EL AGUA NO ES UN RECURSO, ES UN ELEMENTO VITAL

So how does one go about writing Bergman back into the contemporary cin-ema, and into a film history other than that of the European auteur/national cinema? As indicated, I would probably not start with Wild Strawberries, but with a film made eight years earlier, which strikes me, for much of its min-utes as timelessly “modern” as all great films are: I am thinking of Three

Strange Loves(). Although cast in the form of a journey, rather like Wild Strawberries – it moves with such a febrile energy, such volcanic eruptions between the characters’ past and present predicament, as well as between the various characters to whom the central couple was once or is still emotionally tied, that its extraordinary urgency even jumps off the small (TV) screen, even today grabbing one by the throat.

With Three Strange Loves in mind, that old art cinema staple, the reality/

illusion divide– Bergman’s “big theme” not only in Persona but in so many of his films, from Sawdust and Tinsel to Fanny and Alexander takes on a new meaning. It becomes part of the heroic effort to wrest from the cinema, that medium of time and space, a logic neither enslaved to chronological time nor to physical space, but instead creating another reality altogether. In his best mo-ments, Bergman manages to render palpable a sense of indeterminacy such as it has rarely existed in the cinema since the great silent European cinema of the

s (the films of Murnau, Lang, Dreyer): not psychological, nor psychoanaly-tical, but“phenomenal.” In this sense, Bergman inscribes himself in a universal cinema tradition, as one of those directors whose craft goes into creating a new kind of indeterminacy, making possible those imperceptible transitions between past and present, inner and outer space, memory, dream and anticipation which also give the contemporary post-classical cinema its intellectual energy and emotional urgency. Bergman, in order to achieve this kind of energy, experimen-ted in Three Strange Loves with an extraordinary fluid camera and complex camera set-ups. Realizing how much more difficult it was to achieve spatial dis-location in the sound film, he did so brilliantly with subsequent films, through the sound track in The Silence, and through the lighting in Persona, as well as shaping through his use of color the floating time of presence and memory, anticipation and traumatic recollection of Cries and Whispers. In this respect, Bergman’s film-making is as modern as Godard thought it was. Three Strange Loves to this day gives one the feeling that this is the cinema that every generation has to reinvent for itself, that the cinema always starts again with this kind of vulnerability and radical openness. If it means being branded an art-cinema, so be it, at least until it becomes prisoner of the double body it seems fated to create for itself– that of an auteur’s cinema, pastiching its own cultural self-importance.

One of the most poignant passages in Images occurs when Bergman discusses Liv Ullmann’s primal scream at the climax of Face to Face: “Dino De

Lauren-The Road to Morocco

tiis was delighted with the film, which received rave reviews in America. Now when I see Face to Face I remember an old farce with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour. It’s called The Road to Morocco. They have been ship-wrecked and come floating on a raft in front of a projected New York in the background. In the final scene, Bob Hope throws himself to the ground and begins to scream and foam at the mouth. The others stare at him in astonish-ment and ask what in the world he is doing. He immediately calms down and says:‘This is how you have to do it if you want to win an Oscar.’ When I see Face to Faceand Liv Ullmann’s incredibly loyal effort on my behalf, I still can’t help but think of The Road to Morocco.”^

()

Notes

. Ingmar Bergman, Images– My Life in Film (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, ), p..

. “If it is dangerous to regard the Swedish cinema as synonymous with Bergman, it is equally dangerous to dismiss or underestimate his contribution. His work has a universal and continuing importance far beyond that of any other Swedish direc-tor.” Eva Geijerstam, “All var där utom Bergman” in Dagens Nyheter,  May , quoted in Rik Vermeulen, Sweden and its National Cinema (M.A. thesis University of Amsterdam,).

. Bo Widerberg, who expended much energy on polemics against Bergman’s vision of Sweden, neither inherited nor survived him– he died in May . On the feud between Widerberg and Bergman, see Peter Cowie, Scandinavian Cinema (London, Tantivy Press,), p. .

. According to Rik Vermeulen, loc. cit., Bergman was to direct a play, written by P.O.

Enquist, called The Makers of Images: Memories from the World of the Silent Film), set in thes and dramatizing an encounter between the writer Selma Lagerlöf and the actor/director Victor Sjöström.

. Jean-Luc Godard,“Bergmanorama” Cahiers du cinéma, no. , July  [reprinted in T. Milne (ed.), Godard on Godard (New York: Da Capo Press,), p. -].

. Images, p..

. Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,), p.

.

. The Listener, July, , p. .

. As David Thomson once dryly noted:“Bergman’s films are about actors and artists playing actors and artists.” David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,), p. .

. “Many people of my generation... joined the National Film Theatre in London to see a retrospective... of Bergman’s early films after the seventh seal and wild

straw-berries had come to represent‘artistic’ cinema.” David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film(New York: Alfred Knopf,) p. .

. In Italy, for instance, directors like Fellini (also fated to be popularly remembered for his sexually most explicit film, la dolce vita) or Antonioni could make their films because directors like Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci were turning out profitable Spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood and Klaus Kinski which were seen by mil-lions in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the US, Asia, and Latin America. When, in the earlys, kung fu movies with Bruce Lee, and made in Hong Kong ousted Spaghetti Westerns as the world’s favorite action and adventure movies, the Italian art cinema of director-auteurs vanished at the same time, deprived of its (hidden) economic base.

. Andrew Higson, “Nostalgia and Pastiche in the Heritage Film” in Lester Friedmann (ed.) British Cinema under Thatcher (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press,), pp.-.

. Images, p. .

. Images, p. .

. Images, p. .

. Images, p. .

. See Egil Törnqvist, Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (Amsterdam:

Amsterdam University Press,), pp. - and pp. -.

. Images, p. .

. Ibid.

. Images, pp. -.