice choir using the Neapolitan Minor for a scene set in a car. As the film develops the theme takes on an emotional,...
“The score for ‘Titane’ grows from a short theme for a scene where the protagonist leaves home in startling circumstances,” Williams said in a statement. “Initially in a contemporary popular music style with a tinge of John Barry, later this was set with metal percussion and male voice choir using the Neapolitan Minor for a scene set in a car. As the film develops the theme takes on an emotional,...
- 9/23/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
We have only a month or so to wait until Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are reunited on-screen for HBO’s adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes From a Marriage.” With the release of HBO’s official trailer for the limited series comes confirmation that it will debut September 12 on HBO and HBO Max. “Scenes From a Marriage” will world premiere several episodes at the Venice Film Festival ahead of its premiere.
“Scenes From a Marriage” is an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 miniseries of the same name. The series transports the ’70s-set story of the Swedish original to modern day America. Chastain and Isaac embody the roles originated by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, respectively, who played an affluent married couple whose marriage is charted across a decade, from disintegration to reconciliation and back.
The nearly two-minute trailer gives viewers a pretty solid foundation of the premise. Chastain and...
“Scenes From a Marriage” is an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 miniseries of the same name. The series transports the ’70s-set story of the Swedish original to modern day America. Chastain and Isaac embody the roles originated by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, respectively, who played an affluent married couple whose marriage is charted across a decade, from disintegration to reconciliation and back.
The nearly two-minute trailer gives viewers a pretty solid foundation of the premise. Chastain and...
- 8/17/2021
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
The first teaser trailer for “Scenes from a Marriage,” HBO’s limited series adaptation of the classic Ingmar Bergman drama, has arrived. Oscar Isaac and Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain star in Hagai Levi’s update of the Swedish miniseries as a couple in serious crisis. Check out the first look below.
“Scenes from a Marriage” re-examines the blistering 1973 miniseries’ iconic depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, and marriage through the lens of a modern-day American couple, played by Isaac and Chastain. The limited series project marks a reunion for Chastain and co-star Oscar Isaac, who led Jc Chandor’s 2014 film “A Most Violent Year.”
The series will transport the ’70s-set story of the Swedish original, which was condensed from its original six parts to a theater-friendly, three-hour movie in 1974, to America. Chastain and Isaac embody the roles originated by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, respectively, who played an affluent...
“Scenes from a Marriage” re-examines the blistering 1973 miniseries’ iconic depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, and marriage through the lens of a modern-day American couple, played by Isaac and Chastain. The limited series project marks a reunion for Chastain and co-star Oscar Isaac, who led Jc Chandor’s 2014 film “A Most Violent Year.”
The series will transport the ’70s-set story of the Swedish original, which was condensed from its original six parts to a theater-friendly, three-hour movie in 1974, to America. Chastain and Isaac embody the roles originated by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, respectively, who played an affluent...
- 7/8/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Yo-Yo Ma treated a Massachusetts vaccine distribution center to an impromptu performance Saturday, minutes after the renowned cellist received his second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Both Ma and his wife received their second shot Saturday at a vaccine center in Berkshire Community College, ABC News reports. During the cellist’s 15-minute stay in the observation room/school’s gymnasium, he sat against the wall with his instrument to deliver a surprise performance for his fellow inoculated.
Ma’s mini-concert included Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No.
Both Ma and his wife received their second shot Saturday at a vaccine center in Berkshire Community College, ABC News reports. During the cellist’s 15-minute stay in the observation room/school’s gymnasium, he sat against the wall with his instrument to deliver a surprise performance for his fellow inoculated.
Ma’s mini-concert included Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No.
- 3/14/2021
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
We're back with another round of Horror Highlights! In today's installment, we have release details for Before the Fire and Nothing but the Blood, the trailer for Game of Death, details on the Dracula 2000 soundtrack release, and more:
Before The Fire Release Details: "Dark Sky Films is proud to announce that the pandemic thriller Before The Fire will be available in virtual cinemas and on digital platforms/VOD on August 14th."
Synopsis - "As a global pandemic engulfs Los Angeles, rising TV star Ava Boone (SAG Award nominee Jenna Lyng Adams) is forced to flee the mounting chaos and return to her rural hometown. As she struggles to acclimate to a way of life she left behind long ago, her homecoming attracts a dangerous figure from her past - threatening both her and the family that serves as her only sanctuary.
Brimming with tension and paranoia, and featuring a tough-as-nails performance from its lead actress,...
Before The Fire Release Details: "Dark Sky Films is proud to announce that the pandemic thriller Before The Fire will be available in virtual cinemas and on digital platforms/VOD on August 14th."
Synopsis - "As a global pandemic engulfs Los Angeles, rising TV star Ava Boone (SAG Award nominee Jenna Lyng Adams) is forced to flee the mounting chaos and return to her rural hometown. As she struggles to acclimate to a way of life she left behind long ago, her homecoming attracts a dangerous figure from her past - threatening both her and the family that serves as her only sanctuary.
Brimming with tension and paranoia, and featuring a tough-as-nails performance from its lead actress,...
- 7/3/2020
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Ingmar Bergman would’ve celebrated his 101st birthday on July 14, 2019. The Oscar-winning Swedish auteur helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life,...
Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits “Summer with Monika” (1953), “Sawdust and Tinsel” (1953) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: “Wild Strawberries” and “The Seventh Seal.” Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality — the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life,...
- 7/14/2019
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
In the year of the Swedish master’s 100th birthday, Margarethe Von Trotta wraps a belated, posthumous gift with her Searching for Ingmar Bergman, a portrait of the artist as seen and experienced by a handful of acolytes and former collaborators, who conjure up a communal memoir so affectionate and heartfelt that by the time Searching clocks its 99 minutes, the feeling is to be leaving a dinner table where people have gathered to mourn a longtime friend-cum-mentor.
This collaborative dimension is possibly Searching’s strongest asset: while Von Trotta serves as the chief chaperon, opening Searching with a shot of the beach where Bergman filmed the opening sequence of The Seventh Seal to take off for an international, pan-European journey into the director’s life, the trip (and the image of Bergman that billows to life along the way) is very much a communal experience. Having accounted for her own artistic liaison with Bergman,...
This collaborative dimension is possibly Searching’s strongest asset: while Von Trotta serves as the chief chaperon, opening Searching with a shot of the beach where Bergman filmed the opening sequence of The Seventh Seal to take off for an international, pan-European journey into the director’s life, the trip (and the image of Bergman that billows to life along the way) is very much a communal experience. Having accounted for her own artistic liaison with Bergman,...
- 10/4/2018
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
“Earthly And Imperfect Love”
By Raymond Benson
Ingmar Bergman’s celebrated six-part mini-series, Scenes from a Marriage, premiered on Swedish television in 1973. For markets outside of his native country, Bergman cut the 297-minute TV version down to 169-minutes (not quite three hours) for a theatrical release in 1974—which is the version I first saw.
Having recently discovered Bergman in the early 1970s while attending college, I welcomed Scenes with enthusiasm and awe, as did most critics. The film received numerous accolades, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deemed the picture ineligible for Oscars since it had previously been a television mini-series. The acclaim for the film, director/writer Bergman, and the movie’s two brilliant actors, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, was through the roof.
In a nutshell, it’s the intimate, often painful, sometimes joyful story of the twenty-year relationship of a married-then-divorced couple. The tale...
By Raymond Benson
Ingmar Bergman’s celebrated six-part mini-series, Scenes from a Marriage, premiered on Swedish television in 1973. For markets outside of his native country, Bergman cut the 297-minute TV version down to 169-minutes (not quite three hours) for a theatrical release in 1974—which is the version I first saw.
Having recently discovered Bergman in the early 1970s while attending college, I welcomed Scenes with enthusiasm and awe, as did most critics. The film received numerous accolades, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deemed the picture ineligible for Oscars since it had previously been a television mini-series. The acclaim for the film, director/writer Bergman, and the movie’s two brilliant actors, Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, was through the roof.
In a nutshell, it’s the intimate, often painful, sometimes joyful story of the twenty-year relationship of a married-then-divorced couple. The tale...
- 9/30/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Tomorrow is the centenary of the birth of one of cinema’s greatest directors, Ingmar Bergman, and to celebrate, The Criterion Collection has announced of their most expansive releases ever. This November, they will release Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema, a 39-film box set comprising nearly all of his work, including 18 films never before released by Criterion. Curated akin to a film festival, the set features Opening, Centerpiece, and Closing Films, with many double features in between. The set also features 11 introductions and over five hours of interviews with the director himself, six making-of documentaries, a 248-page book, and much more.
As we await for its November 20 release, check out an overview from Criterion below, as well as the box art, the trailer, and the full list of films, in curated order. One can also see much more about each release and the special features on the official site.
With the...
As we await for its November 20 release, check out an overview from Criterion below, as well as the box art, the trailer, and the full list of films, in curated order. One can also see much more about each release and the special features on the official site.
With the...
- 7/13/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
July 14 marks the 100th birthday of writer-director Ingmar Bergman, whom Variety declared on Nov. 24, 1954, to be “Sweden’s top director.” Within three years, Bergman went beyond that: He was recognized as one of the top filmmakers in the entire world, thanks to the 1957 duo of “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries.” A year later, Carl Dymling, president of Sweden’s leading production unit Svensk Filmindustri, told Variety that “Seventh Seal” marked a new era in moviemaking: “Bergman uses the film much as an author does his book. As a rule, one can’t afford to be too explicit about one’s own feelings in making a picture. But Bergman does it.” The director made global stars of Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow and inspired young filmmakers around the world for decades with his tales of existential crisis, the tenderness and brutality between individuals, and the pleasures and insanity of sex.
- 6/22/2018
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi is showing the retrospective The Inner Demons of Ingmar Bergman from June 8 - August 28, 2017 in the United Kingdom.I've told this brief story of how I fell under the spell of cinema so many times I've become brazen to it. At eighteen years, in February 1993, I found Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (dubbed) at the video store. As Woody Allen spoke of the Swede in hushed tones, I decided I should try a film. Ninety minutes later I sat stunned and spellbound, not sure what to do or think, but surely sure I must be onto something. Cinematic rapture still has a psychical aspect for me, the torque the sedentary body goes through while coping with the images before it. I can always tell how good a film is if my armpits smell after. The body doesn't lie. Ingmar Bergman is an easy crush—one writer I know...
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
Together, Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman made some of the greatest films of all time: films like Shame, The Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers, Scenes From a Marriage, and, of course, Persona (which our own David Edelstein, in his 2007 obituary for Bergman, deemed “the film against which all other psychodramas must be judged”). Their romance may only have lasted a few years, but their professional collaboration lasted for decades. (Ullmann eventually directed some scripts that Bergman had written, and she also co-starred in his final film, Saraband.) The tormented ups and downs of their relationship are charted in the new documentary Liv and Ingmar: Painfully Connected, which premieres tonight at the New York Film Festival. In it, Ullmann frankly discusses her epic relationship with Bergman and even shares some of the remarkably florid letters he wrote to her. Her admiration and love for the man remain vivid, as do...
- 10/1/2012
- by Bilge Ebiri
- Vulture
After doing the rounds on VoD for a few weeks, where many of you will have seen it, Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz" starts to roll out in theaters from tomorrow, and we can't recommend it enough; it's a messy, sometimes frustrating film, but a deeply felt, beautifully made and wonderfully acted one, and we named it last week as one of the best of the year so far. It is not, however, recommended as a date movie, fitting into a long cinematic tradition of painful examinations of broken, decaying, collapsing or dead relationships.
After all, it's one of the more universal human experiences; unless you get very lucky, everyone who falls in love will at some point have the wrenching experience of falling out of it, or being fallen out of love with. And when done best in film, it can be bruising and borderline torturous for a filmmaker and an audience,...
After all, it's one of the more universal human experiences; unless you get very lucky, everyone who falls in love will at some point have the wrenching experience of falling out of it, or being fallen out of love with. And when done best in film, it can be bruising and borderline torturous for a filmmaker and an audience,...
- 6/28/2012
- by The Playlist Staff
- The Playlist
Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullmann Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman are the subjects of former architect Dheeraj Akolkar's documentary Liv & Ingmar, produced by the Norwegian company NordicStories and to be distributed by Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri. After meeting in 1965, Ullmann and Bergman made ten (narrative) films together; they were also off-screen companions for five years. In Liv & Ingmar, Ullmann, 73, is shown spending a few days in Bergman's house on the Swedish island of Fårø. While there, she reminisces about their personal and professional relationships. That sounds fascinating enough. But what makes Liv & Ingmar even more intriguing is that Ullmann's recollections are interspersed with scenes from her Bergman films, which is supposed to show how their personal lives directly affected their professional collaboration. In that regard, Liv & Ingmar makes Ullmann and Bergman seem like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who went from The Purple of Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters...
- 4/20/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"Swedish actor Erland Josephson, who collaborated with legendary film director Ingmar Bergman in more than 40 films and plays, has died," reports the AP. He was 88. "Josephson was born in Stockholm in 1923 and met Bergman while training as an amateur actor at 16. He appeared in several Bergman plays and films. He shot to international stardom with the role of Johan in Berman's film Scenes from a Marriage, in 1973. Josephson also starred in Andrey Tarkovskiy's films Nostalghia [1983] and The Sacrifice [1986]."
"It is Josephson's face which makes him so effective on film," reads his entry in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, "that bearlike aspect, his ability to look lost and forlorn, to convey a sense of suffering and bewilderment, in spite of his bluff exterior. Were one to repeat Kuleshov's famous experiment of the 1920s and to intercut the same shot of Josephson with images of joy, of sadness, of anger,...
"It is Josephson's face which makes him so effective on film," reads his entry in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, "that bearlike aspect, his ability to look lost and forlorn, to convey a sense of suffering and bewilderment, in spite of his bluff exterior. Were one to repeat Kuleshov's famous experiment of the 1920s and to intercut the same shot of Josephson with images of joy, of sadness, of anger,...
- 2/29/2012
- MUBI
Swedish actor known for his roles in Ingmar Bergman's films and television dramas
Although the actors who comprised Ingmar Bergman's repertory company all went on to make their own prestigious careers, they will for ever be associated with the great Swedish film and stage director. Erland Josephson, who has died aged 88 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was artistically linked with Bergman even more than Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin. Josephson appeared in more than a dozen of Bergman's films, and played a Bergman surrogate in Ullmann's Faithless (2000).
In middle and old age, he was chosen by directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Theo Angelopoulos for the qualities he revealed in the Bergman films – a certain self-centred introspection and a deep melancholy, etched on his lined and grizzled features. Because he became a leading film actor in his 50s, he seems never to have been young.
Although the actors who comprised Ingmar Bergman's repertory company all went on to make their own prestigious careers, they will for ever be associated with the great Swedish film and stage director. Erland Josephson, who has died aged 88 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was artistically linked with Bergman even more than Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin. Josephson appeared in more than a dozen of Bergman's films, and played a Bergman surrogate in Ullmann's Faithless (2000).
In middle and old age, he was chosen by directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Theo Angelopoulos for the qualities he revealed in the Bergman films – a certain self-centred introspection and a deep melancholy, etched on his lined and grizzled features. Because he became a leading film actor in his 50s, he seems never to have been young.
- 2/27/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Just days after reviews began coming in from a stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Through A Glass Darkly, it looks as though more stage adaptations of the legendary auteurs work may be on the horizon.
According to a feature penned by Variety, the Bergman estate is slowly becoming more open to stage adaptations, especially after the aforementioned Through A Glass Darkly. The Bergman Foundation has only sanctioned three films for stage adaptations; The Devil’s Eye, The Seventh Seal, and Through A Glass Darkly, within the English speaking world.
Scenes From A Marriage has been done in Russia, which while not being sanctioned for stage performance by the Bergman estate, has since become the most popular adaptation of Bergman’s, along with teleplays of Saraband, From The Life Of The Marionettes and After The Rehearsal. Also quite popular are Persona, Autumn Sonata and Winter Light, all of which haven...
According to a feature penned by Variety, the Bergman estate is slowly becoming more open to stage adaptations, especially after the aforementioned Through A Glass Darkly. The Bergman Foundation has only sanctioned three films for stage adaptations; The Devil’s Eye, The Seventh Seal, and Through A Glass Darkly, within the English speaking world.
Scenes From A Marriage has been done in Russia, which while not being sanctioned for stage performance by the Bergman estate, has since become the most popular adaptation of Bergman’s, along with teleplays of Saraband, From The Life Of The Marionettes and After The Rehearsal. Also quite popular are Persona, Autumn Sonata and Winter Light, all of which haven...
- 6/26/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
I have no way of knowing Robert McNamara's thoughts in his final days. He might have reflected on his agreement to speak openly to Errol Morris in the extraordinary documentary "The Fog of War." His reflections are almost without precedent among modern statesmen and those involved in waging war. Remembered as the architect of the war in Vietnam, he doesn't quite apologize for not having done more to end that war--although he clearly wishes he had. His purpose in the film is to speak of his philosophy of life, to add depth to history's one-dimensional portrait. Don't we all want to do that?
"I have no regrets," Edith Piaf sang. It is clear that she does regret. She is singing of love, not war. I think she is saying that she and her lover did the best they could. If she can say that, she need have no regrets. McNamara...
"I have no regrets," Edith Piaf sang. It is clear that she does regret. She is singing of love, not war. I think she is saying that she and her lover did the best they could. If she can say that, she need have no regrets. McNamara...
- 7/16/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Upon receiving Criterion's brand new special edition of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal I had just finished watching his film trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence) and there couldn't have been a more appropriate time to do so. Of the three films in Bergman's trilogy, Winter Light is not only the best, it is a perfect companion piece to The Seventh Seal. Made five years after The Seventh Seal, Winter Light also touches on the "silence of God," but where these two films differ is in their outcome. While both are asking questions, Winter Light offers far more answers than The Seventh Seal, but where Winter Light finds answers and The Seventh Seal does not is exactly where both films find their charm. Criterion initially released The Seventh Seal in 1999 with only an audio commentary by Bergman expert Peter Cowie, the theatrical trailer and what...
- 6/16/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
As a rule, the Danish speak fantastic English. Some of the Danes in Copenhagen are so ‘accent’-free you might think they’re American. But there’s something tinny-sounding about Reaching Julie, Dane Fili Seifert’s 10-part web series for Filmaka. The show reinforces my unofficial mantra of short-form, online video content: it’s tough to pull off a drama without any comedy. Aesthetically, Reaching Julie has much going for it. Small town and country Scandanavia provides a beautiful backdrop to the expertly framed action, and the pleasant country house that plays a recurring role is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s Saraband (which was made for TV but could essentially be seen as Bergman’s last film). Indeed, much of Reaching Julie was shot in Sweden, not Denmark. But otherwise, let’s not attempt to compare Seifert’s work with Bergman’s. It just wouldn’t be fair. Limiting your...
- 3/20/2009
- by Michael Shaw
- Tilzy.tv
This week Disney opens Race to Witch Mountain 31 years after the last Witch Mountain movie, which, to give you a sense of the time, opened in 1978 and featured the top-billed Bette Davis and Christopher Lee as the bad guys! That's a long time ago, but there are lots of other belated sequels to consider. In order of waiting time: 1. Belle Toujours (2006)
Duration between sequels: 39 years
Luis Bunuel made Belle de Jour in 1967 and died in 1983. Lots and lots of years later, the 98-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira picked up the story thread and re-united the two lead characters. Sadly, original star Catherine Deneuve was either unwilling or unable to re-create her role as the icy Severine, and so Bulle Ogier had to stand in for her. Michel Piccoli once again plays Henri Husson, who years earlier caught Severine in an awkward position -- secretly working daytime hours at a Paris brothel.
Duration between sequels: 39 years
Luis Bunuel made Belle de Jour in 1967 and died in 1983. Lots and lots of years later, the 98-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira picked up the story thread and re-united the two lead characters. Sadly, original star Catherine Deneuve was either unwilling or unable to re-create her role as the icy Severine, and so Bulle Ogier had to stand in for her. Michel Piccoli once again plays Henri Husson, who years earlier caught Severine in an awkward position -- secretly working daytime hours at a Paris brothel.
- 3/13/2009
- by Jeffrey M. Anderson
- Cinematical
Venice International Film Festival
VENICE, Italy -- Veteran director Brian De Palma's filmmaking skills have seldom been as razor sharp as they are in his sensational new film about members of a U.S. army squad who rape and murder a 15-year-old Iraqi girl and slay her family.
Made on HD video and employing images from digital cameras, video recorders, Internet uploads and old-fashioned film, De Palma's movie is a ferocious argument against the engagement in Iraq for what it is doing to everyone involved.
Made so expertly that it appears to be assembled from genuine footage, the film details the extraordinary psychological pressure suffered by young soldiers on checkpoint duty in occupied areas of Iraq, and then follows one unit as two of its members skew monstrously out of control.
De Palma's screenplay is outstanding, and he draws wonderfully naturalistic performances from his youthful cast. Sympathetic to the young men who lose their way in horrible circumstances but unflinching in its depiction of the horrors that can result, the film is harrowing, but it should find responsive audiences everywhere.
A fictional story based on real events, Redacted distills images from an array of sources to tell its story, beginning with those captured by Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz), a young soldier who hopes they will buy his way into film school. Clean-cut Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney) also wields a video camera, but Salazar goes to extremes making a daily record of almost everything he sees.
That includes conversations with the other guys in the unit: Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll), a doper whose name is apt; B.B. Rush Daniel Stewart Sherman), a blowhard with a lot of body fat; Gabe Blix (Kel O'Neill), who likes to read John O'Hara; and two sergeants, Sweet (Ty Jones) and Vazques (Mike Figueroa). They goof around for the camera off duty and Salazar even records them on duty so that when one of them is blown to pieces by a bomb left in roadside trash, he gets it all.
By then, footage from a French documentary about the unit has made clear how the monotony and constant fear of maintaining checkpoints grinds the men down. Constantly being told they have to remain on duty for a further tour, they are drained and on edge. The docu reports that over 24 months 2,000 Iraqis were killed at checkpoints with only 60 proven to be insurgents. In one such incident, a pregnant woman and her baby are killed when her brother, taking her to the hospital, races through the unit's checkpoint thinking he's been waved on.
Rush and Flake are especially vulnerable to demonizing an enemy that they don't recognize or understand. Their plan to rape the daughter of a Sunni man recently arrested comes up almost idly but then becomes one of deadly intent.
De Palma uses all his considerable talent to make clear what has happened to these young men and the performances, especially by Carroll as the callously indifferent Flake and Devaney as the conscience stricken McCoy, are first rate.
The director makes great use of Handel's Sarabande in the picture, the somber tones familiar as the main title music in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. It's a reminder that nothing depicted in this film is new and that it's a shame it needs to be told again.
REDACTED
Magnolia Pictures
Produced by HDNet Films
Director, writer: Brian De Palma
Producers: Mark Cuban, Jason Kirt, Simone Urdl, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner, Jennifer Weiss
Director of photography: Jonathon Cliff
Production designer: Phillip Barker
Co-executive producer: Gretchen McGowan
Costume designer: Jamila Alaeddin
Editor: Bill Pankow
Cast:
Angel Salazar: Izzy Diaz
Specialist B.B. Rush: Daniel Stewart Sherman
Reno Flake: Patrick Carroll
Lawyer McCoy: Rob Devaney
Sgt. Vazques: Mike Figueroa
Msgt. Jim Sweet: Ty Jones
Gabe Blix: Kel O'Neill.
MPAA rating R, running time 90 minutes...
VENICE, Italy -- Veteran director Brian De Palma's filmmaking skills have seldom been as razor sharp as they are in his sensational new film about members of a U.S. army squad who rape and murder a 15-year-old Iraqi girl and slay her family.
Made on HD video and employing images from digital cameras, video recorders, Internet uploads and old-fashioned film, De Palma's movie is a ferocious argument against the engagement in Iraq for what it is doing to everyone involved.
Made so expertly that it appears to be assembled from genuine footage, the film details the extraordinary psychological pressure suffered by young soldiers on checkpoint duty in occupied areas of Iraq, and then follows one unit as two of its members skew monstrously out of control.
De Palma's screenplay is outstanding, and he draws wonderfully naturalistic performances from his youthful cast. Sympathetic to the young men who lose their way in horrible circumstances but unflinching in its depiction of the horrors that can result, the film is harrowing, but it should find responsive audiences everywhere.
A fictional story based on real events, Redacted distills images from an array of sources to tell its story, beginning with those captured by Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz), a young soldier who hopes they will buy his way into film school. Clean-cut Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney) also wields a video camera, but Salazar goes to extremes making a daily record of almost everything he sees.
That includes conversations with the other guys in the unit: Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll), a doper whose name is apt; B.B. Rush Daniel Stewart Sherman), a blowhard with a lot of body fat; Gabe Blix (Kel O'Neill), who likes to read John O'Hara; and two sergeants, Sweet (Ty Jones) and Vazques (Mike Figueroa). They goof around for the camera off duty and Salazar even records them on duty so that when one of them is blown to pieces by a bomb left in roadside trash, he gets it all.
By then, footage from a French documentary about the unit has made clear how the monotony and constant fear of maintaining checkpoints grinds the men down. Constantly being told they have to remain on duty for a further tour, they are drained and on edge. The docu reports that over 24 months 2,000 Iraqis were killed at checkpoints with only 60 proven to be insurgents. In one such incident, a pregnant woman and her baby are killed when her brother, taking her to the hospital, races through the unit's checkpoint thinking he's been waved on.
Rush and Flake are especially vulnerable to demonizing an enemy that they don't recognize or understand. Their plan to rape the daughter of a Sunni man recently arrested comes up almost idly but then becomes one of deadly intent.
De Palma uses all his considerable talent to make clear what has happened to these young men and the performances, especially by Carroll as the callously indifferent Flake and Devaney as the conscience stricken McCoy, are first rate.
The director makes great use of Handel's Sarabande in the picture, the somber tones familiar as the main title music in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. It's a reminder that nothing depicted in this film is new and that it's a shame it needs to be told again.
REDACTED
Magnolia Pictures
Produced by HDNet Films
Director, writer: Brian De Palma
Producers: Mark Cuban, Jason Kirt, Simone Urdl, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner, Jennifer Weiss
Director of photography: Jonathon Cliff
Production designer: Phillip Barker
Co-executive producer: Gretchen McGowan
Costume designer: Jamila Alaeddin
Editor: Bill Pankow
Cast:
Angel Salazar: Izzy Diaz
Specialist B.B. Rush: Daniel Stewart Sherman
Reno Flake: Patrick Carroll
Lawyer McCoy: Rob Devaney
Sgt. Vazques: Mike Figueroa
Msgt. Jim Sweet: Ty Jones
Gabe Blix: Kel O'Neill.
MPAA rating R, running time 90 minutes...
- 8/31/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- Nearly a million Swedes watched the premiere of Ingmar Bergman's made-for-television movie Saraband. Not bad for a country that counts about as many bodies as the 5 boroughs of New York city. In honor of the passing of Ingmar Bergman, we’d like to propose as this week's weekend rental lengthy the lengthy, double-bill of two of his films that followed the same characters almost 30 years apart. Scenes From a Marriage was originally created as a six-part series for television, but it became one of his better film projects in the late stages of his life. Johan and Marianne played by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann who were married back then would then find themselves a whole lot older and divorced in what did become a television series in native Sweden and on compact but powerful film stateside in Saraband. Put together - this six hour opus is well
- 8/11/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director considered one of the most influential and acclaimed filmmakers of modern cinema, died at his home in Faro, Sweden, on Monday; he was 89. The death was announced by the Swedish news agency TT and confirmed by Bergman's daughter, Eva, and Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, though an official cause of death was not yet given. Nominated for nine Academy Awards throughout his career and honored with the Irving G. Thalberg award in 1971, Bergman was cited as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, with his bleak, unsparing yet highly emotional explorations of the human psyche and its relation to life, sex, and death, in both highly symbolic and intensely personal films; he most notably influenced Woody Allen, who considered him the greatest of filmmakers. His images ranged from the stark black-and-white of films like The Seventh Seal to those awash in dreadful reds such as Cries and Whispers and the holiday warmth of Fanny and Alexander, his last film for the cinema. Born in Uppsala, Sweden in 1918, Bergman was the son of a Lutheran minister, and religious imagery as well as the tumultuous relationship between his parents would pervade his work. Though growing up in an extremely strict and devout family, Bergman lost his faith at an early age and grappled with the concept of the existence of God in many of his early films. Bergman discovered the magic of imagery at the age of nine with a magic lantern, for which he would create his own characters and scenery, and this love of light and images brought him to the theater world after a brief stint at the University of Stockholm. Bergman worked in both theater and film throughout the 1940s, as part of the script department of Svensk Filmindustri and as a director and producer for numerous small theater companies. His first script to be produced was the 1944 film Torment, and began as a director with small movies that allowed him to hone his craft; among his notable earlier works were Prison, Summer Interlude, and Sawdust and Tinsel.
Bergman came to the fore of the international cinematic community with the 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, his classic melancholy comedy about the romantic entanglements of three 19th century couples during a weekend at a country estate. The film propelled him to stardom and won him a a Cannes Film Festival award for "Best Poetic Humor" (it was also later adapted by Stephen Sondheim into the musical A Little Night Music). He established his legacy and reputation with his next two films: The Seventh Seal, featuring the now-iconic imagery of Death playing chess with a tortured medieval knight (Max Von Sydow), and Wild Strawberries, the study of an aged professor (played by Victor Sjostrom) revisiting his youth and his darkest fears as he drives through the Swedish countryside. Both films were phenomenal critical and box office successes, with Wild Strawberries earning Bergman his first Oscar nomination, for Best Screenplay. Bergman's The Virgin Spring, the grim fable about two parents exacting revenge on their daughter's murderers, won the Best Foreign Language film Oscar in 1961. He followed up that film with a trilogy of films -- Through a Glass Darkly (another Foreign Language Film Oscar winner), Winter Light and The Silence -- in which he grappled most powerfully with his lack of faith and belief in the power of love.
Making as many failures as he did successes, Bergman found favor with a number of films throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including the now-famous Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers (a nominee for Best Picture), Scenes from a Marriage, The Magic Flute, and Autumn Sonata. Throughout his films he used an ensemble of actors, most notably Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman, with whom he had a personal relationship and a child. He also almost always worked with the legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who won two Oscars for Cries and Whispers and 1982's Fanny and Alexander. It was that latter film that Bergman declared to be his final cinematic work, an intimate portrait of brother and sister set in early 20th century Sweden that was originally conceived as a four part TV film, and was released in the US at a truncated 188 minutes. It won four Oscars, including Best Foreign Language Film. Though he officially "retired" from the film industry after Fanny and Alexander, Bergman made films for Swedish television, continued to direct theatrically (including a version of Hamlet in Swedish that traveled to the US) and wrote screenplays that were filmed by other directors, including Bille August, Bergman's son Daniel, and actress and former lover Liv Ullman. His last work as director was Saraband, a revisitation of the two lead characters (Ullman and Jospehson) from Scenes from a Marriage. Bergman was married five times, and his fifth wife, Ingrid von Rosen, passed away in 1995. He is survived by nine children from his past marriages and relationships. At press time, a funeral date had not yet been set. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...
Bergman came to the fore of the international cinematic community with the 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, his classic melancholy comedy about the romantic entanglements of three 19th century couples during a weekend at a country estate. The film propelled him to stardom and won him a a Cannes Film Festival award for "Best Poetic Humor" (it was also later adapted by Stephen Sondheim into the musical A Little Night Music). He established his legacy and reputation with his next two films: The Seventh Seal, featuring the now-iconic imagery of Death playing chess with a tortured medieval knight (Max Von Sydow), and Wild Strawberries, the study of an aged professor (played by Victor Sjostrom) revisiting his youth and his darkest fears as he drives through the Swedish countryside. Both films were phenomenal critical and box office successes, with Wild Strawberries earning Bergman his first Oscar nomination, for Best Screenplay. Bergman's The Virgin Spring, the grim fable about two parents exacting revenge on their daughter's murderers, won the Best Foreign Language film Oscar in 1961. He followed up that film with a trilogy of films -- Through a Glass Darkly (another Foreign Language Film Oscar winner), Winter Light and The Silence -- in which he grappled most powerfully with his lack of faith and belief in the power of love.
Making as many failures as he did successes, Bergman found favor with a number of films throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including the now-famous Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers (a nominee for Best Picture), Scenes from a Marriage, The Magic Flute, and Autumn Sonata. Throughout his films he used an ensemble of actors, most notably Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman, with whom he had a personal relationship and a child. He also almost always worked with the legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who won two Oscars for Cries and Whispers and 1982's Fanny and Alexander. It was that latter film that Bergman declared to be his final cinematic work, an intimate portrait of brother and sister set in early 20th century Sweden that was originally conceived as a four part TV film, and was released in the US at a truncated 188 minutes. It won four Oscars, including Best Foreign Language Film. Though he officially "retired" from the film industry after Fanny and Alexander, Bergman made films for Swedish television, continued to direct theatrically (including a version of Hamlet in Swedish that traveled to the US) and wrote screenplays that were filmed by other directors, including Bille August, Bergman's son Daniel, and actress and former lover Liv Ullman. His last work as director was Saraband, a revisitation of the two lead characters (Ullman and Jospehson) from Scenes from a Marriage. Bergman was married five times, and his fifth wife, Ingrid von Rosen, passed away in 1995. He is survived by nine children from his past marriages and relationships. At press time, a funeral date had not yet been set. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...
- 7/30/2007
- IMDb News
- 10. Tilda Swinton She starred in a variation of roles with different screen time presence - Constantine, Broken Flowers, Thumbsucker, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. What’s next? This busy-bee will be seen with the Sundance premiere of Stephanie Daley, followed by Michael Clayton, That Man from London, Nico. 9. Sienna Miller The 5 minutes in Layer Cake was enough to give some of us heart problems and she capped off the year with Casanova. What’s next? Camille and a lead role in Factory Girl. 8. Cécile De France We saw her briefly in The Russian Dolls, but it is her delicious performance in High Tension that was worth the mention. What’s next? Unless you speak French or live in France, you won,t be seeig much of this actress – whose got a trio of French leads. 7. Keira Knightly While we won’t
- 1/2/2006
- IONCINEMA.com
NEW YORK -- Sony Pictures Classics has sealed a deal with Swedish outfit Svensk Filmindustri to acquire North American and Australian distribution rights to Ingmar Bergman's Saraband. The family drama Saraband reunites the characters from Bergman's 1973 international hit Scenes From a Marriage -- played by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson -- in the story of a lawyer (Ullmann) who decides to visit her ex-husband (Josephson) after 32 years of separation. While at her former mate's summer home, the lawyer becomes embroiled in the dramatic tension between her ex, his son from another marriage and his granddaughter, a beautiful and gifted young cellist. Bergman's seminal Scenes ended with Ullmann and Josephson's divorce.
- 3/11/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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